Dear Editor:
Whether for or against an issue, don’t we all want officials to follow the law? This past week, the Bradford County Commission voted on a controversial issue to convert the old Douglas Warehouse into a 3,000-bed ICE/DHS detention center. The agenda was only published to the county website two days before the meeting, though Florida’s Sunshine Law requires at least seven days’ notice. And extra consideration should be given for controversial topics.
No matter which side of the issue you come down on, our common ground should be that we all want our elected officials to be transparent with the public and we want them to follow the law.
Again and again, the county commission instructs staff to get the agenda out timely. But time and again, the public is denied adequate notice of the decisions to be made on our behalf. And all too often, important items are bunched into a consent agenda that gets no discussion, just a blanket vote.
There was a suggestion that they table the vote until the next meeting in order to give the public more notice, but a 3/2 vote denied that opportunity. And the county attorney did not suggest that it would be a good idea to follow the law as indicated by F.S.120.525 on Meetings, Hearings and Workshops.
If this were a case of not understanding the law, it would be one thing. But this is a common repeat performance for county commission meetings. The penalty is minimal, but the act is even more egregious if there was prior knowledge of the law, yet it was ignored.
Is it the lack of a legal challenge that emboldens this repeat behavior because ignorance of the statute is not the case? I know, because I’ve given them multiple copies of the language over the years. And surely, the county attorney knows that the appropriate thing to do is to allow the proper notice before a vote so the public’s right to notice is respected.
Let’s ask our elected officials and staff to set the example of compliance with the law.
Sincerely,
Carol Mosley
