Do We have a Steve Howard Problem

Happy Tuesday.

Today, we are going to look at the county administrator and what appears to be a lack of leadership.

I have been working on a way to present this information for some time, but did not really know where I wanted to go with it. Last week's budget hearing gave me the motivation to get it done and provided an avenue to explore.

To rewind a bit, Howard was hired in November 2022. He came from Camden, GA where he held the same position. At the time, it was said he moved to Florida to be closer to his parents. While that may certainly be true, I tend to think there were other reasons, as you will see shortly.

At the time, Howard was praised by members of the BOCC as being a great strategic planner and for bringing projects like a spaceport to Camden before he came down to Citrus. One commissioner was giddy at the prospect of having access to Howard's "rolodex" of Federal authorities he had from the spaceport he helped bring to Camden.

However, since that time, there has been a TON of reporting about his time in Camden in regards to the spaceport. Lawsuits, court rulings, FAA issues and so on have burdened the project to the point where it is no longer a thing. What was one reason he was hired has turned into a catastrophe for Camden to the tune of $12+ million dollars in taxpayer dollars wasted.

Here are some articles covering this.

https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/failure-to-launch/index.html

https://www.gpb.org/news/2023/01/06/spaceport-project-in-limbo-spending-continues

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/08/1085293095/georgia-spaceport-goes-to-a-vote-as-proponents-try-to-invalidate-the-election

https://thecurrentga.org/2025/09/02/camden-county-spaceport-lawsuit/

https://georgiarecorder.com/briefs/camden-countys-spaceport-dream-appears-scuttled-by-georgia-supreme-court-ruling/

https://thecurrentga.org/2023/08/22/5-things-spaceport-camden-spending/

https://georgiarecorder.com/2023/04/26/camden-fights-on-to-keep-countys-spending-on-fizzled-georgia-coast-spaceport-project-from-public/

https://thecurrentga.org/2022/03/08/who-are-the-spaceport-authority-members/

As you can see... it was a boondoggle. I am willing to bet, had all this been known at the time of hiring, the county would have made a different decision when they decided to hire him. One former commissioner has already stated publicly he would not support the hiring of Howard at this point and regrets doing so then.

Social media is full of complaints about Howard in Camden. Read through that page and you can see there is no love loss. It was to the point of people cheering that he was gone and coming to Citrus. Several complaints about him regarding staff as well... which is where we are going today.

As leader of the county, Howard is in charge of all county staff. Commissioners only have two employees... Howard and county attorney Denise Lyn. All other employees of the county are under Howard or Lyn (who has a small staff under her).

Howard hires, fires, gives direction, manages, etc county employees. He is in charge of executing the desires of the board and managing the staff to get them done.

Since he has taken his position, the county has seen several high profile staff members leaving or being re-assigned. I wont mention specific names despite them being known to the public. No need to add to the Google search history.

• PIO reassigned to Records Management
• HR Director - resigned
• Two Economic Directors - resigned
• Government Affairs Director — resigned
• Two Budget Directors - resigned
• Two Public Works Directors - resigned

And there are probably some I missed. That is two economic directors, two public works directors and two budget directors among others. Kind of eye opening and points to potential leadership issues.

One issue is the access that commissioners have to staff. Citrus County has ordinances/administrative regulations that limit access commissioners have to staff. Everything is supposed to go through Howard. That protects staff from over-eager commissioners giving directions and things of that nature.

I have been told by multiple people, as well as seeing it in emails, how much access commissioners have with staff. They routinely reach out to them with questions and asking them for things like creating reports for them. This puts pressure on staff to get the commissioner what they want, in addition to their regular job duties.

Staff cannot say "no" to a commissioner for fear of some type of repercussion. That is on Howard to limit that access, but he has not been willing to do so. Things like 491, the Right Rudder lawsuit, budget issues, etc do not happen if commissioners do not have that access with staff. But Howard does not want to limit those interactions... rather... he encourages them for some reason. That puts staff in a horrible position.

Another trend that I have noticed is how much Howard says "I do not know" when asked for information by a commissioner at a meeting. His predecessor, Randy Oliver was on top of everything in the county. Commissioners could ask him a question about just about anything and Oliver would have the answer. We rarely saw senior staff members paraded to the microphone to answer questions... as least that I can remember. Howard relies on staff for everything. They are routinely paraded to the microphone.

I doubt that is because he does not know the answer (maybe he doesn't)... I assume it is to isolate himself from those things. If something goes wrong, staff can be blamed. We saw this with 491 where he threw staff under the bus for that. There is ZERO chance any staff did during that happened without his direction. We saw it with the airport... and now we are seeing it with the budget meeting last week.

Howard let Tammy Wilson (who recently resigned) get reamed by commissioners at the meeting for not having a budget plan. The budget belongs to Steve Howard. Commissioners were frustrated with the direction of the budget and started to push on Howard a bit for that. Instead of chiming in and accepting responsibility, he let Wilson blow in the wind in front of them trying to explain why they didn't have more of a budget for them to review.

I got several text messages during that meeting asking why Howard was not taking more responsibility for that. Commissioners are clearly getting frustrated. We are starting to see those frustrations more and more. With the Right Rudder lawsuit discussion a few weeks ago, commissioners expressed frustration with his office not keeping them informed... and making decisions without their approval (terminating the contract).

This can all be addressed and I think it is time to do so. You see, commissioners used to do public reviews of their two employees. It was always uncomfortable, but was done publicly for transparency.

A year after Howard got hired, he had a commissioner bring up a change to his contract to remove the public reviews. If they wish to do one, it is now done via the method they negotiate. He wanted to avoid public scrutiny... and to date, he has NEVER had a performance review.

When mentioned a few months ago, by Commissioner Barek, the rest of the board dismissed it. "He gets reviewed by us every two weeks from this dias".

Um.. not exactly.

Commissioners have told me they go to him individually with issues they have and have a discussion... but how does that help when you have 5 different people offering you 5 different ways to do your job better? Since it is never discussed publicly, there is never consensus on what they would like to see happen... since they cannot have these discussions together outside of the meetings.

This would be like county staff being reviewed by him... and also by the assistant county administrator... and also the department heads... and also their supervisor... at different times... and none of them being able to talk to one another to have a concise evaluation.

How is staff supposed to respond to something like that?

Further, what kind of look does that give to staff? Their boss does not get evaluations, but every single one of them do? There are already some who think Howard is untouchable and can do no wrong. There is a fear that is something goes wrong, he will not protect them, rather throw them to the wolves to protect himself.

And this is coming from multiple people in the know.

How does that make them feel? Probably not all that well.

So it is time for that annual review... the one that has NOT been done in 4 years.. and yes... I will continue to beat this drum until it happens.

Have a great day everyone!