Blaising through the 491 mess

Happy Monday! Let’s talk 491 politics.
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Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, who hasn’t given Citrus County more than a few passing thoughts during his time in office, has jumped into the 491 mess with both feet, extending the debate to an entirely separate — but similar — piece of legislation that he killed on purpose.

If you believe Ingoglia, the legislation was a bad law. Kinda odd since he sponsored it.

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More likely, it’s fallout from the 491 mess.

Let’s break this down some.

First off, know that Blaise Ingoglia is not a warm and fuzzy guy. He’s not Mr. Community. He says and does outrageous things. He openly feuds with Citrus County commissioners, and he doesn’t care what anyone thinks.

Ingoglia has very little affection for local government. Overall, I’d say he’s a real pain for our politicians to deal with.

Now. We know that, right? I mean, it’s no surprise that Ingoglia does things his way, and if you don’t do it his way, there’s a better-than-even chance things won’t go your way.

And that’s exactly what happened. Whoever was behind the 491 mess on the Citrus County’s end — Chair Rebecca Bays and County Administrator Steve Howard — bypassed Ingoglia for the funding request and instead sent it through a senator from another part of the state.

Who thought this was smart? Who woke up and said, “You know, the best way to get this done is to totally ignore our senator. I’m sure he won’t mind. We’re all Floridians!”

(The county blames the developer’s lobbyist. You know…the lobbyist that the county should never have talked to in the first place. That lobbyist.)

Ingoglia, as would be expected, hit the roof. One of his hard-fast rules is that the County Commission has to approve funding requests. The County Commission didn’t approve this one, and that’s likely why Bays, Howard, et al decided the funding stood a better chance with another senator.

Again, though, that seems incredibly foolish and naive. The Senate budget included $1.5 million for C.R. 491 design. Wouldn’t Ingoglia have noticed that? And Blaise being Blaise, wouldn’t he raise a stink?

So, coincidental to all that is a concurrency bill. Let’s see if I can do this really simple.

Concurrency basically requires government services, such as sewers, roads, and schools, to handle additional growth. Local governments love concurrency because it puts the onus on developers.

We had concurrency and then got rid of it years ago. I’ve seen plenty written about it lately, but my very vague recollection is that, like impact fees, concurrency was considered a hindrance to growth when the economy is slow.

For many, many years, our county commissioners made decisions based on the belief that we’d lose growth and valuable tax dollars to neighboring counties. So…cheap, cheap, cheap!

And we see how well that’s going. By the time the parkway opened to S.R. 44 in 2022, every developer with a twinkle in his eye knew that Citrus was the land of riches.

I’d love to explain the nuances of concurrency and this bill, but it’s unrelated to the political backstory. I’ll save concurrency for another day. 

Ingoglia says the bill was never good to begin with, and he had it as a placeholder to give county officials time to come up with something else. When they didn’t, he sat on it. 

The House bill passed 115-0. (Freshman Rep. JJ Grow received a unanimous vote for a major bill that he considered a huge priority in his district. His biggest moment snuffed out by political shenanigans.)

In the Senate, it passed unanimously in two committees and was headed to the Rules Committee for its final stop before the full Senate.

On April 3, two days after Just Wright Citrus first reported the 491 mess and Ingoglia’s non-role, he “temporarily postponed” the bill. In some cases, that means a bill is being tweaked and will return. In other cases, TP means it’s dead.

This was not the tweaking kind. Ingoglia told me spiking the bill is unrelated to the 491 mess, but the timing can’t be ignored.

It may all be moot. Ingoglia’s name is often mentioned as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pick for chief financial officer, so it’s likely his legislative days are coming to a close.

But we ticked off our senator for no reason other than to buddy up with an influential developer. The people behind this should have anticipated Ingoglia’s reaction. They didn’t, and now another priority bites the dust.

For this, they blame others. Mirror, anyone?

Have a marvelous Monday, friends.

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