MINUTES OF
POLK COUNTY CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION
MARCH 5, 2002
Chairman Dan Costello, called the meeting of the Polk County Charter Review Commission to order at 7:00 p.m. in the Haines City, City Hall. Commissioner Strang led the prayer and Chairman Costello led the Pledge of Allegiance.
Ms. Swearengin
called the roll. All commissioners
were present with the exception of Commissioners Allen, Moore Bailey, Gernert,
Nunnallee, and McLaughlin who gave advance notification of their absences in
accordance with the Commission’s Rules.
The Chairman
said he would like for the record to show the Commission had a quorum.
The Chairman
said the first order of business was the approval of the minutes of February 12,
2002. The Chairman asked if there
were any changes to the minutes? There
were no changes.
Commissioner
Lindsey made a motion to approve the minutes of February 12, 2002, and
Commissioner Stoer seconded the motion. The
Chairman asked if there was further discussion?
There was none. The motion
carried.
The Chairman
began the meeting by introducing himself to the audience, and he welcomed them
to the second of the Commission’s three public hearings, on proposed changes
and revisions to the Polk County Charter.
He told the
audience the Charter Review Commission was appointed under the authority of
Article 8 of the Charter. There
were thirteen commissioners appointed by the County Commission and the County
Constitutional Officers. They were
all unpaid volunteers. He asked the
commissioners to introduce themselves to the audience.
He told the
audience the Commission had been meeting since last April, taking testimony from
a large number of individuals, including elected officials and organizations,
and debating many proposed changes to the Charter.
He said that was the Commission’s twenty-second meeting, and they had
met on an average of two hours per meeting, in addition to all of the
preparation time. Before making
their final report, which was due on April 3rd to the County
Commission, they could change their recommendations, but when they made their
report to the County Commission they could not change their recommendations.
Their recommendations would then go directly to the voters for their approval or
disapproval in the November general election, but before taking their final
report, they were obligated by the Charter to have three public hearings to
listen to what the people thought about their proposals.
After listening
to what the public thought, and that was the second of three public hearings,
with the third scheduled to be held in Lakeland, on March 19th at
7:00 p.m. in the City Commission meeting chambers.
They would be recording their comments and they would be transcribed and
made available to all of the commissioners, and then the Charter Review
Commission would be meeting again on March 26th to consider all of
their comments, and to make any final adjustments to the Commission’s
recommendations, which would go to the voters.
He told the
audience on the table in the back of the room was a summary of the
Commission’s proposed changes, in the event they didn’t receive one when
they were handed out earlier that evening, and there was also a speaker sign-up
sheet, and anyone wishing to speak to the Commission should place their name on
that sheet, and when the public hearing was opened he would call the speakers up
in the order in which their name appeared on that sheet.
He said each speaker was limited to a five-minute presentation.
He requested the
audience avoid applauding during the course of the public hearing.
The Chairman
said they would begin with the history and the significance of charter
government in Florida by Kurt Spitzer, the Commission’s consultant.
Mr. Spitzer
briefed the audience on the history and significance of county charter
government in Florida.
The Chairman
said if he had given any of them the impression that they could only speak on
the Commission’s proposals, he wanted to correct that impression. They could
speak to any issue at all concerning revision or amendment to the Charter, and
they were not restricted to those eight proposals.
He said there
were four substantive amendments and four technical amendments. He discussed the
four substantive amendments briefly. (Copy attached to the file copy of these
minutes).
The Chairman
asked the commissioners if they had any comments before beginning the public
hearing? There were no comments.
The Chairman
opened the public hearing.
Dr. William B.
Kremer
Dr. Kremer said he was there first of all to commend the Commission on the work that they had done, and he had come forth to speak in favor of the proposals. He found them very rational and reasonable to affect confident and efficient government in Polk County. He took exception to one amendment, and that was the salary of the county commissioners. He thought that was an attempt to correct a mistake in lowering the salary, and he urged the Commission to consider raising the salary to its previous level in an attempt to attract capable and innovative leaders, and not those running for county commissioner with personal agendas.
The Chairman thanked Dr. Kremer for his comments.
The Chairman
invited Mrs. Anne C. Kremer to speak.
The Chairman
asked Mrs. Kremer if she would give the Commission their address for the record?
Mrs. Anne C. Kremer, Seven Lake Hollingsworth Drive, Lakeland
Mrs.
Kremer said they lived in Lakeland, but would be out of town when the Commission
was scheduled to meet there, and they came to the meeting in Haines City to give
their comments.
She
commended the Commission for its diligence and its hard work, and she especially
commended them for their ballot questions, with the first being Amendment 1,
increasing the county commissioners from five to seven.
She thought that amendment would allow for better representation for all
of the citizens of Polk County.
She
said she had worked as a social worker for many years in Polk County and she
knew what a big county it was when driving across it, and she thought just for
that reason alone it was going to lead to better government.
She
was also in agreement with the amendment for raising the salaries, and felt one
got what they paid for.
The
Chairman thanked Ms. Kramer for her comments.
The
Chairman invited Ms. Susan Fair to speak.
