Time to Embrace Technology

Good morning!

We are going to start today with short note on Crystal River. It is not everyday that an elected official brings a development project to a development board seeking their approval. That is what will be happening tonight when Mayor Joe Meek brings a proposal to create a Bed and Breakfast at a new home he built on Crystal Street.

To be clear.... Nothing wrong, illegal, etc with this at all.

The idea here is to turn the home he built into a commercial operation and start offering it as a short term rental to people looking to stay in Crystal River. The problem with that is Crystal River has banned short term rentals. The way around that is to create a Bed and Breakfast and operate it as that. They can rent it in the short term and take advantage of that market while not technically being a short term rental.

There are requirements to qualify as a BnB and not a short term rental. The main one is in the name... breakfast. They have to offer some type of meal option for the guests. Also, someone has to live on site while the guests are staying in the home. The county requires the homeowner to live at the home during this time. The City allows a manager. That is what is proposed here.

The problem here is the code in Crystal River does not allow BnBs to be within 1000ft of another BnB. For this project, there is one next door. The mayor argues that since their business license expired, they are no longer operating... while acknowledging they can simply pay it and its active again. I would say a valid argument. How long can a license be expired before the city says it is no longer a business that qualifies?

He also claims it was in place before this regulation took effect, so it does not apply to their establishment. Eh.. Not so sure about that one.

The city suggests denial for this reason... They do suggest that he meets the other criteria.

So we will see how this goes. While this process is still ongoing, the home is listed for sale with an open house on Saturday... so an offer before this takes place may change the narrative. Also, I assume if he gets the approval to do it, he can sell the property and the approval moves with it. I do not believe it is tied to the person/company applying for it. It is tied to the property, although they would need to maintain the business license and all of the other requirements. Something to watch.

The main thing I want to talk about today is government transparency, in particular, in regards to the budget and spending. I talked a bit about this almost a month ago, but nothing has changed.

I had gotten the October expense spreadsheet. This shows every single transaction of the county and what account it comes out of. Awesome right? We can now see where money is going.

But it is not that simple. You see, they reference certain things, but if you are not familiar with it, you will not know what that expense is for.

An expense for Xerox for example is self explanatory. We lease printers and buy supplies for them to print documents. Makes sense.

But what about the expense on 10/30 for $3,490.59 to MWI Veterinary Supply Co? I presume it is some medical expense for equipment/supplies for the animal shelter... but what is it? Or Shi International Corp for $1,592.57?

I am just using these as an example since they are on the first page of the document, not that I think anything is wrong with those expenses.

Each of those expenses has some type of paper trail, whether its a PO, an email getting approval and so on. There may be instances when a staffer can just run a credit card, but I imagine there still needs to be something related to that somewhere.

If someone wanted to find it, where would they go?

I asked the budget director and she told me "you need to do a records request". This is over 2500 transactions every month. If someone wants to do their own audit, they have to records request information for 2500 transactions? How much staff time does that tie up?

But I obliged. I sent a records request for the SurveyMonkey expense of $13,051.86.

Why this particular item? Because I am familiar with the company and what they offer. I am also familiar with the competitors, so I am able to easily understand the documentation on this.

Since this expense is over $10,000 and under $35,000, it will require written quotes from 3 vendors. It will also require a letter to Purchasing requesting the approval from the lowest qualified vendor. If Purchasing approves, it is then sent to County Administrator for approval.

As you can see, there should be a paper trail, so I asked for it. Here we are a month later and still nothing from records. I had sent two follow up emails requesting an update. I get it... holidays and all of that... but no response.

It is taking a month to provide me with records that should be easily accessible and documented? Should not take a month to get those... and what if I want others? A month there too?

Which brings me to my main point.

Why can we not make this process easier?

If the Clerk of Courts can upload 1000's of documents related to court cases daily and keep those archived going back before the 80's, why can't the county do something similar? Why can't their be a database that staff uploads all these documents to that the public can search? Every purchase order... Every written quote used for comparison...Every receipt... Every email discussion related to that... and so on.

Why can't those things be uploaded and searchable?

If I had a question about the expense for Indexx Distribution Inc for $1464.01, I could go to this database, type in the name and boom... see the documentation to it. I should not have to do a records request and then wait a month to get it.

It is now 2026.. The technology exists to make this happen. Everything should be documented to begin with, so why can't we have a way to make this easier for people to find the information. I mentioned this at the BOCC meeting Tuesday, we will see if it goes anywhere.

If government makes it easier to access information and as a result, provides more transparency, people begin to trust government again... or find another way not to, but that is a topic for another day.