Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/194514
OPINION 'DOUBLE DOUBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE' — PART TWO EDITORIAL Voting for one's elected representatives often is a game of regrets. One tries to listen attentively to each candidate's pitch and make a reasonably informed decision. Sadly, after the election comes reality … the candidate is not who he or she seemed. And the constituents are left to suffer the consequences of their poor choices. Certainly there is plenty of regret to go around in the City of North Port, where the few voters who bothered to vote in the last municipal election cast their ballots for two candidates — Cheryl Cook and Rhonda DiFranco — who, along with Mayor Linda Yates, have formed a tragic coalition of recalcitrant know-nothings on the City Commission that has brought North Port to a virtual standstill. For the rest of Sarasota County, North Port's regrettable misjudgments might be of little concern. Unfortunately, the residents of the county are inextricably linked to those of North Port by their joint ownership of Warm Mineral Springs. In fairness to the Sarasota County commissioners, they surely could have had no idea that, after concluding an agreement with North Port to jointly purchase Warm Mineral Springs, their "partners" later would turn into the proverbial albatross around the county commissioners' necks. First it was the abject obstinacy of the North Port Commission's "unholy trinity" that stymied efforts to select a new long-term operator for Warm Mineral Springs, to replace