MINUTES
POLK COUNTY CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION
SEPTEMBER 25, 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
Lindsey led the prayer and Commissioner Moore Bailey led the Pledge of
Allegiance.
Ms.
Swearengin called the roll. All Commissioners were present, with the exception
of Commissioners Dukes, Masters, and Strang who gave advance notification of
their absence in accordance with the Commission’s Rules. Commissioner Price
was also absent.
The Chairman
said he would like the record to show the Commission had a quorum.
He advised the
members of the audience that there was a sign-up sheet for those wishing to
address the Commission later in the agenda, and he would call their names in the
order in which they appeared on the sheet.
The first order
of business was for the approval of the Minutes for September 18, 2001.
The Commission
approved the minutes of September 18, 2001 as mailed to the commissioners and
modified as follows: pages 4, 11 and 16 (minor corrections); and an insertion of
a question asked by Commissioner Moore Bailey concerning bailiffs and the answer
by the Sheriff that bailiffs were not going to be eliminated and would remain
under his control. A motion for approval was made by Commissioner Nunnallee
seconded by Commissioner Allen and approved unanimously.
The Chairman
said there was a small change to the agenda. The Commission would first be
hearing from Superintendent Jim Thornhill, of the Polk County School Board who
at the request of the Commission was invited late last week, and then Mayor
Crisman, Mayor Tyler, and Chairman Ron Clark of the Lakeland Area Chamber of
Commerce.
The Chairman
invited Superintendent Thornhill to speak to the Commission.
Superintendent
Thornhill thanked the Commission for the opportunity to speak to them, and he
apologized for requesting to speak first, but he had another appointment he
needed to get to. The first issue he addressed was the
appointed versus the elected superintendent.
He said he was speaking for himself, and he could not speak for the
Board, the employees of the system, or for the citizens of Polk County, but he
felt the key to the country was the right to vote, and anytime one began talking
about taking away his right to vote, even if it was for the Postmaster, he would
be in opposition to it. He felt
voting was the key to democracy, and for that reason he was opposed to an
appointed superintendent.
There were many
other reasons why he felt a superintendent should not be appointed. First when
the superintendent was appointed, he or she would be removed from the people’s
authority and would answer directly to the School Board Members.
An elected superintendent made him or her more accountable to the
parents, business people and to the employees, etc., He said the first thing one
would find out when looking at the economics was that the salary for an
appointed superintendent would be increased considerably, and he had the figures
illustrating this, where a superintendent was appointed in Lee County.
He said expenses would be increased, and appointed superintendents were
for three - year terms, and few survived for that length of time according to
averages throughout the state. He
said there were twenty-two appointed districts at that time, but there had been
twenty-three, and one went back to an elected position, so he felt it became
costly because contracts of the appointed superintendent would have to be bought
out, and the process would begin again.
He said he had
heard that people supported the appointed superintendent position because they
thought it would help remove politics from the superintendent’s office.
He said politics existed everywhere, and would still exist whether the
position was appointed or not.
He said there
was many facts and figures that showed the people of Polk County supported an
elected superintendent, and he felt it was a right that the people would not
give up easily. He said that
concluded his presentation and he invited the Commission to ask questions.
Commissioner
Lindsey said that school boards were very different than general government
activities, and in general government there was a Board of County Commissioners
and in Tampa they had an elected mayor who was the chief administrative officer
of the community. Some have suggested that perhaps Polk County have an elected
chairman of the county commission acting as the chief operating officer of the
county. That was somewhat analogous
to Superintendent Thornhill’s situation, but rather than the role of
responsibility to the elected body to the chief operating officer being elected,
the parallel nature of responsibility seemed to be the implied conflict, and he
asked if that was a fair analogy or was there some other legislation that would
divide that responsibility?
Superintendent
Thornhill said he felt that responsibility was already divided, but the two
basic things the board did were to approve the budget and to see how money was
spent, and then they were to set the policy.
He said, his responsibilities as Superintendent, was similar to those of
the County Manager, in that he saw that policy was carried out, and brought
proposals to the Board and administered direction on a day-to-day basis.
He said the responsibilities of the superintendent were well laid out in
state policy.
Commissioner
Lindsey asked if it was analogous to an elected mayor form of government?
The
Superintendent said he really didn’t know enough about the elected mayor to
say that. He said they operated
much like the county commission.
Commissioner
Lindsey asked since the administrator and policymakers were both elected bodies
couldn’t he as the administrator say he didn’t want to follow a particular
policy that was set forth?
The
Superintendent said no, that was against the law.
Commissioner
Lindsey said statutorily?
The
Superintendent said yes.
The Chairman
asked if there were further questions?
Commissioner
McLaughlin said there had been a fair amount of discussion concerning
qualifications for the constitutional officers, i.e. if someone were a Property
Appraiser they would have some type of background in property appraising, or if
someone were a Tax Collector they would have some type of background
commensurate with that position. He
said he thought the county was fortunate in the most recent election wherein
there were two educators who applied for the Superintendent’s position, and in
the future that might not be the case, and there could be people that would have
very little knowledge of the school system, and if he didn’t favor an
appointed superintendent would he favor some type of qualification or some type
of preparatory class, etc. for the position, or did he think that people would
elect who they wanted to elect?
The
Superintendent said that superintendents had been elected since time began and
that problem had not existed before. He
said one could think about all of the what ifs, but he didn’t feel that was a
problem and trusted the voters. He
said he felt they could make those decisions, and as far as he knew they had
never had anyone who was not in some way related to the education system that
was a successful superintendent or who had run.
Chairman
Costello asked if there were further questions?
There were no further questions.
Chairman
Costello invited Mayor Pat Crisman of Bartow to speak.
Mayor Crisman thanked the Commission for the opportunity to speak to them and for their time and hard work they were devoting to that process.
The
items they wished for the Commission to consider were as follows:
1) They would like to see the election for the county commissioners be
non-partisan.
2) County Commission seats should be full-time with full-time pay. They feel
that what happened in the last election had been a detriment to the County
Commission.
Chairman
Costello asked if the Commission had questions for Mayor Crisman?
