MINUTES
POLK COUNTY CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION
OCTOBER 9, 2001
Chairman, Dan
Costello, called the meeting of the Polk County Charter Review Commission to
order at 6:00 p.m. on the 3rd floor conference room of the Citrus
& Chemical Bank, Bartow. Commissioner McLaughlin
led the prayer and Commissioner Stoer led the Pledge of Allegiance.
Ms.
Swearengin called the roll. All Commissioners were present, with the exception
of Commissioner Strang who gave advance notification of his absence in
accordance with the Commission’s Rules.
The
Chairman said he would like the record to show the Commission had a quorum.
The first order
of business was for the approval of the Minutes for September 25, 2001.
There
were no corrections.
Commissioner
Nunnallee made a motion to approve the minutes.
Commissioner Stoer seconded the motion.
Chairman
Costello asked if there was further discussion, there was none. The motion
carried.
The
Chairman said Bob Macey, Chairman, of the Polk County School Board would be
making a presentation to them.
The
Chairman invited Mr. Macey to speak.
Mr.
Bob Macey, Chairman, Polk County School Board
Mr. Macey
said he was delighted to have the opportunity to speak to the Commission.
He said
the only issue he wanted to talk about was the pros and cons of an appointed
versus an elected superintendent.
He said in his
opinion the pros of an appointed superintendent were as follows:
Qualifications:
He said seeking the most qualified candidate nationwide would broaden their geographic context dramatically, and he thought that was a major plus in terms of looking for the most qualified person that would lead the school system.
He said, as far
as qualifications were concerned, Polk County had been very fortunate thus far,
but he felt they were not searching for the best person for that position. He
said they only considered the persons who applied, and what qualifications they
possessed.
Coordination
and Cooperation:
He said with his brief experience on the School Board, he thought an appointed Superintendent would facilitate better coordination between the Board and the Superintendent.
He said he was
currently approaching his third year on the School Board, and sometimes it was
difficult to delineate who did what. Sometimes the Board tried to micromanage,
and at times, the Superintendent impinged upon what they thought was the duly
appointed job of the School Board. He thought the coordination and focusing of
their efforts would be made much easier if they had an appointed Superintendent.
Accountability:
He thought
accountability would be much easier in terms of working with the Superintendent,
if the School Board did the actual hiring of the Superintendent.
Comparable
Districts:
An overwhelming
number of large districts had appointed Superintendents. He said he thought they were the only district of their
size, be it geographically or with the number of students that still had an
elected Superintendent, and that reason alone obviously would not be cause for
an elected Superintendent, but it did give one cause to reflect on why all of
the other large districts choose to have an appointed Superintendent, and Polk
County did not.
He said those
were the four biggest issues why they felt the Polk County School Board
Superintendent should be appointed.
He said, in his
opinion, the cons of an appointed superintendent were as follows:
The people would
be taken one step away from the process, and he knew many people had objection
to that. He said, yes, they could
always vote the School Board out if they wanted to affect change within the
Superintendent, but it did remove the populace one level back, and that was a
criticism of switching from an elected to an appointed.
Micromanaging:
He said the
Board did tend to meddle at times on the purview of the Superintendent, and that
might worsen if the Superintendent was in affect working for the Board. The
pragmatic considerations were, it had worked in the past and why change it, and
what were the benefits, and did they out weigh the cons, and it could be looked
at in terms of some type of cost benefit analysis.
If it’s not broke don’t fix it, and lastly one could say in terms of
checks and balances, perhaps an independent Superintendent provided balance in
the sense that he had a point of view. He
said the Board had a point of view, and the dynamic tension between it and the
Superintendent often resulted in creative ideas.
He thought the
pros far out weighed the cons based upon his experience and his particular
philosophical point of view.
He said when he
was searching for someone for a position in his company he looked for the best
person for the position, and if he could promote locally or from within that was
great, but he would search for the best-qualified person.
In his opinion, that was the overriding reason to support the appointed
versus an elected Superintendent.
He said he
thought the Board for the most part was in favor of an appointed Superintendent,
and they received correspondence from the Charter Review Commission stating they
would be interested in looking further into that issue only if there was a
resolution from the School Board. He
said their legal counsel was looking into the actual protocol and placing that
referendum on the ballot, and whether or not the School Board could do that
independently, and if that were the case, then it would not make a lot of sense
for him personally speaking to go through the Charter Review Commission. He said
there might be good and necessary reasons to try to place the referendum on the
ballot through the Charter Commission, but he was not sure and did not know all
of the legal ramifications, and that was being determined.
He asked if the
Commission had questions?
Chairman
Costello said regarding the study that was being undertaken by a private group
of the school system, and he understood that they had picked eight, nine, or ten
school districts that were comparable by many different measures with Polk
County, did he know whether or not those districts had appointed or elected
Superintendents?
Mr. Macey said
he thought without exception they had appointed.
He said there might be an exception somewhere, but he was yet to find it.
He said when one considered their geography, size, and their student
population of over 80,000 it was appointed.
He said that did
not mean it was necessarily good. He
said he thought it was and the pluses far out weighed the minuses, but that
alone was not a reason to support an appointed Superintendent.
Commissioner
Lindsey said when Mr. Thornhill was there two weeks earlier, two of the four
points, which he made were that the pay would be higher than current statutes
provided, and the typical tenure of an appointed Superintendent was only for
three years, and he asked if he would agree with those observations or if he had
any comment?
Mr. Macey said
the first thing he wanted to say was that the Board got along great with the
current Superintendent, and he thought very highly of him. He thought if they looked at the eight districts that were
being polled, he would suspect that on average they probably paid higher.
Mr. Macey asked
what was the other point that he made?
Commissioner
Lindsey said an average term of three years for an appointed Superintendent.
Mr. Macey said
he didn’t know if that was three years across the board, or in larger
districts, and he didn’t have anything to put it within its context, but that
was three years versus four years, and he didn’t feel that was a big
difference.
Commissioner
Lindsey asked if they could make an effective change in an administrator in only
three years?
Mr. Macey said
if the person was not effective than obviously one would want to replace them,
and they would not be locked into that situation, and that argument could be
used both ways.
Commissioner
Lindsey said Mr. Thornhill’s point was they would end up paying two
Superintendents. One would be fired
and severance would have to be paid for an extended period, and then another one
would need to be hired.
Mr. Macey said
that was assuming he was not fired for cause, and that was very speculative.
The argument could also be made that if one brought in an elected
Superintendent he would be in four years, and if one didn’t like what he was
doing and he was not qualified, he could not be terminated.
Commissioner
Lindsey asked when he expected the Board to make a definitive decision as to
proceeding with a ballot initiative on its own, or considering requesting that
body to do it?
Mr. Macey said
as soon as they received word from their counsel, which would probably be within
the next thirty days, they would have a good sense of that. He said they were wrestling with cataclysmic budget
issues then, and whereas that issue might have been a front burner topic a
couple of months ago, it was on the back burner then.
