Commission Tuesday

Happy Commission Tuesday!

Today the BOCC comes back from their holiday "break" and they are kicking off the Tuesday of the New Year with a BOCC meeting.

This is not really a big agenda day. There are a good number of items coming up, but nothing earth shattering.

The biggest things on the day in my opinion?

• Cell Phone Texting Policy
• Impact Fee Discussion
• CR 491 Widening Request
• Chassahowitzka Appropriation Request
• Steve Howard's Evaluation

Let's take a short look at each

Cell Phone Policy
I wont go into the Cell Phone policy. Covered that yesterday. Good thing to help with transparency.

Impact Fee Discussion
This is an expansion on the discussion back in the summer of 2024 when they voted to raise impact fees using the "extenuating circumstances". Basically, the state only allows counties to raise impact fees on a schedule and only so much at a time. To bypass that schedule, the counties would need to do a study to show there are extenuating circumstances and a demonstrated need that requires the fees to be raised faster/higher than normally allowed.

The county hired a company to do the study and they did the presentation in July. The consultant advised the board on increasing the impact fee significantly and the BOCC ultimately voted to do that.

But one question was raised by Commissioner Barek. Did the new impact fee include right of way (ROW) acquisition into the cost of it? The answer was "No".

Discussion ensued on this for a bit. Barek asked why the consultant would not provide that as that is the biggest cost in road expansion. The answer was they were not directed to by staff. Oops.

So she asked if they could do it and bring it back. Her request was to postpone the vote that day and vote on it down the road when the study came back with full costs including ROW.

Commissioner Kinnard wanted it to be voted on that day as it had been advertised and wanted to get the vote in before October when the state law changes the votes required to pass an impact fee increase from simple majority to 4/5's vote of the board. There was still time to do both, but that isn't what they wanted.

My argument during my 3 mins of public comment was that if we did not have the full cost to evaluate now, why are we voting on it? Why not pause the vote for a few months and then bring it back before October. Even if it took longer than that, it was not dead. Just requires 4 out of the 5 to vote for it and the one person who tends to vote alone was on board.

Also, I mentioned that we are using the extenuating circumstances provision to do it then... will the state allow us to increase it AGAIN in January when we increased it in July? What new circumstances do we have that make that necessary 5 months later? Will the state say "Well why didnt you include that before" and deny the ability to increase them?

But they ignored that and voted for it anyway. Today, it appears, we have another conversation on increasing them further to include ROW... when they should have waited until they had that data.

CR 491 Widening Request
This one is interesting. This is what should have happened back in March when we had a commissioner going rogue and getting appropriations requests signed by staff without approval from the BOCC. It should have gone to the board for direction.

This is likely what we see today. Direction on moving forward with an appropriation request. So great job there to bring it up for discussion. Could have avoided a lot of headaches had this been done last year.

But one question. They left it off their appropriations ask list. Where is this coming from now?

That list includes the following:

• Floral City Septic to Sewer Expansion - $6,227,894
• Halls River Multi-Use Path Construction Phase - $2,500,000
• Judicial and Governmental Space Expansion - $5,000,000
• Regional Public Safety Training Center - $1,500,000
• Septic to Sewer Incentive Program - $925,000

491 was identified as a special consideration project. Basically, not a formal request like the above, but if the legislature feels inclined to provide additional funds, there are projects listed that the county would like to see funded.

For this specifically.. This was the ask.

Basically asking the state to point us in the direction of funding programs available that the county can apply for.

So where did this come from for today's discussion and who has Kinnard been talking to about it?

This would add 491 as a formal request. I do not recall the specifics of why it was not included previously, but I believe we were told by our lobbyist to narrow our focus on the other projects as a big project like 491 may be asking too much.

I hope to hear where this came from and why we are now ignoring that advice by our lobbyist, or even what they think of this... Are we even using our lobbyist for this? Last time, it was Southern Group facilitating it. I have seen ZERO emails in the last few months discussing this, so no clue where it came from, unless it happened recently

This is NOT included on the formal presentation that we will talk about in a minute. I presume it involves Metro Development Group and the Southern Group as they were involved in the previous request and this would fund 491 to Hampshire, right at their development.

Could be wrong on that, but just a guess. Will be interesting to hear this play out.

Chassahowitzka Appropriation Request
This moves the campground from a special consideration project to the forefront as an official ask from the legislature. The county will be asking for money to help fix, maintain and operate the campground it is now leasing from the state.

This request also asks the board to re-rank their priorities and legislative requests.

Steve Howard Evaluation
Several months ago, I reached out to commissioners via email to point out that Howard has not had an evaluation since he has been on the job. Back in November 2023, after a year on the job, he got a raise from $197,500 to $215,670, but lost in all of that was a change in the contract.

He negotiated that his evaluation no longer be public. It will be done individually by each commissioner.. HOWEVER... he must agree to the format/process of the evaluation.

I covered most of this in this article.

Since this change took place, he has never had an evaluation, yet everyone on his staff has. How do you think that makes them feel? But more than that, his states:

salary will be reviewed annually and is subject to adjustment equal to that provided other county employees.

Again, no evaluation... no review of salary... yet he was making $224,296.80 as of my records request back in August. That has likely increased in the new budget and annual raises for other employees. My guess, he is over $230k now... and ZERO evaluations by BOCC.

Let's see what the BOCC decides to do here.

That is it for now. Hope to see you all this afternoon!