Ms. Fair began her comments by saying she wanted to address some issues she felt passionately about. In her opinion, cutting the commissioners’ salaries was a big mistake. She said she thought any intelligent person could see the potential problem that could cause, and because of the decision to cut the salaries that Commission and the voters were faced with the challenges of rectifying the mistake through a proposed referendum.
She felt it
would be a mistake to cut the constitutional officers’ salaries, and one got
what they paid for, and if salaries were cut the incumbents might be forced to
seek outside employment to supplement their income, and not devote one hundred
percent of their time or energy in doing the job in which they were elected for.
Partial devotion in doing a job was not how she wanted to be represented
as a citizen of the county. She
thanked the Commission for the amendment to increase the county commissioners’
salaries, and felt it was a step in the right direction.
Term limits for
the constitutional officers should be decided each election, and not by a
referendum mandating term limits. The
present constitutional officers were dedicated and worked tirelessly as public
servants to all of them, which brought her to her next point, which was keeping
constitutional officers independent from the Board of County Commissioners.
Checks and balances and separation of powers, which the system currently
provided were necessary. It was the foundation of the democracy and removing the
independence of the constitutional officers would compromise the credibility,
which those offices had worked so hard to obtain.
She said she would hate to see the progress those offices had made over
the past several years move backward in time.
Those offices had worked very hard with their employees to break the
stereotypical government worker mindset. To move backward rather than to
continue their journey forward would be unfair to the employees as well as the
citizens who were served on a daily basis.
She said she
would like to acknowledge the Commission and its efforts.
They had done a great service for Polk County, and she thanked all of
them.
The Chairman
thanked Ms. Fair for her comments.
The Chairman
expressed his appreciation to all the members of the audience for coming, and he
pointed out there were a couple of commissioners from Davenport there, and they
were, Commissioner Crews and Commissioner Schultz.
Commissioner Roy Tyler from Haines City was there, and also present was
the interim City Manager, in Davenport, Mr. Robinson, and the City Manager, for
Haines City, Ann Tony Deal.
The Chairman
invited Ms. Pam Sandberg to speak.
Ms. Pam
Sandberg, 103 Terrace Drive, Winter Haven
Ms. Sandberg said she wanted to address the Commission that evening regarding three items relating to electorate constitutional officers, with the first being term limits. She was not in favor of term limits, and felt they were not conducive to developing a long-term commitment for the organization. It would take a long time for a new incumbent to get acclimated to the position, and their most productive years could possibly be their last term, and that could minimize building a strong agency.
Secondly, salary reductions for the constitutional officers would devalue the importance of the office, which they held, and they would more than likely need to seek additional employment to supplement their incomes if there was a reduction in their salary. She said they had seen what had happened to the County Commissioners in that respect, and the constitutional officers held positions of much responsibility. Knowledgeable capable leaders needed to be paid sufficiently for the highly administrative jobs they held. She was in total agreement with Amendment 2 (BOCC salaries).
Lastly, she was glad there were no proposals to change the structure that currently existed, and she felt the constitutional officers’ status should be left as it was, operating in their own environments with qualified leaders at the top. She asked that they not take the citizens’ rights away by not letting the people have the opportunity to vote on the constitutional officers of their choice.
She thanked the Commission for its time and consideration.
The Chairman thanked Ms. Sandberg for her comments.
The Chairman invited Mr. Chris Rudolph to speak.
Mr. Chris
Rudolph, Director of Compliance and Public Information for Tax Collector’s
Office
Mr. Rudolph began by thanking the members of the Charter Review Commission for their public service, and their dedication, and he said their commitment was to be commended.
He said at that
time he wanted to acknowledge their collective wisdom and understanding, and the
important role that checks and balances played in Florida’s local governing
structure. He asked that the
independence of the local governing authorities including the constitutional
officers be kept in tact. It was
his opinion, that without the independence of local governing authorities they
would not have those important checks and balances.
The main point,
which he came to speak about, was the proposed Efficiency Commission issue.
He said he applauded their desire to promote government efficiency, and
as a former employee of the Virginia Department of Commerce, and the Florida
Legislature, and as someone who then served in the Tax Collector’s Office, he
knew that efficiency was something that they should all strive for, however,
efficiency alone was a poor indicator of performance. He felt for example, that
it would be highly efficient if only one person on the Commission decided what
items should be recommended for ballot consideration, but that it would not be
good policy, nor would it further the public’s trust and confidence. Any group
that was formed to comprehensively evaluate government efficiency in Polk County
was bound to fail. The county was
larger in size than the State of Rhode Island and was as populated as the State
of Wyoming. Given their lack of
financial resources and as a matter of logistics it was improbable that any
study could be conducted to access all of the county’s government operations.
It was his
feeling that government should be evaluated on its performance and it should be
reviewed and assisted on a priority basis in areas where service improvements
were needed most, and that way government agencies could be accessed on whether
or not they were truly succeeding, improving, or failing.
