Tavares, FL August 5, 2015
To: David Heath, Lake County Manager
(This was written Monday, August 3, 2015)
The CFAC or Capital Facilities Advisory Committee is important because their
members are appointed by the Board and review and make recommendations to
the Board about impact fee levels and other taxes.
Improvements are needed in the manner of notifying the public about CFAC
meetings, how to get an agenda, and where attachments and post-meeting
minutes and other documents are posted.
My review today of the CFAC meeting notification process was kicked off when I found that Lake County Schools listed an upcoming CFAC meeting on their
calendar, but no such information was anywhere on the BCC website.
This situation indicates a great need for improvement to ensure transparency and
credibility for the County Board and the CFAC committee. Otherwise, some observers might think there was a plan to intentionally hide information about the meeting. Saying that a single advertisement was placed in a newspaper is not sufficient anymore. It may be the only legal requirement,
but who can figure out where those ads are, in which paper, etc. ?
Meeting notices need to be expanded as described below.
Wendy Taylor used to administer CFAC meeting notices and sent out notices and documents to members and the public who requested to be on the list. She just told me now only the Committee members were notified and the ad placed for the upcoming meeting. I find it interesting the CFAC meeting is
on NONE of the BCC pages, calendars or meeting lists, but it is on the LCSD Board meeting calendar.
Thus it appears that CFAC meeting notices and attachments are no longer sent to the public who request it. Unlike some committee pages on the website, which allow the public to sign up to get meeting notices.
I did not receive a notice for the meeting earlier this year, or for the one that is on the LCSD calendar for the meeting on August 17. Wendy used to send out such notices to non-committee members.
Previously, there was a breakdown in administration when the subject of the CFAC meeting changed, like from Transportation to School Impact fees. Then all of a sudden, LCSD was administering it, failing to send notices, provide handouts, etc. That issue of inconsistent administration needs to be fixed
and consistent. It is a BCC committee, not an LCSD committee, and administration needs to be consistent, no matter the topic or who is leading the meeting. (county or schools)
Conclusion
The current administration of the CFAC committee meeting notifications and
posting of documents is not transparent, and needs to be improved to
achieve credibility for the Board
Recommendations and Requests
The website for CFAC is not updated to include the meeting earlier this year.
Requests - Please arrange for staff to :
a. Add me to the list for CFAC notifications. I would expect to get the agendas and attachments sent to committee members. It is good practice to request all attachments from any meeting presenter and send them to the notification list BEFORE the meeting.
b. Send me the agenda and related attachments for the upcoming August 17 meeting.
c. Send me the list of current CFAC committee members and their email and phone.
My Recommendations to achieve more transparency and consistent administration for CFAC committee meetings:
1. You should update the CFAC website page.
2. You should initiate a process to allow any public requester to get
the same email notifications as committee members, including agendas,
attachments and follow up documents.
3. You should add a feature on the CFAC webpage letting public viewers
sign up to receive future notifications.
4. If you look at this list on the website,
http://www.lakecountyfl.gov/board_agendas/ , CFAC is NOT listed in the
right column, but it confusingly is only listed in the left column, which is
not consistent with other committees. The CFAC page link should be listed
in the right column also.
5. The CFAC meeting has never been posted on the main BCC meeting list
at http://lakecountyfl.suiteonemedia.com/web/site.aspx . I recommend it
be automatically be added to the meeting list because it is an important
committee.
6. The CFAC meeting is not posted on the County Calendar website at
https://www.lakecountyfl.gov/calendar/index.aspx?view=month . Every CFAC
meeting should be posted on that Calendar also.
7. Meetings should be posted on the above calendar and meeting sites on
the same day the ad is submitted to the press, and email notices should be
sent at the same time. Don't wait until 3 days before the meeting.
8. Implement a requirement that any presenter with Powerpoints, charts
etc. send them to you at least a week prior to the meeting and you
distribute them to all people on the notification list. Also request that
speakers have at least five extra copies of their presentation documents for
non-committee members, press or other that attend.
9. Continue to post all documents presented at the meeting on the
website. The Lake County School Board does that well, and provides many
documents before meetings and actually requires the presenters to load them
from the website on a projector for discussion (not a memory stick) to
ensure the website version has not been changed. Any last minute items are
also posted on the same meeting agenda page after the meeting so all related
documents are attached to the online agenda. In the case of CFAC, that
means having visiting "experts" provide the final file before the meeting so
they load it from the webpage and not a memory stick.
Vance Jochim
FiscalRangers.com
