New BCC Chairman: Give Him Your Advice
The Board of County Commissioners will have a new chairman for the next year. Charlie Stone was elected chair and Jim Payton the vice chairman. Historically, the chairman position has helped set the agenda and direction for Board meetings and priorities focus.
Previous chairman seem to have developed personal "pet projects" or special areas of interest. Outgoing chairman Stan McClain has been a leader on county water supply issues. Andy Kesselring provided leadership on environmental issues like growth planning and farmland preservation. Jim Payton, as a past chairman, was a spokesman for better road planning and support of human services.
Obviously, there are many challenges facing our county leaders. What would you advise chairman Stone take on as his pet project during his term as the BCC chairman? Why?
posted by Blog Master @ 10:45 AM
63 Comments:
That's an easy one, control county government spending.
Mr. Stone should return to the "Road King" role he promised voters when he was elected.
How about a utilities expert?
Don
(OTOW)
Isn't it about time to reorganize county government? It's a good way to get rid of waste. Too many departments appear to have grown fat over the years. Too much oversite on some and not near enough on others. Who's been asleep at the switch?
Who's been asleep at the switch?
Answer: The Fabulous General, Pat Howard.
Stone's first action as Chairman; get the other Commiss. to agree to fire Howard.
General of what?
Agreed.
Often times we "taxpayers" get fed up with elected officials. I would challenge the new chairman to take a hard look at staff. Remember politicans come and go but there are people who are entrenched at the staff level that drive the ship more often than we care to admit.
A complete review of General Howard should be made.
This review should include a confidential qustionaire to all department heads as well as their top ranking staff.
Also included should be a survey of the public, another confidential survey of Ocala city officials, elected and other wise as well as their ranking staff.
In otherwards, How is Mr. Howard getting along with others.
County Administrator is a very important position, not to be sullied by emotional differences. Any action taken must have a solid foundation of facts.
Clayton Ellsworth
Yo, Clayton. How about Charlie taking on your zero based budget idea?
Anom.
You bet. Thank you for reminding me. I just about have writen the idea off but will give it another go.
Clayton Ellsworth
Spending, spending, spending......
I’d like to see Charlie Stone become known as the Great Communicator. If he could fix the problem of Commissioners not communicating with citizens, that would be an important accomplishment.
My experience, and that of many of my friends, in trying to contact Commissioners has been awful. It is almost impossible to get them to answer e-mails or letters. You can leave a message on their answering machines but don’t expect any return call. You can leave a message at the commission office but don’t expect you’ll hear from them. Of course you can go to a meeting and get two minutes on the agenda. I will admit that a couple of them do schedule office hours every now and then to meet with citizens. However, overall, there could be much better communications between the Commissioners and citizens.
I read an article about séances that pretty well defines the problem: “Anyone can talk to the dead. It’s getting the dead to talk back that’s the hard part.”
Mr. Stone, get your fellow Commissioners to talk back.
Clayton seems to have the right approach. Communication is key. Isn't the County Administrator responsible for getting the message out?
What about this mess with the Fleet Director and big time theft the Star Blunder reported this morning? Who was responsible for watching him? This was reported as having been going on since last year!
The article also said before that he was with the County Fire Department. Didn't they have a problem with bid time misuse of money a while back? Who was responsible for watching him back then? Who pays for these big mistakes. The taxpayer does because no one is held accountable. Looks like it's time for the county to clean out some of these high paid bozos!
Two questions of interest: when did county employees first complain about this guy and what was done (if anything) by whom?
11:26 AM
How can you blame the County Manager for the situation?
when howard brought back joe stpiere after all the don greene mess staff knew howard was just another of the good ole boys and it doesnt pay to mess with him and his spy who thinks he is next adm niblack. if stone ewants to be relected he better make sure that there are some big time staff changes and soon.
many chiefs
need more indians
6:46 PM
In the real world the CEO is held accountable for mistakes in the organization. County Managers or Administrators only last so long because they atone for the sins of the elected officals AND their own shortcomings that they can't hang on their staff.