An Efficiency Committee could not have the same positive affect because
it was premises flawed, and it was created to find inefficiency for the sake of
inefficiency and assumed an adversarial relationship targeting government
agencies. That kind of process
created conflict and wasted time, and using standards of efficiency was a highly
inefficient process. He asked what
could they do? He answered, the
Charter Review Commission should consider a proposal to create a local committee
that would be modeled after Florida’s Commission on Government Accountability
to the People, which was also known as the GAP Commission. Essentially, a Polk County GAP Committee would help determine
what kind of performance was expected from government agencies, and find out
where those government agencies stood relative to expectations and then make
recommendations to enhance productivity. The
benefit of that approach was two fold, with the first being government agencies
would be less resistant to help and improve performance, and the public would be
better informed about what a government agency was doing so the agency and its
leaders could talk profoundly.
Applying
government and performance accountability standards was the modern approach to
accessing government services, and it had been well over one hundred years since
efficiency experts proclaimed that in all things there was only one “best”
way. It was then understood that
they had choices, and that efficiency was only one factor in determining
performance, and they no longer lived in a world where things were always
cheaper by the dozen. For example,
using classic efficiency techniques, the government would realize a savings for
taxpayers by putting all government operations in Bartow; however, in using a
performance and accountability process the people would save more overall in
lost wages and travel if the outcome was to have government operations
strategically placed throughout the county for accessibility.
Efficiency
spends time focusing on inputs like building a better mousetrap. The focus
should be on outputs or outcomes so they could determine whether or not they
even needed a mousetrap. The GAP
model allowed that process to happen. Additionally,
local government evaluations were dependent on the participation of a diverse
group of individuals with a wide range of experiences. Given that reality any
citizen who had the necessary experience should be welcomed to participate in
the process, including those who worked in government. A government employee should not be placed in the position of
reviewing his or her own agency, but it made no sense to bar a government
professional from the process of evaluating another government agency.
He asked why would they not avail themselves to the best and brightest
minds in their government?
A final draw
back of the proposed Efficiency Commission was its distance from the people.
Having non-elected civic groups play an official role in the selection of
a public commission could only be viewed as suspect.
No matter how well intentioned civic groups were, they were not
accountable to the people, and they were only accountable to their members and
the role they played in fashioning public policy was crucial, but conferring
governmental authority on any civic group was dangerous, and it was an act that
compromised the valuable position and leverage that the civic groups then held
outside the confines of government. As
a matter of course it would be the first step down the path to making all things
government.
Finally, as it
related to that issue, he hoped that the Charter Review Commission would
reconsider the matter of an Efficiency Commission and instead give the issue of
a proposed GAP Committee its approval. He
said if they were serious about making a difference to rid themselves of old
outdated practices and to look to a progressive solution.
(Handout attached to file copy of these minutes)
The Chairman
thanked Mr. Rudolph for his comments.
The Chairman
invited Ms. Stacy Butterfield to speak.
Ms. Stacy
Butterfield, 5924 Lake Victoria Drive, Lakeland
Ms. Butterfield began by thanking the members of the Charter Review Commission. She said she knew serving on the Commission had taken a lot of their personal time and she knew they had been charged with a very difficult task. She said their role in Polk County was very crucial and their dedication to those issues was very much appreciated.
She specially
wanted to speak to Amendment 2 and 3. Regarding
Amendment 3, to the non-partisan election of constitutional officers.
She felt the constitutional officers held administrative positions, and
in those administrative positions the party, which the individual happened to be
a member of should not be an issue as far as their responsibilities in their
job. The County Commissioners on
the other hand, were a legislative body and she felt the partisan party would
make a difference, but not in each of the elected constitutional officers, and
she would definitely like to keep that amendment.
Regarding
Amendment 2, which was specifically on the salaries of the County Commissioners.
She said she originally voted against the salary reduction when it was on
the ballot, and she was against any further cuts for the commissioners as well
as any of the constitutional officers. She
wanted to see that amendment kept so that the salaries would be increased for a
number of reasons. It was her
feeling that the County Commissioners held very responsible positions in the
county and they made important decisions in each of their meetings and things
they decided on impacted every citizen in Polk County.
It was her feeling that the people needed the commissioners’ full-time
dedication to their jobs, and their salary should be at a high enough level to
allow for full-time dedication to the particular issues that they needed to
address.
Quality
performance from elected officials should be expected, and she thought that the
salaries of the commissioners as well as all of the constitutional officers
should be at a level sufficient to attract responsible professional individuals.
The amendment was increasing the County Commissioners’ salaries from
$33,500 to $49,500, which was $16,000 and there were currently five
commissioners. The $80,000 that was
included at the county’s millage rate, which she thought was 7.727 mills
represented approximately a twenty-five cent cost annually to each taxpayer
based on the average tax base that was had. She thought that was a small price to ask for the citizens to
pay to keep the county moving in the direction they needed to move in.
The Chairman
said he took it that she was supportive of Amendment 2 and Amendment 3.
Ms. Butterfield
said that was correct.
The Chairman
thanked Ms. Butterfield for her comments.
The Chairman
invited Ms. Bridget Kennedy Hull to speak.
Ms. Bridget
Kennedy Hull, 28 Brevard Drive, South East, Winter Haven
Ms. Hull began by thanking the Commission for its dedication to Polk County. She said the amendments they had proposed made sense and while she preferred seeing the County Commissioners salaries raised to at least where they were before the cut, she was grateful that they had done something through Amendment 2.
She said Dr.