Chairman
Costello asked regarding the ad valorem tax sharing with the county on perhaps a
per capita basis or some other preferred basis, as he understood it then, when
people who lived in the county used a city’s recreational facility, and he
said he was thinking of Winter Haven, they paid a higher fee than the city
resident did, and he said based upon her recommendation he understood her to
feel that was not enough?
Mayor
Crisman said that was correct, and it had never been sufficient.
The
Chairman asked if the problem was that their facility was being used a lot by
people who resided in the county, but she felt that the ad valorem taxes that
were paid by those county residents, and some of those funds were for
recreation, but should be shared with the cities on a fairer basis?
Mayor
Crisman said that was part of the reason, but it was also based upon a study
which indicated that there were some types of recreational facilities that
cities could do better on. She said
the study recommended that the county be left to the large parks, which were
more regionally oriented and that the cities could manage the others better,
which was similarly done with the libraries.
Chairman
Costello asked regarding stronger guidelines for noninterference, did the
present Charter have sanctions for violations?
Mayor
Crisman said yes it did.
Chairman
Costello said which would be a misdemeanor and subject to recall.
Mayor
Crisman said yes.
The
Chairman said there had been a suggestion from the City of Lakeland to use the
wording they had in their Charter, and he asked if the wording in the Bartow
Charter was satisfactory on the noninterference between the elected
commissioners and the City Manager in Bartow?
Mayor
Crisman said it had been on an operational standpoint up to that time, as far as
she knew. She said she did not look
at theirs and compare the two, but she could certainly do that and get back to
him.
The
Chairman said fine.
The
Chairman asked, regarding redistricting to get better
representation/diversification if she had any suggestions on how that could be
done?
Mayor
Crisman said no, and when they addressed that they realized that would probably
be a very difficult thing to accomplish as large as the county was, but they
hoped that it would be considered when redistricting was considered to see if it
was possible. She said she would
like to use Bartow’s East district as an example, when it was established a
number of years ago when commission seats were redone particularly so that an
African American would have a better chance to be on the city commission because
basically it took in a predominately African- American community.
Commissioner
Lindsey asked if the districts in the city were single member districts or if
they resided and voted at large?
Mayor
Crisman said they resided and voted at large.
Commissioner
Lindsey asked if that was her personal preference?
Mayor
Crisman said yes that was her personal preference, and that they did have some
commissioners who wanted to present the question of single member districts
there, but they were not in agreement on that.
She said they had two at large and three that had to reside in the
district.
Chairman
Costello thanked Mayor Crisman for her presentation.
The
Chairman invited Mayor Roy Tyler of Haines City to speak to the Commission.
Mayor
Tyler thanked the Commission for the opportunity to speak to them. He said he had served on many volunteer boards, and he was
aware of the services required. He
said there were a couple of things that his commission addressed along with the
majority of constituents in his area. He
said he could probably mirror some of the concerns of Mayor Crisman, but they
had others in addition.
He
said there concern was about the home rule concerns of municipal agencies. He said during the previous campaign for the creation of the
charter concept, it was stipulated that there would be no infringement on the
home rule designs of cities. He
said that had not been the case in actual application. He said the cities of fifty counties in the state had the
home rule premise on which to make both short and long term planning decisions
affecting the citizens they serve. The
creation and the expansion of central redevelopment areas in cities were vital
for the ongoing efforts to maintain vibrant and viable communities.
On many occasions the needs of cities had been placed in competition with
desires of county government, and undoubtedly it was the citizens that suffered
adversely. He said they
thought those areas needed to be addressed for the opportunity for the cities
within the county to be able to have some control over the conceptual ideas of
what their cities should look like and their direction.
He
said they had some issues with the county government alignment, and it was a
consensus of a number of their citizens that if the charter county concept was
to continue to exist it should be addressed in several areas:
1)
The depolarization of constitutional officers in the non-partisan
elective processes with the priority office of school superintendent and sheriff
as was conceived by both contributive concerns too vital to be swayed by
partisan party politics.
He
said those were among the issues, and the consensus was drawn from meetings
among a number of committees serving his city, its city commissioners, and its
citizen population, and though he was not the creator of all of those concerns
he was present at their discussion, and felt he could give them the issue of
their concern if there were questions that related to them.
The
Chairman said he had a question regarding home rule protection for the city.
He asked if he could give the Commission some examples of where Haines
City faced a difficult situation, which would have been resolved by something
like that, and what specifically did he have in mind?
Mayor
Tyler said they were in the process of expanding their CRA area, and they had
been challenged in that expansion much like their sister city Bartow was by the
county. He said the implication was
that their issues were different, and he felt that they were exactly the same,
but those matters were now in the process of mitigation, and they were hoping
that mitigation would lead them to a successful solution to the problem, and not
force them into a litigation effort. The
concern was that most cities, particularly in the downtown and core areas, had
suffered the change of demographics in the user.
He said the downtowns of twenty or thirty years ago were not the same
source providers of today’s consumer. He
said he could draw one inference and that was in his own household.
He said his grandmother who reared him could have shopped at 11:00 a.m.
in the morning or at 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon, and his wife worked away from
the county and only returns after 6:00 p.m., and the services and commodities
that she would purchase simply could no longer be obtained in the traditional
8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. downtown scenario.
He said they had been forced to re-evaluate their downtown process, and
the services that it provided, and the knitch that it could fit in a community,
so that it would survive in the future. He
said those were things that they had found that could be addressed under some
CRA opportunities, and only that way could they ensure the continued success and
existence of some of their businesses and service providers.
The
Chairman asked if there was a basis concern with the fact that under the charter
the county had to be consulted, and had to approve any extension of the CRA
district?
Mayor
Tyler said yes that was one of their major concerns, and they were not adverse
to a cooperative effort with the county, because they felt that any citizen of
Haines City was also a citizen of Polk County, and they felt that any progress
or accelerated move toward the future on the part of Haines City would also mean
on the part of Polk County, and they simply sometimes had varying concepts on
how to get there, but he felt with the removal of the home rule privilege they
would lose things which should be accountable to local representatives.
Commissioner
Moore Bailey asked Mayor Tyler how many CRAs did Haines City have?
Mayor
Tyler said they had one.
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said at the Commission’s last meeting Attorney Mawhinney from
Lakeland was there, and spoke with them regarding some concerns regarding CRAs
as well. She said the City of
Lakeland now had three CRAs, and they were working on a fourth.
