And suddenly…a hurricane. In late September. I’d rather be writing about the County Commission meeting Tuesday with the four administrator finalists and possibly making a decision. But that would be bad timing, right? To spend precious words on the only two likely scenarios in the county administrator debate, when our minds are rightly tuned to every detail of Ian, suggests I should get with the crowd.
Totally understand. County administrator search is miniscule compared to what’s breathing down our necks. So, of course, I’m writing about both. — If you haven’t already, check out the county, school district and sheriff’s Facebook pages for up-to-date info about storm preparations. — County commissioners Monday interviewed the four finalists individually 1-on-1. Diana Finegan, the District 2 Republican primary winner, also interviewed them. As did Paul Grogan, the District 2 NPA wonderboy. I ran into Grogan at Cattle Dog’s. He was looking all dapper for sure and said he was in town only for the interviews and then heading back to wherever he dropped in from. One day we’re going to have a serious talk about this. — The county operates sandbag locations on S.R. 44 in Crystal River and near the Homosassa Public Library at Homosassa Area Recreation Park. In both places, county staffers fill and tie each sandbag, which I think is pretty cool, because it makes a difficult task just a bit easier for folks. By day’s end, workers had given out 26,000 sandbags. — I see only three possible scenarios coming from the county administrator search. One I’ll discard right off the bat, and that’s Hurricane Ian will postpone this discussion. No way. I’m sure there are plenty of items on Tuesday’s agenda that’ll go on the shelf for two weeks, but I wouldn’t expect administrator search among them. —Talked Monday with Crystal River City Manager Ken Frink about storm prep. Afterward, he sent me a text saying the city had to fill the historic water tower because it’s essentially a decoration and will fall over in a hurricane wind. So I say, “How much water? Since you mentioned it…” He responds: “60 million teaspoons.” Then he said, 75,000 gallons. And of course I had to look that up. And damned if he isn’t right: 56,600,000 teaspoons is 75,000 gallons of water. I don’t know what Ken does with that talent but I’m impressed. He has a future in weird math facts if this manager gig doesn’t work out. — Administrator: It could go 3-2 to suspend the search until after the new board is seated. Commissioners Ron Kitchen Jr. and Jeff Kinnard don't want to delay, though Kinnard could probably be talked into it if he thought his choice wasn’t going to make it anyway. Kitchen will never go for that. — Or, my most likely scenario, it goes 4-1 or possibly even 5-0 for Tobey Phillips. Here’s why:
— Let’s be a smart, compassionate, patient and neighborly Citrus County these next few days. Stay safe, friends. Join the discussion on our Facebook page. Comments are closed.
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AuthorMike Wright has written about Citrus County government and politics for 36 years. Archives
November 2024
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