Costello had done an admirable job as the chairperson of that Commission, and
Polk County was fortunate to have his leadership, and each of them deserved a
round of thanks from every citizen of Polk County for the time they had taken
out of their personal lives to help the citizens do what needed to be done, and
they appreciated their time.
The Chairman
thanked Ms. Hull for comments.
The Chairman
invited Mr. George Brooks to speak.
Mr. George
Brooks
Mr. Brooks began
by saying he was against the raising of the County Commissioners’ salaries,
and he voted to reduce them. He
said the general theme was reducing the size and the cost of government.
He said he had some experience pertaining to that, in that he was a
Captain in the Air Force many years, and he had a master’s degree in
electrical engineering, but he was then semi-retired.
He said he served on the Board of Directors of his subdivision, which was
about eighty families, and the board members were volunteers, and it was a group
of about seven or eight board members, and it had the standard president/vice
president setup, and they took in about $32,000 to generally repair roads and do
things inside the subdivision. He
said he was one of the ones who always said there were many good things that
could be done, and people came to them and said they could have in their
subdivision dirt tracks, and swimming pools and they could have many things, and
there were always those suggestions, and one had to evaluate what they could do,
and what kind of funding they had to do it with.
He said all recommendations were extremely good, but the question was,
was it within the budget?
He noticed in
the Ledger, which was produced on the previous Sunday, a general description of
funds that were available. He
thought there were some errors in the Ledger because when he added those figures
up the operating budget came to about $500 million, and he called to verify
those numbers because that figure didn’t seem right. They told him the day
before on the phone that it was something like $848 million for the coming year.
He said in spending that kind of money, it was what could you get and
also to reduce the size and cost of government, and he and Mr. Dewey Smith, had
the same concept.
That year in
2002 the federal government’s budget was $2.13 trillion dollars, and if one
took the number of families and divided that particular number by the federal
government’s budget, everyone should be paying $26,600 for the federal
government, and for the State of Florida with a budget of $51 billion, if one
divided the number of families into that number, it would be another $12,000,
and then for Polk County as he understood, it was $848 million, divided by the
number of families would be approximately $7,000 per family, and he said he
realized other taxes came in to that, and that was not an exact figure, but if
one were to add all of those numbers up, that
would be $46,000 just to do a lot of good work for government.
He said at some point something was wrong, and decisions would have to be
made on what exactly could be afforded and what was best for the people.
In general he
was against most of those amendments and he was against the increase and they
needed to watch costs and to use common sense.
The Chairman
thanked Mr. Brooks for his comments.
The Chairman
invited Ms. Jenny Jacobs to speak.
Ms. Jenny
Jacobs, 208 Sheppard Avenue, Dundee
Ms. Jacobs began by thanking the Commission for its hard work. She said she was there to speak to Amendment 1, and she was representing the Florida Bi-Partisans Civic Affairs Group, and they voted for that recommendation for their proposal to Amendment 1 (expanding BOCC to seven members).
Their position
was that each district should elect its own commissioner and that two additional
commissioners should be elected at-large to ensure a balance of local and
countywide representation, and what they were thinking was that each of the five
districts could vote for their own representative or commissioner, and then on
the two at-large everyone in the county would vote for, and perhaps in using
that system the citizens in east Polk County would be better represented,
because they weren’t always represented the way they should be.
They were all in
favor of a raise in salary for the commissioners because one got what they paid
for, and she knew they worked hard.
The Chairman
thanked Ms. Jacobs for her comments.
The Chairman invited Ron Burchfield to speak.
Mr. Ron
Burchfield, Hwy 27, Haines City
Mr. Burchfield said he wanted to commend the Commission for its hard work and diligence. He said he wanted to address Amendment 1, but he wanted to expand further on it. They were in favor of the seven commissioners, however, they thought they should be single-district commissioners. He said the state representative was elected by district, and only the voters who resided in the state of the represented district could vote. Only those voters who resided in that state senator’s district elected state senators, and we elected our congressmen by congressional districts, and only those congressional voters who were in that district could vote for that congressman. He said they felt that should be the same with the single-member districts, and they encouraged the Commission to not only increase the number of county commissioners from five to seven, but also to single-member districts.
The Chairman
asked if all of the districts would be single-member districts?
Mr. Burchfield
said that was correct.
The Chairman
thanked Mr. Burchfield for his comments.
The Chairman
invited Jim Doll to speak.
Mr. Jim Doll,
Winter Haven
Mr. Doll began by saying he was in favor of cutting the constitutional officers’ pay in half. He said he thought they would still be getting a good salary at that, and they would be getting more than school teachers in the county, and he thought that was a shame because the school teachers should be getting the larger salary and not the constitutional officers.
He said he had
been to the Tax Collector’s Office and it had gone down hill since Joe Tedder
had taken the office. He was in
favor of cutting their salaries. He
said they heard a lot of talk about if the salaries where kept higher they would
be able to get better people. He
asked the Commission if they would be doing a better job if they received $12
per week or $50 per week? He said
he didn’t think so, and they would still be doing a good job.
He said even if
the constitutional officers’ salaries were cut in half they would be better
off than the School Board. He said
there was a move in Polk County to cut the School Board’s salary to what the
Charter Review Commission was getting, which was zero, and he was all for that
too.