He said at that point, they were just trying to survive and he didn’t
think that was a secret, and it was a major point of discussion in their work
session, and in their board meeting.
Commissioner
Price said her question was somewhat different from what he had presented, and
that was the issue of the seven board members, which the School Board had
recently gone to, and she asked him to give her the pros and cons of that, and
she asked what his opinion was of the issue that had been proposed to the
Charter Review Commission to move to seven members?
Mr. Macey asked
that they keep in mind that he was not there prior to a five-member board, and
he thought overall when there was seven members extremes were diluted.
He said that was not always the case, but for instance when there were
two people that were adamantly opposed to something every time, and if they were
referring to a five person board, a 3-2 vote would not give one a lot of
confidence in terms of direction, but if it were a 5-2 vote then business would
continue. He said he liked people
to feel passionately about issues, but he felt the seven members tended to
dilute extremes and tough issues, and would allow business to proceed that
perhaps should not.
Commissioner
Price asked if there had been many 4-3 votes?
Mr. Macey said
they had some tough 4-3 votes, and the reason he felt so good about his board
was that they had different alignments on every issue.
He said in using the issue of the uniform vote he was one of the members
that voted against the uniform for a variety of reasons, none of which were
picked up by the people who were opposed to it, but from a statistical point he
thought the data did not support the contentions of those who were pro uniform,
but nonetheless, as soon as the vote took place they all pulled together because
that was the will of the board, and that was the way democracy worked.
Issues were debated, fought over, voted on, and then one moved on.
He said most of
their votes were not 4-3. He said
they were mainly 6-1, or 5-2.
Chairman
Costello said that was a good question, and he wanted to ask a related question.
He asked if he was correct in assuming they had to reside in districts,
and everyone was able to vote for all of the seven members, and one of the
issues that had come before the Commission was the issue of singe-member
districts, at large plus single-member or all as they had it, and as the county
commissioners were presently structured, and did he have any personal opinion on
that?
Mr. Macey said
yes. He felt the current set-up
within the School Board and the County Commission was probably by far preferred,
and the reason he said that was that they run from a district, but they run
countywide, and he felt what they tended to do was force one to look at the big
picture, which he was not sure that the other would, and he thought that he
might feel beholden only to his particular geographical area, whereas he now
tended to look at the bigger picture, and he felt that was a major advantage.
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said regarding his statement she did not hear an explanation
earlier on, but she said she did hear the Superintendent, and she knew he was
opposed to an appointed Superintendent. She
said she had two questions for him with the first being did he trust the people,
and the second question being had there ever in his lifetime in Polk County been
a Superintendent elected by the people who was not effective?
Mr. Macey said
he would do his best to address both of those questions, and he would like to
address the second question first. He
said he thought that Polk County had been very fortunate, and he felt Polk
County had good Superintendents, but he thought they could have gotten great
Superintendents. He said he had
personally known three of the Superintendents over the last ten years.
He said they were good men who had done a good job, but he felt that they
could have gotten better, and they could have gone from good to great.
He said he thought that the odds were better if one was searching for
qualified folks nationwide.
Mr. Macey asked
what the first part of the question was?
Commissioner
Moore Bailey asked if he trusted the people?
Mr. Macey said
yes. He said he honestly understood
the argument and had good friends throughout Polk County who said they saw that
as a right that was being taken away, and he was empathic with that, but he felt
the pluses of the appointed out weighed the negatives, and the peoples’ will
was not forwarded ultimately, and if they were unhappy with the Superintendent
they could convey that concern to the School Board, and the board members would
earnestly try to correct that problem or would run the risk of being voted out
of office.
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said as a follow-up to his last comment, often times when there was
someone in office they became so powerful that they could not be removed from
that office, and she felt that was a reality for many places. She asked in terms of an elected versus an appointed
Superintendent did he feel that having an appointed Superintendent would remove
the politics, and if he previously addressed that question before she arrived
she apologized?
Mr. Macey said
he thought they would be lessened, but they were never removed. He said he felt to a large extent it was a political office.
Chairman
Costello asked if the Commission had further questions?
There were no further questions.
Chairman
Costello thanked Mr. Macey for his presentation.
Chairman
Costello said that completed the Commission’s presentations that evening, and
they were down to Reports.
He said he would
like to give them a brief overview of what was going to happen that evening.
He said there was a handout before them that Kurt Spitzer would be
briefing them on, and that contained the results of the e-mail survey that was
done on their issue preferences. He
said that survey needed to be validated by a formal vote, and that would be
under Agenda Item VII A. He said
that the validation process and the vote process was for the purpose of
developing an “Initial” Discussion Agenda.
It did not mean that they were forever locked out of considering one of
those issues that did not make it to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda,
because the Commission’s rules said that a majority, could get an issue on the
Discussion Agenda again.
He said the
purpose of the Initial Discussion Agenda was so the consultants would know
specifically what the priorities were in terms of preparing briefings.
He said they guessed one of the priorities, and that was on the number of
commission districts and districting methods, and that was the direction that
they were headed towards that evening.
Chairman
Costello asked Kurt Spitzer to brief them on the results of the survey.
Mr. Spitzer said
the Commission had the tabulation of the results that they received in his
office in Tallahassee, and it was patterned on the matrix that was distributed
to them at their last meeting, and the issue number and the short title of the
issue was identified in the first two columns, and then there were four columns
after the subject.
He said column
number one indicated that their preference was to see that issue be further
discussed as a possible amendment to the charter at some point in time, only for
discussion purposes, but that they felt that it was worth discussing and
possibly considering it as a charter amendment; column number two indicated
their responses where they felt the issue was not appropriate for a charter
amendment, but that it was worthwhile for discussion in terms of a possible
recommendation to the County Commission or some other body for a change in
practice, but it wasn’t something that they felt as though it needed to be
considered as a potential charter amendment; the third column contained the
responses where they felt the issue simply did not deserve to be discussed for
whatever reason, either as a charter amendment or as a recommendation in terms
of practice or perhaps they felt it was not within the purview of a charter or a
Charter Review Commission to consider and recommend.
He said, the final column, which was the zero column, was where people in
some cases did not indicate their vote, and where there was no response they
added it to the fourth and final column.
He said those
were their responses and they could look down the list and based upon the total
membership of the Review Commission, there were depending on how they grouped
issues together in broad and general categories between four and six general
groupings of subject matter where the majority of those who responded to that
survey indicated they would like to discuss that issue further.
He said in his
groupings he had listed the County Commission, which included the districting
scheme, the numbers of county commissioners, single-member, at large, some mixed
system, five or seven, and some other number of county commissioners.
He said the question as to whether or not the County Commission was
elected on a partisan or a non-partisan basis, the question of term limits for
county commissioners, and obviously the electorate in Polk County had recently
adopted an amendment to the Charter imposing the term limits, and that did not
necessarily mean that they were interested in changing that, but rather that
they would like to discuss it. He
said the question of salaries and whether or not the County Commissioners were
considered to be full-time or part-time in their jobs, which he viewed as being
interrelated with one another. He
said with the question of salaries they were reduced recently by a charter
amendment, and the question was whether they wanted to discuss that further and
possibly consider some change there.
