Current Florida House District 3 Rep. Joel Rudman is seeking re-election.
During a Sept. 11 roundtable discussion, Rudman made a public apology to Santa Rosa County, and now he should make another one after an accusatory social media post he made earlier today against county administration.
Rudman’s Sept. 11 apology came after he demanded the Board of County Commissioners put a non-binding referendum on the Nov. 5 General Election ballot, asking Navarre citizens whether or not they support incorporation. But the Board denied the request, citing false information and errors in Preserve Navarre’s incorporation feasibility study.
Rudman also suggested that denying that request resulted in two of three commissioners losing their seats. However, precinct results from the Aug. 20 primary reveal South County voters supported all three incumbent commissioners. District 5 Commissioner Colten Wright, who was openly critical of the incorporation study, was re-elected by a double-digit margin; his fellow incumbent commissioners were defeated due to opposition in North County.
“My apologies, freshman mistake. Uh, maybe I should have said from the outset that, hey, I would accept a straw poll. Maybe I should have never mentioned going to the board, and, again, for that I apologize,” Rudman stated.
Rudman has been making a lot of mistakes, including endorsing candidates who lost their races. Rudman endorsed Jerry Couey, who lost the District 3 race to Rhett Rowell. He endorsed Ginger Pace, who lost the Clerk of Court & Comptroller race to Jason English. He also endorsed Angie Straughn who lost the District 4 School Board Race to incumbent Charlie Elliott.
Losers seem to be Joel’s people. He really knows how to pick them!
He’s recently been hanging around Wes Siler of Preserve Navarre, who lost by a 70% supermajority when he tried in January to get elected to the Holley-Navarre Water System board of directors. I hear Wes plans to run again – along with fellow Preserve Navarre member Carmen Reynolds. Neither of them need a morsel of power to misuse for their liberal agenda to incorporate Navarre. But we’ll fight that battle, again, in January 2025.
For now, Rudman seems to have caught Preserve Navarre’s pervasively negative mentality, whining and complaining about anything they can find to make it appear we need to create a new layer of government at a cost of $28 million per year to resolve problems like…
This morning Rudman posted a photo of himself standing next to Live Oak fiber equipment, which was recently installed in a public utility right of way on Prado Street.
“This decision apparently was made at the county administrative level with no input from the local property owners,” Rudman posted, suggesting a City of Navarre Beach would not have allowed this “eyesore” in the middle of “prime real estate.”
No, Joel, a quick phone call to Santa Rosa County Administration confirmed county administration did NOT make the decision about where a utility company could put new infrastructure within a public utility right of way.
Would Rudman rather have it on U.S. 98 like the brick wall at Coral Street?
Joel also recently complained when the school district reopened a gate on Sandstone Street, allowing a student pick up line to move away from U.S. 98.
I think Joel, like Wes, tries to use anything he can to paint the county and school district in a bad light. Both of them have been caught being shamefully dishonest.
Don’t let Rudman trigger you into believing that more government is a solution for fiber equipment in a utility right of way…it’s unfortunate he doesn’t address fixing the potholes on 87 instead of this.