Mayor
Tyler said they had explored the avenue of the creation of another CRA, however
with the cities that were mid-sized, and in using Polk County as an example for
mid-sized, they felt they did fit that criteria.
He said the concern was for the management of separate CRA entities for
which the creation of another one required that, and the expansion of the
current one would allow them to keep in place the structure that had previously
been set up for that one and utilization of the same personnel and CRA Board.
Commissioner
Gernert said he thought a representative of Haines City spoke with them earlier,
and recommended seven commissioners individually elected within their districts,
and he asked if that was what he was referring to earlier in his presentation,
and if he was in agreement with them?
Mayor
Tyler said yes.
Chairman
Costello asked if the non-partisan elections were for all of the constitutional
officers plus the county commissioners?
Mayor
Tyler said yes.
Chairman
Costello thanked Mayor Tyler for his presentation.
The
Chairman said originally the Chairman of the School Board, Bob Macey was
scheduled to appear before them, and he was called out of town, which was
indirectly in connection with what happened on September 11th, and he
said Frank O’Reilly, who was a member of the School Board, would appear in his
stead, and he didn’t see him there, so they would go on to the next presenter
who was Chairman Ron Clark of the Lakeland Area Chamber of Commerce.
Mr. Clark said they appreciated the opportunity to speak with them that evening. He said he was there representing the Chamber’s Government Affairs Task Force, which was composed of a number of members of their Lakeland metro community, which was a very diverse group, their board of directors, and over 2,000 business members. He felt it was important that the Commission recognize that one of the things that they found out early on in the Lakeland Metro Vision process was that the Lakeland Metro area could not get things done by themselves, and neither could Auburndale, Dundee, and Winter Haven, and they all had to do things together to make things change. They could not personally change the horrid graduation rate in the community, and they couldn’t personally change the fact that they had a per capita income in Polk County that was surpassed almost everywhere in the country, but he thought that together those things could be accomplished. He said he wanted to point out that Theron Stangry, who most of them probably knew, was responsible for a movement that began within the last six months or so, and that was to get the local chambers together to talk about issues that they could do something about. He said that was not to say that those groups were not going to disagree on things, but that group of volunteer leaders agreed that there was probably one issue that they could go with that was more important to their members than almost anything else, and that was the education of their children.
He said their Chamber along with other chambers in the community were very active in getting the Charter Study Commission started, and they believed very strongly in that process, and he wanted to present them with the things their task force and their board came up with.
County
Commission Composition/Authority:
School
Superintendent:
County
Manager:
7) The Chamber believes that the Board of County Commissioners should
support the job description and administrative authority/duties of the County Manager as
outlined in the Polk County Charter of 1998.
He said a board of directors typically was in charge of policy and
direction, and there was staff and employees who took care of the day-to-day
operations, and that was the way it worked non-profit, for profit, and in most
systems in the world, and he believed that was the way the county should work.
8)
He said there was some mention that there needed to be a block on the
ballot at the end of the various names for an election that said “none of the
above”, and he felt that was against the American way in that one would not
want to choose any of the people that were running.
He said if there were more people that were interested in running there
was a process that they could go through, and they needed to be placed on the
ballot, but to say that they were not going to vote for any of them, and that
“none of the above” could possibly prevail, would place the people in a
ludicrous situation. He said it was
the peoples job to make sure appropriate candidates got on the ballot, and that
time needed to be spent to ensure that happened, and to vote for the person that
was thought to be the right person for that position.
Chairman
Costello said that his item number three was on non-partisan constitutional
officers and he made reference to Chapter 145 of the Florida Statutes, and he
asked him if he intended to include county commissioners as well as the five
constitutional officers?
Mr.
Clark said no, but that was a good question, and he thought that there was not a
one hundred percent consensus with the businesses that was an appropriate thing
to do, and one could look at it one way and think if the county commissioners
were truly policymakers what kind of time did they actually need to spend.
He said he thought what happened was improper with the way things
happened before, and it was done without any kind of analysis or study of how
much time the county commissioners had to spend carrying out their duties, and
he didn’t know if the remedy to that situation was paying them more or not.
Chairman
Costello said as another point of clarification on the seven-member Board of
County Commissioners non-partisan, five would have to live in districts, but the
entire county would be able to vote for them, and the other two members could
live anywhere at all and everyone in the county could vote for them?
Mr.
Clark said that was correct.
Chairman
Costello asked if there were further questions from commissioners?
Commissioner
McLaughlin said he had a question on qualifications, and Mr. Clark had spoke at
length regarding the qualifications for the constitutional officers and tied
that to the salary issue, and was there any thought regarding the qualifications
of the constitutional officers in terms of legitimate qualifications, meaning a
Property Appraiser would have to have some background in that field, and the
Sheriff would have to have some background in law enforcement, etc., and was
that ever discussed and did he have an opinion on that?
Mr.
Clark said he did not recall that particular issue being discussed, but any time
that someone was being elected that was going to take over a large budget with a
lot of employees, they needed to have the proper qualifications.
He said that they didn’t really discuss what the qualifications
necessary would be for those positions.
Commissioner
McLaughlin asked what his personal thoughts were on that issue?
Mr.
Clark said that he had not been overly concerned with that personally, because
Polk County had a good track record, and we had very well run operations, and he
hadn’t given it enough thought to given him a personal opinion on it.
Chairman
Costello thanked Mr. Clark for his presentation.
The
Chairman said that completed the Commission’s presentation agenda for that
evening. There were two citizens who signed up to speak, and without objection
he would like to proceed to those speakers, and when they finished the
Commission would take a break and reconvene and discuss their process from there
on out.
The
Chairman invited Mr. Dewey Smith to speak to the Commission.
Dewey
Smith, Home Rule Charter Committee
He
said last week the Ledger published an editorial referring to Lawrence Crow,
members of that commission and to his reformists friends and himself, and if by
chance they did not receive a copy of that editorial and his response, he would
provide one to them.
He said that he also provided them with other relevant editorials.
He
said he wanted to speak to them briefly about Dr. Costello’s “Issues”
spreadsheet. He
said they took the liberty of making one modification.
They divided the different amendment presenters into two categories,
political and reform.
