Thursday, November 19, 2009
Tuesday night's county work session and commission meeting.
Okay, let me see if I can make sense of my notes. First of all, nothing really noteworthy took place at the regular meeting except for a very poorly handled first reading and public hearing on proposed changes to the Uniform Building Code, having mostly to do with mobile homes, particularly "dilapidated" ones and their removal. Commission was all for removing abandoned ones, but Rainer and Sears maintained that no matter how dilapidated and unfit for human habitation an occupied one was, it was nonetheless the residents' home and should be left as is (on the outside chance that they may vote).
No, the far more interesting event was the sparsely attended work session on the budget. Mike Fender announced that since the last meeting on Nov. 3rd, they had learned that Crescent Resources, LLC ( http://www.crescent-resources.com/ ), the parent company for Land Mar and Osprey Cove and the company that was going to build out 15,000 acres in Kingsland had declared bankruptcy. As a result, the county will NOT be getting an expected $300,000 in ad valorem taxes from them this year. The state's failure to reimburse the homestead exemptions takes another bite of $130,00o out of this year's budget.
Assuming that the assessments currently on appeal will average out to a 20 % reduction in the aggregate appealed assessments (Fender's estimate, but Commissioner Keene said he fears it could go as high as 40%), the grand total shortfall in the current budget could hit $875,000 or more. Fender had identified the following possible "cures" for the problem. For one, the employee premium percentage increases will help a little. However, he noted that the estimated taxpayer portion of the medical bills between now and the end of June would be at least another $600,000. One EMT is retiring. He will not be replaced. They could reduce office cleaning from five days per week to three. They could cancel several local road projects. If those measures were adopted, ( they were, unanimously)the net deficit would be reduced to $292,000. One of the possibilities to reduce that further was to cut all employee salaries by 1%.
I overheard Rainer telling Sears in the chit chat (no recorded minutes)before the workshop (they were all there, dressed to the nines, around 4:30 for a group portrait photo) that as mad as the employees got over the premium percentage increase, there was no way he would vote on any thing else involving employees. Sears of course agreed. Sunshine? I agree with their stance, by the way. That's how the commission voted - to accept the non-employee related cuts only. We are left with at least a $292,000 deficit for the remaining 7 months of the fiscal year and that does not even factor in the cost of the sheriff shipping out prisoners, which he told me Tuesday night he fully intends to do come January if there is no solution reached on overcrowding - study or no study.
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7 comments:
Maybe they could give back the new courthouse square signs, landscaping and sprinkler system.
I hear that Sandy Feller is now planning to run for County Commissioner again. He did a lot better than I expected in the race for city council and he may do well as a candidate for commissioner. It is evident that someone has to do something different in the county.
In the interest of full disclousre, let me say again (in case you've missed it) that there is a very high probabbility that I will run for that seat next year as well.
Now, having Feller back on the Council would certainly be a change fromt he current composition but would it be a change from his first failed term on the county commission. Were you here and watching his performance - i.e., his titanic, paranoic "battle" against Steve Berry, in particular, but, to a lesser extent, the entire board?
That he might "do well," is, unfortunately true. He has been playing the class warfare card on TOPIX, Kingsland in a sad, sociopathic way for well over a year now. He has become the consummate, unprincipled vote whore.
What I'm afraid his candidacy will do is put Charlene Sears back in for another 4 year clothing and coiffures supplement.
If you are planning to run against Ms. Sears as is Mr. Feller, it might well be said that YOUR candidacy will
put Charlene Sears back in for another 4 year clothing and coiffures supplement.
It might, and I would certainly hope that that would not be the case. However, make no mistake: the county would be far better off with a good-hearted though feckless and ineffective twit like Charlene Sears in that seat for another 4 years than a black-hearted, pathologically negative, paranoic, class-warring, divisive, unprincipled, octogenarian, vote whore. Other than being a continuing embarrassment, she would do no harm. The same can not be said of Feller.
"----than a black-hearted, pathologically negative, paranoic, class-warring, divisive, unprincipled, octogenarian, vote whore." Until I reached the "octogenarian" I was sure that your were writing autobiographically.
I have found Mr. Feller to be outspoken and honest, unfailingly polite, and truly representative of the interests of the people he represents.
Don't feel bad: I was once takne in just as you are now. Watch what happens if you disagree with him on something. In my case, he turned on me after, during his repeated phonecalls to my home to discuss local politicis, I successfully resisted his efforts to recruit me into his paranoic view of Steve Berry as the nidus of all evil in the county. TRhat's when the light came on. Hopefully, you will have your epiphany sooner rather than later, lest you cast a vote that I can assure you you will later regret.
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