What happened to hands off?

Yesterday, I dove into the problems facing the sales tax. I started with the biggest one first, the citizen's trust. The meeting did nothing but erode the trust further. You can read that here.

Today I want to talk about the next biggest problem... Too Much BOCC Involvement..

Wait, isn't the BOCC being involved a good thing? Don't we want them involved? Usually, yes. We want them to be very involved. Here we do not.

Let me explain.

Back when the board began discussing the possibility of doing a sales tax referendum, they were very clear. They realized that this needed to be citizen led for it to have an success. The citizens would determine if it will be successful. The BOCC did not want to interfere with that. If the citizens want it on the ballot, the citizens would let them know. As commissioner Kinnard said... "this needs to come from the citizens."

Ok, so how would that work exactly? Everyone email the commissioners and tell them? There needed to be a plan, but state law does not allow the commissioners to initiate it. It cannot be a public workshop like they do with impact fees and other things. It needed another entity.

Enter the Chamber.

The Chamber volunteered to step up. They would organize a steering committee and then take it out to the community via town halls to get feedback from citizens. The commissioners came up with an idea of each one assigning 3 people in their district to be on the committee... one homeowner, one business owner and one renter. They then said they would stay out of it.

Ok.. Good deal. Let the Chamber do its thing, they would then report back to BOCC. Then BOCC decides what to do based on the citizen's feedback. Less BOCC involvement the better.

The Chamber did its thing. It held townhall style meetings around the county. It asked people who attended to fill out a survey to provide feedback. 150 or so people attended the meetings. The Chamber decided to do a survey to get additional results. All total, they got around 500 responses.

They went to the BOCC with the findings. BOCC decided to not do anything and gather more information. Chamber opened up the survey again and got an additional 189 or so responses.

Now, armed with close to 700 responses on a survey, the BOCC received an updated presentation with the results. Showed 56% of those surveyed supported the sales tax. Road Resurfacing, Road Widening and Parks/Conservation were the highest ranked items. A 10 year duration was the highest selected duration.

I noticed that the Chamber survey did not ask specific questions to see where support for it ended. So I decided to do my own survey. My survey showed 54% support. Roads and conservation were supported.. and 5 years or a set amount raised were supported. Everything else failed.

The problem with these surveys is they are not statistically sound. They do not represent the true voting demographic of this county. So the results could be way off and well outside the margin of error... or they could be right. Without a proper statistically sound survey, we have no clue what is supported or not. Thanks to the Chamber, we have an idea, but using that data is just guessing.

After the 2nd presentation on October 7th, the BOCC took no action. They didn't decide to do anything. The goal, I suppose, was to get more information. Commissioner Davis had an idea to bring in outside help via North Florida Land Trust. That would come back on October 21st.

Apparently, that did not sit well with the steering committee. I have heard that several of those members were frustrated with lack of direction by the BOCC and the idea to bring in someone else for more research. The organizer of the committee sent this letter to the BOCC.

Now remember, the BOCC has said they would stay out of it and let the citizens decide via this process they chose. If they believe that the Chamber data represents the desire of the public, then they should take the suggestion that the steering committee provided, right?

Well, what we got was NOT that.

Commissioners started getting involved and trying to move this as they saw best.

A day after receiving Mr Taylor's letter from the steering committee, Commissioner Bays sends this to staff.

Ironically, the board ended up deciding to direct Ms Lyn to draft a referendum that included a 4 year term and 100% of the funds to a "Pavement Management System" using a "consensus" system that wasn't consensus because Commissioner Davis objected. I digress.

During the meeting, Commissioner Kinnard referenced emails and calls he has had with people, including from a couple of the members of the steering committee. Commissioner Barek referenced meetings she has attended and citizen feedback she has gotten. 100% for roads is what they were told.

But that goes against what the steering committee recommended... the process THEY chose.

In other words, Commissioners are getting involved when they said they would not be... and then deciding what needs to be on the referendum, on their own, not even taking the suggestion of the steering committee, whom they decided would be best for this.

Then, behind the scenes, commissioners are giving further direction on what to include.

Again, the plan all along was for them to stay out of it. Apparently they are not capable of doing that.

I have said all along that in order for this to pass, the citizens would have to want it and to also trust the BOCC.

To the first point, we do not really know if citizens want it. To the 2nd, the BOCC is losing more and more trust as they go through this process and continue to make unforced errors.