Motion Sickness

If you like watching an indecisive government, the special meeting yesterday did not disappoint.

Ultimately, the board voted 5-0 (not happily) to let the Pine Ridge ruling stand and not pursue an appeal. There will be an agenda item at a future meeting to address the issues that the judge raised.

But how did we get there? I have no idea.

The meeting started off with Commissioner Diana Finegan making a motion to leave the ruling as it is and not appeal it. That kicked off the first public comments on the matter. During this time, several citizens got up to say what they wanted.

Pine Ridge had a few people get up and test the 5 minute rule for organizations. Each person speaking for Pine Ridge mentioned they had a letter on file, allowing them to speak for 5 mins (they did). No one on the board questioned it, so each got their 5 mins despite being part of the same organization.

Interesting precedent we just set.

Anyway, the comments were similar to what we have heard before during the original hearings. Some people stated that Pine Ridge does not own a golf course and this only helps a select few. Others stated it was protecting the Pine Ridge community from changes to their master plan.

It was the black shirts vs green shirts all over again.

The discussion goes back to the board and they vote 3-2 against the motion. The motion to just move on fails.

One interesting exchange during this discussion period.

Commissioner Jeff Kinnard stated he did not want to spend a single penny on a lawsuit to appeal the decision, despite disagreeing with the judge. He floated the idea of being a "co-petitioner" should the applicant (James Dicks' company) decide to appeal. This would be the developer paying for the attorney's fees and all of that and the county just joining.

Ummm... where did this come from and why would the county join in with a developer on a lawsuit?

Commissioner Holly Davis came out in agreement and gave a speech about home-rule and DRIs and stated that despite none of them having a legal degree, she thinks the court got it wrong.

Commissioner Rebecca Bays then asked the county attorney her opinion and attempted to throw her under the bus as being the reason they are all there. She asked if this was an LDC issue, why was it not raised during the meeting.

Commissioner Janet Barek came out opposed to spending tax dollars. She stated the developer has deep pockets, let him pay for the appeal.

Kinnard makes the next motion to join the lawsuit as a co-petitioner provided the county does not spend tax payer dollars to do it. In other words, we will join the lawsuit and the developer will pay all the fees. We are basically partnering with a developer.

Sounds great right? No tax payer dollars and the commissioners can get their appeal.

But... where did this come from?

Barek mentioned that Rob Batsel sent an email around 11:30am before the meeting indicating that they want the county to appeal but if the issue is using tax payer dollars, then they would invite the county to join their lawsuit and they would bear the costs of that.

Finegan stated she did not receive the email and has not seen it. She requested that someone send it to her. A few moments later, the county attorney reads the email into the record.

Wow... We are in litigation on a case... why is Batsel emailing the commissioners with this offer? More... why are commissioners entertaining this?

It is clear that Batsel has had conversations with someone prior to the meeting. We saw this back in April/May when the BOCC was talking about cancelling the contract for Betz. He reached out and spoke with commissioners.

It is clear some of our commissioners are very very close with James Dicks... and now they want to "co-petition" with him on a lawsuit?

What are we doing?

Davis then goes on to chastise Pine Ridge saying she is "disappointed" in them. She goes on to state that she had given them a chance to buy the golf course and since they didn't, she made the vote to approve the project.

Umm... last I checked that is not a reason to approve a land project. The county should have ZERO say in what happens with private sales and all of that and a decision to approve a project should not be based, even in part, on a private sale of land not happening.

Absolutely insane what is happening on this board.

In any case, this motion fails 3-2 with Finegan, Barek and Bays voting against it.

Bays wants the county to defend its position and handle the appeal itself.

Barek then comes out with a 3rd motion. This is to authorize the appeal and not to spend more than $30,000 on doing it. That gets a 2nd by Bays and ultimately passes 3-2, with Davis joining Bays and Barek.

That was a shock to most in the audience. Barek for the entire meeting objected to spending tax dollars, but brings up spending tax dollars in her motion? Not sure what to make of that.

Later on during public comment, Finegan mentions something that caught my attention. It had appeared the Barek was confused about the prior votes and did not realize that despite a previous motion failing, someone else could bring up a similar motion, just not the original person.

So in her instance, Finegan could not bring up the motion to just move on since it failed and she previously made the motion. But someone else could make that motion or a similar one.

Hearing that, I got up with the suggestion that the board do a motion to reconsider. This allows the board to bring up a previous vote and if 3 commissioners vote to reconsider it, it goes away as if it never happened and they re-vote on it.

So that is what Barek did. She made a motion to reconsider, the board voted 3-2 to change the vote... then denied the previous motion to do an appeal. Then Kinnard made a motion to just move on, adding that he wanted to see something come back to the board to address the judge's comments.

That passes 5-0, despite a groan from Davis and Bays who clearly just voted to go along since they were losing.

Phew. What a day.

Now, what happens next?

Well Dicks will appeal. The county will move forward as if the judge's ruling is correct and will begin the process to make the LDC and Comp Plan changes to address his comments. That will take some time to go through staff and then the PDC and then commissioners... figure 1 month at a minimum, but closer to 2.

However, Tuesday is a public hearing on a Citrus Hills development. They want to expand the allowable commercial square footage on their parcel next to Home Depot. This process was done just as Pine Ridge was done... changing a DRI with a PUD.

The commissioners just voted to accept the ruling by the judge stating that it can not be done that way and then directing staff to come back in the future to make the changes.

How can the board then approve that project? I expect to see Citrus Hills ask for a continuance, at which time I will tell the board the same thing I told them when asked by Deltona... do not accept the continuance. You have members of the public that are waiting for this hearing and have planned their days around it. It is not fair to them to postpone it.

I still have concerns about the Batsel email to the commissioners and will cover that tomorrow! Have a great day!