Gow Fields can't be trusted with power over Polk's property values and taxes

A man who compares basic government oversight to the murder of George Floyd has terrible personal judgment and is likely to abuse his governing authority and the public.

To give you a visual, if George Floyd were the superintendent, if Officer [Derek] Chauvin was board member [Billy] Townsend, if the other officer that had the two knees in the back of Mr. Floyd were board member [Lisa] Miller, that means the other board members are standing by being complicit. — former Lakeland Mayor Gow Fields, now candidate for Property Appraiser, during a July 2020 School Board meeting, in the middle of COVID and American race and policing protests.

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When former Lakeland Gow Fields publicly aired that despicably absurd line about me and Lisa Miller in 2020 — without even citing any actual incident or behavior he objected to in oversight of the superintendent at the time — I never thought he would show his face in Polk County’s public life again.

So I didn’t think I’d ever feel the need to write about this again. And yet, here I am.

That Gow Fields attack was part of a larger, dishonest, discredited “whisper campaign” he led in 2020 to convince voters I was racist for doing … something. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. It was never quite clear what. Gow has never accounted for it with it the public in any meaningful way.

I felt the weight of that historic COVID/Floyd summer of 2020 pretty heavily; and I did not want to further escalate such a raw and irresponsible effort at division at such a fraught moment in our nation and community’s history. So I was measured in my response, which probably helped cost me my re-election. And I worked hard, fairly successfully, to restrain my own supporters in their responses. If I had yelled and banged harder on tables, who knows? For better or worse, here’s how I responded at the time:

I was saddened to hear Gow Fields compare basic oversight of powerful and highly paid officials to crushing a man's neck to death. But I wasn't entirely shocked. I think Gow's personal hatreds have seriously clouded his judgment and driven him into some depraved thinking.

I find it a little bit sad because of how successful the meeting was this morning, how intellectually robust and collaborative. I’m always willing and able to answer any specific concern. I feel like all of my behavior is entirely appropriate. I wouldn’t change any of it. I take representing the public very seriously. I think Mr. Fields’ comments suggest how irrational this has gotten for a handful of people.

In LakelandNow’s account of the Fields attack on me and Lisa, longtime Polk County political writer Bill Rufty was quoted:

In decades of covering politics, school boards and city commissions, “this was one of the most disconcerting moments of bullying, especially who it came from, that I have seen,” Rufty said.

That would have been the end of it; if not for Polk County’s leadership class.

Sadly, some of the most prominent leaders in the county do not consider that kind of behavior and inability to control one’s emotions disqualifying in an elected official. Various prominent folks, including Property Appraiser Marsha Faux, recruited Gow Fields to run to replace her.

Given that reality, having personally experienced it, I feel a certain moral obligation to remind people what Gow is capable of. The “leaders” of Polk County certainly won’t.

Gow Fields chose to throw kerosene on one of the most challenging public moments in Polk and American history. He tried hard to make that moment worse for virtually everyone but himself. I don’t think people who have demonstrated that inclination in public should be given power to exercise it on the citizens and taxpayers at their mercy.

Do you think this person, based on that behavior, is capable of taking out his vindictiveness on your property value? What kind of leader of public employees do you think he will be? Do you think he can exercise moral and professional restraint in the name of duty?

People will have to decide for themselves if Neil Combee’s shortcomings outweigh Gow’s demonstrated character. I’m not advocating for anyone.

But if Gow wins, the uniquely malevolent instincts that produced that destructive behavior will bear extra scrutiny.

I just wanted to say it once before Election Day.