Border resolution postponed again

By John Labriola - A Citrus County Commission vote on a border security resolution sponsored by Commissioner Diana Finegan was postponed again last week because it was submitted after the deadline for inclusion in the Nov. 14 meeting agenda.

The item will instead be considered at the commission’s Nov. 28 meeting.

The resolution urges Congress to secure the border and encourages Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida Legislature and the sheriff's office to take further steps to fight illegal immigration.

Finegan had originally pulled the resolution from the commission’s Oct. 10 agenda to rework the language after agreeing to sponsor it at the request of the Citrus County Republican Party. The resolution needed updating because it asked DeSantis to take some actions he had already taken.

Finegan blamed the latest delay on Commission Chairwoman Ruthie Schlabach, saying other commissioners have been allowed to add items after the deadline as long as it was before the agenda was printed. 

Schlabach denied any involvement in the decision, saying county staff was simply following policy without any input from her.

“That’s not how it was presented to me, ma’am” Finegan countered. 

Finegan asked commissioners at the beginning of the meeting to add the resolution to the agenda but withdrew her request after Commissioner Jeff Kinnard said he supported the resolution but didn’t think it rose to the level of an emergency add-on item. 

“Obviously, considering the number of emails we’ve received, there’s tremendous public interest,” Kinnard said. “I think we need to hold true to the procedures and deadlines we have in place, and when it’s on our next meeting’s agenda, I will fully support it.”

Schlabach said she also plans to “fully support this” and blamed the dust-up on “miscommunication.” 

Meanwhile, the dispute has led to allegations that Schlabach violated Florida’s Government in the Sunshine Law. According to news reports, Schlabach confronted Finegan the day before the meeting at a groundbreaking for the Lecanto Highway widening project, where she told Finegan to stop telling people she blocked her resolution from getting on the agenda. Florida’s Sunshine Law prohibits commissioners from privately discussing issues that could come up for a vote. Schlabach dismissed the allegation at the commission meeting, saying the confrontation didn’t constitute a Sunshine violation. 

Last week’s meeting was Schlabach’s last as chair, a one-year position that rotates among commissioners every November. Commissioners will vote for a new chair at their next meeting. 

Schlabach’s chairmanship got off to a rocky start last November, when she proposed eliminating the public comment period at the beginning of commission meetings. She quickly dropped the idea after intense public blowback, but some of that anger resurfaced last week as public comment got pushed back two and a half hours due to six consecutive “time certain” presentations including a “State of the County” address by Schlabach and a lengthy presentation regarding possible new revenue sources by a representative from the Nabors, Giblin & Nickerson law firm. 

Most residents gave up and left without speaking, but others stuck around to castigate commissioners for keeping them waiting so long. 

“This is despicable,” said Gill Phelan of Lecanto, who also used his turn at the microphone to blast Commissioner Rebecca Bays as a “5-year-old thinker” for claiming last month that the border security resolution could provoke terrorists to attack Citrus County's decommissioned nuclear power plant and underground gas lines.