He said moving
on down the list to the Constitutional Officers, Item 25, was a very broad issue
in his mind, and in the previous memos that he had provided them with there was
a whole range of options that were available to the electorate in terms of
approving changes as related to the Constitutional Officers, so from that
response he could not determine exactly what people were interested in, other
than they were interested in discussing it further, but it could leave the
Constitutional Officers untouched as they were in the Charter ranging down to
the Dade County system where they were all appointed charter officers or
numerous permutations in between. He said, additionally, under Article 5 of the
Charter the Constitutional Officers’ section of the Charter the question of a
nonpartisan election for the Constitutional Officers seemed to get strong
interest from them. He said the
Supervisor of Elections was currently elected on a nonpartisan basis, and the
ballots of the Constitutional Officers were elected on a partisan basis.
Moving further
down the list, the Charter Amendment by Petition received seven votes, and
currently the policy in the Charter was that it required signatures equal to
seven percent of the electors, whom he believed voted in the last general
election. He said it was slightly
more astringent than the requirement to place ordinances by petition on the
ballot, and that seven percent must be received in each of the five commission
residence areas, so it needed to be equally distributed throughout the county,
and finally the question of the appointed Superintendent, which they just
discussed, number thirty-eight, the School Board question received ten votes to
further discuss. He said there were
many other issues and that was just based upon them receiving seven votes, and
he said he thought the Chairman would want to go through the entire list later
on that evening, and if the commissioners wanted to make a motion to include a
particular issue then it would be appropriate to do so.
He said there
were some issues that had been discussed during the course of their many
meetings taking testimonies that were not on that list.
He said Mr. Tedder suggested three or four particular issues, but those
clearly were matters that were not potential charter amendments, and all of
those issues that received majority interest that were not potential charter
amendments should be discussed at some point in time, and to take a vote on
them, and determine if they wanted to make a recommendation to the County
Commission or the Constitutional Officers as the case might be.
He said, additionally, there was one other issue that was not on the
list, and that was that of a Governmental Efficiency Study Commission.
He said Broward County had such a body that was a creature of their
charter. It became effective in
1998, and it was a fifteen-member citizens committee that made recommendations
to the county, constitutional officers, and to the Charter Review Commission
when it met in Broward County. He
said, there were eight persons appointed by the County Commission, with seven
being appointed by various other representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, the
League of Cities, and the Legislative Delegation and that sort of thing.
He said to his knowledge that was the only such Efficiency Commission in
any of the other sixteen charters.
The Chairman
said he understood there was one vote that stated they were willing to discuss
any issue as long as it was on its face legal, and he asked if that was correct?
Mr. Spitzer said
embedded in most of the responses in column one was a recommendation from one of
the members who said they supported consideration of any potential amendment to
the charter that was legally permissible.
The Chairman
said that Mr. Watts’ report was next, and he thought he might want to include
in his report the legal briefing on issues in conflict with
general/constitutional law before they began the validation voting.
Mr. Watts said
he wanted to offer some general comments. He
said there were probably three categories of issues that they could take up, and
one of them dealt with the structure of the offices of the county under the
charter, and in that respect it was his view that it was supported by the
decision of the courts that the Constitution invites local communities to
tailor-make the structure of their local government, however they saw fit.
He said there were two respects, and one was the Constitution provided
that in every county there shall be a Board of County Commissioners unless
otherwise provided by charter, and he said that was an invitation then to
provide otherwise by their charter, and if they did the only requirement they
would have would be that all of the duties that might otherwise fall on the
Board of County Commissioners in a general statute must be placed somewhere with
some office under their charter. Once
the government was structured the way they wanted it then the question was what
powers should it have, and there were a couple of provisions in the
Constitution, and one was that in a chartered county the question of whether
city ordinances prevail over county ordinances, or county ordinances prevail
shall be as determined by the Charter, and they did have the authority to say
that as to certain subjects the charter gives preeminence to the county
government or preeminence to the city governments; The Third issue was where two
different governments were trying to exercise the same power or duty, and they
have that apparent power or duty, and they want under the Charter to be the tie
breaker, and they want to take for example, fire services, and they want to
transfer all fire services to the county, or they want to require the county to
contract all of its power services to the cities.
He said in that type of situation, where each of those governments
already had the power to carry out fire services, the transfer of that power
with equipment and resources and so forth required not just a charter amendment,
but the approval of the voters of both bodies.
Chairman
Costello said based upon the survey there appeared to be approximately nine
preeminent items, and he asked him to go ahead and brief them on those.
Mr. Watts said
he was asked specifically, and wanted to reference that although it didn’t
seem to acquire a lot of votes, he was asked to research the question on how far
the Charter could go with respect to community development agencies. The issue
there was, if one got inside of that issue and listened to city folks, they were
saying they wanted to go ahead, and do CRAs as they saw fit to restore their
blighted areas as by State stature, but the problem was that the State statute
said that in chartered counties that was subject to the approval of the
governing board of the county, and when one got inside the policy, reasons for
that statute seemed to relate to the fact that they didn’t want to deprive the
county of revenue that it might otherwise have to carry out county purposes by
taking a lot of properties within the cities off the county’s tax roll, but
without the county’s consent, and the effect of that if abused would be
essentially to make the other taxpayers of the county subsidizers of those
cities, which might be said to have abused their power to create CRAs, and to
take property off of the general tax roll.
He said that was really what was inside that issue, and he thought that
was governed by general statutes, and they could not go very far into changing
what the Legislature had said about chartered counties, because they were the
final arbiters. He said it might be
possible to come back and say, alright as to the city’s general fund, we will
allow the city to waive its taxes, and put them into the special redevelopment
district, but that could not be done with county taxes, just as it could not be
done with School Board taxes, and in that respect, it would be similar to the
tax holiday that any unit of local government was allowed to do for economic
development purposes. He said that
would be somewhat experimental, but that was as far as they could go.
He said he reported on that issue not because it gained a lot of votes on
the matrix, but only because he was asked to report on that, and he wanted to
give them some insight into the legal aspect of that issue.
He said with
specific respect to those issues that seemed to have widespread authority, as to
the composition of the Board of County Commissioners under Section 2.1 of the
existing Charter, that was a subject which was Constitutionally authorized, and
they may deal with it without any conflict with general law so long as they
provided at the end of the day some office that exercised every duty that was
now prescribed for the Board of County Commissioners.
He said with
respect to qualifications and partisan or nonpartisan elections that was again a
subject which they addressed in the Charter, and it was specifically invited
under Article 8 Section 1D and 1E of the Constitution.
He said with
respect to term-limits that was a subject they could specifically address under
the Charter. He said the Supreme
Court recently ratified that in a case out of Pinellas County called “Eight is
Enough”, which dealt with the Constitutional Officers and term-limits,
although there were some peculiar wrinkles in the Pinellas Charter.