The Chairman
thanked Mr. Doll for his comments.
The Chairman
invited Mr. Robert Smith to speak.
Mr. Robert
“Smitty” Smith, 1 I Court, NE, Winter Haven
Mr. Smith began by saying he wanted to address the Commission that evening on several matters, with the first being Amendment 1. He thought that subject matter was before the Commission when the charter was founded, and the idea was proposed at that time, and it had not changed since then. He felt there should be seven commissioners, and they should be elected five by single-member districts and two at-large. He said his reason for saying two at-large was because the biggest argument for district voting was the fact one might become parochial, and if there were two he thought that would eliminate that argument.
He said if one had ever ran for office in that county, and some of them in that room had, they realized that was a big county, and it was bigger than the State of Rhode Island, as they had heard many times before, and it was nearly as large as Delaware with one half million people. He said it was a huge county to politic in and the only way one could politic in it if they went countywide was with money. He said if one ran by districts people would know them, and what they stood for and not vote on them because they received a flashy brochure in the mail.
Regarding Amendment 2, at the time when the Charter was being considered, he proposed there be seven commissioners and the salary at that time being split between the seven instead of the five. He said he thought if they divided that out, the salary before the last cut was something similar to $69,000, and if it was divided by seven it would be similar to what the proposal was, and that was $49,285, and the proposal was $49,500, and he thought that was a fair an equitable salary for the commissioners.
Regarding Amendment 3, which pertained to non-partisan county officers, he didn’t know if there was such an animal in politics as non-partisan. He said everybody was opinionated and he was somewhat ambivalent there, but he had a problem with going to non-partisan because he didn’t think it would work very well.
Regarding Amendment 7, which was the Efficiency Commission, he was not in favor of that. He thought it could develop into witch-hunts by people with special interests. He thought one of the wisdoms of the founding fathers, was the fact that they put in term limits and election cycles, and in the end the people were going to judge. He said if they had an admiration or an incompetent who was elected, the people would judge at the next election.
Regarding Amendment 8, he said he would not be in favor of reducing the minimum percentage from six to four. He thought six was a good number.
The Chairman said that six percent had to be collected throughout the county, but four percent within each district, and currently it was six percent overall and six percent within each district. The Chairman asked if he was opposed to the six percent?
Mr. Smith said he was opposed to any reduction.
He said he thought the Charter was a constitution, and the U.S. Constitution had been amended twenty-seven times in history, because it was had to amend, and he thought the Charter should be the same way, in that it wasn’t easy to amend.
He said another thing that he wanted to address was the question regarding reducing the salaries of the constitutional officers. He thought most people who had been in business realized to evaluate jobs one set certain criteria on it, and decided what the pay should be. He felt in the United States many things were not equitable in pay as they all knew, because they would all like to be playing for the Cleveland Indians, because athletes made a lot of money, and actors made a lot of money, and late night hosts made a lot of money, but that was not generally the way things were done, particularly in government.
Florida Legislation had made it fairly clear what they wanted in Title 11, Section 145.011 when they addressed the salaries of the constitutional officers. The responsibilities those people had were great, and their salaries were commensurable with what they did.
The Sheriff of Polk County had an approximate staff of 1,500 people, and he had a case log of about 235,000 and that was a demanding job. The Property Appraiser appraised 353,000 pieces of property in Polk County, and that was a lot of responsibility. The Tax Collector of Polk County had 500,000 different types of transactions, and those people had a great deal of responsibility, and it was his opinion that their salary should stay as it was.
The Chairman thanked Mr. Smith for his comments.
Ms. Karen
Landers, 525 Avenue L, SE, Winter Haven
Ms. Landers said
there were a couple of things she would like to speak to, and one was the
single-member district voting. She
thought the time had come with different growths happening in the county where
the northeast portion was exploding tremendously and the population was
concentrated in Lakeland, and she thought commissioners then were playing to
that population in Lakeland, and there would be a lot of trouble because of
that, and if they looked back a couple of years in the Lakeland Ledger, the
projects in the county were pointed out, and one could see that the areas to the
south and east did not have any projects going on, and Lakeland was chock full
of them, and she thought they would run into that problem as they went forward
with the population increases.
The second issue
she spoke about was regarding the Efficiency Commission. She said apparently there had been an efficiency study done
before and she asked them how they thought that efficiency study really turned
out, and was it a good experience for the county? She said first of all, she was told that it was very
difficult for the people who took part in that committee, because they
essentially had to go to Bartow, and learn each of the departments and learn
their jobs and it took a lot of staff time to almost essentially train the folks
that served on that committee, and they worked very hard, and they had a lot of
meetings. She said she thought
their feeling was a lot of their recommendations were not taken, and if the
amendment was not written with a lot of teeth in it one was more or less
spinning their wheels.
The other
surprising thing was the Commission came back with a recommendation that they
would hire consultants, which would cost approximately one half million dollars
to do the same thing, and that seemed somewhat out of whack, and the other thing
was a lot of the recommendations were not being taken.
She said she knew from working in various businesses all of her life that
when an audit was done that it should serve that purpose, and it usually would
do that.
