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The Brevard County Commission failed to support Commissioner Trudie Infantini’s request for a change in the County Manager, instead voting to ‘discuss’ the issue again in two months on January 27th, as if waiting an extra two months will enable the worm-ridden issues of Brevard County to metamorphosize into butterflies.

In just the day (the day) before the new Commissioners were sworn in Brevard County awarded the external auditing contract to their long time auditors despite recommendations from their own selection committee for a new firm. The change in award was done in violation of the State rules on procuring services by allowing the former firm to enter into a bidding war right at the Commission Meeting, unchecked by either the County Manager or the County Attorney.

The Brevard County Fire Department, allegedly so poor it could not (with the County Manager) find a way to remove the onerous Fire Fee Tax, spent $600,000 on a system to track 60 (sixty) vehicles, of which at any one time only a few have left their stations.

The day of the meeting to discuss the changing of upper management Consent Agenda items included a plan to blow the $5 million in free money from the Federal Government (from our illustrious Fannie/Freddie bailout) by giving it away to ‘non-profits’ to buy housing if they agree to rent it out cheap.

Another item was the complete rebuilding of five homes allegedly destroyed by the weak Hurricane Wilma, no questions asked about the extent of said destruction, if the owners had collected on insurance, what happened to the insurance money if they did, and how these owners were selected out of all of Brevard County to get a free new house.

I digress, we will be following up on these as best we can.

Commissioner Infantini opened with her reasons for changing upper County Management. Contrary to the Florida Today assertions about her not “having got her feet wet” Ms. Infantini has up front and personal seen the absolute ineptitude of the financial planning and expenditures of Brevard County and knows more about the County than either of the two new Commissioners and at least one sitting Commissioner. After her initial comments NOT ONE Commissioner made any effort to back up the blatantly obvious facts presented. Comments even were ludicrously made that perhaps the best thing to do would be to go and spend large sums of money to hire a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to ‘assist’ the County Manager!

Besides the fact we would be paying virtually double for the same job, the County Manager has had an opening FOR MONTHS to hire a new Budget Director and has failed to do so, and had two opportunities in the last few years to hire new Assistant County Managers (ACMs) and again failed to hire anyone with extensive Finance and Budget experience. The public gets it, and I think the Florida Today as well, (although the County Commissioners may not), Brevard County does NOT WANT to hire a strong individual with strong budget experience because that person would tell them the freewheeling tax and spend and borrow merry-go-round needed to end!

I do not fault Commissioners Fisher and Bolin for the fiasco to keep the present management team in place. Mr. Fisher is truly new to County Government and may have been heavily influenced by those otuside of the County. Commissioner Bolin has no idea how the County operates and genuinely must think you keep people in high paying jobs because you like them, regardless of merits. Their votes were not needed anyway in this situation as we had two new Commissioners who knew better and one sitting Commissioner who not only knew better, but had actually voted just a few months ago for removal.

Evidently while I must have been out on Neptune, Brevard County somehow witnessed a miraculous turnaround in the last few months to justify the about-face to keep the County Manager and County Management intact. Evidently the two people who should have voted for removal have changed their opinion on County Management, because they just voted to spend another $30,000 in salary for the County Manager and delay their ability to get a new County Manager and qualified Budget Dorector on board BEFORE the new year so they would have the ability to further dissect the deteriorating budget situation this year (same situation in Tallahassee) and hit the ground running in preparing a tough budget for the next fiscal year.

This year’s County Budget depends heavily on spending reserves to break even, a policy at least four Commissiones must agree with (although Commissioner Bolin voted against the budget but for the person who prepared it). Insurance reserves, savings, and cash carry forwards are budgeted to be tapped because the prior County Commission, under the leadership of the current County Manager, refused to make cuts even remotely matching the minor declines in revenue experienced to date. Now as even deeper declines appear in this recession amidst plunging house values, the reserves will have been eaten. But, as the Florida Today says, Ms. Infantini who understands the county budget and is a CPA is a neophyte and we are to trust the government professionals without financial backgrounds who got us into this predicament.

January 27th will simply become Groundhog Day, where the events of yesterday will be repeated. We will hear there is no time to get a new County Manager on board to prepare for the budget, that the County Manager got the mesage from the Board and has changed appropriately, that things are just not really that bad and we should not change horses in midstream. Behind the scenes various markers will continue to be called in, promises made, deals cut, maybe a few resignations, but like County Manager Tom Jenkins before her, Ms. Busacca will have survived her moment of truth and will continue in office. If there is any eventual justice it is every sitting County Commissioner who has served with Ms. Busacca has been defeated in any attempt to subsequently run again for public office.

Various political reasons for the vote may now be given after the fact by those who should have known better, but the facts are if you believed someone needed to be removed before nothing has happened to justify extending that person’s tenure and the vote has just extended their reign. The vote eliminated the perfect window to do the search for a replacement (conveniently) and will more likely be used to leverage various other political favors rather than do what is best for the citizens of Brevard County. With everything said at the meeting, the ONLY person who said a new County Manager was needed was Commissioner Infantini, the ONLY one.

