Meet the Candidate: Diana Finegan

Happy Friday!!

Today we are going to do our 3rd Meet the Candidate article. This time, I sat down with the incumbent for District 2, Diana Finegan.

This was the longest conversation to date. We sat and chatted for 2.5 hours. Never expected it to go that long, but it was a great conversation. Not all of it was about the election and the campaign. I would say that part was about 30 mins or so. The rest was about general county issues and all of that.

I will also say that in my experience, Diana is one of the most approachable commissioners and one that will respond to emails in a timely manner. She has always responded to my emails and when I read through her other emails when I do records requests, she appears to be responding to just about everyone. I have seen other commissioners just flat out not respond at all. Just in our conversation that day, several people came in and said "hi" to her and she stopped for a few moments to address each of them.

Now, let's get into the interview. Again, these are not the "tough" interviews that you all likely want to see with the tough questions. These are largely them answering a few questions and I share what they say. I do not push back or anything like that here.

With the incumbents, I want to start off with what they feel that they have accomplished the last 4 years. I think it is fair for you all to hear the things they view as wins and accomplishments.

Diana was quick to rattle off a few things that she felt were important things she accomplished in the last four years:

• $8.3m in savings on the last budget. She went through the budget and found more savings to apply to roads and the sheriff's budget for deputies during the budget cycle and they were able to do that.
• Building key relationships with people around the state and in Tallahassee
• This led to projects receiving state funding that were her priorities like Halls River Multi-Use Path
• $21 million in state funds received since she has been chair of the board.
• Starting the process of expanding the youth sports fields and facilities
• Reducing the cost of the signage on the Homosassa River, from $60k per pole to around $6k per pole.
• Helping create more transparency in County Government. One example is the lobbyist ordinance she got passed that requires lobbyists to register in the county.

She also mentioned that as she has been board chair, the board is more cohesive/unified and tends to get along better than they had previously.

I asked her what her priorities were for the next four years should she be re-elected. She stated they were: Taxes, Environment and Growth

Taxes:

Her goal is to not raise millage. Rather than increasing taxes on everyone, she wants to find ways to reduce costs.

Some of those ideas to do that:

• Negotiate contracts to keep us from overpaying. She says the government contracts are generally far more than they would be in the private sector. She feels there is more room to negotiate those costs down.
  
  One of those ways could be more involvement from local companies. As it is, a majority of the bids the county awards go to out of town companies. This increases costs as they have to travel here, set up here and so on. Prioritizing local businesses reduces some of those costs and could result in savings on the bid prices.
• Roads - reducing the costs of roads can be done utilizing the new pavement management system with staff intervention. Her example was this... The PMS system may indicate that the road is due for resurfacing, however, within a year or so, that area will be getting a new sewer/water line. That will cause the road to be torn up. So rather than taking the PMS suggestion to pave that road, staff intervenes and picks a new road knowing that the road will need to be repaired anyway. This can then save money by not spending on roads that ultimately get destroyed and need to get finished again.
• Budget - she wants every department and constitutional officer to go through a budget exercise to reduce their budget 10%, in line with the new state law. She believes there is room to cut costs and wants to push for those reductions. See what that looks like and do the exercise. Then they can determine if something was cut that is needed and then case by case add those back in as needed. 10% may not be possible, but doing the exercise will allow them to see what could be possible.

Environment and Growth:

These two things sort of went hand in hand. Her priority is on our water resources and aquifer. She wants to protect those at all costs whenever possible. That means making tough decisions on growth and what projects the county approves.

She said density could be a good thing in some places as the infrastructure is there to support it, however, that does not mean we simply add more straws sucking out water from the aquifer. She would want to see reductions in density elsewhere to offset those increases.

She mentioned that currently we have a permit for a new home coming in once per hour. With 50k or so already platted lots, another 20k+ approved in these development projects and the countless thousands that will continue to come, that is a lot of homes. The build out here would be around 35 years to get all those plats built out, but she questioned if we are ready with the infrastructure for all that. Since we are lacking in those areas, particularly roads, her view is to tap the brakes a bit on these projects and ask ourselves... "Do we really need this and is this good for the community". If the answer is yes, then we can talk about moving it forward. If the answer is no, maybe we do not move it forward. It is a little more complicated than that with the rules for these hearings, but you get the idea of her approach.

She feels that by managing growth in a responsible manner, the county can then do its part to protect the environment and the natural resources this county has to offer.

One of her priorities over the last year and one of the many reasons she wants to continue for another four years is the youth sports facilities. She has led the charge in finding more space for youth sports. She challenged staff to find areas that can be used for practice fields. If it had grass and was big enough for teams to use, she urged staff to consider it. There has been an expansion of practice areas as a result of that.

She also has visions of expanding current parks to increase the available space for sports. She stated that some parks have expansion capacity available that was not previously considered. She wants to see the county utilize that space and expand where able while also working through plans to create a sports park complex in Homosassa. That is currently in the feasibility study process and she has been instrumental in getting that moving and desires to see it through.

Over the last four years, Diana feels she has served the community well and has done what she promised she would do four years ago. She has helped save the citizens money, she has helped create more transparency and she has helped protect Citrus County resources with her approach to development projects. She hopes to do all that and more in her next four years if voters re-elect her.