CITRUS CRUSADER

By John Labriola - The Citrus County Commission on Tuesday will be considering a motion by Commissioner Holly Davis to rescind the commission's earlier cancellation of the sale of Betz Farm. On April 14, Davis had joined all commissioners except Jeff Kinnard in voting 4-1 to send a notice of termination of the $6 million contract to Bravo Land Group, which is managed by James Dicks, founder of DIX Developments. According to Tuesday's agenda memorandum, her move to rescind that notice appears motivated by concerns that canceling the 2023 sale could cost the county more than its $100,000 insurance deductible if there is a lawsuit, including $360,000 in commission payments sought by Kevin Cunningham, whom the county had awarded the contract to sell the property. Commissioner Janet Barek had sponsored the move to cancel the sale so the vacant 350-acre property could be kept as conservation land, arguing that the developer had breached the contract by missing various deadlines, whi...

By John Labriola - Citrus County Commissioner Rebecca Bays last week tried to rebut Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia's March announcement that Citrus County is overtaxing its residents.  At a candidate forum in Lecanto, Bays presented a PowerPoint reflecting the county administration's talking points to justify Citrus County's budget, which Ingoglia had said contains $39 million in excess spending when indexed for inflation and population growth from a baseline of six years ago.  Bays, who is running for reelection on Aug. 18,  cast the deciding vote in 2023 for a massive 18 percent tax increase , which she claimed was needed to cover a constitutionally mandated employee pay raise and to speed up road resurfacing.  She said the average Citrus County taxpayer pays $1,279 a year in property taxes, the equivalent of $106 a month, which she said is less than the $140 average monthly phone bill. "That's not waste. That's value," Bays insisted. I...

By John Labriola - Divisions on the Citrus County Library Advisory Board (LAB) continued to grow last week as a revote for chair resulted in a bare majority for embattled chairman Justin Strickland.  The revote was necessary because Strickland had mishandled the vote for officers in February, when he improperly presided over the election and then immediately called for a vote after being nominated instead of asking if there were any other nominations. This time, Library Director Adam Chang conducted the election. Strickland's unprofessional behavior during that meeting, when he attacked the Citrus Crusader for covering his opposition to a Charlie Kirk book display (which Strickland falsely tried to reframe as an attack on his church) apparently alienated some LAB members. Two members who previously supported Strickland as chairman – Edith Ramlow and James Pirotta – voted against him this time, resulting in a 5-4 vote, with four votes for Pirotta. Rhys Campbell and L...

By John Labriola - In a rematch of their 2022 contest, Citrus County Commissioner Diana Finegan sparred with her opponent Stacey Worthington at a candidate forum in Lecanto on Monday hosted by the Citrus County Republican Party. The two candidates in the District 2 race, which will be decided in a countywide primary election on Aug. 18, clashed repeatedly as Worthington criticized Finegan for her failure to convince the county commission to cut spending. "I've been serving on boards, and I don't only fight, but I get people to go the way I want them to go by making a very convincing, persuasive argument, and if I fight and fight and fight for three and a half years and I'm not able to still win any of these arguments, I might look at changing my approach and trying a different tack," said Worthington, who previously served as chairwoman of the county's Planning and Development Commission. Finegan, who has tried to cut taxes every year only to be outvoted, and...

By John Labriola - A week after Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia held a press conference to announce that Citrus County is overtaxing residents by $39 million a year , County Commissioner Rebecca Bays dismissed his findings at a town hall meeting in Lecanto.  Bays said she disagreed with Ingoglia's methodology, which involves taking the county's 2019-2020 general fund budget, indexing it for inflation and population growth, and then subtracting that from the current budget to determine the amount of excessive spending.  "It's a formula, and that's not how government works," she said. Citrus County collects $112 million a year in ad valorem taxes, Bays said, of which $40 million goes to the sheriff's office. Along with other constitutional offices and state mandates commissioners have to fund, that doesn't leave the county much room to spare, she claimed.  According to Ingoglia, over the last six years, Citrus County hired 278 employees, ...

By John Labriola - Citrus County is one of the biggest spenders in the state and is overtaxing its citizens to the tune of over $39 million a year. That's according to Florida's Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, who held a press conference in Lecanto on Tuesday to share the bad news about the county's finances. Ingoglia, who previously served as this area's state senator, has been presenting his findings on overspending by cities and counties across the state as the Florida Legislature gets ready to hold a special session next month to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to reduce or eliminate property taxes for homesteaded properties. He has identified $2.02 billion in overspending by over 15 governments. Ingoglia's methodology involves taking a local government's 2019-2020 general fund budget and indexing it for inflation and population growth to determine how much it should be spending. Anything above that, he says, is just wasteful...

By John Labriola - The Citrus County Library Advisory Board (LAB) will redo its vote for chair when it meets next month. The LAB met in February to seat two new members and vote to elect new officers. Justin Strickland, who was named LAB chair in 2024 and 2025, presided over the officer elections although his previous chairmanship term had expired. When he was nominated, he immediately called for a vote instead of asking if there were any other nominations. "I believe this did violate Roberts Rules and we did not have a chance to vote on closing nominations, and I did not have the chance to voice my opinion on a nomination," LAB member Rhys Campbell said at a recent county commission meeting, adding that he shared his concern with Library Director Adam Chang and Community Services Director Eric Head.  Following Campbell's complaint, Chang agreed that "out of an abundance of caution," the LAB will redo the vote when it meets again on April 28. Strickland won his ...