Quasi-Judicial Time
Its a County Commission meeting day. There is not a whole not going on today on the agenda, so it should be a pretty quick meeting. There are two applications the board will consider after 5pm.
One is for Citrus Hills to expand the commercial square footage in front of Clearview Estates on Hwy 44 in Inverness (next to the new Home Depot).
The other is to tear down buildings and build two drive through type places on the corner of Homosassa Trail and US 19. The floated businesses occupying them are Starbucks and a Chipotle drive through.
Both will have a good bit of discussion, particularly the Citrus Hills application as that comes after the Kensington access issues from the last meeting.
Today, I want to talk a bit about the process for those applications and point out where the commissioners are struggling.
As I have talked about before, these are quasi-judicial proceedings. Think of it like a court case. There is an order in which things happen and policies in place for how they work.
For instance, all documents and materials that are to be included and considered for the hearing are due no later than 14 business days before the meeting. This is to allow the parties (applicant, intervenor, staff, etc) to view these materials before the hearing takes place. This allows them the opportunity to put together a rebuttal of sorts to what the other parties will be presenting... similar to how lawyers in criminal cases have to provide their evidence to the opposing side.
Makes sense.
Well there are also policies in place regarding time constraints... and this is what we will discuss today.
Here is the code from the county's ordinance.
As you can see, it allows up to 30 mins for the applicant to give their presentation. The same amount of time is then given to the staff and parties in opposition (intervenors).
I imagine the reason for this is to make the points concise so that these meetings do not drag out hours upon hours for just the presentations. Make your points, present your arguments/evidence/etc and move along.
Sounds great right?
Here is the problem. If there is not a party in opposition, the commissioners rarely stick to these timelines. They rarely make the applicant stick to the 30 mins. This allows them to essentially sweettalk the commissioners and tickle their ears a bit... and staff does not object (they are a party to this as well).
At the last meeting, Rob Batsel and his group for the Pulte project had about 57 mins to open their presentation. Then Eric Abel (representative for Tamposi/Citrus Hills) followed him and had an additional 10 mins to give his presentation.
1 hour and 7 minutes they were allowed to present their application and no one stopped them.
What's more, is they did not even ask for more time. The chair is allowed to grant more time if they desire, but it was not even asked. They just kept going and going.
Staff's presentation was about 16 minutes.
Going back to Tuscany (also Batsel), they had 2 hours and 20 mins. Then they got another 40 minutes after the presentations to negotiate the conditions on the fly.
What is the point of having rules if we do not follow them? I get the chair has the ability to extend time, but that should be based upon a request at the meeting, not just continuing to speak and not being interrupted allowing them to sweet talk the commissioners.
To that point, Citrus Hills is generally direct and to the point. They rarely use the entire 30 minutes.
This is also why it is important to have intervenors... they can object to the amount of time an applicant has to make their presentations, if over 30 mins. Anyone can be an intervenor if they experience more of an impact for a project than the general public... usually someone who lives close to it.
It is free to do and a simple application process. If you desire to do this, let me know and I can help. This also gives you 30 minutes to argue against the project. There are certainly benefits to going this route and hopefully in the future, we see more intervenors.
See you at the meeting!