Who is to Blame?

This one will ruffle some feathers.

By now everyone knows what happened at the BOCC meeting. Accusations are flying around social media on who is to blame and all of that. Many people are blaming Commissioner Diana Finegan as she is the chair and has control of the meeting. They claim that it is her fault that decorum was not kept and the meeting went sideways.

I think it is a bit more complicated than that and it started at the first few minutes of the meeting. Everyone knew in those first few minutes it was going to get ugly. I commented to someone next to me that things were going to get crazy and to buckle up.

So how did we get there?

I teased this last week when I wrote about the agenda issue for this meeting. If no one else raised the issue, I was going to bring it up myself during open to the public. But that was not necessary as Commissioner Janet Barek brought it up.

Barek made a motion to essentially remove the Betz Farm "rescind" contract motion item from the agenda as it was "improper and out of order". Finegan made the 2nd. Barek went on to explain that the item violated 2-48 of County Ordinances and that she could not support it because it was going against those ordinances.

Commissioner Davis then took a shot at county attorney Denise Lyn. She said "it was unfortunate that legal did not apparently review my agenda item to make sure that it did not have the wrong words in there." She claimed that the intent was to make an entirely new motion to essentially re-instate the contract for Betz Farm, not rescind the previous vote... despite her using those words in the agenda item.

Pause here for a moment. Why does Davis not know what the county ordinances are regarding agenda items? Why does she need legal to review it and tell her she can't do it? Why did she not go to legal before she submitted it? She claims Lyn was out of the office Friday, so why not go to her Thursday? Or Wednesday?

Ok.. Carry on.

Finegan questioned if that was a new agenda item, which would require coming back at a different meeting due to the Sunshine Law. Davis responded that it was essentially the same, but changing of words (not a "substantive" change) and then dismissed the seriousness of it by claiming it was county code and not Florida statutes that were being violated.

"It's not the law. Its our county code. That's it"

Every single person cited for a code enforcement should now use that quote. Who cares if it is county code right... it is not Florida law. Just ignore it.

However, she may have forgotten Chapter 125 exists in Florida Statutes that give authority to counties to create ordinances that are required to be followed or can be punished by fines and/or jail time. Ummm. Yeah.

Davis then asked Lyn to weigh in on it.

Lyn questioned Davis' questioning of her and mentioned that Davis had not gone to her prior to submitting the agenda item, as other commissioners do, so she could not advise her on her item.

"You did this without me"

"You want to blame me for you not following the rules for your agenda item?"

She then went on to say: "This agenda item is inappropriate".

The motion to remove this from the agenda and accept the rest of the agenda failed 2-3. Kinnard, Davis and Bays voted against it.

Wow.

People claim they want more from Lyn and want her to be more vocal at these meetings, but when she does, they disregard what she says. Key take away here. She represents the county... NOT the 5 individual commissioners, as she made clear.

Tuesday, 3 of them decided she was wrong and disregarded her opinion.

Davis then made a motion to accept the entire agenda plus add on items, which was 2nd-ed by Kinnard.

Finegan then went on to explain to the board that what the agenda item was wrong and should not be on the agenda. She stated she was going on record that was an illegal item and that she will not be part of it. She went on to state citizens are concerned about back door deals, hidden agendas and so on and they are tired of it. She stated she was troubled by what she had seen over the last few months and the "people" were fed up with it (the residents).

The agenda was then approved by a 3-2 vote.

That is really when all the chaos of the meeting started. To that point, tensions were building. Davis seemed to be flustered by the attempt to remove her item. Finegan was flustered by the violation of county ordinances and the desire to not break them falling on deaf ears. Lyn was frustrated by Davis throwing her under the bus. Barek was frustrated by it too... and we are 15 mins into the meeting.

Interesting observation... Kinnard and Bays were quiet during all this and one spoke on the votes.

That set the tone for the rest of the meeting. Had Davis agreed to remove her item and bring it back the next meeting, none of this likely happens. If 3 of the commissioners did not willingly break county ordinances, despite their attorney telling them it was inappropriate, none of this likely happens.

That decision showed that the rules do not matter... or only matter when they suit their needs. Sure, argue it was minor word changes... point is... still not allowed.

What happens when the crowd sees the elected officials' disregard of the rules... and then clap between speakers at open to the public? Does that really matter after seeing 3 elected officials disregard their county attorney's advice? They declared open season on rules violations and set the example to follow.

Sure, Finegan could have called in CCSO earlier to ensure the crowd remained quiet and in order, as previous chairs have done in past meetings that had contentious items. But to ignore everything else and place the blame solely on her? Not sure that is fair.

Perhaps, some blame is to be placed on the three commissioners (Davis, Kinnard, Bays) who voted to disregard out county ordinances. Maybe we should not be surprised when the audience decided to do the same.

I saw someone yesterday on social media asking people to back off pointing fingers at our politicians and offer solutions.

Here is a solution. Follow the rules. Follow the advice of your legal team. Follow the procedures the board has in place. Don't like them? Change them... but do not just ignore them because they do not fit your desires.

It is really not that difficult.