As Foreseen

In answering the question of whether the citizenry should entrust but one individual to head a government or agency, James Madison gave this answer:

These questions cannot be fully answered without supposing that the fears of discord and disunion among a number of counselors exceeded the apprehension of treachery or incapacity in a single individual.

Meaning that to simply pose the question, one believes that the propensity for the weak and corrupt that will invariably "serve" on city councils is worse than the evil or incompetence of a single ruler.

That question still plagues the considerate man solicitous of his government to this day.

But yet we have been treated to the worst of the two scenarios. Despots and special interest groups, akin to the local syndicate that infests the council and managing city bodies, rule without having to answer for their crimes. Acting through proxies, and under the guise of the "the majority spoke," they are in fact the despots that have placed this country and this city on a fast track to ruin.

Exacerbating this "disease", as Madison refers to it, is how those in the twilight of their years readily look the other way when their issue or when their cause or when their financial wherewithal is protected at the cost of a great crime or misdeed (How many here looked the other way when asbestos was being pulverized upwind not a mile from a school?). Because after all they believe that their solution is the best, that their solution is the only real answer to all of the problems.

As foreseen,

This censorial body, therefore, proves at the same time, by its researches, the existence of the disease, and by its example, the inefficacy of the remedy.

There are three honest independent councilors on Marco Island, perhaps they can be supported by the honest independent citizens to stem the disease.