He
said a politician by definition was someone who seeks things for self-serving,
self-promotional and/or political reasons, often by ways of scheming and devious
means. He
said some would argue that point, but they only had history to go by, and
history certainly proved that politicians in general were equal to that
description. He
said on the other hand, a reformist was someone who sought things for the common
good and for selfless reasons.
In modern times they were known as people who worked for people’s
rights. He
said if they would look closely at their deeds they would see that was precisely
what citizens like Doug Bark, Phillip Kuhn, Russell Hancock, others and he had
been doing longer than some of them had been living.
He
said Dr. Costello’s spreadsheet told them that not less than twenty-five
politically motivated individuals wanted no less than fifty-seven separate
amendments on the ballot that would benefit politicians.
It also told them that nine different reformers speaking and writing on a
common front wanted a comparatively few amendments on the ballot.
Those amendments were for the common good and would net the reformist
nothing politically, personally, or financially.
He said they weren’t exactly sure how to characterize other speakers
and writers as to what issues they were speaking.
He said from all of that information the politicians clearly wanted
things that increased the size and complexity and cost of government and fewer
means of holding government accountability.
They want additional county commissioners.
They want to raise commissioner’s salaries. They do not want the
constitutional officers terms limited, and they don’t want their salaries cut
by fifty percent.
As was true of the last election those individuals are in a minority.
The reformist who were clearly in the majority, when taking into account
the 2,700 petition letters, that was presented to them last week, and on the
other hand want a means to prevent the county commissioners from raising their
taxes again without direct consent at the ballot box.
They wanted term limits and fifty percent pay cuts for the constitutional
officers. They
want to reduce the size of government.
They want the politicians whom they are currently paying three and four
times what they make to be brought down to earth and to be held accountable.
Please
keep these things in mind.
Please don’t allow yourselves to be bullied by any political party,
please don’t allow yourselves to be bullied by the Ledger or any other
political influence.
Please consider the citizens mandate that the citizens paid for with
their own money to provide to them, and if that was not enough please tell them
what else they would like for them to do.
Chairman
Costello thanked Mr. Smith for his comments, and said since he was there he had
a couple of questions he wanted to ask him.
He asked if his proposals concerning the reduction in pay by fifty
percent of the constitutional officers plus his spearheading to change the
commissioners’ salaries to fifty percent of what they formerly were apparently
the solution to a particular problem, and what really intrigued him was to
understand what the problem was to which those were solutions, i.e., what was
the problem that would solved by reducing the Sheriff’s pay by fifty percent?
He said he heard him state in an earlier meeting that Mr. Smith found it
to be outrageous, and the average salary of a Polk Countian was much lower than
the Sheriff’s pay or the county commissioners pay, so therefore, the pay
should be reduced by fifty percent, and he asked why fifty percent?
He said, going back to his original question, was a solution to what
problem?
He
said he thought it would be a solution to a lot of problems for the following
reason. He
said there was a school teacher present at the last meeting that had been
teaching for eleven years, and made $27,900, and the average wage in Polk County
was $27,900, and that was averaging all of the higher salaries together with the
people who worked at Burdines and McDonalds and made $19,000, $20,000 and
$21,000 per year, and when the county could pay the school teacher a decent
salary of $40,000, $50,000 or $60,000 per year they wouldn’t hear anything
from him, but he thought it was ludicrous to pay a school teacher, with a
required college
education, and had to upgrade their education every two years, a much lower
salary than a constitutional officer who drew five times as much.
Chairman
Costello said so in that case he was comparing the teacher’s salary, even one
with eleven years of experience with a college degree, and her salary was being
compared with the salary of a county commissioner or a constitutional officer?
He asked if he was comparing the responsibilities of the two?
For example, in the case of the Sheriff, a sworn certified law
enforcement officer responsible for the lives and property for five hundred
thousand citizens, and he said they all knew as a result of September 11th
how precious the law enforcement and the rescue function was to all of them, and
it seemed to him that was an enormous responsibility.
He said he had taught, and was an administrator for a community college
for a number of years and he respected teachers, and they did have an enormous
responsibility, and he believed in the bumper sticker which stated that a
“teacher affects infinity”, but at the same time he couldn’t see any
reasonable relationship between, on the one hand the responsibility of the
teacher in a classroom, and the responsibility of a Sheriff for life, death and
property in a county as vast as Polk?
Mr.
Smith said he felt that everyone had responsibilities, and the main thing they
had a responsibility to do was to take back the government and let the
politicians know that the people were in charge of the government.
He asked what the people were supposed to do?
Sit back and say nothing and let them continue to get a $3,000 per year
raise each year, and he asked where was it going to end?
Chairman
Costello thanked Mr. Smith for his response to his question.
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said to Mr. Smith in regards to having the constitutional
officers’ salaries reduced, that it had been stated earlier on that
legislation required every year they were entitled to a yearly percentage
increase, so was he going to be addressing the legislators about that as well,
because even if they started where they were at, then subsequently each year it
was going to go up anyway, or did he want to cap it off at a certain dollar
amount?
Mr.
Smith said if it got on the ballot and passes, it would have the same criteria
that the county commission had.
He said the county commission may raise their pay each year, but they
could not raise their pay any more than the county employees or whatever the
consumer price index was, whichever was less. He said if it came into the
Charter it would not be under the state pay plan any longer, and the county
commissioners could raise their pay if they so desired, but it had to be a
unanimous vote of the county commission.
Commissioner
Moore Bailey asked if the pay was to be capped off at some point in time?
Mr.
Smith said there would be no cap placed on it, and there was not a cap on the
county commissioners pay, and they could raise it every year if they wanted to.
Mr.
Smith said that last week Commissioner Moore Bailey asked if the idea of an
appointed school superintendent been addressed by the Monday Night Group, and he
said he made it a point the evening before that to bring that issue up.
He said out of approximately forty-five or fifty people not one in the
room wanted an appointed school superintendent.
He said the main argument was that they did not want to give up their
right to vote on anybody or anything.
Commissioner
Lindsey said with that caveat of not giving up the right to vote, how did he
reconcile that with term limits?
Mr.
Smith said he didn’t believe it had anything to do with term limits.
