Palmetto Bay budget Review, part 2. Department of Building & Capital Projects

Why does the proposed budget not include the recommended fee schedule proposed by the Palmetto Bay Building and Permitting Advisory Committee back in February 2012?  Why waste the time of committee members who worked hard on this report with staff if the report is only going to be put on the shelf by Mayor Stanczyk and Vice Mayor Pariser to collect dust?  The report was received back February 2012, the first budget hearing was held. Why hasn’t staff been directed by the council to implement the recommendations of this committee?  Is this another example of good work and commitments begin killed behind the scenes, outside of the view of the public (outside Sunshine)?

The failure to act in a pro-business manner speaks much louder than their political double speak of claiming to be ‘pro-business.’  Your (in)action contradicts all the wonderful representations made in letters to Soapbox, official e-mail blasts and political mailers.  This is not a new issue, but the mayor is failing to keep attention on the budget. August and September have traditionally been the time to focus on the budget.  The strength of Palmetto Bay has been focusing on financials; instead, the traditional August/September budget review has occurred with little public focus by the Mayor and Council.

For background, I recommend that you review a prior post of April 14, 2012,Palmetto Bay's Building and Permitting  Advisory  Committee Final Committee Report has been completed and submitted to the Village Council. Where does it go from here? Please click on the headline to review in detail the results of the hard work of the committee.  What is telling here is that Committee Chair Rainer Schael presented the report to the Council at the February 6, 2012, meeting.  The committee report details the work with Palmetto Bay staff in reaching some recommendations that are very common sense suggestions that are business and resident friendly. I said back in April that It is now time for the council to step forward and make some sound decisions. We are now in mid budget and nothing has happened. Do Mayor Stanczyk and Vice Mayor Pariser value the work of the committees or was the work merely a fools errand to act as if they value public input. Now is time to stop patronizing the committee and implement the recommendations.

Kudos to the Permitting Staff and Committee members who works so well together creating a great document for the council to work with in re-evaluating any updating for the department and the Village.  But thorns to the Mayor, Vice Mayor and other council members who have not explained why they are not taking up the Committee Recommended Palmetto Bay Fee Schedule. Budget time is the time to implement recommended changes, not making ineffective midyear adjustments.  Besides, the council had the recommended fee schedule during the current budget’s mid-year process and did nothing back then.

Homeowners and other users of the building department will be paying more fees (taxes) than what the committee recommended due to the council’s failure to act. Besides, there was much more in the report than the fee schedule still waiting to be addressed.