She said maybe
they should consider what Chris Rudolph had recommended because it was such a
big bureaucracy to get a handle on when trying to do something like that.
The Chairman
thanked Ms. Landers for her comments. He
said there was a member of the Charter Review Commission who was on that
Efficiency Commission, and the Chairman asked if he wanted to respond?
Commissioner
Strang said a lot of the recommendations of the Efficiency Committee, which was
paid the same thing the Charter Review Commission was paid, “zero”, but a
lot of their recommendations were adopted before the committee’s final report
ever came out, and some of the more important recommendations were not carried
out particularly the ones that had to do with constitutional officers because
there was no way to appeal to a higher authority.
He said they made recommendations and they either accepted them or they
didn’t, and in a lot of cases they didn’t.
Commissioner
Strang said they learned that the Sheriff’s automobiles were totally different
from standard automobiles, and that they ran with different spark plugs and they
used a different kind of air and a different kind of fuel, and ordinary internal
combustion machine mechanics couldn’t work on a Sheriff’s car.
The Chairman
thanked Commissioner Strang for his comments.
The Chairman
said without objection, the Commission would recess for fifteen minutes.
There were no objections.
The Commission
reconvened at 8:15 p.m.
The Chairman said when he introduced the commissioners who were present he failed to introduce three other Haines City commissioners who were present, which meant there were four out of five Haines City commissioners present that evening, and on behalf of the Charter Review Commission, he wanted them to know they appreciated their presence. The commissioners who were present in addition to the ones he mentioned previously were Mayor Phillip Hinkle, Vice Mayor Joe Hamilton, and Commissioner Joanna Wilkinson.
The Chairman invited Mr. Frank Koch to speak.
Mr. Frank G.
Koch, 2123 Gachet Blvd. Lakeland
Mr. Koch said he
wanted to discuss an article that was written in the Ledger regarding the Polk
County Charter on August 30, 1998. On
August 30, 1998 the Ledger editorial improperly wrote, “the Charter’s
failings was that it thwarts what should have been the people’s opportunity to
have a more direct say in their government.
The Ledger wrote the only change that gave the people more were Charter
amendments and ordinances that could be placed on the ballot by petitions, and
those were unnecessarily shackled”.
The Ledger also
said, “a tool for change should have been the initiative process, but the
Charter Commission allowed local office holders to have an effective veto over
real change, hence they chose to make the requirements almost impossible to
achieve. Only under the most
extreme circumstances was it likely that the average citizen could utilize the
Charter as advertised”.
The Ledger
continued by saying, “to write an amendment to the Charter would require the
signatures of seven percent of the registered voters evenly divided among five
population districts to be placed on the ballot.
Barring an expensive petition drive run by professionals this would be
virtually impossible to accomplish. The
requirement was almost as difficult for placing county ordinances on a ballot by
petition. In other words, the
initiative provisions were pretty much of a sham”.
He said to suit
their political whims the Ledger Editorial Department may completely reverse its
position on that issue, as they had done on other issues, but as a person who
had participated in petition drives, he was a witness to the truthfulness of
that Ledger claim. He said it was
true when they wrote about it in 1998, and it was true then, and that part of
the Charter was a sham. The Charter
Review Commission had refused to correct that obvious problem, and he asked why?
He said as they
knew, Brevard County had amended their Charter making the amendment and
ordinance petition requirements four percent.
He asked in the true spirit of charter government, would the Charter
Review Commission please reconsider their position on that issue?
He said all that was necessary was changing the seven and six percent
requirements to four percent or less. (Copy
attached to file copy of these minutes).
The Chairman
thanked Mr. Koch for his comments.
The Chairman
invited Mr. Dewey Smith to speak to the Commission.
Mr. Dewey Smith
Mr. Smith began
by saying in an e-mail that they had received, and he had a copy of it with him,
from Mr. Whittle, that the Chairman stated in his response that he had an
excellent grasp of the situation. He
said Mr. Whittle made a brilliant suggestion, and that was county commission
districts be divided by population. He
said to his knowledge they had always been divided that way.
The Chairman
also said in his e-mail to that well-informed citizen that the Commission was
very much in need of hearing voices of reason.
Mr. Smith asked the Chairman if they were to assume that he and that
Commission did not think that anything that he and others had presented to him
were not within reason? He asked if
one person’s e-mail meant more to him than 2,700 petitions that were presented
to that Board?
He said that
Commissioners Moore-Bailey and Hunt had made much to do about whether those
petition signers were registered voters, and in coming to the Charter Review
Commission’s hearings he had not once heard the chair or any commissioner
asking one who came before the Board whether or not they were registered voters
before they began speaking.
He asked in the
next meeting, which was to be held in Lakeland, if the Chairman was going to ask
every person who wanted to speak if they were a registered voter or not?
Mr. Smith said it didn’t make any difference one-way or the other.
Every single person who signed those petitions they gave to the Commission were
taxpayers, and being a taxpayer was what counted.
He said at the
public hearing which was held in Winter Haven, another well informed citizen
made the statement that if they did it Smith’s way, they would all be carrying
guns and going to Afghanistan. He
said that was the dumbest statement he had ever heard a grown man make, and on
top of that, the county employees who were being extorted by their county bosses
to attend the meeting applauded, which was a disgrace to that Commission, just
like it was when Mr. Doll had spoken a moment ago.
