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EdFoster writes:

Mr. Magel,

Congratulations on your winning a seat on the City Council. I sincerely wish you much success and hope that you will represent all of the people on the island. I agree with viirtually everything you said in your LTE with one exception: you need not feel humbled by winning 61% of the votes cast because, sir, according to the County Website, you did NOT win 61% of the votes cast but 26.30%. 14,237 votes were cast in all; 3,745 (26.30%) for you, 3,535 (24.82%) for Joe Batte, 3,482 (24.45%) for Chuck Kiester and 3,475 (24.40%) for Ted Forcht. All numbers come from the Collier Votes website and the bar charts accompanying the election results are most illuminating. The difference between your win and Ted Forcht's loss amounts to less than 2% (1.9% to be precise). I'd call that a pretty "tight" election especially since many voters cast only one vote ... for you ... and therefore did not count in any of your competitor's totals. Essentially you won your seat by a perfectly legal (but (in my opinion less than honorable) strategy, i.e., convincing your supporters to NOT vote for any candidate but yourself.

When you compare these percentages to those on the amendments, e.g., 85.08% against giving the councilors raises, 14.91% for giving raises, 80.62% against messing with the cap (which I am told you supported) 19.37% for using 2008 as a baseline, you can see just how tight the race for council seats was. I suggest you keep these figures in mind while serving on the council and reconsider your claim of winning 61% of the votes. Don't know who told you that you won by that margin but it sure sounds like more of Marco's fuzzy math that got the city into so much financial difficulties. Since I have been told you are a financial expert, I humbly suggest that it might be wise to do your own calculations in the future rather than accept someone else's.

Ed Foster

P.S. I assume you accepted someone else's calculations in your haste to write an LTE thanking people for your win. I'd hate to think you did this math yourself!

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