The clock is running.
anonymous at 9:31pm
Howard was a good old boy when Harris was around because I'll bet general or not he feared him. It's obvious he always did what Randy wanted. Randy wanted Joe and he's back. Jim Payton knew it all along. Watch the old Commission meeting tapes and you'll come up with the same conclusion.
The question that needs to be answered is how long can we afford to pay for the Good Old Boys?
Tonto,
You are fired!!!
Howard needs to clean up Public Works before it cleans him up. They're in desperate need of leadership. It's been a mess for several years and the Fleet operation is just the latest.
go back and ck record when the general hired his sidekick, and her name werent tonto. mcclain and harris said no, patton and stone said he's the one sho gotta work with her and kesselring said it's ur job. she failed him, and harris was rite.
anonymous at 306 is exactly right she did get the job on a 3 to 2 vote and Kesselring said he'd hold Howard responsible for her job. It took Stone and the Board to eliminate her position because Howard didn't get rid of a do nothing. The Commissioners were right.
Ok guys, this is Veterans Day. Don't give Pat Howard so hard a time.
Today, let's just thank him and many other Veterams for their service to our country, and thank that Marine on the other thread for knocking the hell out of that dumb ass professor who challanged God.
He and Veterans are my kind of people. We can talk politics and the effectiveness of Pat's ex-assistant some other day, not today.
God Bless America and thank you all Veternans for my freedom and for the freedom to have a blog! --pwf
pwf is right. Although we have the freedom to say what's on our minds let's not pound on any veteran today only give them our heartfelt thanks for their sacrifices for what we value so much!
I agree, but tomorrow is a new day.
whats the deal with this gal that they cut from the general's staff who wants to be some political player in strickland's race???? he outta look at her record in s florida. but then the general shudda alooked before he hired her. maybe that's why stone made the motion to eliminate her job.
Charlie Stone is a smart man. He figured her out and acted before the others did. The County is better off now.
As the new chairman what positions will Charlie want to cut or change players in next?
Maybe the Southern Gentlemen doesn't like Hispanic Gals??
Could it be Black men next??
My take is the Southern Gentleman doesn't like overpaid government employees with a poor work ethic.
I wouldn't play the race card on this one Mr. Wesley Snipes!
get ur facts straight. only the future will tell how well the southern 'gent' conducts himself
Anonymous said...My take is the Southern Gentleman doesn't like overpaid government employees with a poor work ethic.
True, true and true.
Work there, what else do you see will happen?
After watching sheer incompetence on various issues assigned is that she aint very talented, and Gen Pat's five bureau chiefs were rite when they advised against hiring her. Ray Strickland gonna be sorry she has signed her on as his campaign flunkie cause she dont know nothing about that either.
Let's call Charlie "Mr. Government Reorganization". It sure could use it.
pwf I understand you have been watching and writing about government for quite a while. What's your take on county administration, the commission and the structure of government? Any recommendations for change?
Reduce my taxes and he'll be my hero.
Hope Mr. Stone forces a clean up of some of the dead wood at the Bureau Chief level. A few need to retire.
Anyone know, is Voice Of Reason on vacation?
I noticed some commentary on here about what is the responsibility of County Administrator Pat Howard. I thought some of the bloggers might be interested in Howard’s thoughts on this.
Here’s an excerpt of remarks Howard made at the March 23, 2004 meeting of Marion County’s Library Advisory Board. The excerpt concerns his relationship as county administrator to the activities of Library Director Julie Sieg (a department head):
“First of all, I just wanted you all to see I’m a real person, and not an ogre. Uh, and I was kind of struck today by, uh, some of the comments that seemed to be sort of attributed to me that really I never said and are really not true. Uh, the first one is that I’m going to select all the books. That’s ridiculous. I’m not going to select all the books. I wouldn’t want to do that. I don’t know how to do that. I have no intention of doing that. The other thing that was said was that I’m going to take over the selection of books. I’m not sure, but I think I’ve already been told I’m in charge of selecting all the books because Julie selects the books and she works for me. I don’t know about in the Army, but I think you’d find it the same way. That means I’m responsible for what Julie does.”
