Conflicts of Judgment

The county has embarked on an aggressive campaign to enhance the health of its employees and by extension reduce the costs of insurance claims.

One aspect of that effort is picking up the tab for gym memberships for all county employees, a number just over 200 when taking in all full- and part-time county employees.

The issues at hand, though, reveal an aspect of county government that operates in vacuum to the outside world.

In this vacuum, the county is using taxpayer money, over $6,000, so that all employees can use the gym on Reid Avenue at their leisure, provided it is not on work time.

The concept has merits. Preventive health is critical and trying to reduce health insurance claims is sound business. The arrangement represents a deal on each employee per month, just over $2.

The rub exists on several levels.

The first is that this is a gym operated by a company owned by a county commissioner. He dutifully recused himself from the vote on the deal, but perception flows through a different prism.

In this case, this gym was being sued by the city of Port St. Joe for back rent and property and sales taxes prior to reaching a compromise settlement with city commissioners which allowed the gym to avoid the entire tab.

Which was owed to taxpayers, in effect.

In a separate deal not involving the city, the gym relocated to Reid Avenue.

Further, in a tough economic climate, when the commission chairman is trumpeting that there will be no layoffs, one has to wonder how county taxpayers feel about footing the bill for all county employees to use a gym many in the real world can not afford.

And pay the $6,000 whether that number is one or 200 employees to take advantage of the gym.

There has to be some wonderment about how many county employees working on the north end of the county, say at the Road Department, or live on the north end of the county, even use the gym on a consistent basis.

Think any other small-businesses on Reid Avenue or Hwy. 71 in Wewahitchka would like $6,000 guaranteed at the bottom line regardless of how many customers come through the door.

Can we say conflict of interest?

Conflict that is not dissimilar from that of another county commissioner who is employed with the county's, not to mention both municipalities', engineering firm of record and who has already filed more abstentions from votes than have been seen in years.

Conflict that represents the status quo for the Board of County Commissioners, who have in the past bent over backwards to tilt bidding rules and steer work toward favored friends and who have consistently distanced themselves from the realities of the landscape most are living in.

That is the world under single-member districts.

Not only are voters left with narrow say in county government, a 20 percent say, they must maintain their balance on an uneven playing field, which single-member districts may not have created, but surely fosters.