Citizens Must Closely Watch The Port Richey City Council

By BETH LOUISE FREGGER Special to the Tribune

Published: May 7, 2008

I attended a recent Port Richey City Council meeting, and my assurance that our city was in good hands was turned upside down.

The meeting began with Mike Wells, the property appraiser for Pasco County, giving an update on the impact of Amendment 1 and the drastic reduction in revenues that both the county and Port Richey can expect as a result of the increase in the homestead exemption.

According to Wells, Port Richey will have a significant decrease in moneys coming in from both the state and county.

This obviously should be a huge concern to our elected officials, as they are the ones who will develop and approve the city's upcoming budget.

From newspaper reports, as well as my acquaintances at the school district, we know that education in Pasco County, including our teachers' salaries, students' books, learning materials and just about everything else, will be compromised. Let's face it: If the state is reducing the amount of money coming in, funding at all levels is going to have to be cut!

The meeting proceeded with members of my neighborhood trying to get approval for a fence that had already been approved by the board of adjustment, as well as the building official. A disgruntled neighbor was appealing, and the council was to vote for or against the appeal.

What transpired for over an hour was two city council members essentially offering to pay the homeowner for the existing fence and the cost to remove it, using city workers, if the homeowner, in turn, spent his own money to put up a new fence that was acceptable to the disgruntled neighbor.

Well excuse me!

They were considering spending our money - the citizens' money - for something that no one was at fault for. If this doesn't take guts and ignorance. That was not what council was asked to do.

They proceeded to be out of order for over an hour, wasting everyone's time attempting to mediate when they were responsible only for voting yea or nay on the appeal.

After that, there was the discussion and vote as to whether to renew the contract for the city attorney. This is a man who has helped the city by keeping his fee extremely low. I defy anyone to find another attorney as well-versed in civil law that would work for a fee of $1,800 a month.

One of the issues that upset some of our current city council members was the attorney's relationship with two former council members.

Uh, hello! Neither one is back on council, so those arguments are moot.

A member of our community spoke at the council meeting and was quoted in one of the daily papers the next day that the city attorney's work record on behalf of the city was not relevant.

Huh? I would expect most of the citizens of Port Richey would agree that the city attorney's work record on behalf of the city should be the primary issue, if not the only issue, in deciding whether to keep him or not.

This is a small town in west Pasco. It is highly unlikely that many of the business people in our community do not have business or personal dealings with other members of the community, whether they are elected officials in Port Richey, New Port Richey, Pasco County government or the school system. It is unreasonable to think this is not the case.

In any case, my point is that three members of the city council who ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility chose to be fiscally irresponsible at this meeting.

In an opening statement, Wells shared the future of the economy for the city and county, and these council people chose to ignore this warning and attempted to spend money irresponsibly and without merit.

My concerns are these: The city council is the voice of the people. Do any of you think that paying for someone's fence without any wrongdoing is fiscally responsible? Is firing a person who has been a huge asset to the city with his knowledge, guidance and generous low fees being fiscally responsible?

When a person is elected to a governmental position it is their responsibility to learn parliamentary procedure and follow it.

We have several members of our council who are ignorant in these procedures and will cause severe issues and problems as their terms continue.

It is our responsibility to make sure our voices are heard and that our elected officials are representing all the citizens and not their own personal agendas.

I urge you to contact the council members. Let them know we are watching them and that we will not tolerate any elected official who sits there and represents no one but themselves and their personal agendas.

I remain a devoted member of our community and look forward to working to keep Port Richey a respectable community, not a spectacle.

The writer lives in Port Richey.