City council members spoke frankly and often forcefully Monday night as they discussed the city’s financial situation in front of a packed chamber during their regular meeting.

Repeatedly throughout the three-hour session, council members reminded the audience the immediate purpose was to discuss and consider, not make final decisions.

The debate was sparked by two factors — an expected shortfall in tax revenues for fiscal year 2009-10 of approximately $300,000 (which City Manager Sarah Adelt warned could be greater) and a memo by council member George Hall listing 10 possible actions the city council could take in meeting that shortfall.

The city’s financial director, Renee Green, told the council and audience the city now collects property revenue from only about 15 percent of residents and businesses, due to increased homestead exemptions and falling property values.

“Property values went down $19 million,” Green said. “We’re going to be way short. We’re looking at all kinds of ways to cut back. We’re a small town with a small town tax base.”

Council member Joe Wright said, “We have to be realistic. Unfortunately, that means being pessimistic.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” he added, saying that cuts would have to be made. At the same time, he reminded the audience, it was important to have a civilized discussion.

The warning was given because emotions ran high given that Hall’s memo made several radical suggestions.

Doing away with the Community Redevelopment districts

For example, Hall suggested doing away with the three community redevelopment districts and the proposed position of an executive director for the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Hiring a director would cost each of the districts — the Airport, the Southside, and Main Street — $21,275.

That means, Wright said, just the salary for the director would eat up nearly half of the Southside CRA budget, over a quarter of the Airport’s CRA budget, and 11 percent of the Main Street CRA budget.

The biggest drawback to doing away with the CRA districts is the loss of Tax Increment Funding dollars — that is tax money that returns directly to the community from which it is raised for the purpose of redevelopment.

Wright requested that the city approach the Highlands County Board of County Commissioners to see if TIF dollars could still be allocated to the city’s three CRA districts without a CRA being in place.

Currently the city receives about $230,000 from the county.

Council members Brenda Gray and AlJoe Hinson were opposed to doing away with the CRA altogether, both expressing concerns that the Southside would once again be ignored by the city.

Gray wanted to know who would ensure the funding would be spent where it should.

“The city council,” Wright said forcefully. “If we’re not doing our jobs, throw us out.”

When Gray asked again, Wright said, “Every meeting we should have a crowd turn out like this, not just because George sent out a list that gets people all stirred up.

“That is the answer to an effective city government, to have active citizen participation. If we have meetings where only three or four people show up, and it’s the same three or four people, then no, we’re not going to get things done.”

Public safety

Probably the most important reason for the large turnout was Hall’s suggestion that the city do a cost/benefit analysis on the police and fire departments, with a view to possibly turning over both agencies to the county.

With its diminished tax base, the audience was told by more than one council member, the city did not raise enough money, even including the fire assessment, to cover the costs of public safety personnel.

The council agreed that because the county primarily depends on volunteer fire crews, it was unrealistic to do away with the city’s professional fire department.

But they made it clear they expected to see savings — in how the department ordered new equipment, for example — and perhaps by doing away with the full-time secretarial position.

The issue of the police department being consolidated into the sheriff’s office was not rejected out-of-hand, despite the audience’s clear support for law enforcement to remain local.

Wright wanted to know if there was a set of objective criteria by which a department may judged, pointing out that kind of information is useful to know.

“We don’t need to overstaff, but we do need to meet critical needs,” he said.

Wright charged the city manager and Police Chief Matthew Doughney with finding answers.

“If we have to cut, it is not our task to go down a list of employees. Our charge is to the city manager. Micro-managing is what messed up the city. I would like to hear from Chief Doughney about staffing needs. We can’t decide who goes and who stays, that’s the chief’s job,” Wright said. “Can we keep a police department, can we fund it properly? That answer must come from the chief.

“We know we’re going to have a shortfall, we don’t know how much.”

He added the unions would be critical in dealing with the problem.

Robert Childress, of the Southwest Florida Police Benevolent Association, told the council his union was “willing to sit down and discuss how to help the city survive, willing to discuss cuts.”

Doughney pointed out that although the department needed 10 new patrol cars, he had budgeted for only six.

He also told the council that 75 percent of the way through the fiscal year, the force had used only 36 percent of its fuel budget.

Mayor Sharon Schuler warned citizens that if public safety is where the city chooses to spend its money, then something else will have to be cut.

“We have to balance the budget,” she said, “or the state takes over.”

Wright moved that the city approach the sheriff for a cost/benefit analysis. The motion passed by a 3-2 vote with Gray and Hinson voting against.

