The 5: Making Laws, Spending Our Money , Towing a Line on Things We Know Nothing About
Posted January 23, 2015 08:35 am
By
Richard Todd
How much longer will the people of Columbia County sit back and allow the County 5 to make laws that spend our money and make us tow a line on things we know nothing about?
I admit that for most of my long years I have not cared about how the laws that govern us are made or interpreted by those in power.
Recently, I have followed the actions of the County 5 and the Office of the Investigator General (OIG) investigating the actions of The Suwannee Valley Transit Authority (SVTA).
I became interested in this when I used the SVTA to get to and from my medical appointments, which were in Lake City and Gainesville.
The SVTA meets in Live Oak, a half hour from downtown Lake City. Not having transportation, it is impossible for me to attend these meetings.
The Local Coordination Board (LCB), which is supposed to advise the SVTA, meets in different locations in the Tri-County area of Columbia, Suwannee, and Hamilton Counties. Except for one time when I had a grievance to be heard by the LCB, I was not informed of the date, time or location of these meetings.
There is something strange that the people of Columbia County need to address, but they have to attend the meeting to do so. In all of my years I have never seen, nor heard, nor belonged to a group that was in total, 100 percent agreement on almost every issue.
Sure seems strange to me! How does this happen?
Should anyone doubt me, they need to attend the meetings and they will see I am telling the truth of what happens during one of them.
After one meeting, you may want to apply the "Sausage Law" and not attend another. "He who loves Sausage and the Law, should never watch either being made!” Otto Von Bismarck.
Please make an effort to attend the next meeting of the County 5 to become informed of the issues discussed. At a recent meeting of The 5 they passed additional funding for the failing and embattled Suwannee Valley Transit Authority, $107,000, to carry them through until September of 2015, without any guarantee that they will be around much longer and demonstrating once again that spending other people's money is what they do best.
Richard E. Todd
Lake City, FL
