Some People Are Not Happy

Man, who knew the most commented on post I would have so far is about the ban on new medical marijuana dispensaries. Almost 150 comments on it as of this morning. Appreciate everyone for their input and interaction and for the most part civility.

I am going to let people discuss back and forth, but please be respectful. I do not want to have to start moderating comments as I want people to say what they want.. So keep it respectful and all good!

Today, I am going to jump back into Crystal River politics. I had planned to do this anyway, but the Chamber CEO called me out on the Chronicle page for not hammering them on the process they used to name a new City Council member.

Apparently I am "officially the biggest hypocrite in the county."

So let's go there.

It is always a good time when the Chamber CEO calls out a small business owner. Welcome to Citrus I suppose.

Oh.. and in case you were wondering who the mystery person was that came up to me at the Library reopening, it was also Josh Wooten. There is more to that story I will tell later on.

I question why the Chamber CEO has so much interest in what I am doing... hmmm.. One of life's mysteries I suppose.

I waited until today to write this because I was not at the meeting. I was at the first Comprehensive Plan Public Workshop which also took place on Monday night.

Knowing there was going to be a conflict, I had to choose which place to go. I figured I could watch the City Council meeting online when the video was posted and knew that the Comp Plan would not be online. Also, more people are probably interested in that process vs the politics of a city... so decided to go to that and report on that process, coming back to the city later after I got a chance to watch the meeting.

I did not intentionally skip talking about it or anything like that. I just wanted to watch the video because I missed it. I knew what happened, but I like to see and hear it myself.

I got that chance yesterday when the video was posted online. The plan all along was to talk today about the city, but just happened that the Chronicle posted their story yesterday... I made a comment.. and then got attacked for it. Fun times.

So... about Monday.. What happened with the vacant City Council seat?

Former Council member Mindi Mulvie-Hastings was appointed to fill the seat vacated by Cindi Frink.

Why the big deal?

Because it went against the process the city used previously to fill a vacant seat and people felt this was wrong... and said I should be calling it out.

Ok, let's take a look and see.

Here is the agenda item for Monday.

As you can see... they wanted to discuss and come to a consensus on the process of filling the City Council seat.

Here is the attached letter from city attorney Rob Batsel

In short, Batsel references the City Charter and states that the Charter requires them to appoint someone by majority vote and that there is no procedure outlined to do that. In the past, they council announced they would be taking applications and then at a future meeting a month or so later, they would do interviews so to speak and vote on them until one is selected by majority vote.

Here is the text from the Charter.

He goes on to tell them the process the used before, but stated there was no timeline or procedural requirement for filling the vacancy and it lies entirely within the City Council's discretion in how to do that.

Now he did recommend specific action... Announcing the vacancy and inviting qualified candidates to apply.

But remember... he did say it was at the Council's discretion on how this happens. They do not have to take that recommendation if they do not want to.

At the meeting, Mayor Joe Meek said:

"Regardless if we do a special election... we need to appoint an interim person, is that correct Mr Batsel?"

Batsel confirmed that they needed to decide how to handle that appointment.

Meek then asked if the Council was ok with going through the same process they used last time.

Council member Gabrielle Satchell then spoke up:

"I personally feel like there are so many moving pieces to this and can cut the complication and we can appoint someone who has shown that they have been efficient in this role for the interim. We want someone who can hit the ground running with all the goals and things we have planned..."

And then went on to make a motion to appoint former Council member Mindi Mulvie-Hastings to the seat. It was seconded by Council member Robert Holmes, who admitted that he did not expect it to go this way.

Batsel stated that there is no playbook for this type of thing.

Meek then asked Batsel:

"There is no issue with doing this now, legally?"

Batsel answered:

"No, there is no process set forth in the code. It can be whatever you make of it, so this would be appropriate."

Holmes followed up with a question regarding the agenda.

"As far as being on the agenda and the motions coming like this, there is no issue?"

Batsel stated:

"There is no issue"

Meek went back to Batsel:

"I am all for doing things... if we can do them and it's legal, yes... but we are ok to do this then?"

Batsel then confirmed again:

"Yes, I would just say you need to specify whether that takes effect now, or 24 hours from now, whether she is going to come join you on the dais now..."

They asked the questions point blank. Is it legal and is it ok if they do this now based on the agenda item that was posted.

The city attorney confirmed each of those.

Then they went on to vote 4-0 to appoint her to the City Council, which will take effect in the first meeting in January.

So what am I supposed to be up in arms about here and how does me not calling it out make me a hypocrite?

I had read the Charter prior to this when Frink decided to resign. I wanted to see how it worked to replace. I knew that they could just appoint anyone at any moment. There was no set policy for this.

I also knew that in the past they did an application process for both prior times they needed to fill a seat vacancy. I expected them to do the same. Others probably expected the same thing.

However, nothing holds them to doing that.

In other comments on the Chronicle page, it was mentioned to me that I blasted the BOCC for bringing something to the agenda without following the process and other process issues, yet I was silent about this. If this were the BOCC, my keyboard would be on fire.

Well the issue with the BOCC was they brought something on the agenda, but did not mention it at the beginning (walking it on) and it was brought AFTER open to the public ended so there could be no public comment on it.

That was intentional. It was done in a way that did not allow public comment because they did not want to hear about it. It was not on the agenda nor added to the agenda at the beginning of the meeting when they talk about additions and what not.

That is not proper process and violates their stated procedures.

This issue with the appointment... has no stated process. The Charter was not changed in prior years to outline how to pick someone to fill the seat. It simply states "by majority vote".

There is no process outlined in the City codes that direct them to do an application process or anything like that... NOTHING EXISTS. Therefore, they did not violate any rules/policy/procedures because there are none.

$10 says if the BOCC asked County Attorney Denise Lyn if they could discuss that sales tax without an agenda item, she would agree that it needed an agenda item and would have needed to be done prior to open to the public portion of the meeting.

With the city, there is no process to follow and the City Attorney agreed that they were able to do what they did when asked multiple times.

Should they have followed precedent and do what they did before? Probably. But as we all know with the Supreme Court recently, precedent exists only as long as it exists. It can change at any moment.

With no clear policy/procedure outlining this, we saw that change and they decided to not delay the decision and move forward.

Based on comments, I assume there were others who were interested in this position. There were complaints about the "process" not being fair to everyone, not allowing input, not being good for optics and so on.

Sorta like awarding a bank contract with members of the Council stating they are biased towards that entity and choosing a process that does not require bids and solicitation from other companies?

No complaints from them there, but this is bad for optics? Got it.

Would it have been wise to hear what they had to say and lay out their ideas/vision? Sure. I can agree with that. Does that make this decision wrong? Nope.

Council had other ideas and voted to approve someone who had been there before and could step right in. Any two of them could have decided against that and voted to move forward with applications, but they didn't.

Those complaining to me about not calling out process are wrong. I will call it out, as all of you know... but this is NOT it. There is no violation of process because THERE IS NO PROCESS.

However, maybe this is the time to talk about changing the Charter to outline a specific process to handle these situations. Want an application process that is "fair" and allows input, put it in the Charter. Outline a specific process so that next time, everyone knows exactly what to expect.

Short of doing that, they can choose whoever they want for whatever reason, as long as they get a majority to agree.