Ray Judah has earned a place on the Lee County Commission as its man of vision.

“Green” long before the cause was popular, an advocate of saving for a rainy day during the heyday of free-spending, and a planning proponent before, well, governments took planning seriously, Ray Judah has spent his 20-year tenure with the Lee County commission thinking ahead while dealing well with the issues of the day.

This unique combination of skills — the ability to see things long-term while working well in the short — is what has prompted the voters of Lee County to keep Mr. Judah in office for two decades. It’s also what has prompted our endorsement of Ray Judah in the general election race for Lee County Commission, District 3.

A land use planner by profession, Mr. Judah was first elected to the board in 1988.

His accomplishments include working to garner voter support of the Conservation 20/20 initiative on the ballot back in 1996 –which has since brought 20,000 acres of natural lands into public ownership — and a comprehensive plan amendment that reclassified more than 96,000 acres of environmentally sensitive land some want to mine, to a category that protects the acreage as a recharge site for drinking water.

Mr. Judah has chaired the 10-county Coalition for Responsible Management of Lake Okeechobee, opposing the release of polluted water into the Caloosahatchee and related estuaries while advocating for the re-establishment of natural sheet flow back into the Everglades.

He co-founded the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed land trust, which has purchased 42,000 acres, and, most recently, has supported public-private partnerships for the creation of bio-diesel fuel locally.

On the financial side, Mr. Judah makes no apologies for the county’s undesignated reserve accounts, the loadstone for those who question the county’s fiscal policies. He will tell you the purchase of the building for the new criminal justice center was made possible through reserves which also gave the county the ability to quickly pay for necessary repairs following Hurricane Charley.

Mr. Judah’s vision has found solid grassroots support, so much so that he has successfully run multiple re-election campaigns with a unique, self-imposed campaign rule: He limits contributions to $100, instead of the $500 maximum allowed by state law.

Count us among his grassroots support. Ray Judah has earned our vote, and our endorsement, in the general election race for county commission, District 3



— Also running: Les Cochran, no party affiliation.