Proportion in all the right places

Notes from my first County Commission meeting since taking a week off to erase my mind off the County Commission:

— Our dirt, and the public process, is safe. Before a meeting room packed with Pine Ridge residents itching for a fight, commissioners and the state quickly backed off suggestions that the county make it easier for sand pits to supply fill for the Suncoast Parkway construction.

Pine Ridgers never got a word in before the whole issue was laid to rest.

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Justin Hall, the Florida Department of Transportation District 7 secretary, said the parkway’s fill issues had drastically changed in the last month since he and Commissioner Jeff Kinnard first talked about it.

Kinnard was alarmed that the lack of needed fill could delay construction beyond C.R. 486. His colleagues, particularly Holly Davis, didn’t think too highly of leapfrogging public hearings to appease FDOT.

Hall said it’s all good. The landowner with the extractive use zoning application in Pine Ridge has enough sand to fill the parkway’s needs. If commissioners vote that down, he said, FDOT may buy property to achieve the same purpose.

We can cancel that canned dirt drive.

— Kinnard said the whole thing was “blown out of proportion.” Boy, if I had a dollar for every time I heard a politician say that I’d have spent a lot of dollars by now. 

I have a different take. It received just the right amount of proportion. Pine Ridge residents were correct to react the way they did. Whether they have a decent claim in the sand-mine zoning case or not, hats off to the community for paying attention.

Kinnard said it was “Incumbent on the board to at least talk about it.” I wrote in my notes: “TOTALLY AGREe (sic).”

They had the conversation and wrapped it up. It won’t drag on beyond Tuesday. The issue received just the appropriate amount of attention.

Commissioners are facing the unpleasant realization that citizens are watching their every step when it comes to growth and land use. Nothing is out of proportion these days. 

The community is super sensitive right now. If that means more conversation than we’re used to, we’ll survive.

— Then there was this weirdness. Now. You know how I feel about quasi-judicial rules. Mainly, we don’t get along. Never EVER liked any setup that separates citizens from their elected representatives, and that’s what quasi-judicial does.

Land-use cases are quasi-judicial, like a court hearing. Just as I can’t pester the judge at the grocery store about my court case, the same concept holds true with commissioners. They are to interact neither with developers nor citizens regarding pending land-use cases.

That’s why folks don’t get replies when they email commissioners about zoning issues. Or, the reply says something like, “Sorry, can’t talk about it.”

For years, it’s been a point of discomfort during the board meeting public comment. If someone gets up and starts squawking about a zoning case that hasn’t yet been heard, should the county shut him or her down?

Until Tuesday, the answer was no. Citizens could say whatever they wanted at the microphone, even offering an opinion on a quasi-judicial matter; commissioners didn’t respond.

That changed. As mentioned, the room was filled with Pine Ridge residents opposed to a sand mine application that won’t go to the County Commission until at least August. Even though Bays started the meeting by saying they wouldn’t be discussing it, she went where no chair has gone before — shutting down citizens from referencing the pending zoning case at all.

It’s a public meeting! Everything is on the record. I don’t see how citizens speaking at the microphone to commissioners in public is different from sending public emails (though I’m sure a government lawyer will set me right).

At the very least, the county might want to explain this new process. If citizens at board meetings are forbidden from speaking on specific topics, the county should be up front beforehand about those topics and why they’re off limits.

— Finally, today’s photo. No, it’s not the same photo as Tuesday’s, though very similar. I decided to use it after a Pine Ridge resident said she saw me Sunday on the C.R. 486 sidewalk, and considered stopping to make sure I was OK. Since it was, like, 900 degrees, and I seemed a little lost.

I told her I was taking pictures of the parkway construction. Anything for the cause.

Have a great Wednesday, friends.

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