The continuation of the current County Management means the continuation of the Fire Fee Tax. It means that after all of the SECOND Parks bonds to pay for what the FIRST bonds should have covered we will still not get the projects completed, parks operations will be deep in the hole, no one will be responsible, and the same County Manager who decided NOT to get a follow-up to the Parks Audit TWO YEARS AGO by an outside firm will continue to sandbag any further outside audit of the fiasco. The budget next year will again be a complete cluster but worse as now most of the savings have been spent and cannot be spent twice. The animal issues we have dealt with will remain as always, and the County Policy of “Stay Low on the RADAR” and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” about problems will be perpetuated. EELS would blow another $25 or more million in gross overpayments for land but they have already pretty much blown their $60 million. I guess it is not possible to build another empty and unused million dollar horse stable, although we will keep building tens of millions of dollars of empty and almost unused Community and Senior Centers because there is not enough money to operate them once they are completed. A County Government devoid of individual responsibilty will continue to stagger along passing those bills to the taxpayers and claiming “there is not other way” else ‘services’ and ‘quality of life’ will suffer greatly.

Lower level employees will be cut loose thanks to the pathetically poor budget planning but you can bet upper management will stay and will keep the huge increases passed on in the bogus Cody Study, another County Management fiasco. Rather than digress even further all I ask is for people to go to the Clerk’s website (www.brevardclerk.us) and review the numerous reports we have written, many by the alleged neophyte Commissioner who beats the pants off the other four allegedly experienced individuals serving with her.

Thank you, Trudie Infantini, for being the only County Commissioner to publicly recognize the Emperor has No Clothes and try to do something about it. Others will soon find that denying reality does not make it go away, and when reality comes back mightily to bite the County hard only Ms. Infantini can truthfully say “I told you so”.

The County Commission voted Tuesday to table discussion of the termination of County Manager Peggy Busacca’s contract until mid January. Commissioner Trudie Infantini, District 3, made her debut as well as waves by adding the item to the agenda last week.

Infantini, along with Commissioners Fisher, District 1 and Anderson, District 5, were sworn in last Tuesday.

Only a handful of public comments were made, but the majority were of the opinion that it was “too soon”, and that Mrs. Infantini had “snuck” this in at the last minute before a holiday weekend.

None of the comments directly addressed the issue at hand – whether or not Ms. Busacca was capable of leading the county through the difficult times ahead. In fact, I was so concerned with the fact the comments were off topic, I submitted my own comment card and spoke for the first time ever before the Brevard County Commission – as the lone audience member in support of the motion.

For those that said it was “too soon”, I asked was three plus years not long enough to assess Ms. Busacca’s performance as County Manager?

Mrs. Infantini clearly stated in her opening statement she has been engaged and dealing with county management for more than two years in her capacity as an auditor – surely that is long enough for her to render her own judgment as to whether or not Ms. Busacca is the right person for the job?

While Commissioner Fisher stated he would like the opportunity to work with Mrs. Busacca before making that kind of decision, Commissioners Bolin and Nelson could not say the same. They have had ample time to sample and evaluate Mrs. Busacca’s performance.

What I found even more disturbing, though, is the fact that the Commissioners seemed to agree with Infantini’s premises: that the county faces serious financial challenges, and that Ms. Busacca does not have the skill set required to meet those challenges; they did not, however, agree with her conclusion that Busacca’s contract should be terminated and she should be replaced.

Instead, Commissioners Bolin and Fisher actually spoke of creating and hiring a “CFO” or “budget person” to help Mrs. Busacca get a handle on things! Only in the Alice in Wonderland world of government can you begin with a motion to terminate one bureaucrat and end up with a proposal to keep said bureaucrat and hire another. That the notion the county has the financial wherewithal to create a position that would command a ~$100K annual salary was being seriously discussed goes to show the county has bigger problems than the County Manager.

I am hopeful that Mrs, Infantini’s motion has begun a process that will bring accountability to the County Commission and result in the hiring of a County Manager that will be able to make the tough calls during the economic downturn we are soon to experience.

I can’t resist pointing out that had Roger Shealy been elected in District 1, that process would have been much quicker and less costly for the taxpayers of Brevard. I understand Commissioner Fisher is a savvy businessman, though, and I have high hopes he will come around in short order.

Finally, whether or not you agree with her on this issue, you have to give Mrs. Infantini credit for having the courage to follow through on her campaign promise to bring accountability to county government. It takes a lot of courage to do what she did at her very first meeting, and I heard her being interviewed by the HomeTown News afterwards saying something to the effect of “I was elected to represent the citizens of my district, not to be a politician”. As one of her constituents I can safely say she is doing exactly what I voted for her to do, and I am very grateful to have her there.

Give’em hell Trudie!

Not unexpectedly, the Florida Today calmly endorsed Mr. Geier and Mr. Fisher for the County Commission earlier this month (read Florida Today endorsements here).

From this point there are three paths generally taken by the Florida Today: Slam the living tar out of the opponent, pat the opponent on the back while you dismiss them, or simply state briefly the opponent is unprepared and move on.