Recreation Department, Code Enforcement, public utilities and retirements

There was less emotion and opposition over Hall’s suggestion to do away with the city’s recreation department. Instead, non-profit organizations, some faith-based, could take over its functions. A summer program could be run by college interns, Hall said.

“We’ve got to get creative,” he added.

Hall also met little opposition to his suggestion of doing away with the special magistrate, closing down code enforcement, and handing its duties on to the police department.

Nor did anyone offer objection when Hall suggested those individuals eligible for retirement do so now to make room for younger individuals coming up. It would also be an opportunity to cut out redundant or useless positions.

Doug Barnard, a member of the CRA’s Southside Advisory Board, took the podium to ask why the former Public Utilities Coordinator, who made $52,000 a year, had been replaced by a consultant paid $2,500 a week.

The council did not have an opportunity to address the issue of the city’s civic center — which Chief Doughney referred to as white elephant, and Hall has recommended either selling or leasing long term — or setting up an Airport Authority and separating it from the city budget.

The idea of having the city’s project manager — and the new CRA director, should that post come into being — be paid a lower salary and given a commission from the grants she or he wins for the city, was mentioned in passing.

Bringing the discussion back to its essential core — Avon Park’s lack of revenue — Schuler addressed the issue of non-profit property ownership.

“We are blessed,” she said, “to have lots of churches, but all of that property doesn’t pay taxes. Our tax base is very small.”

The public, said Schuler, is strongly encouraged to let its feelings known. In particular, city council members are looking for creative ideas to save money.

Citizens are urged to attend the first budget hearing taking place at 8 a.m. on Saturday, July 18 in council chambers.
SOURCE NEWSSUN

U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow, said he is pleased with the direction food safety legislation is taking in the House of Representatives. The Food Safety Enhancement Act (H.R. 2749) was marked up in the Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday.

“This legislation includes the key principles we established in the bipartisan legislation I introduced with Congressman Jim Costa (D-Calif.) earlier this year,” Putnam said in a news release.

“It expands the authority of the Food and Drug administration (FDA) to quickly respond to threats to our nation’s food supply. It strengthens preventative measures with new science- and risk-based food safety standards. It calls for updated food safety plans within food operations domestically and abroad to identify and prevent potential sources of food-borne illness. And it holds imported foods to American safety standards,” he added.

HR 2749 gives FDA tremendous power while significantly diminishing existing judicial restraints on actions taken by the agency.  The bill would impose a one-size-fits-all regulatory scheme on small farms and local artisanal producers; and it would disproportionately impact their operations for the worse.

HR 2749 does not address underlying causes of food safety problems such as industrial agriculture practices and the consolidation of our food supply.  The industrial food system and food imports are badly in need of effective regulation, but the bill does not specifically direct regulation or resources to these areas.

You can view the entire bill here

Some of the more alarming provisions in the bill are:

* HR 2749 would impose an annual registration fee of $500 on any “facility” that holds, processes, or manufactures food.  [isn't this every home in the US, every garden?]  Although “farms” are exempt, the agency has defined “farm” narrowly.  [What is the definition?]  And people making foods such as lacto-fermented vegetables, cheeses, or breads would be required to register and pay the fee, which could drive beginning and small producers out of business during difficult economic times. [Yes.  There are laws against this corporate-size-destroys-the-little-guy policy, aren't there?  Are home bread or cheese or lacto-fermented vegetable makers who make for their own families included in this?]

* HR 2749 would empower FDA to regulate how crops are raised and harvested.  It puts the federal government right on the farm, dictating to our farmers.  [This astounding control opens the door to CODEX.  WTO "good farming practices" will include the elimination of organic farming by eliminating manure, mandating GMO animal feed, imposing animal drugs, and ordering applications of petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides.  Farmers, thus, will be locked not only into the industrialization of once normal and organic farms but into the forced purchase of industry's products.  They will be slaves on the land, doing the work they are ordered to do - against their own best wisdom - and paying out to industry against their will.

There will be no way to be frugal, to grow one’s own grain to feed the animals, to raise healthy animals without GMO grains or drugs, to work with nature at all.  Grassfed cattle and poultry and hogs will be finished.  So, it’s obvious where control will take us.  And weren’t these the “rumors on the internet” that were dismissed but are clearly the case?]

