May 25, 2011
BUDGET
HEARINGS NOT FOR THE PUBLIC
It
is all but impossible to believe the last 2 budget meetings that
occurred
Monday and Tuesday this week.
Monday
night the BOC meet downstairs, but moved upstairs because Bernard
wanted
to. Charles Hill was absent.
When they all got upstairs Jack sat on the
side of the table with his back to the people.
Carl wanted to know why he did that because people
wouldn’t be able to
hear. Jack promptly informed him he
didn’t care because it was the board’s meeting.
The
CFO told “the guys” that instead of going up 3 or so mils
she had figured out a
way to keep the same amount of money coming in by only going up a
little less
than 2 mils. All the commissioners
seemed much happier than that. Other
than that little was accomplished. It
sounded
like health insurance has gone up a good bit.
When Patrick said that training for commissioners
had to be cut back,
Bernard jumped on that. He said they all
needed training and 4 commissioners agreed to that and that she was the
only
one that didn’t. You don’t
think that
was cut, do you? In fact Jack will be
going to Sea Palms for another class in June at your expense!
After
the budget discussion, Cox wanted to talk about Hodges Farm Rd and the drainage
problems. He told of several problems and
Bernard said they would just go against the bond. That’s
when Patrick dropped a bomb. She handed
out copies of the contract she got
from the county manager and said it wasn’t a contract and there
were no
bonds. Jack immediately wanted to turn
it over to the lawyer and not discuss it.
Patrick said no she was going to finish and she did,
but it didn’t
really make any difference as the rest just shrugged it off. Patrick wanted a vote on not allowing any
more work until there was a contract and a bond, but Bernard said they
could
not vote in a work session. You can
watch it on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/gajasper#p/a/u/0/RlK_qSrzDmo
Tuesday
night was upstairs in the courtroom again with no microphones turned on. This time Patrick and Pennamon were
absent. Bernard, the attorney, county
manager and CFO all set with their backs to the people and it was hard
to
hear. This must have been planned
because when Sharon Robinson tried to turn up the microphones and got
feedback,
Jack let her know that it was their meeting (he should have said HIS
meeting)
and the people didn’t need to hear. Heck
no! The people are only supposed to do
what Jack wants—pay enough taxes to pave Jackson Lake Rd.
Another
plan had to be hatched ahead of time too.
The new FAIR TAX is now called something else like a
special tax
district. It will be a $100 fee for
residences and more for businesses.
Senior citizens will only pay $50.
The fee will be for Fire, EMS,
and the
Hospital. Steve Jordan and Stuart Abney
from the hospital were there and so was Jeff Bratcher from EMS,
so they all had to know about this plan ahead of time as well.
From
what little could be heard it sounds like the millage rate will still
go up, we
will all have a flat tax, and there won’t be much cutting from
the budget. At Monday night’s
meeting there was over a
$700,000 shortfall, but with Jack’s fair tax, this will all
vanish and there
will be plenty of money to put into contingency and build up the fund
balance,
that is according to him. Jack then
wanted to vote on the matter without Patrick and Pennamon there and
said as
long as 3 of them were there they could.
But Monday night he told them they couldn’t
vote.
Jack
was in total charge of the meeting and everything that was decided on
the
budget. The chairman only was allowed to
bang the gavel to start and end the meeting.
The
taxpayers were not supposed to hear what was going on and may not be
told. Kathy Mudd from the paper did not
show up at
the Tuesday night meeting either, so what actually went on won’t
be reported.
Please
check back on www.youtube.com/gajasper to view any videos of
Tuesday night’s meeting.