Commissioner
Lindsey said at the end of the second term there would be one person who would
no longer be a choice, and that would be the incumbent, so choice would be
denied in that regard.
Mr.
Smith said term limits seemed to be popular all over the country, but he
couldn’t see where it was such a big problem.
He said if that person was so good and so popular he could wait four
years, and run again or run for another office.
Chairman
Costello said that he would like to note as a point of interest, that term
limits were being reconsidered in New York City as a result of what happened
there.
Chairman
Costello invited Dr. Larry Durrence to speak to the Commission.
Dr.
Larry Durrence
Dr.
Durrence said he appreciated the opportunity to address members of the
Commission briefly.
He said his purpose for appearing was to speak in favor of retaining the
current system that existed for constitutional officers, and to speak in
opposition to any changes.
He
said those who knew him knew that he had spent his life in education, and the
principle of good government was something that had always been of great
interest to him, and he spent a lot of his years teaching state and local
government to college students.
He said he had the opportunity to work in Tallahassee with the Florida
Department of Revenue and to work closely with many of the constitutional
officers, because the Florida Department of Revenue had a direct relationship
and in many ways supervision over many of those constitutional officers,
Property Appraiser, Tax Collector, and it could be termed now more as a
partnership with the Clerk’s of the Court.
It would be a much simpler system to think that if we cut the salaries of
constitutional officers we could increase the pay for school teachers, but the
pay of the school teachers was the result of a state shortcoming, because that
was really a state decision.
Polk County already taxes itself locally to the maximum it was permitted
under state law, so attacking the authority and the system of constitutional
officers did not accomplish anything in that regard.
The constitutional officers had responsibilities under the Florida
Constitution and under state law, and most of what they did was fulfilling those
responsibilities rather than fulfilling local responsibilities.
He was not going to address all of the constitutional officers because
time would not permit, and they had already had considerable discussion about
the Sheriff, and he agreed that it would be ludicrous to say that we would pay
the Sheriff less than the officers in the Sheriff’s Department would have to
be paid in order to retain professional law enforcement people in that position.
One of the primary concerns of the people was public safety.
His
basic premise was that the people of Polk County deserved government as good or
better than government any place else in the State of Florida.
Polk County deserved officials in those important positions as good or
better than any in the State of Florida, and from his experience in Tallahassee,
Polk County, had people in those positions who were better than were found
throughout the State of Florida, and to think that the county could continue
that tradition of excellence in leadership in the constitutional officers’
positions by paying less, did not make sense to him.
He
said he would like to cite a few facts about some of the positions that he felt
frequently came in for undeserved criticism. The Property Appraiser operates
under constitutional guidelines for appraising property, and she has to appraise
almost 300,000 parcels in Polk County, and she does this under the supervision
of the Florida Department of Revenue.
There was a budget of 6.9 million dollars, and 103 employees and the
quality in which they carried out their responsibilities had an impact on all of
us. He
said that was true, not only in the value, but also the fairness in appraisal
between all property owners.
He said if one looked at the Tax Collector’s Office the current budget
was $5.9 million and a staff of 120 people, and they collected revenue for
thirty-one local governments, and they served four state agencies, and they had
1.4 million transactions in their office last year, and they collected $350
million dollars, which was distributed to the local governments in the county.
The Clerk of the Circuit Court with a budget of 16 million dollars and
approximately four hundred employees, is responsible for the revenue of Polk
County, approximately $750 million dollars which had to be accounted for, and
had to be managed and had to be invested for short term in order to earn
additional revenue to offset the need for additional taxes, and the Clerk is
responsible for investing about $350 million dollars for Polk County.
He said in the Clerk’s Domestic Relations Department they were
collecting about $60 million dollars for 33,000 domestic cases, and those were
families that were dependent on child support in order to put food on the table.
He said in their court responsibilities, because they make certain that
we have a good functioning court system, there were 32,000 civil cases last
year, and 141,000 criminal cases.
He
said as one looked at those duties and responsibilities, he did not see how the
quality of service could be maintained that the people of Polk County deserved
if they determined that they could do that for less compensation.
These people were responsible managers of great ability, and they needed
to retain adequate compensation otherwise Polk County would not have that level
of leadership.
Chairman
Costello thanked Dr. Durrence for his comments.
Chairman
Costello said that without objection, the Commission would recess for ten
minutes. There
was no objection.
The
meeting reconvened at 7:15 p.m.
The
Chairman said the Commission was down to Item VI, Reports.
He said commissioners had in their package a memorandum from him dated
September 25, 2001, Expenditure Approval.
It listed expenditures for their approval which had been made since
August 20th, 2001.,
He asked for Commission action on the recommendation.
Commissioner
Gernert moved for approval of the expenditures and Commissioner Stoer seconded
the motion. The Chairman asked if there was further discussion?
There was none.
The motion carried unanimously.
The
Chairman said several individuals asked about the citizens’ appearance on the
agenda for the five-minute segment, and they wondered whether or not, after the
invited guest presentations were completed, if we would continue to have the
five-minute presentations.
He said his reading of the Commission’s rule was that each agenda
should include a point during the meeting at which remarks of interested
citizens may be made, so his response was yes. Even though the presentations
were completed there was still going to be a segment on the agenda according to
the Commission’s rule allowing people to sign up on the sheet to speak, and
the only way that could be changed was to change the rule and that would take a
two-thirds vote.
The Chairman asked if everyone agreed with that?
Everyone was in agreement that the Chairman was correct in his
observation.
The
Chairman said the final item concerned what our process would be from here on
out. He
said he wanted to make a few brief remarks before he turned it over to Mr.
Spitzer and Mr. Watts.
According
to the Commission’s rules and according to the Charter the Commission had one
year from their first meeting to present their report to the County Commission.
He calculated that date to be April 9, 2002.
He said that was in essence a “drop dead” date, and they could not go
beyond that, and if they did they would be violating the Charter.
In October they had two meetings scheduled, in November they had two
meetings scheduled, and by their choice they said they didn’t want a meeting
on December 10th, and the next meeting was on Christmas, so obviously
that wasn’t wanted.
That made four more meetings for this year.