* HR 2749 would give FDA the power to order a quarantine of a geographic area, including “prohibiting or restricting the movement of food or of any vehicle being used or that has been used to transport or hold such food within the geographic area.”  [This - "that has been used to transport or hold such food" - would mean all cars that have ever brought groceries home so this means ALL TRANSPORTATION can be shut down under this.  This is using food as a cover for martial law.]  Under this provision, farmers markets and local food sources could be shut down, even if they are not the source of the contamination.  The agency can halt all movement of all food in a geographic area.  [This is also a means of total control over the population under the cover of food, and at any time.]

* HR 2749 would empower FDA to make random warrantless searches of the business records of small farmers and local food producers, without any evidence whatsoever that there has been a violation.  [If these bills cover all who "hold food" then this allows for taking of records of anyone at any time on no basis at all.]  Even farmers selling direct to consumers would have to provide the federal government with records on where they buy supplies, how they raise their crops, and a list of customers.

* HR 2749 charges the Secretary of Health and Human Services with establishing a tracing system for food.  Each “person who produces, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, or holds such food” [Is this not every home in the US?]  would have to “maintain the full pedigree of the origin and previous distribution history of the food,” and “establish and maintain a system for tracing the food that is interoperable with the systems established and maintained by other such persons.”  The bill does not explain how far the traceback will extend or how it will be done for multi-ingredient foods.  With all these ambiguities, [with all these ambiguities, it is dangerous, period, separate from the money] it’s far from clear how much it will cost either the farmers or the taxpayers.  [It is massive and absurd and burdensome beyond the capacity of people to comply - is this not fascism? - so it is a set up for being used to impose penalties endlessly and/or to eliminate anyone at will.]

*  HR 2749 creates severe criminal and civil penalties, including prison terms of up to 10 years and/or fines of up to $100,000 for each violation for individuals.  [Does it include judicial review, Congressional oversight, a defined and limited set of penalties and punishments for a defined set of “crimes”?  Or is it entirely ambiguous and left to the whim and sole power of “the Administrator”?  Who is that person set to be?  Is it Michael Taylor, Monsanto lawyer and executive, as Food Democracy has said?  That is, do these bills set up an agency by which the entire US food supply will be turned over to the control of a multinational corporation under WTO regulations (and not to US farmers and not to US laws under the Constitution), with boundless freedom to do what it wants, and one infamous for harm to farmers and lack of safety of food?

Action to Take:

Contact your Representative now!  Ask to speak with the staffer who handles food issues.  Tell them you are opposed to the bill.  Some points to make in telling your Representative why you oppose HR 2749 include:

1.  The bill imposes burdensome requirements while not specifically targeting the industrial food system and food imports, where the real food safety problems lie.

2.  Small farms and local food processors are part of the solution to food safety; lessening the regulatory burden on them will improve food safety.

3.  The bill gives FDA much more power than it has had in the past while making the agency less accountable for its actions.

HR 2749 needs to be defeated!!  Please take action NOW.

Highlands County commissioners received a standing ovation from the audience after they voted Tuesday morning to suspend impact fees for a year, starting July 1.

While the audience was filled with many people who sought that action in hopes of boosting the downturned local economy, not everyone was in favor of the 5-0 unanimous vote.

Of the nine citizens who spoke before the commissioners voted, six supported the suspension, two opposed it, and one said his big concern is the potential hiring of illegal aliens by construction companies if building projects pick up.

Diana Albritton said getting rid of impact fees to jump-start the stalled county economy has been on most people’s minds.

“The impact fees suspension is the No. 1 topic, the ‘hot-button’ issue that everybody in Highlands County is talking about,” she said.

Albritton asked the commissioners to suspend these fees, assessed on developers to cover the cost of infrastructure needed due to growth.

Groups not only endorsing but also pleading for the suspension of impact fees included the Highlands County Builders Association, the Heartland Association of Realtors, and the recently founded The Group for Better Government.

County Commissioner Guy Maxcy, who tried to have impact fees suspended one year ago but couldn’t find any support then, said he has “faith” that getting rid of impact fees will result in some people getting called back to work.

And, Maxcy said, getting construction projects started will do no less than “put food in people’s mouths.”

County Commissioner Don Bates said he hopes that suspending impact fees will help start a local recovery from the recession, which has hit the construction industry particularly hard.

But, Bates said, suspending impact fees will be “worthless” unless people and businesses in this county actually start spending money on construction projects.

Bates said county government can put unemployed people back to work, too, by going ahead with county building projects which have been put on hold. The biggest such project is the construction of a new law enforcement/administration center for the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office.

The county has already spent nearly $900,000 out of the $1.1 million budgeted for the architectural plans for the new sheriff’s building. Work to complete the design was stopped earlier this year, when the commissioners voted 4-1 to shelve this project for at least six months.

