Meet the Candidate: Stacey Worthington

Good morning and Happy Monday!

Today, we are going back to our Meet the Candidate series. Last week I sat down with Stacey Worthington and had a good conversation with her about Citrus County.

With this series, I want to provide you with information about the candidates from these conversations. These are not really interviews per se, those will come later. Those will be the tough questions and a bit of pushback by me. These are just friendly conversations. I do not challenge them on things. I do not push back. Plenty of time for that down the road... I listen to what they have to say... and just chat, then share with you what was said, as if you were part of the conversation.

It was actually one of my favorite chats in recent memory. I have known Stacey for a bit, but never really talked to her in-depth until now. She is very intelligent and excited to share her thoughts and ideas. It led to a great conversation.

First and foremost, she has been very active in the community. She has recently been the Chair of the Chamber of Commerce. She has also been involved in the PDC as a chair of that board within the last few years. Other things she has been a part of: Boys and Girls club, YMCA, PACE School for Girls, Citrus County Builders Alliance and Homosassa Civic Club.

She has been out in the community for years. Whether you like her views on county politics/issues or not, no one can say she does not care about Citrus County.

As for the politics, here is what she had to say.

Among her most important priorities is transparency. She wants a more transparent government. That is not just in the budget... in everything.

For instance, she talked about development. We hear that there are 55,000 platted lots for development in this county, but we do no know how many are pending. She would want to create a way for the citizens to see ALL the projects that have been approved, not just what is currently happening.

She wants citizens to have access to data more easily. She feels the technology exists to allow citizens to have more insight into local government. We talked a bit about how difficult it is to find out where money is being spent and the contracts associated with that spending. That will be one of the priorities if she is elected. Make it easier for the average citizen to follow along and be engaged.

We talked at length about roads... not just the need for new ones, widening and for developers to contribute to them via development agreements, but how to get local/residential roads done in a more efficient manner.

Her plan is to create a road resurfacing plan that gets blocks of roads done at a time vs one road here, one road there, etc. As it is, the road contractor may come to a neighborhood and do one street. Then the pack up and move somewhere else. Each set up and take down adds time/money to the project.

Her idea is to use the road consultant's data to identify blocks of roads that could be done at the same time in the same area. This would allow the contractor to set up one time and knock out a few roads, not just one. This will reduce the set up and take down times and thus reduce those expenses a bit. It will also allow larger sections of roads to be done in a quicker manner.

I did ask her if people can expect something different from County Commissioner Worthington than what we saw with PDC Member Worthington. Her answer was kind of surprising. Most people expect her to be the same. That may not be the case.

She said that they would be different in many instances. She explained that while on the PDC, she was constrained to what was in the Land Development Code, the Comp Plan and other policies that the BOCC had created. She felt that she could not really negotiate with developers or ask for things like development agreements. That was not her role in that position.

If she is on the BOCC, she has the ability to make changes to those things, assuming she can get two others to go along. She can require development agreements and things like that to hold developers accountable for things like infrastructure and roads. She can push for changes to the LDC or Comp Plan to help control some of the growth or manage it properly.

In short, she feels that she has more control over the process as Commissioner Worthington than she did as PDC Member Worthington and mentioned that some votes on the PDC she made because of what was in place at the time, not necessarily because she loved the project.

Lastly, one thing that she mentioned that separates her from her opponent is that she will come up with ideas early, rather than at the last moment. She wants to be fully involved in the process in the beginning. She feels that too often, the incumbent comes in late with an idea. It may be a good idea, but many times it comes in too late to be effective. She feels that having those ideas from the beginning and engaging the other board members will be more effective in making changes and getting things done.

One other thing to note. She does have a degree in accounting. I do not recall any other commissioner in the past having that, so this could be a first. Those budget hearings could be interesting if she is elected.

There you go Citrus County. A bit about Stacey Worthington.