He said they
could deal with the issue of salary and the part-time issue. He said different charters around the state had dealt with
that in different ways, and some had said the salary would be nominal, and they
wanted those people to be part-time, and some had tied it to some other index
such as School Board salaries, and some had said they were going to tie it to
the statutory formula and require an ordinance in the passage of the next
election before any raises could take effect, so that essentially gave the
voters veto power over those who had voted for a salary increase, and that was
another way of doing it. He said
many charters had addressed the subject of salary of County Commissioners.
He said with
respect to the County Constitutional Officers there was a body of duties that
fell on the county constitutional officers, not by the Constitution, but by
virtue of general law. Case law
says that they may tinker with those duties and transfer them elsewhere only if
they abolish that office and recast it as a charter office.
He said that situation came up in Dade County. They had a Sheriff under the Charter. He was a constitutional sheriff, and they began to take away
this and that power and another power, and they created a parallel department of
law enforcement, so that at the end of that experiment about the only thing the
sheriff was left with doing was serving summons and subpoenas and that sort of
thing. He said the court says that
can’t be done. You can abolish a
constitutional office only when all of the duties of that office have been
transferred to another office. He
said they could not simply take away part of the duties of a constitutional
office by charter amendment, and still have a constitutional officer.
They would have to face up to it and make that a charter office and then
they could split the powers among any or all of the officers under the charter,
however they saw fit, and there was one exception to that. He said the
Constitution said that the judicial powers of the Clerk could be separated from
the financial powers of the Clerk, and two separate offices can be created, even
in a non-charter county, so he had no doubt that could be done in a charter
county, should they be interested.
He said those
were the rules for dealing with the County Constitutional Officers, and could
they make them non-partisan? Yes,
because the Constitution did authorize them to choose an officer in another
manner than was prescribed by general law, and that manner could be appointive,
it could be non-partisan elective or whatever.
Charter
Amendments by Petition: There were two aspects to that issue, with the first
being change the percentage, and he thought that had been seen in the matrix.
and there was some sentiment for looking at that, and that power was one that
was exclusively created by the Charter, and it could be changed by an amendment
of the Charter. He said the pros
and the cons would come up in the due course of their debates, and any briefings
that the counsel might give them on that.
He said the
other aspect dealt with the single subject requirement, and it was related to
the subject as to whether they should as a body put on the ballot any matter
proposed by any citizen which was not facially unconstitutional.
He said the
Charter currently provided a single subject limitation on those amendments that
were proposed by citizens by petition or through that body, and the reason for
that was expressed in a decision in an Orange County Charter Review case where
they were dealing with the whole single subject limitation.
He said the court said the reason that they allow charter commissions and
constitutional revision commissions broader power to propose amendments than
they do citizens by the petition method is that they were deliberative bodies,
and had the time for long reflection, consideration of the pros, and the cons.
When citizens propose an amendment by the petition method it was all or nothing.
They vote it up or down among the electors.
He said there may be those who hold their nose and vote for it because it
has something in it that they like even though that it may have things in it
that they don’t like, and that was why the single subject limitation, so that
voters were not put in that position of having to take the good with the bad,
with different subjects packaged together.
He said if that body were to take amendments that were proposed by
citizens and simply pass them through to the ballot, they would run the risk of
doing the thing which the court said was not supposed to happen with citizen
sponsored amendments. They would
have amendments that had not been balanced, compromised, and packaged in a
carefully thought out structure. They
could have the citizens propose an amendment that addresses two different
subjects creating the kind of log rolling effect that the court said they should
not do in the case of citizen sponsored amendments.
He said they on the other hand had that power, but it was intended as he
read the cases that they exercise it with some thought, and not simply put their
stamp of approval on anything that a citizen proposes, and that was the opinion
they asked for on screening.
He said the last
subject was education in the School Board, which referred to the Superintendent,
and he had already addressed that issue with a memorandum, and he didn’t feel
the need to elaborate on it.
The Chairman
asked the commissioners if they had questions for Mr. Watts or Mr. Spitzer
before they began validating that survey by voting?
Mr. Spitzer said
that the question of the automatic placement of issues on the ballot by a
Charter Review Commission was number thirty-seven, which did not receive
significant support.
Commissioner
Moore Bailey asked under item number thirty-nine and forty what did
“election” refer to?
Mr. Spitzer said
that again was detailed in the larger matrix from their last meeting.
He said thirty-nine was “none of the above” ballot question, and he
thought under that situation they would have the typical ballot with various
candidates for office on it, but the electors would have an option of voting for
“none of the above”.
Mr. Spitzer said
number forty was the suggestion to pattern language in the county charter after
State policy concerning unethical acts during elections.
Chairman
Costello asked if there were further questions?
Commissioner
Price said that earlier Mr. Watts mentioned the grouping or lumping together of
several issues, and she asked if that was just for discussion purposes because
each of those were individual issues and would be placed individually?
Mr. Watts said
that was correct. He said the
logrolling example was dealing with the one subject requirement that they had
for citizen proposed amendments. He
said he was trying to draw the distinction between the type of amendments that
they were authorized to propose.
The Chairman
said without objection, what he would like to do was to go through those nine
issues. He said Ms. Swearengin had
a tally sheet, and those votes would need to be recorded in case there was any
question about the vote. He said
what they said on the survey was not controlling.
He said they were validating their vote, but they could change their mind
from what was on the survey. He
asked that they keep in mind that what they were voting for was the issues that
were described on the matrix. He
asked that they keep in mind that composition of the BoCC, for example, had many
combinations, i.e. seven at large, seven single-member, five single-member plus
two at large, and to keep it as it was. He
said they were not selecting within that group; they were only selecting that
group for initial discussion purposes.
He said that he
would like to begin with Issue number three, Composition. The tally on the
e-mail was eleven 1’s and one 2, and one 3.
He asked if there was a motion to move that item to the “Initial”
Discussion Agenda?
Commissioner
Masters asked if the motion that was being considered then was going to be
placed on the Discussion Agenda?
Chairman
Costello said “Initial” Discussion Agenda.
Commissioner
Masters asked how many votes from the Commission would it take for it to make
that agenda?
Chairman
Costello said it would take a majority vote and that would be seven votes,
because there were twelve members present.
Commissioner
Gernert moved for inclusion of Issue
#3 on the “Initial” Discussion Agenda, and Commissioner Price seconded the
motion.
The Chairman
asked if there was discussion on the motion?
There was no discussion. The
Chairman asked Ms. Swearengin to call the roll for a vote.
The results were 12/0 with the ayes having the vote.
The motion carried.
The Chairman
said the next item for consideration was Issue #6 Qualifications/Non-partisan
Election, and if there was a motion to move that item to the “Initial”
Discussion Agenda?
Commissioner
Lindsey made a motion for the inclusion of Issue #6 on the “Initial”
Discussion Agenda, and Commissioner Nunnallee seconded the motion.