Bates was the only commissioner who voted against putting a halt to the new sheriff’s building. The proposed building has an estimated price tag of $11.2 million and would be by far the biggest public works projects, outside of the Sebring Parkway.

Gabriel Read of Avon Park was one of two citizens who questioned the wisdom of getting rid of impact fees for one year in hopes of stimulating the construction industry.

“Who pays?” Read asked.

Read said if impact fees are gone, then the costs for infrastructure needed due to growth will have to be paid by all of the existing taxpayers in Highlands County. Impact fees were initiated three years ago to prevent current taxpayers from paying the growth costs created by new development, he said.

Tom Kosty, a resident of Sun ‘n Lake of Sebring, warned the commissioners that encouraging the building of more single-family homes, while the market is flooded with “an over supply” of homes that aren’t selling, will hurt many homeowners, especially retirees.

Many retirees who moved here from out of state are struggling financially because the more homes that are built – when there are already too many homes on the market – the more the value of the retirees’ homes drops, he said.

Speaking as “a retiree who moved to Highlands County in 2006,” Kosty said that, because of the flooded single-family home market, “every new (housing) development in Highlands County” decreases the value of retirees’ homes.

If the situation gets much worse, Kosty said, many retirees will lose their current “purchasing power” and some may have to move out of Highlands County.

Getting out of Highlands County is what businesses have been doing because of impact fees, said one woman Realtor. She asked commissioners to suspend the impact fees and told the following story:

She was ready to close a sale on land to a businessman who wanted to build a convenience store on State Road 66. However, when she told him that the impact fees on that small project would be about $60,000, he canceled the sale and told her, “I’m going to go to (build his store in) South Carolina.”

Mike Secor, president of the Highlands County Builders Association, said no one can guarantee that suspending impact fees for 12 months will put construction workers back to work and boost the local economy.

That might happen, and it might not, he said.

“I will say this, though,” he added. “If don’t try it, we won’t know.”

The 2010 political season started early in the Heartland when Ben Albritton announced he’s running for state representative in District 66, which includes all of Hardee County, plus a portion of northwest Sebring, Avon Park and south-central Polk County.

Two Winter Haven men have joined the race as well: chiropractor Gary Newberry, and Leviticus Reed, who ran last year for the Winter Haven Canal Commission.

Newberry told a Polk newspaper that schools, health care, property taxes and insurance rates fair are the major issues in the state. “It never changes,” he said. “There’s always going to be these issues.”

Albritton loves public service, and promotes the Florida Citrus Commission, which he serves as the district 2 commissioner; this year, he’s the chairman.

“I get the greatest pleasure out of serving,” Albritton said. “I love to do it. That’s how I get more out of life.”

District 66 is currently represented by Baxter Troutman, who is limited to four terms in office. Troutman and Albritton are friends, and it was Troutman who first suggested Albritton could replace him.

“The actual thought emerged from a conversation he and I had four years ago,” Albritton said. “He was down here at my office talking to my brother and me, and we asked, who’s thinking about running? Who’s going to fill this seat when you’re gone? And he smiled and looked at me, and said, ‘What about you?’”

Albritton said if he hadn’t been a fourth-generation citrus grower, he might have chosen the ministry. He teaches a life group – a church group of 12 to 15 people who meet at his house every Wednesday.

Family is more important to him than business: “I prioritize my life. It’s simply the only way to keep my head above water. Guard and protect your family. I’m married to the most amazing woman I ever met, Missy. God, family, and others,” said Albritton. “If any of those things get out of order in my life, I know it very quickly.”

Albritton and his wife have three children: Rebecca, 11; Joshua, 8; and Ryan, 4. They live in Wauchula.

The Albritton family started in Bowling Green, which Ben points out was the first home of the Strawberry Festival, before it moved to Plant City. Today, the family owns groves in Hardee and Manatee counties, and an insurance business.

Albritton has a degree in citrus and business from Florida Southern College in Lakeland.

His platform has three components which Albritton said are intertwined and inseparable: family values, education and business. “That is the core of our society,” Albritton said.

“Insurance is super-important in Florida, and it’s going to be a significant challenge in the future,” he said. “The greenbelt exemption going to have be protected with life and limb.”

He also wants to reduce the number of divorces. He cited research from Strong Marriages Florida, which says fragmented families cost the taxpayers $1.9 billion per year.

Albritton would not disclose how much money he has raised, except to say the amount is significant. The first filing deadline for financial statements is June 30.