From the time the Commission begins its public hearings, and it had to do
three with at least a ten day delay between the first, the second, and the
second and the third, it would take approximately sixty days, from the time they
first began the public hearings until the report was due to the County
Commission, because after the public hearings, we have to take in what the
public had to say, and decide whether or not they were going to change anything
in the document. That would bring them to February 9, 2002.
His conclusion was that the Commission might have to add meetings in
order to get all the work done by the deadline.
The
process that we have in the rules requires us to develop a “discussion
agenda”. The
discussion agenda is a list of issues that a majority of the Commission feels
are worthy of discussion.
That means a majority of the individuals present, but there could not be
fewer than four votes. After completing a “discussion agenda” the Commission
would move to the initial slate of amendments for voter consideration.
He said it would take a two-thirds vote of the individuals present, no
less than seven members to get an item on the initial slate of amendments.
In the meantime, if something was not put on the original discussion
agenda, the rule says that a majority could add items to the discussion agenda.
What they needed to do first was to debate what was going to be on the issues
agenda, and they needed to be briefed and detailed by their consultants on those
items, and then they needed to move from that agenda to the initial slate of
amendments, and after that was done they would refine the slate of amendments,
develop language for amendment revisions, and approve that language by a
two-thirds vote, and then begin the public hearing process.
He
said he was going to turn the meeting over to the consultants, because Mr.
Spitzer had worked up a large matrix containing most of the issues that had come
before them. He
said there may be some issues that commissioners had that had been unheard and
unstated, and they needed to have those as well, but the matrix contained the
received in the presentations made to them.
The
Chairman asked the Commission’s consultants to continue.
Mr.
Spitzer had the timeline that he prepared some time before in front of him, and
based upon the current schedule it seemed as though they had six meetings for
the discussion of issues, before they began their decision meetings, and now
there were only a few meetings set for decision meetings, which was the final
action of the grouping of amendments that would be recommended.
He said it did seem ambitious to get that work done within that amount of
time, but they hadn’t gone through their discussion agenda, and there might be
only be a few things that they would even want to pursue in that limited
fashion, and there could be more than that.
He prepared the Discussion Issue Matrix on legal sized paper, which was
his attempt at summarizing all of the issues that had been suggested to them up
to a couple of meetings ago.
He said it was organized by article and section of the current Polk
County Charter, and where a title currently existed in the Charter for a section
he used that title, and then there was a summary of that section of the charter
or summary of the issue, and a summary of the suggestions that they may have
received from people who had testified before the group, then some comments,
which were practices in other charters whether or not state law pre-empted an
issue, what some alternatives might be. There might be issues that didn’t
directly relate or didn’t relate to a direct existing section or sub-section
of the Charter.
They were only identified by name with no section reference.
There were forty-six of those issues.
On the last page he listed all of the issues that didn’t seem to
conveniently fit into an existing section of the Charter at the present time,
because he didn’t want to leave anything out. He thought that the issues that
were discussed that evening had already been covered in the decision matrix.
He said he thought that one of the things that the group needed to decide
was how they wanted to have an issue identified as it went over to their
discussion agenda. For example, Article 2 of the Charter dealt with the
legislative branch, the County Commission was their preference to say that they
would discuss at a subsequent meeting Article 2 of the Charter, meaning all
different aspects as relates to the County Commission, or do they only want to
discuss the numbers of county commissioners, increasing the County Commission to
seven members, or did they want to discuss the districting scheme, single member
districts, mixed system with some single members, some at large, and those sorts
of issues, which was related also to the question of the county mayor or the
county chairman, and that was sort of a threshold issue that they needed to
resolve.
He
said he would be happy to go through those issues very quickly.
The
Chairman asked Mr. Spitzer to pause for a moment.
He said he would like to make certain that he understood what he was
saying, and he would like to use Article 1 as an example, and if one wanted to
discern if there was a majority interest in any item in Article 1, and if there
was no majority interest than the Commission would set it aside.
He said a majority interest could be rekindled later on, and it could be
put back on a discussion agenda with a majority vote, but he thought what Mr.
Spitzer was trying to get at was what sort of briefing agenda he needed to
develop for them because they would want more specific data on some of those
items, and he asked them if they wanted to go broadly or did they want to go
more narrowly, item by item.
Mr.
Spitzer said that was correct, and that was obviously not a final vote, but they
needed as their staff some direction as to what they wanted further information
on, and it would be helpful if they could have that list of forty-six different
issues narrowed down, so they could do a better job in the information that they
provided to them.
Commissioner
Gernert asked if they were going to do that then?
Chairman
Costello said no, they wanted to get some sense of direction from the
commissioners so that they could begin laying out a plan for the upcoming
meetings.
Commissioner
Gernert said if they each took their matrices and came back next time with the
top ten from their perspective that they were most interested in, and he said he
knew they would all be different to some extent, but they would end up with a
list of probably twenty or twenty-five issues, and some of them would rise to
the top with everyone choosing them, and it would be an easy way to learn which
ones might be the ones to start on.
Commissioner
Lindsey said to address the Chairman’s first issue of time constraints between
then and April 9th, he for one, and probably the rest of the
Commission was willing to spend whatever time was necessary in order to get the
job done.
He
said he would like to suggest that they consider the alignment of those various
issues, and he had given some thought to that, and perhaps they might want to
put them in one of three baskets, and again they could change from one basket to
another before they got to the end of the process, but the initial indication
would be, Basket #1 would be a Charter issue that the Commission wanted to place
on the ballot, Basket #2 would be an issue that had been brought to their
attention and warranted consideration, but probably didn’t rise to Charter
status, but was something that needed to be communicated back to the County
Commission not
as a charge or a rebuke, but simply a report back to them that says those
were the things that the citizens were telling them they would like to see, and
they had the legislative authority to do that by adopting an ordinance as
opposed to going through the whole laborious process, and some of those things
required attention, and should be given some legislative consideration. Finally,
there would be Basket #3 which didn’t warrant either of those two categories.
Chairman
Costello said that Commissioner Lindsey’s idea was supportive of what
Commissioner Gernert said.
He reminded them that Commissioner Gernert said lets go down the list and
lets classify them, and Commissioner Lindsey was saying lets classify them into
Basket #1, Basket #2, and Basket #3.
Commissioner
Lindsey said that Commissioner Gernert’s suggestion seemed to be more
restrictive and perhaps correct, and he was only suggesting an alternative.