The Chairman
asked if there was further discussion? There
was no discussion. The
Chairman asked Ms. Swearengin to call the roll for a vote.
The results were 12/0 with the ayes having the vote.
The motion carried.
The Chairman
said the next item for consideration would Item #8, which was Term Limits, which
applied to the Board of County Commissioners.
Commissioner
Lindsey asked if Item #8 referred to the Board of County Commissioners and Term
Limits on Item #29 was for the constitutionals?
The Chairman
said that was correct. The
“Initial” #8, #11, and #12 referred to the Board of County Commissioners.
The Chairman
asked if there was a motion to move Issue #8, Term Limits to the “Initial”
Discussion Agenda?
Commissioner
Masters moved that Issue #8 be moved to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda, and
Commissioner Nunnallee seconded the motion.
The Chairman
asked if there was further discussion? There
was no discussion. The Chairman
said the motion aye would be the indication that they wished to move Issue #8,
Term Limits to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda, and he asked Ms. Swearengin
to call the roll for a vote. The
results were 12/0 with the ayes having the vote.
The motion carried.
The Chairman
asked if there was a motion to move Item #11, Salary as applied to the Board of
County Commissioners to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda?
Commissioner
Masters made the motion to move Item #11, Salary to the “Initial” Discussion
Agenda, and Commissioner Dukes seconded the motion.
The Chairman asked if there was discussion on that motion?
There was no discussion. The
Chairman asked Ms. Swearengin to call the roll for a vote.
The results were 12/0 with the ayes having the vote.
The motion carried.
The Chairman
said the next item for consideration would Item #12 Board of County
Commissioners Full-Time/Part-Time, and he asked if there was a motion to move
that item to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda?
Commissioner
Nunnallee made the motion to move Item #12 to the “Initial” Discussion
Agenda, and Commissioner Masters seconded the motion.
The Chairman asked if there was further discussion on that motion?
There was none. The Chairman asked Ms. Swearengin to call the roll for a
vote. The results were 12/0 with
the ayes having the vote. The
motion carried.
The Chairman
said the next item for consideration applied to the constitutional officers,
which was Item #25. He read the
information that was contained in the Citizen Suggestions on Item #25. The Chairman said on those several combinations if a majority
voted aye that would move that item to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda, and
it didn’t say anything specifically with regard to preserving or changing the
status, but simply that they wished to move it to the “Initial” Discussion
Agenda.
Commissioner
Gernert moved that Item #25, which applied to the Constitutional Officers, be
moved to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda, and Commissioner Lindsey seconded
the motion. The Chairman asked if
there was further discussion? There
was no further discussion. The
Chairman asked Ms. Swearengin to call the roll for a vote.
The results were 12/0 with the ayes having the vote.
The motion carried.
The Chairman
said the next item also applied to the Constitutional Officers and it was
Non-partisan Elections, Item #30,and he asked if there was a motion to move that
item to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda?
Commissioner
Price made the motion to move Item #30 to the “initial” Discussion Agenda,
and Commissioner Nunnallee seconded the motion.
The Chairman asked Ms. Swearengin to call the roll for a vote.
The results were 12/0 with the ayes having the vote.
The motion carried.
The Chairman
said the next item was Item #34, Charter Amendment by Petition, and he read the
description of that item from the Discussion Matrix. The Chairman asked if there was a motion to move Issue #34 to
the “Initial” Discussion Agenda?
Commissioner
Lindsey made the motion to move Item #34 to the “initial” Discussion Agenda,
and Commissioner Moore Bailey seconded the motion.
The Chairman asked if there was further discussion?
There was no further discussion. The
Chairman asked Ms. Swearengin to call the roll for a vote.
The results were 12/0 with the ayes having the vote.
The motion carried.
The Chairman
said the next item was Item #38, Education/School Board Superintendent of
schools appointment thereof. He
said in the discussion that was had at an earlier meeting some of the Commission
members conditioned their willingness to go along with that issue based upon an
action by the School Board, and he felt that item needed to be discussed and
resolved because that particular vote of 10 in favor of moving it to the
“Initial” Discussion Agenda wasn’t clear in terms of whether they wanted
to do that independent of the School Board’s request or dependent on the
School Board’s request. He said
that perhaps the motion that they made could state that one way or the other and
then they could vote on it.
Commissioner
Lindsey made a motion that Item #38 be placed on the ballot for discussion
provided the majority of the School Board requested that they do so.
The Chairman
clarified that the motion was to move Item #38, the appointment of a
Superintendent of Schools, to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda provided a
majority of the School Board makes a request for the Commission to do so, and
the motion was seconded by Commissioner Gernert.
The Chairman asked if there was further discussion?
There was no further discussion. The Chairman asked Ms. Swearengin to
call the roll for a vote. The
results were 9/2 with one abstention.
The Chairman
said he would like to get a judgment from the Commission’s counsel regarding
abstentions, because in past offices he understood abstentions could only be
made under certain conditions.
Mr. Watts said
the general statutes regarding local government parties required members to vote
unless there was a voting conflict of interest that would inure to the
particular benefit or disadvantage of the member, in which case they would need
to file a statement of that voting conflict of interest with the Clerk of the
body within 15 days of the meeting.
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said she would change her vote to nay.
The Chairman
asked Ms. Swearengin to re-tally the vote with Commissioner Moore Bailey’s
abstention being moved to a nay. The
result of the vote was 9/3, and the motion carried, and Item #38 appointed
Superintendent conditioned as the motion indicated on a request from the School
Board would be moved to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda.
The Chairman
said there were other items on the list that commissioners may want to make
motions to move to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda.
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said that she would like to move that Item #4, Countywide Chair or
Mayor be placed on the “Initial” Discussion Agenda.
The Chairman
said that Commissioner Moore Bailey moved that Item #4 Countywide Chair or Mayor
be moved to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda, and he asked if there was a
second to the motion? Commissioner
McLaughlin seconded the motion. The
Chairman asked if there was further discussion on the motion?
Commissioner
Masters asked if the Chairman would read the Citizens Suggestion summary to
everyone?
The Chairman
said he would. The Chairman read
the Citizens Suggestion and Comment summaries on Item #4.
The Chairman asked if there was further discussion?
Commissioner
McLaughlin said if one added the five and three together in column #1 and #2,
there was a total of eight, and the people who voted for column #2 might still
want to discuss that issue, and they may want only to issue a recommendation to
the County Commission, and he felt that was important to keep in mind.
The Chairman
said he thought that the vote would indicate whether or not Commissioner
McLaughlin’s theory was correct or not. The
Chairman asked if there was further discussion? There was no further discussion.
The Chairman reminded the Commission that an aye vote would move Item #4,
Countywide Chair or Mayor to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda, and if the
majority was nay than that item would not be moved to the “Initial”
Discussion Agenda.
The Chairman
reminded the Commission that was only the “Initial” Discussion Agenda, and
didn’t mean that issue would be forever closed if it did not make it to the
agenda, or if it did there was a possibility that it might not go beyond the
“Initial” Discussion Agenda, and with that understanding he said the motion
was to move Item #4 Countywide Chair or Mayor to the “Initial” Discussion
Agenda. The Chairman asked Ms.
