Michael Hartman Replies To Charles Parker Column
By Michael Hartman // August 7, 2014
YOUR VIEWS & OPINIONS
ABOVE VIDEO: County Commission District 2 Candidate Michael Hartman talks about his views and platform with SpaceCoastDaily.com Special Correspondent Danny Treanor at the 2014 Tiger Bay Club Hob Nob on Tuesday, Aug. 5 at Port Canveral Cruise Terminal 6.
EDITOR’S NOTE: YOUR OPINION – Join the Multimedia Political Discourse
The below letter from Brevard County District 2 County Commission Candidate Michael Hartman is in response to a Charles Parker opinion column published on SpaceCoastDaily.com.
Charles,
I have to object to your opinion of the family that you saw at my booth at the Hob Nob.
That family is a good Christian family that is working constantly to make Brevard a better place for all of us to live. They are out in the community every day trying to make a difference.
Like myself, they believe that less government is better government, that people need to take individual responsibility for their actions, that everyone has the ability to achieve their goals if they are willing to work hard to attain those goals, and that big, intrusive government is the problem, not the solution.
We also believe that it’s better to take as little money as possible from the citizens to fund government. Leave the money in the hands of the individual citizens, and let them decide how to best employ their capital. These are the beliefs of mainstream Republicans.
Please don’t try to pigeon-hole myself or my supporters as being a fringe group. If you look at my supporters, you see a cross-section of County residents.
They include businessmen, politicians, working families and retirees from Cape Canaveral, Cocoa Beach, Merritt Island, Rockledge and Cocoa. They are both male and female and include people from all races.
As a collective group, we are representative of all of the people in District 2 and the County.
If you or anyone would like to discuss the issues that really matter to the voters, feel free to give me a call and I will personally answer your questions.
Michael Hartman
Candidate for District 2 County Commissioner
1370 Taurus Court. Merritt Island, FL 32953
E-mail: mml370@aol.com
TEL: 321-223-8650
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Myself, my wife Mary, and our daughter Stephanie have lived in Diana Shores on Merritt Island since 1997. Mary and I both grew up in Baltimore. We were married in 1984, and first experienced Brevard County when Mary’s parents retired to Cape Canaveral in 1989. During the next three years, we visited often and fell in love with Brevard County.
In early 1993, I came to Cape Canaveral as a CPA to perform tax work for a client of my CPA firm. Three weeks later, I went back to Baltimore with an offer to join the company as its Chief Operating Officer. Mary agreed, and we moved to Rockledge in the summer of 1993. Stephanie was born in 1995, and we moved in to our home on a canal in 1997. It is perfect for our family, as we all enjoy boating, fishing and tubing on the rivers.
Professionally, I’ve had the opportunity to work in many different industries. During college, I worked in a restaurant chain and progressed from cook to manager to assistant training director. Graduating from Loyola College in 1981 with a BA in Accounting, and earning my CPA, allowed me to learn numerous industries, including window manufacturing, construction, banking, liquor wholesaling, heavy equipment sales, bedding and furniture manufacturing, auto leasing, property management, and real estate development.
Since 1993, my primary business has been residential rental housing development and management. I started off working for a company in Cape Canaveral, and have had my own development business since 1999. I’ve developed extensively in Florida and Texas, as far west as Colorado, and as far north as Michigan. My total development experience spans sixteen states, so I have interacted with a lot of bureaucrats and politicians over the last twenty years. Those interactions have led me to run for County Commissioner.
Personally, I’ve always tried to live life according to the final line in the Jaycee Creed: “We Believe that service to humanity is the best work of life!” In my early years, I served as an altar boy, lector, baseball coach, and member of the Adult Education Committee at my church. In 1982, I joined the Jaycees, and we performed many charitable works over the years for the people in our community. I also volunteered for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, chairing a statewide annual fundraiser and serving on the Board of Directors. Since 1999, Mary and I have been very active in serving Our Saviour’s Church and School in Cocoa Beach.
We chaperoned children on day trips and to sports events. We served as schoolyard monitors at lunchtime. We coached basketball and volleyball. Mary chaired Teacher Appreciation Week. I served as the School Board Treasurer and Finance Committee Chairman. We work at the OSS Fair every year. And now I help open the Church every Sunday morning and serve as an usher at the early Mass. I have also served as the Chairman of the County Housing Authority since September 2009 (a volunteer position). Our goal is to help as many Brevard families as possible find safe, sanitary housing.
