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Hernando Today

Got Priorities? Form A Committee

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By Tony Marrero

Hernando Today

Published: December 3, 2008

Brooksville - The county needs to keep cutting the budget, continue reorganization plans to streamline government and secure more state and federal funding for transportation projects.

Those are among the priorities the county commission came up with in a two-hour brainstorming session held Tuesday afternoon. Also on the list of goals: Come up with a more cost-effective way to provide fire services, and stoke economic development here.

How to do it all? The board members addressed that, too, with its number one priority: Establish standing committees made up of commissioners, staffers and members of the public.

It sounds like the ultimate government cliché, but commissioners said they were excited by the idea from Commissioner Dave Russell to take an approach similar to the state Legislature and Congress.

Russell, a former state legislator, brought up the notion more than half way through the meeting at the Community Activity Center in Brooksville. By then, the commission had come up with dozens of priorities with the help of Rodney Clouser, an extension public policy specialist with the University of Florida enlisted by County Administrator David Hamilton.

"All of these things can be easily digested and dissected by these committees and brought back to the board," Russell said. "We'd be getting direct input, and we'd be meeting in public."

Commissioners said they want to get more input from businesses to keep them here, and want to come up with ways to entice new firms to set up shop here.

When it comes to cutting costs, Commissioner Jeff Stabins recommended more scrutiny of the budgets of the constitutional officers such as the sheriff and clerk of court. Commissioners agreed that more effort needs to be made to share costs with the city of Brooksville and the Hernando County School District.

Commission James Adkins said he wants to see more transparency in government spending, putting out there who requests funding and who approved it.

"Something as simple as www.whospentthemoney.com," Adkins said

A host of other potential goals came up during the meeting.

Among them:

Commissioners agreed the county's permitting process needs to be streamlined.

"Waiting three or four months for a permit "hurts businesses," Adkins said.

They agreed that the county code enforcement needs to become a little friendlier.

Stabins used the analogy of Mayberry's two law officers, Andy and Barney Fife.

"I think code enforcement officers need to be trained to be a little bit more like Andy and not like Barney," Stabins said.

The county's "hodgepodge" system of trash and recycling pickup needs to be improved so the county can "enter the 21st century" and develop a system that's fair to everybody, Stabins said.

Adkins floated the idea of putting the county under a charter form of government. They resemble state or federal constitutions and must be approved, along with any amendments, by the voters of a county.

At one point, Clouser noted that governments need to have a BHAG – a "big, hairy, audacious goal" that "might not be met in your lifetime."

When the discussion turned toward The BUS, Stabins chimed in: "Filling THE Bus is our BHAG."

Government gadfly Janey Baldwin criticized the commission for the committee idea, one that seems absurd when so many county residents can barely make ends meet.

"The people in the county could care less what you did if you don't talk about cutting costs, and you talk about establishing another committee," Baldwin said. "We need a county commission who will act proactively."

Former county commission candidate Wayne Dukes reminded the commission about the so-called Committee of 25, formed by the board in 2006 to come up with ideas for the county to meet its capital improvement needs.

"We offered two suggestions … and the commission didn't do either one of them," Dukes said. "My recommendation is to be receptive to what's brought before you."

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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