Swearengin to call the roll for a vote. The
results were 6/6 constituting a tie vote. The
motion lost.
The Chairman
asked if there were additional items that the commissioners would like to move
to have placed on the “Initial” Discussion Agenda?
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said she would like to make a motion to move Issue #31, Initiative,
to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda, and Commissioner Lindsey seconded the
motion. The Chairman asked if there
was further discussion on the motion? There
was no further discussion. The
Chairman asked Ms. Swearengin to call the roll for a vote.
The results were 11/1 with the ayes in the majority.
The motion carried.
The Chairman
asked if there were additional items that the commissioners wished to move to
have placed on the “Initial” Discussion Agenda?
Commissioner
Lindsey said he would like to express his desire to discuss Item #35, Charter
Review Commission, to talk about moving the review period to coincide with the
census, which was every ten years and the current Charter provided for every
eight years.
The Chairman
said the motion was by Commissioner Lindsey to move Item #35, Charter Review
Commission to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda.
The consultant’s comment was that not every charter mandated a regular
review process, and of those that do only Sarasota had an elected Charter Review
Commission, and there was an effort to replace it with an appointed body.
Charter Review Commissions should always meet in a cycle that allows
proposed amendments to be located on existing ballots.
A five year cycle would not allow for such, and if eight years was not
the right amount of time, to consider six or ten years.
The Chairman
asked if there was a second to Commissioner Lindsey’s motion?
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said yes, she seconded the motion.
The Chairman
asked if there was discussion on Commissioner Lindsey’s motion?
There was no further discussion. The
Chairman said that a vote of aye would move that motion to the “Initial”
Discussion Agenda. The Chairman asked Ms. Swearengin to call the roll for a
vote. The results were 10/2 with
the ayes in the majority. The
motion carried.
The Chairman
asked if there any additional items that the commissioners would like to see
added to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda?
Commissioner
Lindsey said he would like to move that Item #18, Sunset Ordinances be moved to
the “Initial” Discussion Agenda.
Chairman
Costello read from Item #18 of the Discussion Matrix, the Citizens Suggestions
and Comments from the consultant to the Commission.
The Chairman
asked if there was a second to that motion?
Commissioner Moore Bailey seconded the motion. The Chairman asked if there was further discussion regarding
that motion?
Commissioner
Masters asked if Mr. Spitzer would further clarify the Citizens Suggestions and
Comments to the Commission?
Mr. Spitzer said
the way he recalled that suggestion, it was patterned after the Legislative
Sunset of statutes, and he thought the Legislature was the Legislative body for
the State of Florida and the Executive Branch, the Governor of the state
agencies were those that implemented programs, and that distinction was not as
apparent in county government as it was in state government and he thought that
was one factor for them to consider. He
said he thought the other factor for them to consider was that the Legislature
met once a year for 60 days, for most years, and for a little longer in some
years. He said they were not there
on an almost continuous basis, whereas in county government, the county
commission meets almost year round, being twice a month.
He said with them being there they could review programs anytime they
met, and there was those sorts of considerations, which were debates, and they
would discuss the pros and cons during
their meetings.
Commissioner
Lindsey said that each ordinance of the County Commission would have an
expiration date, and if they choose to renew they would need to go through the
same review public hearing process to breath new life into it or to let it
expire, whether it be a zoning regulation or a dog leash law regulation or power
boats.
Mr. Spitzer said
he thought that it was also important to clarify that could not apply to the
programs that the county government was mandated to implement by general law of
the State Legislature or the Federal Government.
Mr. Watts said
there would be subjects that could be addressed by Sunset, and there would be
those that could not, for example, if there was an ordinance change in zoning in
ten years that would not automatically be repealed, but that would be brought
about with the way that the amendment was tailored if an amendment were posed.
The Chairman
said that the Commission did have a motion and second.
He asked if there was further discussion? There was no further discussion.
The Chairman
reminded the Commission that the motion was on moving Item #18 Sunset of
Ordinances to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda, and he asked Ms. Swearengin
to call the roll for a vote. The
results were 3/9 with the nays in the majority.
The motion lost.
The Chairman
asked if there were any additional items that the commissioners would like to
see added to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda?
Commissioner
Masters asked just for clarification if items didn’t make it to the
“Initial” Discussion Agenda if they could be brought back and added to the
Discussion Agenda through a vote?
Chairman
Costello answered yes, through a majority vote.
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said she would like to make a motion to move to add Item #15, Oath
of Affirmation, to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda.
The Chairman
asked if there was a second to that motion?
Commissioner
Lindsey seconded Commissioner Moore Bailey’s motion to move Item #15, Oath of
Affirmation to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda.
The Chairman
asked if there was further discussion concerning that motion? There was no further discussion. The Chairman asked Ms. Swearengin to call the roll for
a vote. The results were 2/10 with
the nays in the majority. The
motion lost.
Commissioner
McLaughlin asked if the documents that were sent to Mr. Spitzer were public
record, and if they were would he disclose on the question of County Manager and
Countywide Chair what Commissioner Strang voted for?
Mr. Spitzer said
he would be happy to provide Commissioner McLaughlin with that information,
however he did not have the record of the individual votes with him.
Chairman
Costello said if there were no more motions to add additional items to the
“Initial” Discussion Agenda, he would like to summarize the tally sheet for
the Commission. There were no
requests made for additional items to be added to the “Initial” Discussion
Agenda.
The Chairman
said, if there were no objections, he would like to take a ten-minute recess and
then he would like to discuss the summary of the tally sheet. There were no objections.
The Commission
recessed at 7:25 p.m.
The Commission
reconvened at 7:35 p.m.
The Chairman
said he would like to give the Commission a summary of the issues that were
moved to the “Initial” Discussion Agenda, and he would do that by issue
number: 3,6,8,11,12, 25, 30, 34,
38, 31, and 35.
The Chairman
asked if anyone disagreed with that summary of issues?
There were no objections to the summary of issues.
The Chairman
said he would like then to ask Mr. Spitzer for his briefing on issues relating
to the number of commission districts and the districting methods.
Mr. Spitzer said
he hoped that most if not all of them received the memorandum that he sent on
the previous Friday in the mail on that day, and if they didn’t he passed a
copy of that memo out at their desk before the meeting began.
He said in
anticipation of the likelihood that issue would be added to the Discussion
Agenda he prepared that memorandum on the districting schemes for the county
commission. He said as Mr. Watts
had mentioned earlier, there was great latitude afforded to the Charter and the
electorate of Polk County in terms of how many commissioners they would prefer
to have, and how they were elected in Polk County, and there were a number of
different options. He said Polk
County currently used the default methodology for selecting county
commissioners, which was what most counties still retained, and what most
counties had until the mid 1980’s, which was five commissioners elected on a
at large basis, but reside in different residence areas within the county.
