So Much for Leadership

Call the bluff.

That is what the city of Port St. Joe officials should do regarding the county threat to undertake the legal methods required to “de-annex” WindMark Beach from the city if certain demands on sewer projects were not met.

As has been stated before in this space, but was so amply demonstrated in the course of the past several weeks, the interlocal agreement over the annexation was always a sort of property tax Devil’s deal.

The devil has been in the details and the county has made sure to assert its will at will.

Even though the county is at most simply handing out the money, the conduit between troughs of taxpayer dollars – call them grants or legislative appropriations, it is all public money.

This is the second time in less than six months – and this time around it required at least three county meetings and two city meetings, all on the public dime – that city officials have been, almost literally, dragged across the carpet by county commissioners.

 Over issues that could have easily been solved in far more constructive ways than combative special meetings that are little more than turf wars.

Do the chief administrators of both entities talk? Isn’t that what county staff is to do, avoid this kind of micromanaging.

Hah, not with these commissioners.

And so much for that much-vaunted civility and professionalism allegedly produced by a joint county/city workshop this summer.

As with anything involving two children in a sandbox there is plenty of blame on both sides.

For the county, this is just another exhibit in the never-ending case for some kind of change, for instance county-wide voting, which the county refuses to litigate while willing to go to court at the drop of the hat on any host of issues.

When boiled down, these two tussles over sewer projects involved county commissioners getting a bee in their bonnet concerning a specific project in their district.

Hold up the money, they spout, along with populist nonsense – in the sense that it is hypocritical nonsense – about thousands “to flush a commode”, “working a district is a full-time job” and “this is a public safety issue.”

None of which had anything to do with actually moving projects forward, save in their own districts.

Toss the names of high-ranking county employees into the argument, the flavor further sours.

Meanwhile, the city must shoulder the responsibility of earning back the trust of those it does business with.

Four thousand plus bad checks discovered during an audit last year.

The audit that has yet to be made public demonstrating where hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone.

Slow payments to some contractors or a paperwork snafu with the county that could have resulted in termination in many business environments.

The city has work to do to ensure financial credibility.

When a contractor’s biggest concern about an emergency repair job of a sewer line on a state highway is whether or not he is going to be paid by the city – that speaks volumes.

But two issues override the episode, as they loom over most business that includes the expenditure of public money.

The interlocal agreement and the subsequent actions by both parties underscore the business-as-usual model that lacks commonality of purpose.

The city’s property tax snatch was the opportunity for the county to hold over the city’s heads a list of demands that is almost dizzying, and has been for the city as far as tracking dollars.

That said, few would argue the infrastructure projects being currently undertaken are positives, even with all the stumbles. They were needed, will facilitate economic development and in the long-term save taxpayers incalculable repair and rehabilitation expenses.

But county and city commissioners can barely be in the same room together and relations with the school board – the city just cut school crossing guards to save money – are not precisely warm and fuzzy.

This brings us the second issue implicit in this recent episode.

Disconnect with the public.

People are hurting.

There are few small business owners or residents who would survey as not holding considerable anxiety about today and tomorrow, about the future of the community, their children, their churches and their schools.

At a time when the social safety net – care for seniors, those of low income or a fixed income, libraries, the essential threads of community – are stretched to near breaking, government’s most vital role, after protecting the public dollar, is providing leadership, statesmanship and calm amidst the storm.

The most recent sewer snafu provides another example on the arc of public policy in Gulf County.

As with the summer workshop, commissioners have a way of at least putting one foot forward, but too often, as with the past several weeks, they end up taking two steps back.