It’s Thursday and that means county commission email! This week’s batch, which I’ll continue to remind you is actually last week’s email, comes randomly from board Chairman Ron Kitchen Jr. I picked out two: — The Suncoast Parkway opened in late February and the complaints are starting to come in about noise. Sometimes you just gotta get away. For me, that time came a little after 3 p.m. Tuesday, during the Citrus County Commission meeting. I had just sat through 90 minutes of public comment, hijacked AGAIN by people trying to shove a heaping spoonful of morality down our throats. I’ve been hearing this crap now for months and the rhetoric is getting worse. A long time ago the county went about building a park. I was living in the Inverness Highlands, and the entrance to this park was one street over. The park would have five soccer fields, so the neighbors all envisioned Saturdays full of reckless soccer parents driving their kids to and fro. There’s fun, there’s knee-slapping fun, and there’s the fun of having a bunch of people in the same room laughing at themselves. Such was the case Friday night, when Gerry Mulligan’s pals gathered at Citrus Hills to heap jokes and praise on the man who retired in August as Chronicle publisher. Let’s end another week by giving some love to people who could really use it right now: employees of the Citrus County Board of County Commissioners. It has been quite a rough couple of weeks and months for Citrus County government workers. The county is hemorrhaging talented people, and it’s discouraging from the cheap seats to watch that. Imagine sitting on the bench and seeing your team implode like that, knowing there is little you can do to help. It’s Thursday and you know what that means: commission email! This week’s batch comes randomly from Commissioner Jeff Kinnard. I picked up on some emails regarding roads, boat ramp fees and fallout from the parkway’s opening. Had a great conversation Tuesday morning with a former county commissioner about the state of things in Citrus County these days. We talked about the need for community conversation regarding the issues smacking us in the face at the moment: growth, traffic, lack of workforce housing, the changing face of our county. Attended not one but both public input sessions Monday to start developing the Citrus County strategic plan. Heard some good ideas, heard some dumb ones. |
AuthorMike Wright has written about Citrus County government and politics for 36 years. Archives
April 2024
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