Reading Marty Donovan’s comments in the daily newspaper on his failure to force his third referendum in six years I was reminded how differently M. J. Menge handled the defeat of the county charter referendum in 2004. Menge was dying of cancer and yet he spend 17 months trying to draft a county charter that would allow for home rule. It was soundly defeated by over 10,000 votes in March 2004.
When the returns came in, M.J. told the reporters, “I was frankly surprised it went down by that margin of defeat.” A few days later he and I had breakfast at The Coffee Cup, he smiled and said, “Rick, our committee worked hard and I’m very proud to have served with them, but the voters don’t want charter government.” That was it. We then talked about his beloved Florida Gators.
M. J. Menge was a class act.
