A year in review

One year and three weeks ago county voters, or at least those in the districts of the two-longest serving county commissioners, brought about a new era at the ballot box.

In removing Billy Traylor and Nathan Peters, Jr. and replacing them with Ward McDaniel and Tan Smiley, respectively, voters seem to seek a new tone, more responsiveness and a new era of accountability to those tasked to serve their interests.

With an experienced hand moving into the chairman’s seat to set board priorities for action, there was a sense that a corner had been turned toward, as one letter writer characterized it, a “new era of sunshine.”

One year later, taking into account that changes on the podium did not occur until several months after the primary election, that new era sounds and acts with an uneasily eerie resemblance to its predecessor.

Economic development

For the fourth time since 2000 the Board of County Commissioners put a torch to the Economic Development Council for a new model, stepping back to a consolidated Chamber/EDC model – one which the county moved away from in the late 1990s to provide an exclusive platform for economic development efforts.

In taking the action to effectively decimate the existing EDC, again, barely three years into a pledged-upon five-year plan, commissioners asserted they were looking for more efficient expenditure of dollars and cohesiveness in economic development initiatives.

The result has been, essentially, a lost year, with the cost to taxpayers in the near-term all but identical. Long-term? Who can say what sitting on the sidelines for a year will cost.

The Chamber jumped aboard with a reorganizational plan and launched a nationwide search, with the aide of the Gulf Coast Workforce Board, for a new executive director.

That director will not take over until the end of this month and, with the Chamber workforce largely shed during the process, will start over with a blank slate, making it a safe bet that tangible results won’t come soon.

Meanwhile the Chamber is requesting BOCC funding for next year roughly equal to Chamber/EDC funding in each of the previous two years, providing scant cost savings to taxpayers.

In essence, commissioners put economic development on hold for 2011, during already difficult economic times, save a $200,000 loan to the Port of Port St. Joe, which remains undeveloped despite years of “visioning” and grant investment; and championing a renewable energy plant in limbo due over financing.

RV regulation

Commissioners spent the better part of three months debating an ordinance to regulate the use of recreational vehicles in the county, reaching the point of drafting and advertising a lengthy ordinance.

But when poised to adopt the ordinance, two commissioners expressed fatigue with the exercise, were joined by a third and like that the entire process – underwritten by taxpayers – was relegated to the dust bin.

That such an ordinance was needed seemed evident to many, particularly those living in coastal areas. Even commissioners acknowledged action was needed for the protection of all.

But commissioners failed to move away from a one-size fits all concept toward an ordinance to appropriately address RV use in various areas of the county  – coastal, north end, western boundaries – undermining the entire effort, leaving residents bewildered and frustrated.

John Ford/Employee Health Insurance

The summer months were marked by acrimony and employee unrest regarding first health insurance and secondly the termination of EMT John Ford.

Those two debates – whether to uphold the termination of Ford and how to address employee unrest about health insurance options – consumed hours of meeting time and revealed deep divisions among commissioners.

The takeaway from the discussion over the termination was that the EMS department is sharply divided north and south; that commissioners, reflecting their divisions, have helped spread that chasm by failing to address operational issues lingering for years; and that Ford was largely caught in the switches of that divide due to Monday morning quarterbacking of a judgment call. 

Add in the health insurance debate and the evidence was clear that commissioners had failed their workforce and constituents in two critical areas – providing a vision and earning employee buy-in for that vision; and putting policies and procedures, and consequences, in place that were clear and consistently adhered to.

County-wide voting

The change in the board makeup to start the year produced the elusive 3-2 vote for moving ahead on county-wide voting, a voter mandate percolating for seven years, only to see commissioners fail to even kick the can down the road.

Oh, commissioners said they’d move ahead, but faced with a price tag higher than anticipated – higher due to delaying tactics and obstinacy among commissioners over the years – commissioners have all but left the issue on the table for another year and board.

Rather than, say, bank money for a future legal fight, commissioners showed they’d rather spend frivolously on, for example, a park not even within the purview of the county.

Again, county voters are faced with a voting bloc of commissioners from Districts 1, 2 and 4 with no apparent desire to move away from of a governance model of district wants over county needs; no matter the cost to taxpayers.

Shortly after he took office, Smiley said commissioners should be judged individually, not by the district seat they occupy, but by their actions in doing the people’s business.

By that measuring stick, or most any other, the past year has demonstrated the old adage – the more things change the more they stay the same.