He said there were a number of alternatives that they could consider to
that system, and they could increase the number to seven, nine, or some other
number of county commissioners still elected on an at large basis where they
were required to live in various residence areas of the county, but elected by
all of the electorate on a countywide basis, or they could consider changing the
scheme to one where the commissioners were elected from single member districts
and that could occur with the existing number of five commissioners elected in
single member districts or some other number, seven or nine.
He said there were numerous policy arguments for and against making
changes to the system and generally speaking it was that persons favored a
single member district system because they believe that persons elected from
single member districts were much more responsive to the people who elected
them, as opposed to those who were elected on an at large basis.
He said in a similar vein to that, there was in most counties a greater
likelihood of being able to craft a district with a single-member districting
scheme where they were more likely to create either a majority minority district
or a minority influence district with single member districts.
He said single-member districts were sometimes considered because it was
believed that it was less expensive to campaign for office, or to run for office
from a smaller geographic area than the whole county on an at large basis.
He said those preferences were counter balanced by a belief that county
government provides those services on a countywide basis, and it was important
that persons elected to serve on the county commission reflect a countywide
view, and persons who polled that opinion believed that persons selected from
single member districts often have a more narrow perspective and could lead to
the so called Ward Politics. He
said the budget process could sometimes reflect the more narrow interests that
people had reflecting just the area that they were elected from within the
county.
He said there
were a few counties that had mixed districting schemes, both charter and
non-charter alike, and Hillsborough and Pinellas had adopted systems where there
were three commissioners elected on at large basis and four from single-member
districts. He said in Pinellas
County the three and four system had permitted the county to draw one minority
influence district in the St. Petersburg area, and had resulted in an African
American gentleman being elected to the county commission.
He said the three and four system still permitted each elector from
within the county to vote for a majority of the county commission.
They vote for three commissioners who were elected on an at large basis,
and they vote for their commissioner who represents the particular area that
they live in their single-member district.
Beyond that, there were many other alternatives that they could consider
with many different other combinations of commissioners elected either from
single-member or on an at large basis. He
said two of those combinations were Miami, Dade County, and Jacksonville, Duvall
had a very high number of county commissioners.
He said Miami, Dade had thirteen, and Jacksonville, Duvall had nineteen,
resulting in relatively small single-member districts, although Jacksonville did
have a few at large districts. However,
those systems were counter balanced by an elected Mayor, and in those situations
the Mayor was a true elected executive form of government, and the Mayor was
both the ceremonial and managerial head of the government that hires and fires
staff, and acts in a similar fashion as did the Governor of the State of
Florida.
He said one
system that was perhaps a middle ground between the current county commission
form of government, and county manager form of government and the elected
executive form was that which was used in Orange County where the county
electorate directly elects a Chairman on a countywide basis, and then there were
six single-member districts for the balance of the county commission.
He said the Chairman in that case sat with the county commission and
chairs the meetings of the county commission, but the Chairman also had the
power to hire and fire the County Administrator.
The Charter still provided for the County Administrator’s position, but
that person reported directly to the County Chairman, nonetheless, there was an
ongoing frequent linkage between the County Chairman and the rest of the county
commission in that system as opposed to in the elected executive form, the
elected mayor does not attend meetings of the City Council or the County
Council.
He said there
were a variety of options that they could consider, and most of the larger
counties had adopted systems that had more than five county commissioners,
typically seven or so. He said it
was a matter of policy. When he
served with the Charter Commission in 1998 they did a quick review of voting
precincts in Polk County, and with seven single member districts they could
create at least one minority influence district in Polk County.
He said obviously as they went higher in terms of the number of
commissioners they could create a district with a higher percentage of African
American population. He said
he would be happy to answer any questions that they might have.
The Chairman
asked if the Commission had questions for Mr. Spitzer?
Commissioner
McLaughlin asked who would be responsible for actually drawing that map, i.e. it
might be the intention of that Commission to do so, and then turning it over to
someone else who might not draw the same way?
Mr. Spitzer said
he and Mr. Watts were involved in the redistricting of Brevard County then.
He said Brevard to his knowledge was the only charter county that had
adopted special language relating to the redistricting of the county commission
districts. He said by law redrawing district boundaries was a function
of the Legislative Branch whether it was the State Legislature or the County
Commission. He said the County
Commission was required to adopt new district boundaries every ten years after
the census; however, their were requirements in State Constitution and case law
that directs how they would go about redrawing those lines, but ultimately it
was the county commission that must approve them. He said however, in the Brevard Charter there was language
that did create a Citizens Advisory Committee that went about taking testimony
and drawing county commission lines every ten years, and it was directed to give
special consideration to not splitting municipalities and minority
neighborhoods, he believed was the term. He
said their recommendations went to the county commission because they were the
body that approved those new lines, and the county commission could either
accept or reject the recommendations of the committee.
They cannot modify the recommendations of the committee, so it balances
the requirements of law with the desire to try to get the politics out of the
redistricting process.
Mr. Spitzer said
the Charter could not draw the boundary.
Commissioner
Price asked in the counties that had gone to split districting with at large and
single-member districts, Hillsborough, Duvall, and Pinellas, was there a study
of changes or accomplishments from moving from a five to a seven member
district?
Mr. Sptizer said
he did not know of any empirical study. He
said obviously in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties there had been African
American commissioners elected to the county commission, and that was a clear
result, at least in part, of the districting scheme.
He said he would offer that observation since he grew up in Pinellas
County and had worked in Pinellas County on several different occasions.
He said his personal observation was that the commission was a little
more fragmented then than what it had been prior to the advent of the new
districting scheme. He said for the
first time that he could recall, Pinellas County adopted their budget on a 4/3
vote, and in the past it seemed like forever it had been 5/0, and that was a
particularly trying budget year, so part of that might have been the
circumstances that they were facing, but it was his observation that it seemed
to be a little more difficult to build consensus on the Commission.
Chairman
Costello said without objection, he wondered if Commissioner Masters would
assume temporarily the duties of Chair?
Commissioner
Masters said sure.
The Chairman
said he was the only one that offered an additional item, and for some reason it
was not transmitted to Mr. Spitzer. He
said Item 47 was on a governmental efficiency commission, and he thought it
related to their mission of trying to make county government more efficient and
more effective. He said he realized
that many people had an antipathy toward the creation of additional commissions
and committees and things of that nature, but he did ask the consultant, and he
found that Broward County had such a commission. He said the Efficiency Commission that met some years ago,
did do an analysis of county government and did make some positive suggestions,
and he thought some of those suggestions were adopted. He said his thought was if the Charter had in it as the
Broward County Charter, had in it, some sort of a governmental Efficiency
Commission it might become an opportunity for people to become more analytical
about the efficiency of government.
