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A holiday weekend that will live in infamy - by Tom Jackson of TBO

Labor Day weekend has come and gone, the vast majority of us having emerged unharmed from its peculiar invitations to celebrate summer’s traditional wrap-up. And yet, in years to come, certain survivors among us will recall this particular seasonal bookend as a climax unlike any other.

Joshua Griffin and James Poindexter, two young men separated by background and prominence but united by personal effervescence and the joy they gave others, were swallowed up by Gulf waters a day apart, leaving communities of loved ones shocked and grieving.

Too young. Too soon. Unbelievable.

Once again, we are forced to peer through the lens that turns the world topsy-turvy. Griffin, 29, was the first-born son of Danielle and Jeff Griffin, libertarian-leaning Republican activists whose spread off State Road 52 near the Suncoast Parkway — Fairhaven Farm — has for years served the GOP as gathering place and campaign launching pad. Griffin himself launched, if briefly, from Fairhaven just last year, waging an energetic against-the-establishment bid for the Pasco County commission in the Republican primary. History shows Kathryn Starkey, by far the more seasoned politician, won the primary and the general election.

But when it was all over, the neophyte from Fairhaven was the only candidate who had advanced anything approaching a fresh idea, that Pasco should adopt “performance-based” budgeting, a scheme that introduces private-sector competition and constant reevaluation to local government spending. He’d witnessed performance-based efficiencies for himself working government contracts around Florida as a project manager for the family’s business, Bio Mass Tech. Read more from Tom Jackson here: TBO.com

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