Wheels in Motion

Wow.. It seems like yesterday's post about becoming a charter county is pretty popular. The Facebook page has over 200 comments as of this morning. I think I only saw one or two comments that were outright against the idea. So it seems like it is a pretty popular idea... at least to start looking into so.

So what does that look like?

Well there are two options.

1) The BOCC votes to create the charter commission and they get started on drafting the charter through at least 3 public hearings.

2) The citizens of Citrus County sign a petition to force the BOCC to create the charter and getting all that process started.

If this goes the petition route, the BOCC cannot stop it. They MUST create the charter commission and that commission MUST create a charter draft... and then the BOCC MUST set a date for citizens to vote on it.

There is no stopping that train once it gets started.

I did reach out to the BOCC yesterday to ask them to bring this up at a future meeting. I understand its too early to vote for the charter commission to start, but at least bring it up on the agenda and have an initial discussion about it. Then if there appears to be interest, do a public workshop to discuss it further.

Things like why we may want to go to a charter... what may be in the charter... what things could be bad if we did it... etc. Starting having those discussions.

I have only received a response from Commissioner Bays who basically said it is a complicated process and would take a lot of time and cannot be rushed based on artificial deadlines. I responded simply stating that I was not looking for a vote to start the process, just a public discussion... and this county is notoriously slow for having discussions.

I also mentioned that 18k signatures can be dropped on their laps at a moments notice and then there is no BOCC discussion at that point.

But I do agree that a discussion is needed. So I am going to start that process. I will reserve a room somewhere within the next month and kick off some public meetings for those interested. I will keep you all posted on the details.

If you wish to be notified when these meetings happen, signup at this link. I will send an email with the details. There will be limited space at these in person events, so the signup link will be sent to those who want to be notified first before publicly posting the information. So signup to be notified so you can get the details first!

Have a great weekend everyone!