He said when he
was a commissioner it was always very frustrating for him to think that there
should be more consolidation, although he did understand that consolidation was
not always good, consolidation could be bad, and the Sheriff made some good
points with respect to that, but to at least do an analysis of where it might be
useful and where it might not be useful. One issue that came up constantly was
the issue of recreation in the county. The School Board has facilities, which
they pay a lot of money for and they mow grass and they build baseball diamonds
and the county has to build similar facilities. He said there was more discussion back and forth between the
School Board and the county now on joint use of facilities, but there needed to
be more of that, and even within city and county government there were matches
that possibly could be made.
He said they all
knew about fire departments and how the county contracted with some cities to
cover areas in cities, but maybe there could be more of that, and if there was
some sort of body that continuously met, which would consist of competent
individuals who were volunteers, then perhaps they could be appointed jointly by
the county commission, the School Board, or city governments.
He said he really didn’t know. He
hadn’t worked it out. He said
what he was offering was a possible item for initial discussion, and he would
leave the meeting not feeling good if didn’t bring that before them and ask
them to vote on it. He said he
wouldn’t feel bad if they rejected it. He
said it wasn’t that strong of a personal issue with him, but since his
experience in county government illustrated that although they had some good
people, there was still a lot more that could be done, particularly in terms of
working together within the county between cities and school boards and between
county government and between various components of the county government.
He said what he
was offering to them was a motion, and he could not do that as Chairman, and the
motion that he was offering was an item for the creation of a Governmental
Efficiency Commission and to embody that in the Charter, and if it got on the
“Initial” Discussion Agenda then they could get more information on how the
one in Broward County worked, and that was his motion.
Chairman Masters
asked if there was a second to Commissioner Costello’s motion?
Commissioner
Allen seconded Commissioner Costello’s motion.
Chairman Masters
asked if there was further discussion?
Commissioner
Moore Bailey asked Commissioner Costello how many people would serve on that
committee and for what period of time?
Commissioner
Costello said he thought the Broward Commission had fifteen members.
Commissioner
Costello asked if Mr. Spitzer would read the Broward Charter?
Mr. Spitzer said
sure, and he read the Broward Charter.
Chairman Masters
said he thought that basically his motion was to discuss any form of an
Efficiency Commission.
Commissioner
Costello said that one of the benefits if they had such a commission, would be
when the next Charter Review Commission meets that would be a body that had been
meeting and had been gathering data and could make some specific
recommendations, and he felt that the recommendations that Commission had been
receiving were difficult for them to act on simply because they did not have a
lot of independent knowledge or information.
Chairman Masters
asked if there was further discussion? There
was no further discussion. The
Chairman asked Ms. Swearengin to call the roll for a vote. The results of the vote were 12/0 with the ayes in the
majority and the motion carried.
Chairman
Costello said they were down to Unfinished Business, and asked if there was
Unfinished Business to come before the Commission?
Commissioner
Masters said in the original Charter Commission there was a lot discussion and
research on some of those topics, and he asked Mr. Spitzer if he could provide
that information to them?
Mr. Spitzer said
he could do that, and his plan was with the identification of what the issues
were to give them briefing documents like the one on the districting scheme, but
he thought perhaps it would be worthwhile to go into the minutes, and he asked
him if that was what he was suggesting?
Commissioner
Masters said yes, just the history and what the thought process was.
Mr. Spitzer said
yes, he thought they did have discussion on many of those issues, and if that
was the pleasure of the Commission they could go into the minutes and pull those
items out.
Commissioner
Masters said the second question he had was regard to the Efficiency Commission.
He said when one of the commissioners appeared before them he spoke
regarding the Human Resource Department wanting to put the whole group together
and do Human Resources for the entire county, and he thought they were going to
verify if that was their recommendation or if they weren’t interested in that
type of consolidation at all, and he didn’t know if that would fall within any
of the issues in the Discussion Agenda that they had before them, but if it did,
then he would like to have that.
The Chairman
said the County Manager was on the sign-up sheet to speak, and maybe that
question could be asked of him.
Commissioner
Gernert said just as an observation to Commissioner Masters’ previous
question, and with respect to the first Commission, they had spent a lot of time
going through the minutes of the last Commission meetings to determine why they
took certain courses of action, but there were thirteen different people on that
Commission, and if it was something Commissioner Masters’ thought would be
important, he could see sharing that, but he felt the current Commission members
might take them in an entirely different direction from the last one.
Chairman
Costello asked if the report to the County Commission from the past Commission
would contain what they were referring to?
Mr. Spitzer
said, yes, and he believed the Commission already had copies of that report.
The Chairman
asked if that report would suffice?
Commissioner
Masters said that would be fine.
The Chairman
said they were down to Remarks of Interested Persons and they had two
individuals who signed up to speak, and the first would be Mr. Jim Keene.
Chairman
Costello invited Mr. Keene to speak.
Mr. Keene thanked the Commission for the opportunity to speak to them. He said he was not there in the capacity of County Manager, but rather as a concerned citizen of the county, and for one who had spent approximately 29 ˝ years as an employee of the county.
He said perhaps
the issue that he was going to speak about was a moot point after hearing the
discussion that evening, and seeing the items that had been placed on their
“Initial” Discussion Agenda. He
said he spoke with Chairman Costello about it and he told him by all means to
come and speak to them.
He said the
issue that he was concerned about was the charter amendment that was passed the
previous year, which reduced the effort of the county commissioners to a
part-time status with a corresponding reduction in pay.
He said having spent much time in his career and much effort in Polk
County, he had personally observed the evolution process that had taken place
from the county moving from a rural to an urban county, and that created a
tremendous demand for services that he thought historically was performed and
provided by municipalities, and they were in that business whether they wanted
to be or not simply because of the demands in growth that they had.
He said Polk was
the fourth largest county geographically in the State of Florida, and it still
ranked sixth in population across the state, and he personally knew and had been
witness to all of those years, in the changing role of the commission in meeting
the demands of the public regarding public policy, and what they required.
He said policy
issues today that faced Polk County required significant time, and it required
gathering a lot of information, analyzing that information and data that was
required, and significant time in meeting with various other public officials
including School Board, City Officials, Water Management Districts, citizen
groups and associations, and individual citizens, plus the Delegation of State
Legislators as well as those at the State level that were not part of their
delegation, and lobbying for good public policy on state level.
He said it was
an absolute requirement to fully understand those issues that they faced today,
and to put in the time that was required to do that, and to be able from that to
point the way to what was good public policy, which would determine the future
of Polk County and where they were going. He said personally he was proud to be in Polk County and was
proud to be a citizen and an employee of the county for many years.
He said he honestly believed the position of the County Commissioner
today, did require a full-time effort. He
said the job that was there was going be executed timely and was going to be
executed in the way that the public demands that it be executed and performed,
and that would take a full-time effort. Therefore,
he respectfully requested the Commission approve a revision to the Charter which
restored the position of the county commission to a full-time position with the
prescribed salary of that position as set forth by statute or something that
would be a reasonable percentage as established by statute.
He said full-time was defined in his mind as a first priority, the
professional life of a commissioner, and that required being duly compensated
for the time that was expected and required in order to carry the role and the
responsibility that the public official faced today.