Note especially the final sentence. Clearly, Howard’s position is that he is responsible for what the county employees do. I would add that the county commissioners are also responsible because they hire the county administrator, and he’s over the other county employees.
Me thinks the General may be skating on very thin ice.
My advise to Chairman Stone, is to start contingency planning for the inevitable decline in the local economy and tax revenues.
The deadline for a finished product should be June 30, next year.
As of right now, Marion county has 41 propterties in foreclosure and 1041 properties in preforeclosure [hane missed at least one payment--Lis Pendes ] Source foreclosure. com . This is approximately 1 in every ten Marion County Households.
With more ARMS reseting in 2008, the inability to refinance most of these properties, maxed out credit cards being used to try and keep up payments, the number of foreclosures and preforclosures is certain to rise dramatically.
Faced with fiscal problems this year the answer was a knee jerking, in your face reduction of recycling location hours, threats to cut library funding on and on ad nauseum. Not the stuff of good planning or common sense
In June tax properties with delinquentcies will be offered for sale. There will be a record amount of these the hand writing will be on the wall.
You bet, these realities will be unpopular with the citizens. It will take commissioners with guts to stand the heat. Let's hope they are up to it.
Clayton Ellsworth
Voice of Reason says . . . .
I was visiting my grandkids up north before it get too cold. I hope that spending time with them didn't make me get any less cynical. Thanks for asking though Anon.
The Chairman of the BCC should be elated about any news about getting less money from taxes. That is a dream for a real conservative - taxes are getting cut without even having to do anything. I guess that he's a Republican but maybe he's a conservative too.
His pet project should be to challenge the commission to pass a budget that is under what expected taxes are. The money saved could be given back to taxpayers so that they can do something intelligent with it.
This is a pretty boring topic if Stone doesn't participate on this blog. See you on the "open thread," it's more fun.
VoR
Too many high paid chiefs, including the big chief.
Lone Ranger, you can't fire me--me no longer work there.
New Chairman Charlie Stone should demand and expect nothing short of innovative cost cutting budget proposals from the top administrative positions. Just letting these people come to budget workshops with their hands out should not be tolerated. Too many areas with high paid directors and chiefs have not been questioned enough because their budgets just keep growing faster than ever. If Charlie can't get that out of current county leadership then he should demand new people who can produce the results he expects.
watched other night as resident leech of school board, mz. zanetti, was begging for somebody to give her a lake weir high shirt. seems somebody with only marginal teaching skills who gets paid full salary for parttime work as board member and has leeched her way free into everything the county and every school has to offer for its employees outta be able to buy a friggin lake weir shirt and not expect the teachers or parents there to buy her one. what a piece of work.
Thank you, thank you, thank you....
I saw Ms. Zanetti make her appeal for someone to buy her a Lake Weir Shirt too and was astounded at her arrogance. More astounding is that she was elected chair of the school board. I wonder what Mr. Poole and his group thinks about having the school board appoint a superintendent now?
Hi all,
I posted over on the open thread where I agree with VOR it is more interesting. I have been gone from the site for months so could someone tell me if "Stan" is the county commissioner? Brave man to have such dialogue if he is.
Nancy
Hi all,
I posted over on the open thread where I agree with VOR it is more interesting. I have been gone from the site for months so could someone tell me if "Stan" is the county commissioner? Brave man to have such dialogue if he is.
Nancy
Nancy,
It's not Stan McClain. It's some guy Bryan Creekbaum can't stand. Of course Creekbaum can't stand McClain either.
Thanks......I guess it would be crazy for a county commissioner to get on this blog anyway. Haven't seen much productivity here but just fun for folks like me have a place to go to aggitate and enjoy being RIGHT ALL THE TIME!!! TEE HEE That's a Fact!
