Florida Crown - Columbia
County
Time for a little mercy from the
big wheels in Tallahassee
Columbia County, FL
(posted March 19, 2010 11:50 pm)
By Stew Lilker
At
last night's Columbia County Commission meeting it was
apparent once again that Columbia County is being left
behind in the dust trails of yesteryear, as even the
most simple forms of governance leave long time county
commissioner and current Board Chairman, Ronald
Williams, confused and unable to effectively govern,
demonstrating once again that good government has no
place in Columbia County.
When Com Williams told the County Commission, two
minutes before the close of the meeting ,
"The board [Consortium] voted us out of the fold and
the board is gonna have to vote us back in. That's
not my problem and I will tell them that at the
meetin," he made it clear that he didn't know
what he was talking about.
With a resolution to the long simmering Florida Crown
Affair only a vote away, Chairman Ronald Williams chose
to prolong the festering problem by seeing to it that
the March 5th letter from the Region 7 Consortium,
inviting Columbia County to rejoin the region, never
made it onto last night's County Commission agenda. This
was clearly not an accident and leaving things off
County Commission agendas has been common place forever.
Of course, this was not the only item that was
intentionally left off the agenda last night. A
resolution putting a referendum question on the November
ballot, never saw the light of day before the Board
voted to approve it.
For over a year, in order to grab and control the
Federal funding that comes into the four county region,
Columbia County has been in a search and destroy mode,
using every kind of stalling and obnoxious tactic they
could think of to break up and lay waste the Workforce
Region and the programs that the forty-five thousand
residents in the other three counties, as well as
Columbia County, depend on.
In a conference call a month ago and before that, it
was clear that
WFI, the overseer of the Workforce Regions in
Florida, considered this a regional problem.
Last year, Commissioner DuPree kicked off the ball
which resulted in Columbia County voting to remove
itself from the four member consortium.
In order to rejoin the region (the Consortium) the
Columbia County Commission has to first, undo their vote
to leave, by voting to rejoin. They could have done that
last night by availing themselves of the invitation
given through the Consortium Chairperson, Sharon
Langford,
inviting them to rejoin.
When Com Williams told the County Commission, two
minutes before the close of the meeting , "The board
[Consortium] voted us out of the fold and the board is
gonna have to vote us back in. That's not my problem and
I will tell them that at the meetin," he made it clear
that he didn't know what he was talking about.
It is time for the big wheels in Tallahassee to at
least explain to the confused Columbia County Chairman,
the rules of the game.
It is time for the Governor, or the big wheels at
WFI, to show a little mercy to the folks in Region 7
that are trying to navigate though the hardest times
since the Great Depression.
It wouldn't seem to the Observer, that one phone call
would be too much to ask.