He said when they went through and put them in Basket #1, Basket #2, and
Basket #3 they would begin to see the pattern of Basket #1 and it might very
well be that the same ten or eight of the same ten were repeated.
He said some of those things that they heard about cooperation with
cities and counties, a procedure manual or orientation for new county
commissioners could be done without Charter amendment or revision through
actions of the County Commission.
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said that she agreed with Commissioner Gernert, and with the chart
that the Chairman had provided them along with the matrix from Mr. Spitzer they
could see who had come before them, and what they were recommending that they
do, and she liked the information that had been provided and it was a very good
tool for them to work with.
They could still do the one, two three process.
The
Chairman asked Commissioner Moore Bailey how would the Commission collectively
do the basket routine?
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said she thought they would have to vote, and that was a part of
the discussion.
Chairman
Costello said yes, because it took a majority vote to get on the discussion
agenda, but Commissioner Gernert was suggesting taking the matrix home and
reviewing it, and she was suggesting doing it there.
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said yes they could take it home tonight, and the information that
they had been provided that evening plus the other information they had, in
addition to the comments that they had heard from the speakers who had come
before them, they digest it, and be prepared at the next meeting to come in with
the idea of being ready to discuss those issues and divide them into the various
groups.
Chairman
Costello said that he would like to set an objective for the end of the next
meeting, and he asked them if they thought it was possible at the end of the
next meeting if they could have an initial discussion agenda?
Commissioner
Lindsey said if the meeting was long enough they could, using the combination of
the earlier two suggestions.
He said that ten might be too many and it could be too few, and if they
took that list and ranked the issues in the list by 1, 2, and 3 with one being
serious, two being administrative, and three being no interest they might end up
with 15 ones, and they could narrow that down.
Chairman
Costello asked Mr. Spitzer if perhaps he could mail the commissioners a tally
sheet?
Mr.
Spitzer said sure.
He said he wanted to be clear about Basket #1, and he did agree there
were many things that were simply suggestions to the County Commission, and some
to the constitutional officers.
He said he would like to see if he could understood more clearly about
what would be placed into Basket #1, and they could use that process when
ranking the top five of each member of the Review Commission.
Commissioner
Lindsey said he wouldn’t be that restrictive as the top one, two, or three,
because he thought he might
be inclined to place an item in the first category or the Basket #1 for purpose
of discussion, but may talk himself out of it by the time they got to the end,
and there might be an occasion where something rises from Basket #2 to Basket
#1.
The
Chairman asked, in other words, he did not want to weight them within a basket?
Commissioner
Lindsey said no.
Chairman
Costello asked in confirmation that this was Basket #1 stuff, Basket #2 stuff,
and Basket #3 stuff, and how they determined that could be on the basis of their
homework and when they came back to the next meeting.
Mr.
Spitzer said it might be helpful if he and Mr. Watts went through that list with
some detail to determine more accurately what could be done without a Charter
change, and what could only be done with a Charter change.
He said there might be some things that would fall into both categories
where it could be done without a Charter change, but the practice was that it
was not being implemented based upon an ordinance or a policy and they might
want to be directive in terms of amending the Charter, and that was only an idea
that might help lessen some of the workload during the next meeting.
Mr.
Watts said that might be more appropriate in the second step.
Chairman
Costello said he needed to keep constantly in mind that they were making a
decision for the voters’ decision, and the overall goal was to make the county
more efficient and more effective, and that was what he was trying to keep in
his own mind. He
said if the issue was how would one do that, to be quite frank with them, the
level of esteem in which the County Commission was being held was very low, and
he was wondering if some recommendations made to it would ever see the light of
day in the future.
Commissioner
Lindsey said he didn’t disagree with that statement, and for that very reason
he was reluctant to give them more authority, but at the same time, he felt it
would be a waste of the last six months of their effort with what they had
heard, if the item that didn’t make the cut for a charter wasn’t
communicated, and
Commissioner
Moore Bailey asked regarding the speakers who had appeared before them that
evening, if their comments would be on the tally they received in the mail?
Chairman
Costello asked Mr. Spitzer if he could update the matrix that was provided to
the Commission with that information?
Mr.
Spitzer said sure.
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said regarding the suggestion in terms of placing all proposals
received by the CRC on the ballots as long as they were legally sufficient, that
perhaps Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Watts could get together and determine what was
legal on its face, and perhaps it would help them in prioritizing those items in
Basket #1, Basket #2, and Basket #3 or whether they didn’t need to deal with
them at all.
Commissioner
Lindsey said the opposite of that would be true also, and the things that were
simply beyond their discretion, and they needed to know those as soon as
possible so that they didn’t waste time on them.
Chairman
Costello said that they knew there were some, like on the issue of two-thirds of
the voters approve tax increases.
He said counsel had told them that would be illegal.
Chairman
Costello said he would like to talk about the mechanics of the process, because
one of their aims was to complete that process by the end of the next meeting,
and he asked if they could have some type of common tally sheet?
Mr.
Spitzer said sure.
Commissioner
McLaughlin said he thought it was difficult just in reading through the matrix
to actually determine what the tally sheet was going to look like. For instance,
there might be a proposal that said the county commissioner salaries were
restored to the full state level, wherein the matrix said possibly seventy-five
percent, etc., etc.
He said they might not want to open up the discussion to the entire issue
of salaries, and they might only want to be very narrow and say they want to
discuss restoring the county commissioners salaries. He didn’t know if they
were serving themselves well by only saying let’s discuss number 11, because
he thought it wasn’t what the Commission’s rules were saying.
He said the rules were saying that they actually needed a very narrowly
defined issue.
Chairman
Costello asked if he was saying that the tally sheet should have some text in
it?
Commissioner
McLaughlin said his proposal would be for the group to take the time before the
next meeting to come up individually with the things that they wanted to see on
the ballot, and to bring them with them.
Chairman
Costello asked was that Basket #1?
Commissioner
McLaughlin said yes, exactly to bring the Basket #1 items with them because he
thought that was the most efficient way, and it was possible that they could
even prepare them before hand and send them to Mr. Spitzer, and then they would
have exactly what was going to appear on the ballot, and as a commissioner he
thought they should have, so that there would be no confusion as to if the issue
of salary was thrown out, and that could be taken either way, and they could say
they wanted it reduced or they wanted it increased whereas the issue might be
they wanted to discuss the increase of salaries and not the decrease of
salaries.