Nancy
I'm seldom confused but someone help me out here.........Why on the BBC Chairman thread are Anonyms taking a swipe at Judy Zanetti???? I would consider her to have the most brains sitting on the school board right now
so someone must be jealous of her??Lordy Clordy with Steve Herring sitting there asking his dumb questions Judy must be embarrassed to death at the end of each meeting. God help her get thru this year!
Nancy
if you aint embarassed by this broad and her dumb thank this and thank that, if she is the only ione with brains that board is one dumb bunch., at least steve and ron would be too proud to beg a t shirt and would buy one.
Anon 1:36
How can a t-shirt be this big of a deal???? So you guys don't like Judy because she thanks folks for things??? Well, I have seen them all do that suck-up nonsense so she isn't alone. I'm not one to give false undeserved kudos but then again I'm not in politics. Seems like politicians can't tell the truth even when it comes to giving compliments?? Problem with the schools, county commission, city council,state house and senate, congress and US senate...... to much sucking up and ZERO honesty. Now "Thats a fact!"
Nancy
I agree totally with Nancy Stacy that our public school system is a mess and not repairable. I have watched Ms. Zanetti at Board meetings. If Nancy considers Zanetti one of the brightest on the Board, no wonder our schools are in such a mess. The woman is a mental midget who has no business on the Board. If she is our finest, we better implode this education sucker and start all over!!!!
P.S......Thank you very much!
Hi "say what said",
I don't watch the school bd meetings and don't know anyone who does so apparently no one even cares about that mess enough to watch. If you mention the "School Board" even casually to anyone in the County they burst out laughing so it is embarrassing to me that the Board who SHOULD be the MOST respected is the butt of jokes. You don't find anyone anymore who respects what goes on with public education so of course the "School Board" is not respected since they are accountable for the mess. I still say that Judy Zenetti is the best and if you consider her to be the "best of the worse" then you know better than me because I quit watching bd meetings long ago. I wanted to put my foot in their faces when they started their sucking up crap and I decided to stop ruining my Tuesday evenings watching grown adults sit their and LIE and then out of their other side of the mouth wonder why the students act so stupid. LOL!! By the way....what happened to John Lund?? I don't agree with 100% of what anyone says but I did appreciate John's work and gained knowledge when listening to his show. Guess he got fed up with no one caring just like I FINALLY did. If about 10 of us formed an ELECTED BD WATCH group and agreed UP FRONT that we will not take it personally if others don't agree with us we could turn this County around in no time!!!! We would be the most feared 10 people (by politicians) in the State of Florida. LOL
Nancy Stacy
lund got to where there were only three or four who listen to his slander of people like u slander people and finally station gave up. no calls mean no listeners mean no revenue. he drove more advertisers off and brought none in. it's not a t shirt it is her constant thank this, thank that, beg this, beg that, and as somebody sed if she is the best there aint no good on that board. she rates at bottom of that board in my humble opinion.
Dear Anon 8:17
The truth is NEVER slander but those who know they are wrong and refuse to admit it always get mad. Therefore I understand your hostility. Remember that!!!
Nancy Stacy
Ouch!
What started all this harsh talk.
Cool down children or the principal will have to use his ruler on your fingers.
That "T" shirt bit was a bit much on TV the other night though. And that is a fact. --pwf
And Blogmaster, something is strange, cause I can't sign on as "Other" only as a Google/Blogger or as Anonymous. This something new or what happened? -- pwf
pwf,
I was having the same problem with signing on. You asked "What happened...ouch???"
Good question pwf?
A couple of us were discussing
the school bd and was speaking of Judy being the best of the bunch etc. Others were disagreeing with me telling me none of them were any good and out of no where comes the anonym who likes to baby talk
on his messages. He comes on talking aout slander so he got told of course. LOL It was possibly the post before my last one. Honestly, I think it is probably Brad hiding behind Anonym just trying to get a rise out of me so I don't believe in disappointing children or fools. LOL Sorry about John Lund being gone....did enjoy his show when I was driving around at that time of the day. Oh well.....I too got fed up with people not caring....you probably have held in there the longest of us all.
Nancy Stacy
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