2025 Highlights
Happy New Years Eve!
Nothing major on today's agenda. I will highlight a few of our biggest stories in the county from 2024 and call it a day.
Tomorrow I am going to set a challenge for everyone for 2026, so make sure you come check that out.
First, a quick review of the year. I like to do this to compare metrics year over year. Since this is the first year of this, we have set a benchmark to use going forward.
Here is what it looks like from Jan 1 through today.
Almost 961k views. That is incredible. Our first post on the Facebook Page was on May 3rd. Considering that this is really only 7 months of activity, this is an incredible number. We went from 0 followers to over 1400.
Looking forward to seeing where we go this upcoming year.
Our most viewed post in 2025 was the excavator picture we posted after it was sent to us by the Stop the Sandmine group. This was the excavator that stuck when the hole it was digging got flooded by ground water.
The two posts regarding the BOCC voting to ban dispensaries brought a total of 49,863 views and 255 comments, which takes the top spot for comments outside of the excavator post mentioned above. I am including both posts because they are related to one another and regard the same topic.
As for the stories... let's take a look at some of what I think were the biggest ones in 2025.
#1 - 491 Appropriation Disaster
Pretty self explanatory here. A commissioner going "rogue", working with the county administrator and a former commissioner turned lobbyist to try to bypass the formal appropriation process and our own senator to work with a developer's lobbyist team and their senator. No punishment or anything for anyone... yet... but this will be something to watch going into 2026. Many in the county do not trust the BOCC/government. This does not help rebuild that trust. Not only is Bays up for re-election, I am told that the ethics complaints against her and Schlabach have been escalated to the investigation phase. Will be watching to see how that plays out.
While I did not break this story, I did do a lot of the behind the scenes research to show the text messages that no one knew existed. Prior to this, no one had really asked for text messages from Commissioners. This showed that some of them text A LOT and showed that these messages were unknown to exist to the general public who had previously only focused on emails.
#2 - Sales Tax Referendum
The BOCC is likely going to ask the citizens to vote on approving a 1 cent sales tax to likely go towards roads. What started off on the right foot quickly got derailed. The BOCC wanted a process that was citizen led and kept them on the sidelines. The goal was to take the feedback from the community and create a referendum based on that.
The Chamber took the lead and created different community events people could participate in. That got a bit over 500 responses, but they initially did not make any recommendations, leaving the BOCC to discuss it on their own.
That led to BOCC having discussions own their own and them getting involved in the process. What was supposed to be hands off for them turned into each of them having their own discussions and making their own determinations based on those discussions... going against everything they said they wanted in this process.
Holly Davis then got North Florida Land Trust and Trust for Public Lands to get involved, at zero cost to taxpayers, to help sort all this out and provide a statistically valid study/survey to bring to the board. This should happen in February.
#3 - Right Rudder Contract/Lawsuit and other Airport Findings
The BOCC opted to terminate the contract for the FBO at the Inverness Airport. This has led to a lawsuit and counter-suit involving the county trying to evict Right Rudder and Right Rudder challenging the legality of the contract termination and eviction.
This will play out through 2026 as I am not sure we are close to a resolution. Right Rudder has a new managing partner, so perhaps there will be an effort to settle with the County... but we will see.
Other airport issues we found were extensive behind the scenes work of Commissioner Bays to help get a hangar for Alonda McCarty and Livewire Aviation. This again showed extensive text messages and behind the scenes work to make all this happen.
#4 - Crystal River City Manager
After being hired for just over a year, the City Council was set to fire City Manager Audra Curts back in late October. This would have been the second city manager to essentially be shown the door within a year and a half or so. After public pressure, the council backed down and decided to give Audra 6 months to address their concerns. This led to the resignation of Councilmember Cindi Frink and replacement of her by Mindi Hastings.
I assume there will be an update here as we move towards that 6 month deadline around March/April.
#5 - Comp Plan Update
The county decided to spend over $500k on a consultant to help develop/update the Comprehensive Plan for the county. This has been dubbed Citrus 2050. The process kicked off recently with the first of 3 public workshops. The next will be in January.
We did not hear from Commissioners on what was wrong with the current comp plan, other than they wanted it updated. We will see how that goes. While we can disagree with spending the money to do all this, we cannot stop the process at this point. No reason to cry over spilt milk, so I encourage everyone to get involved in the next workshop in January.
#6 - Development Project Appeals
For the first time in recent memory, we have appeals to a BOCC decision on a development project underway. One is regarding the proposed Cardinal Farms off of Cardinal in Homosassa. This would have brought a housing development to an area consisting of largely single family homes on multiple acreage plots of land. This was made possible due to the Cardinal Interchange Area being created as part of the parkway expansion. The BOCC denied the project and Cardinal Farms is appealing that.
The next is citizen led and involves Pine Ridge and the former golf course property that James Dicks wants to turn into 80+ homes. In 2024, the BOCC voted 5-0 to deny it. In 2025 the BOCC decided 3-2 to approve it. The only difference? A few less homes, proposed gateless entry... and a non-election year. What a difference a year makes.
The Pine Ridge board appeal this decision and it is currently pending in court with responses due next week.
That is it for now. Enjoy your New Years celebration this evening and be safe Citrus! See you in the New Year!