Cronin’s Residency

It appears that someone in Tallahassee has gotten involved in our small town politics…

Recently, there has been a barrage of flyers and articles written and distributed directly to Town residents by undercover organizations out of Tallahassee. ALL are running a smear campaign against candidate Terry Cronin. You have to ask yourself... WHY?… and WHO?

Dr. Terry Cronin is a long-time resident of the Town of Melbourne Beach. He has lived here with his family for 29 years. If you have had the opportunity to meet him in person, as MANY of our residents have, you will soon realize that he is a gentle and reasonable man, and he is an upstanding man, both in his profession and in his community. After being actively recruited by friends and neighbors, Dr. Cronin decided to throw his hat into the ring to serve as Town Commissioner for Melbourne Beach. WHY? Because he LOVES our Town!

It didn’t take long for our local CAVE people to start their usual mud slinging. (CAVE = Citizens Against Virtually Everything) The grand poo-bah of the CAVE people, Steve Walters, started his hate-talk straight out of the gate. No big surprise there. Walters has no platform of his own to stand on with issues, so he resorts to standing on his soap box to sling mud, dirt, lies and made-up stories about his opponents. Now that he has his own personal millionaire to assist in doing his dirty deeds, we have hit-pieces being created and distributed to the residents. Walters’ maniacal desire to get back on Town Commission is fueled by his nefarious activities reminiscent of a mobster demanding that, it’s his way or the highway.

Walters and his clan didn’t like it when a respectful, upstanding man in the community decided to run against him. Steve Walters lost his bid for election in 2022, nearly lost in 2018 by a very slim margin of only 6 votes, and lost big-time in 2006 after serving in an appointed role of Interim Mayor. It appears that he is not as popular as he thinks. Now, Walters is clearly on his last leg for any attempt to get back into power so he can, by his own promise, “take this town down”. He forgets that people heard him say those words. He forgets that the majority of town residents DO NOT want him anywhere near Town Commission. It’s now or never with him. In 2022, Walters was defeated in a landslide against him by Barton and Runte. Walters teamed up with Al Dennington urging her to sue the Town as well as his opposing candidates for so-called “election fraud” all because he didn’t win. He wanted either one, it didn’t matter which one, to be disqualified, so HE could walk-on to the Commission to serve another term and wreak more havoc upon our town. That case didn’t go so well for them. There was no foundation to the claim of election fraud. Walters didn’t get his way.

Fast forward to today. Steve Walters is back in the running, teaming up with Bruce Larson, in an effort to rule a majority vote on Town Commission. If they win, Dennington will have the support she needs to run her version of what the Town of Melbourne Beach should be. It doesn’t take long to discern where the connection to Tallahassee comes from when trying to figure out why this random political action committee decided to get involved in our small town.

Their desperate attempt to discredit Terry Cronin by spreading blatant lies and pure fabrication about his residency just proves how low they will go, how hateful they can be, and how far they will take it. Someone hired a well-known political hack, Bret Doster, from an organization called, Floridians for Ethics and Truth in Politics… out of TALLAHASSEE to distribute their false messages. CLICK HERE and CLICK HERE. What on earth is happening here? After some research, Truth and Accuracy Matter (that’s us!), discovered that Bret Doster does nothing for free. People like him are hired. So, who hired him? It’s pretty unlikely that an organization in Tallahassee has Melbourne Beach on their radar, unless…

At Truth and Accuracy Matter, we KNOW the candidates running for our Town Commission. We are who you need to turn to for accurate information. No one is paying us to do what we do. We do it because we LOVE our Town!

Here is the TRUTH about Terry Cronin’s residency, from Dr. Cronin himself. This information has been confirmed and accredited by the Brevard County Supervisor of Elections.

“Earlier this year, I ran for State House district 32. Florida election rules state that you must live in the district in which you are elected on the day that the election is certified. I was committed to do that. Initially, I thought I could live in the apartment above my office since it’s in District 32 but that was not possible since it’s a commercial building. So, I rented a condo in Indialantic in case I did win and changed my voter id to that address. Since I did not win, I never changed my residency to Indialantic. I maintained my drivers license, homestead exemption, and paid my property taxes at my Melbourne Beach address where I have lived since 1996.”

What Dr. Cronin did, in an effort to be prospective, was obtain a property in Indialantic that he would have lived in IF he won that election. He did not win. Therefore, he had no obligation or interest to live in an apartment in Indialantic when he already owned a big, beautiful home in Melbourne Beach. As Dr. Cronin stated above, HE NEVER CHANGED HIS RESIDENCY.

Other hit pieces that promote Walters and Larson while tearing down their opponents, Quarrie and Cronin, are being hand-delivered to residents’ doorsteps by people riding around through our town and trespassing on our properties. At the core of these pieces are more fabrications and lies. Residents just don’t like it. Most voters dislike mudslinging and view those candidates as desperate, untrustworthy and unscrupulous.

Negative campaigning and hit pieces usually backfire on the candidates who send them out. Candidates who focus on tearing down their opponents rather than promoting their own vision appear to be petty and lacking in ideas or solutions.

Time, money and effort spent on negative ads could be better used to promote positive messaging that actually resonates with voters. However, over-promising and stating the obvious comes across as political double talk. People see right through that typical political rhetoric.

At Truth and Accuracy Matter, we are proud to support two candidates for Town Commission, Dr. Terry Cronin and former Commissioner Sherri Quarrie, who are focusing on positive, solution-oriented campaigns that build stronger, more lasting support with the residents of our town. Please keep them in your prayers as they are being disparaged by their opponents with the continuous flow of attacks, lies and misinformation.

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