Clearly below both Ms. Infantini and Mr. Shealy, each of whom is more familiar with County Government than their opponents combined and even certain sitting Commissioners, were dismissed as unprepared and unknowing. This is untrue, of course, because the proper tag line should have been Ms. Infantini and Mr. Shealy MUST be completely clueless because they completely disagree with the Florida Today Vision for Brevard County. Such Vision is highlighted by the Florida Today editiorial (below) requesting voters to say no to the proposed County Tax Cap (after all, it takes courage to raise taxes, you know).

I did not think much of the endorsements (being a perfect 5-0 in Florida Today non-endorsements myself) until I heard a strange set of comments from Mr. John Glisch (Florida Today Editorial Board Member) on the Bill Mick Show (WMMB) on Wednesday.[display_podcast]

Mr. Glisch commented that he found Ms. Infantini to have ‘evaded’ the questions, a euphemism for not giving the ‘right’ answers, and then moved on to attack her by saying she had committed an Ethics Violation on an attempted EELS sale and that I personally had reprimanded her for the attempted action.

Deja Vu Election Year 2000 for Scott Ellis. The Florida Today slammed the living tar out of me in their alleged endorsement of Weasel Kershaw for the Clerk of Court. Included in the slam were a few comments about actions I had voted upon as a County Commissioner. They were strange votes picked, one being my vote against a Solid Waste bond (the minutes show I wanted a shorter debt repayment on the note).

These were votes that there was NO WAY the Florida Today Editorial Board, of which Mr. Glisch and Mr. Bob Stover were members, could have known.

When I went to the newspaper to raise some hell with Mr. Glisch and Mr. Stover (I had requested to see Mr. Mike Coleman, the Publisher) over the slipshod personal slams and ask for their evidence (none existed, as usual) I brought up these obscure votes. Neither really knew anything about them, and when I saw these same issues in Weasel Kershaw flyers I then knew whose campaign had fed the information directly to the editiorial staff.

Fast forward to 2008 and here we go again. Mr. Glisch makes a few statements which could only have been fed him by the Geier campaign, which is being assisted by a few of the very same people who had directed the Kershaw Sleaze 8 years ago.

First off it is a statement of fact, not opinion, when one accuses a government employee of an ethics violation in the performance of their duty. The FACT is not only was there no violation, there was no charge of a violation, there was not even an official request for investigation of a violation. The comment was a false accusation given as a statement of fact, not opinion.

If the Florida Today truly believed there was an Ethics Violation, where was The Watchdog and where was the formal Complaint to the Florida Ethics Commission?

The second comment was one which was false under any circumstances, as alleged fact or opinion, and could ONLY HAVE BEEN GIVEN TO MR. GLISCH BY THE GEIER CAMPAIGN. Mr. Glisch stated Ms. Infantini had been reprimanded by Scott Ellis, Clerk of Court, as Ms. Infantini’s boss. There was no reprimand. No one has requested Ms, Infantini’s personnel file, but had they done so they would have found no reprimand or any other kind of disciplinary action ever taken over any issue.

Once again the Editors of the Florida Today move beyond advocacy (very impartial advocacy, they’d assure you) to being a campaign mouthpiece for those whose ideas they support and against those whose ideas they abhor.

Where in the world would John Glisch get the information to make a statement that I had reprimanded Trudie Infantini? It has never been alleged in any newspaper article nor I’m sure was it ever brought up by Ms. Infantini in her interview. NOBODY has ever asked me the question and NOBODY has requested copies of her Personnel file, so where did this comment originate?

What I did chew Ms. Infantini out for was in trying to deal with certain County personnel as if they were honest and above board when I had warned her certain people were not trustworthy. I reminded her to skip her instincts and talk to me before she would meet with County Management.

After a few very hard lessons learned, including one where the EELS Director fed ‘information’ to Mr. Mozo of the SJRWMD (the same who wrote the paper on me a few times and e-mailed our entire office the day before the election) to come in to a workshop AFTER I had left and just slam the heck out of Ms. Infantini with no one there to defend her or our work, she came to realize I was correct and many of the upper staff were not to be trusted.

This was NOT a reprimand, it was an encore lesson of a lesson I had previously taught. Not only that, but this was a few verbal discussions about how to deal precisely with the staff, maybe some e-mails (never requested by John Glisch) and no more.

Mr. Glisch has absolutely NOTHING in his possession to make the statements that there had been a violation of ethics and/or an employee reprimand. NOTHING. That is, nothing from the Clerk’s Office.

Now I do not care how one sided the Florida Today Editorials are, I expect nothing better, but when they move from simply raining fire and brimstone on believers in less government to parroting the campaign propoganda of the Big Goverment opponents they have moved from campaign commentary to campaign workers. And I do expect more than that even from a one sided newspaper.

It is a shame it is so late in the campaign because Ms. Infantini should demand of the Florida Today Publisher the basis in fact for the statements of its editors. My bet is they have nothing they will produce, after all, showing the information came from another campaign rather than a news source just may slightly mar the appearance of journalistic integrity!