Today, Orlando Sentinel reporter Denise-Marie Balona wrote an article in the Lake section on the School Board where she described several issues coming up for a Board vote tonight at the 6pm Board meeting in the County Administration Building. This is rare to have a reporter describe several Board package decision issues BEFORE the Board decision, rather than afterwards.
I suggest you visit the link to see the article, then read my email to Denise which I sent also to the Board and other members. Because it is quite hard for the public to get access to the Board decision "package", I added some comments about needed transparency. If Balona had not written the article, the Board could have voted to sell a School building for 1/8th of what the appraisal price is. I have no idea why the staff thought it appropriate to put the prospective buyer on the agenda without first discussing a general proposal for competitive bidding at a lower price. In the Cowin days, this item could have been buried on the consent agenda and may have escaped Board analysis.
Now, it is possible some work was done to justify the proposal by the staff, but since the public cannot easily read the Board packages to see the actual details, I have to comment only on what is in Balona's article.
vj
Denise,
Thanks for
today’s article on the Lake School Board in the Orlando Sentinel .
This is
much more interesting to hear about discussion items in the Sentinel BEFORE the
School Board meeting and maybe get people involved in attending the Board
meeting and providing input…i.e. even listening to a proposal to give away the
Lee Adult Center without competitive bidding (I assume) for 1/8 the expected appraisal
price is a bit much. Government agencies
should not be selling assets at fire sale prices just because of the current
slow economy. If a proposal is for $250,000,
and the Board is willing to accept such a low offer, they should publicly issue
a notice for other bids, rather than accept the one discussed in a sole source
decision. They should maintain the
property and take bids from either auctioneers or a realtor to market the
property ( I am not sure if this was done earlier through a realtor, or not). They could, however, LEASE the property to
users until later, but competitive bidding should take place STARTING at the
new price point, just like eBay does, then accept offers over the starting
point.
So, the fiscal
issue regarding Lee Adult Center should be that IF the Board was willing to accept
lower offers , their decision should be to approve the new, lower bid price,
and request competitive, public bidding
at the new price point, not award the sale to one proposer. Staff should not be providing one prospective
buyer time on the agenda without that first issue being discussed and voted on
first.
Next time
you might mention that the Board agenda is on the website but they do NOT
publish the Board decision package on the website, reducing transparency for
the public. The only way the public can
find out what is in the Board package, including sole sourced purchase
decisions, unjustified spending requests, etc. is to visit the reception desk
and ask to read a copy of the printed copy that the receptionist has. The problem is that 50% of the time she doesn’t
have it, or is not there, thus public access to the Board package information
is VERT limited and the package needs to be printed entirely on the website,
along with any handouts from presenters.
However,
transparency is improving. Finally, we
see that the website homepage at http://lake.k12.fl.us/lakeschools/site/default.asp
lists upcoming events, and special
meetings and workshops are also on the website calendar, and agendas are being
posted, which did not happen earlier.
However, committee meetings, like the audit committee or their agendas,
are NOT being posted on the calendar, but only in the limited circulation press
release sent out weekly that most of the public does not get. The public has NO way to know about the
committee meetings, and that information should be public on the website, along
with agendas and minutes.
Cheers and
thanks for publicizing the issues BEFORE decision time, and not just AFTER the
fact.
Vance Jochim
Tavares, FL