EDAB's Charlie Keith: Wants Lake City to Commit to Increasing Its Public Works Department
Posted July 12, 2018 03:12 pm | (1 comment)
COLUMBIA COUNTY, FL – Wednesday's Economic Development Advisory Board (EDAB) meeting came on the heels of Monday's City Utility Committee meeting, a committee that hadn't met for over a year. None of the EDAB members, other than Chairman Murphy, attend the Utility meeting. Wednesday morning, EDAB member Charlie Keith shared his ideas regarding City/County utility relations and assessments.
Joe Helfenberger (center), the City's new
city manager, is contracted to begin on
August 1. Monday evening during the City's
first Utility Committee meeting in over a
year, he was getting a head start.
As reported earlier, Charlie Keith is the EDAB's newest member. He is also a member of the Suwannee River Water Management District Board. Both appointments are political appointments.
The City Utility Commitment
During Monday's Utility meeting, Utility
Director Paul Dyal was looking to build
bridges.
When the morning's conversation gravitated to County utility issues, Mr. Keith was front and center. He asked, "Has the City indicated any commitment to increase their public works department?"
Mr. Keith, who has demonstrated distaste for Florida's Sunshine Law in the past, continued, however, it was almost like he was trying not to be able to be understood from across the room.
He said [as understood], "If they [the City] don't increase public works, the only thing they got is grant money. They're not able to maintain what they got, not -unintelligible- to get it all the new."
Long time and recently reappointed EDAB member Stephen Douglas said the City added another department (Stormwater assessment) "and kinda split everything up."
Charlie Keith on Assessments
He got it backwards, nobody knew
Mr. Keith followed up [as spoken], "But it's an assessment. It's general fund money. It's not dedicated. If you have a tax it could be dedicated to a specific item. You present for voting purposes an assessment. That's a general fund money. Does it necessarily get spent on public works? No. That's why assessments are so popular with local governments today."
While it was not clear what Mr. Keith was talking about, Florida law is clear and specific when it comes to the difference between taxes and special assessments.
The FL Uniform Accounting
System Manual explains:
In
implementing... special assessments, a local
government's goal is to create an assessment
or fee that avoids classification as a tax
by the courts. If an assessment or fee does
not meet the case law requirements and is
classified as a tax, then the local
government must have general law
authorization for its imposition.
... As established in Florida case law, two
requirements exist for the imposition of a
valid special assessment. First, the
property assessed must derive a special
benefit from the improvement or service
provided; and second, the assessment must be
fairly and reasonably apportioned among the
properties that receive the special benefit.
Charlie Keith: "The City Can't Maintain What it Has"
Mr. Keith continued [as spoken], "The problem is they don't have enough public works to maintain what they have. Even in storm water, you know you get overgrown areas, ditches and things like that, that just need to be cleaned up. They can't maintain that, let alone get involved with new construction or infrastructure. Infrastructure is critical for what we want to do in Columbia County. The City is way behind on that. We can work all we want to on grants and stuff. It's still not going to be enough money to better the infrastructure we need. The City has to make the commitment."
Chairman Murphy responded, "That's a good point... Charlie, you're right. We don't have a rep here from the City, but that's kinda' irrelevant... That would be a good point of discussion when we officially meet the new city manager."
Long time County Commissioner Ronald
Williams makes a point during Monday's City
Utility meeting as County Chairman Murphy
(left) and Econ. Dev. Dir. Glenn Hunter
(foreground) listen.
Mr. Murphy added, commenting on Monday's City Utility Committee meeting, in which Mr. Murphy and most of the County brass attended, "It was one good move headed in the right direction."
Keeping the Pressure On
Stephen Douglas Wants More Committees "We need to keep the pressure on," he said.
Stephen Douglas recommended another committee, "an EDAB (Economic Development Advisory Board) subcommittee to go to meetings."
Mr. Douglas told the EDAB, "We just have to keep the pressure on, have our presence known."
Mr. Murphy agreed, "That's right."
Mr. Keith responded. His first set of remarks was completely unintelligible.
Charlie Keith
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, ok, blah, blah, blah --
we need commitment"
"We've got to get the word out. Columbia
County needs to take the lead."
Mr. Keith continued [as spoken],
"Here is another suggestion you might
consider. Committee -unintelligible- We got
to get the word out - the information out. I
might suggest that Columbia County
Commission take the initiative of the
project. We try to be good neighbors and get
people to work together. Somebody's got to
lead, or it doesn't happen. I suggest that
we take the lead and bringing the
information at their meetings, newspaper,
what needs to happen and get commitments
from the City that they're going to increase
their public works. There gonna' to get
called up, because we're -unintelligible-
future growth. And most municipalities use
it to catch up. Where they've used money for
somethin' else. They use the grant. It
should be designed to let you keep up with
the growth that's coming to the community.
We need this information out to the
people. They don't know what's going on.
We need all the participants to come to the
table. Somebody's got to lead. If you just
go up there as a friend - another
organization -- yeah, yeah, yeah, ok, blah,
blah, blah -- we need commitment."
Mr. Murphy responded, "Charlie, you hit the nail on the head," adding that if the County is going to get the City grants to build utilities, the City needs to commit to owning and operating them.
Mr. Keith followed up, "How are you planning to do that? How are you going to get to the point that you can handle that? I suggest that Columbia County take the lead."
Mr. Murphy responded, "That's a good point."
Epilogue
After discussing grants, the County's Economic Development Director Glenn Hunter told the Board, "Charlie, you're absolutely right. This is just a precursor of a lot of events and happenings that are gonna' take place. It's gonna' have a lot of working parts and I hadn't thought about maintaining the systems. I don't think anybody's thought about that."