He said they had the courtesy to hear them, and at least they could do
the same thing for him.
He said Mr.
Whittle wrote that doing the things that the majority of the citizens wanted was
a bad idea, and many other ordinary citizens felt the same way as Mr. Whittle.
He said the only people that they knew who felt that way were tax
collectors, politicians, and other outcasts.
Mr. Smith said,
what that Commission had done was do what one citizen along with the other
fifty-one established politicians and running men wanted. While they had listened to their views, they had in so many
words told the rest of them to get lost. In
listening to them they had done nothing but patronize them and insult them, and
they were all treated like second-rate citizens, and they were not going to get
away with it. He said he had not
heard one commissioner say that the people of Polk County didn’t want term
limits or salary reductions, and they hadn’t said that because they knew they
would be lying if they said it. He said they knew within their hearts and minds
that was what the people wanted. He
asked how could they be so against the people?
He said it
seemed like at the Winter Haven meeting people took great delight in slamming
him, and he said that was fine. He
could take it if they didn’t have anything better to talk about.
He said to slam him all they wanted.
He could care less. He said
he was there not for himself, and he had nothing to gain.
He was not running for any political office, and he didn’t want any
job. He said he was there to speak
for 114,000 people in Polk County, and for the democracy of those people.
He said they couldn’t attack his message, so they attacked him.
The Chairman thanked Mr. Smith for his comments.
Mr. Wayne
Steinard, 3921 County Place SW, Winter Haven
Mr. Steinard began by saying he was there that evening because he had concerns not so much about the issues, although they were very worthy issues that should be addressed, but the fact that the Commission had chosen to circumvent the will of 114,000 people. He said he missed the last Charter Commission meeting.
He said from what he heard earlier, they had to rely on the collective wisdom of the commissioners, and the County Commission, and he said he wanted to remind them that nowhere in their founding documents was wisdom a criteria for reaching office. It was not the way they did business in America. If they needed the wisdom of Solomon, and maybe they thought they had it, and maybe they didn’t. He said it had nothing to do with it other than they might think they were good people. The reason the commissioners’ salaries were cut, was because their employers felt they weren’t listening to them. He said he didn’t care how much wisdom they had. That was not a criteria for government, but it was a good quality, but one didn’t run government with their wisdom, and he felt they were doing a disservice to the public because the only thing that he could see that was driving the decision to recommend the salary reduction be placed back on the ballot was perhaps their own personal beliefs.
He said he had witnessed one half dozen people come in there that evening and support raising the salaries, and it was also said that one got what they paid for, and he said he wanted to remind them that Enron paid pretty good salaries as well, and that was not the case. The employers felt they were not getting a square deal with it, and made a decision. He said he would submit that instead of the Commission circumventing 114,000 people that they recommend those who felt the commissioners’ salaries should be increased to go ahead and get their friends and their neighbors and their fellow believers in that particular initiative to sign the petition process. That was the one thing that he didn’t think the Commission had as it existed then or any Commission should have the right to do, when a citizens initiative made changes in government, and he didn’t believe it should be reversed in any other manner than by the citizens. He felt they really should reconsider that. He seriously doubted that they would, and in his opinion, there was a lot of pressure on the Commission to get the salaries back up, and it was his feeling that better government did not come from more money. Better government came from dedicated and knowledgeable officers in government, and he implored them to reconsider.
The Chairman thanked Mr. Steinard for his comments.
The Chairman invited Russell Hancock to speak.
Mr. Russell
Hancock, 321 Imperial Blvd. Lakeland
Mr. Hancock
began his comments by saying he was not a politician, and he didn’t work for a
politician. He said he did once run
for the U.S. Congress and that was the low downest thing he ever did in his
entire life, and he promised he wouldn’t do it again.
He said seriously, he was sort of like Commissioner Strang said once in a
letter that he sent to him and Mr. Steinard about his ability to be impartial.
He said Commissioner Strang said, “he was as independent as a hog on
ice”. He said he was a country
boy, and he still didn’t know what that meant, but at any rate, he was
assuming that meant he was independent. He said he felt that way about it himself. He was the
Executive Director of a non-profit corporation whose charter demanded that when
he spoke on behalf of the corporation that he be impartial and non-partisan.
He said that was the reason
he was coming to them that evening as Russell Hancock, and he wanted to first
say he was there in support of the NAACP’s overtures to that Commission for
single-member districts, and he hoped they wouldn’t let that go by the
wayside. He said he wouldn’t get
into telling them how much he knew and how much he had been trained by Attorney
Phillip Kuhn, because it would take a long time, but he truly believed the
current system that was had was in violation of the 14th Amendment,
and he was confident that the NAACP already knew that, and they would be saving
the county a lot of money in litigation if they would go ahead and do what he
believed was the right thing.
He said he was
also there in solidarity with his friend Commissioner Strang who was the lone
commissioner there, who seemed to be the only person who was out of step or
maybe it was vice versa. He said he
was also there in solidarity with his friend Dewey Smith, Mr. Steinard, Mr.