Commissioner
Lindsey said that they could just put salary in Basket #1, and if that was an
issue that would be discussed they could decide the parameters of it in
discussions.
Commissioner
McLaughlin said he thought that the Commission’s rules were saying, that it
would have to be a majority of the people present to put an actual issue on the
ballot?
Chairman
Costello said no a majority to get on the discussion agenda.
Commissioner
McLaughlin asked if it was a topic or was it an actual issue?
Chairman
Costello said it was an issue and/or topic.
He said one of the items could be restoration of county commissioners
salaries, and then the language might very well be referred to the Florida
Statute layout or something like that.
Mr.
Spitzer said in using that example it was possible that during the course of
debate and discussion, and education they might arrive at a recommendation to
restore the salaries to seventy-five percent of the state level.
Chairman
Costello said the issue would be salaries of the County Commissioners, and he
didn’t think there was any one there that would do it, and maybe they wanted
to reduce them further, so the issue was salaries of the County Commissioners.
Commissioner
McLaughlin said he just wanted to make sure that it was not so broad that it
would confuse people as to what was actually on the agenda.
Chairman
Costello said Mr. Spitzer could take a stab at the tally sheet and e-mail it to
them, and mail it to Commissioner Allen, and the feedback would need to be given
to Mr. Spitzer, and not to him because of the Sunshine Law.
Chairman
Costello asked if anyone else had any comments?
Commissioner
Stoer asked just for clarification Commissioner McLaughlin said things in Basket
#1, which were things that they would bring back that they wanted on the ballot,
but it would be things, which they thought they needed to discuss as a
Commission to be on the ballot?
Chairman
Costello said that was correct, and if a majority of the commissioners wanted
that then it would move to the discussion agenda, and it wouldn’t necessarily
be placed on the ballot then, but it would move to the discussion agenda.
Commissioner
Stoer said she understood it that way, and she just wanted to make sure that it
wasn’t in the minutes that it was what they wanted as individuals, but it was
for discussion.
Commissioner
Nunnallee said only for clarification, and in keeping with the Sunshine Law,
considering the e-mail that would be sent back and forth she wanted to be very
careful that they didn’t abuse that law.
Chairman
Costello reminded Commissioner Nunnallee that the e-mail would be sent directly
to Mr. Spitzer.
Mr.
Spitzer said that Mr. Watts just reminded him that as long as the e-mail was
sent to everybody that they could communicate that way.
Mr.
Watts said that e-mail was a document, and they could communicate in writing,
and it became a public record and it would be available to anybody, so there was
nothing wrong with that, it was the oral one on one conversation that was
prohibited by the Sunshine Law, because there was no record of it.
Chairman
Costello said that his understanding was that he couldn’t e-mail back and
forth to Commissioner McLaughlin, and try to reach some sort of consensus via
e-mail out of the public eye.
Mr.
Watts said that was true unless he made that whole sequence a matter of record.
Commissioner
Gernert asked if there was some reason that they couldn’t take those sheets,
and admittedly he had just received those that evening, so he had only scanned
them, but it appeared to him under the heading of Citizens Suggestions that was
what someone suggested that they would like for them to consider, and could each
of them take those between then and the next meeting and place a one, two, or
three in that box, and then when they go there have someone compile the totals
for all of those issues and the ones that had the lowest totals were going to be
the ones, which they deemed were most likely that they wanted to be discussed,
and it didn’t matter that it said salaries, and they wouldn’t know if that
meant raise them or lower them, if that was an issue, there was an issue within
that they believed should be discussed then they rate it as such, and it would
eliminate the need for a tally sheet or any kind of communication back and
forth, and they needed to take the first few minutes of the meeting to add them
up.
Chairman
Costello said #1
would be it should go before the voters, and he asked what #2 would be?
Commissioner
Gernert said #2 would be moving it on to the County Commission as a suggestion,
and #3 would be not to discuss.
Mr.
Spitzer said that their own suggestions could still be added at that point that
might not be in there at the present time.
Commissioner
Gernert said sure more could be put on there if they hadn’t been discussed,
but they would have to come back and sign the sheet and turn it in for tallying,
because it would be public record.
Mr.
Spitzer said if that was the way they wanted to proceed, he would like to
collect that information, or receive it in advance of the meeting.
Chairman
Costello asked Commissioner Gernert if for example they went to Item #3 on Mr.
Spitzer’s discussion issue matrix, to the Citizen Suggestions, “ There were
several suggestions provided to the Charter
Review Commission to increase the number of commissioners and/or alter the
districting scheme to seven at-large, 7 single-member or to 5 single-member,
plus 2 at-large”.
He said they would not necessarily be voting for any one of those, and he
thought that they had a consensus on that.
He said in Item #2 suggestion to revise the Charter to provide municipal
control over CRA inside city limits, and he believed their attorney had told
them that would be contrary to general law.
Mr.
Watts said the general law said that the ultimate authority rested with the
county, and there might be a way to provide or encourage some structure for
county approval of individual municipal CRAs, so that it was not capricious.
Chairman Costello
said that Mr. Watts could handle those questions after they did their separating
of the issues by #1, #2, or #3 and asked if that was all right with him?
Mr. Watts said that
would be fine.
Chairman Costello
said in using that form then, they had to get them to Mr. Spitzer, and he asked
if they could do it that week?
Commissioner Gernert
said to simplify matters they could take a sheet of paper and number it one
through forty-six, and then if they had other issues they could put them at the
end, on each one of those place a #1, #2, or #3 and, e-mail that to him and he
could forward that to Mr. Spitzer.
Chairman Costello
asked if that was under the Citizens Suggestion Column?
Commissioner Gernert
said that was correct.
Chairman Costello
asked the Commission to come up with a date by which they could submit those.
Chairman Costello
said he thought that there was a consensus that the matrix would be labeled
under Citizens Suggestions, #1, #2, or #3, and if they had any additional items
to add them with their name, and they would need to give Mr. Spitzer some text
as to what that addition happened to be.