Board missing that certain spark

County Commission meetings like Tuesday’s drive me nuts.

I take plenty of notes, but they lead to nothing.

Never been a big fan of the all-talk, little action board meeting. It’s not like commissioners shirked their duty or anything, it’s just I sense a lack of, I don’t know, spark. I don’t see commissioners pushing out fresh ideas or encouraging deep discussion. Instead…blah.

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So, a few thoughts:

— I caught Sheriff Dave Vincent’s jail pitch in the car coming back from visiting with friends in Weeki Wachee. I think that’s a first…listening to the County Commission in the car. It ain’t Springsteen.

— Vincent made a convincing case for taking over the jail, saying transition costs would be high, but that they would stabilize in a short time. Commissioners Rebecca Bays, Diana Finegan, and Jeff Kinnard were on board with looking at it further. Commissioner Holly Davis thought the county should stick with CoreCivic because the company is trying to improve.

No vote, but if all goes smoothly, the Sheriff’s Office could be running the county jail by October.

— How did I forget this? Commissioner Janet Barek was absent, attending her 59th high school reunion in New Jersey. How cool is that for Janet?  I cannot even remotely explain how much she was missed. It’s like all the air is sucked out of the room when Janet isn’t there to mix it up.

— Also absent: County Administrator Steve Howard. He’s attending a county manager leadership conference in St. Petersburg. Look. I know this doesn’t make me the most popular guy, but I’ve lost count of the times the county has had a significant issue on the agenda, and no Steve Howard in the room.

— The See-Eye-Pea went about as expected, meaning very little occurred. A Just Wright Citrus reader was kind enough to email Finegan with my suggestions to reduce or eliminate spending, but commissioners were generally OK with the projects after the staff explained them.

— Finegan kept looking for $8 million that the county says it needs to have neighborhood road resurfacing set at $19 million next year. Kinnard suggested public support in resurfacing streets is waning, so forget about the extra $8 million. That’s an interesting take.

— Speaking of roads, Davis brought up the MSTU idea. She’s mentioned it occasionally, but getting no traction.

How it works: We’d stop spending property and gas taxes on resurfacing roads and instead shift all of that to a municipal services taxing unit, or MSTU. It’s not a net tax reduction. Instead, it moves road resurfacing out of the general fund and into a specialized fund with its own millage.

While it's debatable how much it would help/hurt taxpayers, the MSTU has significant advantages. The biggest being the county would have public hearings specific to road resurfacing projects. The tax would stand alone and likely make this entire process more transparent.

Plus, we already have the structure in place, an MSTU for law enforcement that sits empty. No consultants needed.

Even though no one from the county has formally said, “Hey let’s look at this,” somehow, numbers are tossed around. Kinnard said he heard $600 a year per household. Davis said the number she heard was half that. Finegan said both numbers are outrageously high.

Here’s my beef: When do citizens get to join in? We might have some thoughts on the issue.

I hope Commissioner Davis doesn't give up. She could place this on her agenda, do some preliminary work, and lead the community into a real conversation about how we pay for roads. Tossing out the road MSTU in a workshop and then reeling it back in at the first sign of opposition gets us nowhere.

— I’ve gotten away from watching many of the zoning hearings, but I was interested in a developer’s request to have larger-than-allowed outer wall signs for Longhorn Steakhouse and Sprout’s Farmer’s Market in Lecanto.

The board shot it down 3-1, with Finegan saying yes. Just a hunch, but I see this vote as the start of things to come. The County Commission is finally realizing what citizens have been pounding the table about. 

OK, I’m done. Have a great Wednesday, friends.

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