In Your Corner

Taxpayers will have the opportunity to choose three commissioners to

serve for the next four years in the primary election scheduled for

September 5th. While it is not our association’s role to support any

specific party or candidate, we urge voters to attend candidate forums,

review their statements, and, in the case of incumbents, review their

records.

Peer beyond the labels of environmentalist versus developer, and vote

for

candidates who will address all the issues facing our communities,

including the rapidly rising county budget, our deteriorating

transportation network, overcrowded parks and athletic fields, our

unbalanced local economy and the continued decline of our waterways.

Voters should reject anyone who does not address all these issues which

are vital to our quality of life.

We think that every voter should ask these questions:

While all the hopefuls are Republicans, which ones truly support lean

and efficient government? Which candidates, in your judgment, are most likely to work well with

citizen advisory groups to broaden citizen participation while cutting

costs?

Which would work most harmoniously with neighboring county and city

governments and existing agencies to take advantage of their knowledge,

skill, and experience to help resolve our own problems?

Which would promote and strive for a truly sustainable community in

which people live, work and play?

Which would have the knowledge and personality to best understand their

role and working relationships as a commissioner? This includes their

interface with staff as well as their conduct toward each other and the

general public.

All candidates have worked very hard to state their case to the voter of

Martin County. It would be to every taxpayer’s advantage to make an

effort to acquaint themselves with and evaluate all of the candidates.

***

With little or no warning a new tax has been added to the businesses of

Martin County, the fire inspection fee. This program will cost county

businesses over $235,000 (minimum) each year, yet we have heard of no

growing problems associated with business fires. We expect that the

first year’s operations will cost more in order to bring everybody in

line with this fire sprinkler service company’s latest products.

According to may Association members who are business owners this

represents a duplication of inspections already performed by the fire

companies, insurance companies, DPR, OSHA, Workmans comp and other

agencies.

While we fully support privatization wherever possible in our county

government, we do question the need for and cost of this new program and

business owners are concerned by the county contracting with a fire

sprinkler service company to perform annual fire inspections of Martin

County’s businesses. Is this like locking the cat and the canary in the

same room, but feeling safe because the canary is in a cage?

***

The county commission has done it again! They have created a new

position, therefore, another layer of bureaucracy, with we fear little

or no accountability. Readers may recall in our recent columns reporting

on the budget review process, we questioned the need to create the new

position of Water Resources Issues Manager.

Perhaps our concern regarding this $64,000/yr. question (called a

‘Budget

Enhancement’ item) is best reinforced by the County’s wording of the

justification, which reads "IMPACT if enhancement is NOT implemented:

Related projects will continue as they have in the past, and some

critical

issues may not be addressed as effectively." We have not been convinced

that a specific level of service, both needed and desired by us, is not

attainable without this new position. or that we neither have the

expertise

nor capacity to do the job with existing personnel. Failing that level

of

justification, we believe this request should not merit approval.

Currently, there are numerous organizations and agencies involved with

our water resources, which need better coordination. Organizations such

as Four-County Coalition, the River Coalition, Restudy Group, St. Lucie

River Initiative, Best Management Program, etc. are all addressing

various interrelated water issues. Martin County’s participation in

these activities is reported as both sporadic and inconsistent in as

much as meetings are either attended by various representatives or not

attended at all. Obviously our county could benefit if represented by a

technically competent and somewhat autonomous authority, and several

county staffers have been identified by their peers as having the right

stuff.

Some of the Illustrative Duties of this proposed new job include:

"Develops water resource policy alternatives. . ." "Identifies

benchmarks. . for monitoring water-quality standards". These duties

reflect those already underway at Department of Environmental Protection

and the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD). Does that mean

Martin County is already dissatisfied with the standards these agencies

are developing, or that we want an even higher standard than they may

develop? In either case, it begins to sound like redundancy and

duplication of effort resulting in an unnecessary waste of taxpayer

dollars. We currently have standards stricter than those of the State of

Florida for the quality and quantity of runoff from development

projects, but no practical means of long term accountability. Turning

from the sublime to the simple, we have had a watering ban in place for

the past six years, but know of not one violation recorded.

In summary, writing rules is a relatively simple matter, but the

sampling,

analysis and enforcement involved in making them stick is quite another.

SFWMD is set up to do the sampling, analysis and enforcement in concert

with the county’s needs. If our standards exceed the state’s, it will be

illegal for SFWMD to enforce them. We should take advantage of help

currently available through our agencies and cooperate with them to

provide an acceptable level of service, not duplicate their work at the

county level. The balance of the duties in this proposed job should be

shared by existing qualified staff who could probably benefit from an

organizational realignment. The county should look at the City of Stuart

as for a model of how to do more with less money.