Doll, Mr. Posey, Mr. Koch, and the twelve people who called the Commission’s
office the day before, which was incidentally in opposition to what so many
people there had said about wanting salary increases.
He said he was there in solidarity with so many citizens who were crying
out for some means to keep politicians from further taxing them, and their
posterity into slavery. He said
that sounded like an overstatement, but he thought all they would have to do was
go to the web and they could find, by looking under “Tax Free Day”, they
would see that everybody in that room paid at least thirty-eight percent of what
they made to some government tax.
Asa Hutchinson
who was a Congressman from Arkansas, and maybe still was, came there and spoke
to their Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner, and he said a constituent in his
state actually paid seventy-three percent of his pay to government.
He said the people couldn’t stand that, and something had to be done to
stop it, and he was there in solidarity with the people who were crying out for
some means to stop that, and locally some means for petitions, which Mr. Koch
was talking about. He said they had to have some means to make the people
believe that Charter really did mean something, and incidentally he said, he did
think they were pretty smart, and the fact that he didn’t agree with them
didn’t mean that he thought that they were immoral.
He said, he did however, think he knew a little more than Chairman
Costello.
He said before
he finished he wanted to share with them a couple of outstanding letters which
were written to the editor, one which was written by Dr. Costello, and one which
was written by him. He said
as a doctor who graduated last in his high school class of two hundred and ten
people, S.L. Frisbie did compliment both of them and say that both of those
editorials were outstanding.
He said they
would notice that the headline for Dr. Costello’s letter to the editor was
“Chairman Proud of Charter Commission”, and the headline for him was “Term
Limits and Cut Those Rascals Salaries Again”.
He said even
though the Commission hadn’t done what most citizens he knew, would like, Dr.
Costello’s letter correctly pointed out that he had complimented both Dr.
Costello and the Commission, and he said for that he had received a lot of
criticism from his Monday Night Meeting friends, but the thing of it was he had
been critical and he had tried to be truthful, and he had always to the
Commission by letter, and by speaking to them with the hope that some good might
result, and for their consideration he had left those relevant pieces of
material.
He asked the
Commission not to forget about the single-member districts, and to let them have
the opportunity to participate in the process as Mr. Koch appealed to them for
the last time.
The Chairman
thanked Mr. Hancock for his comments.
The Chairman
said the final speaker who had signed up was Mr. Tom Macy, and he invited him to
speak to the Commission.
Mr. Tom Macy,
925 Lake Elbert Park, NE, Winter Haven
Mr. Macy said he had enjoyed hearing the various comments and so forth, and there were a few things that he would like to correct that were incorrect in the Ledger.
He said he
wanted to talk about non-partisan elections.
He said he asked the question how did that change the selection process?
He said the truth was when one looked at it, was that it didn’t.
Democrats and Republicans were still the candidates, and they were not
changing anything. The salary cut
that was obtained last time, they were courageously attempting to correct.
He said he wanted to draw their attention to the salaries that were made
by the Administrator of Lakeland Regional Medical Center, and the Administrator
of Winter Haven Hospital, and those were individuals who were making several
hundred thousand dollars per year because of their responsibility.
He said they had constitutional officers and commissioners that were
carrying a huge burden and it had already been eloquently pointed out with what
needed to be done, and when the salaries were cut they just spent fifty percent
of the time doing their job, and that was their answer to their move to drop the
salaries.
He said the tax
situation was a serious issue, and they were all conservative in that respect
and nobody wanted to pay any more taxes than they needed to. He pointed out that Polk County had one of the lowest tax
rates in Florida, and Florida had one of the lowest tax rates in the nation, and
some of their services reflected that. He
said they were almost at the bottom of the barrel on the education system.
In a nation that was crying for better education, the President was
asking for better education. He
said he was quoted as making some remarks when he talked about Mr. Smith and his
fellows. He said he didn’t want them to be people who were given
more credence than their numbers. He
said they sent out a huge mailing to create a large audience there that evening,
and he said he didn’t know where they got the money, but they did a huge
mailing, and they could see the result, which was a very low turn out.
He said they seemed to be against everything.
He said he didn’t see them coming with answers to the problems and the
solutions.
He said he
noticed that the Ledger wasn’t there that evening, but the News Chief was, and
he wanted to give them a little homework. He
said it was his understanding that the last petition that was put in at the
Supervisor of Elections Office still had an undue balance for the authenticating
of those signatures. He said that
needed to be checked on. It was also his understanding that one member of the
group during the Regan administration flew over the White House and dropped a
white powder on the White House to make some kind of a point. He said he certainly hoped that we didn’t let people with
that kind of inclination be in charge of the affairs of the County.
He thanked the
commissioners’ for their help, work, and their dedication and he wished them
God’s speed.
The Chairman
thanked Mr. Macy for his comments.
The Chairman
said that completed the speakers, and the Commission was down to other business.
The Chairman asked if there was any other business to come before the
Commission? There was none.
The Chairman
said without objection, the meeting would stand adjourned until 7:00 p.m. March
19th, at the Lakeland City Hall.
There were no objections. The
meeting adjourned at 8:45 p.m.
Respectfully
submitted,
Cynthia
Swearengin