dollar amounts; this information is also printed in the paper agenda printouts at the meeting,
and the agenda posted on the bulletin board outside city hall where one goes to pay their water
bills; most importantly, it is easy to find and read on the published agendas online at the city
website; perhaps the problem with the County Agenda lies with the Clerk of the Court who
publishes the Agendas, but more likely this is something that can easily be fixed by the
Commission itself directing the County Manager to include this information in the Agenda by
reading this information in the Agenda, and by reading these Consent Agenda Items and the
dollar amounts at the meeting for the public record; and after all, millions of dollars are spent in
Consent Agenda Items. She pointed out for instance, today 27,674,000, of which only $5
million were disclosed; with millions of dollars in the Consent Agenda Items, the public is
entitled to know this, without a lot of research, digging, and clicking in the Agenda online; often
the Agendas in Titusville are hundreds of pages long, and she does not think that each of their
council members has time to study everything; transparency is easy to achieve if it is desired;
and she asked the Board to direct Rachel Sadoff, Clerk of Courts, to put the dollar amounts in
the Consent Agenda, and ask for this to be read in the public record at its meetings. She
expressed her appreciation to the Board for allowing her to speak on this issue.
Jim Liesenfelt, County Manager, noted he has to defend the Clerk’s Office; the County puts the
Agenda out, not the Clerk; and he just wanted to put that on the record.
Ms. Shifalo expressed her apologies to Clerk Sadoff because she was looking online where
they are all printed, all of the clicking and everything was so confusing to her, and she was not
certain where that was coming from.
Tom Kennelly commented with regard to this Item, one looks at the Federal government, as
they are so distant from the people; they really never get to see in their big Bills all of this
nuance; he sat here watching the Board do the Consent Agenda, and he does see the $5
million for the opioid stuff, and he goes, “Oh, that’s pretty cool that, you know, we’re investing in
that sort of thing;” just him as Joe Average, he would like to scan down; if it was $100,000 for a
road, he believes County staff, he does not need to look at that; but the interesting stuff like the
opioids, the County is doing stuff for people so that is pretty good; he agrees with what
Commissioner Feltner suggested that the dollar amount get in there, and thanks to
Commissioner Delaney for proposing it, and that would do him as a citizen a lot of good
because when one is in business, he or she is looking at the big amounts, not the small
amounts; the people are trusted on the small amounts, but one wants to question the big
amounts; and he expressed his appreciation to the Board for listening.
Thomas Perez mentioned if his teeth start chattering, the Board will know why, as it is kind of
cold in here; he is in support of transparency with the Consent Agenda, and clearly disclosing
spending amounts, that would help to have citizen support; while these Agenda Items are
characterized as routine or non-controversial, in practice, significant Board business is passed
under the Consent Agenda amounting to millions of dollars in public spending that often
receives little public visibility; right now, all Consent Items are passed together in a single vote;
the individual Items are not read out loud into the record before the vote; the printed Agenda
that residents pick up in person does not list the dollar amounts involved for each Item; to see
the dollar amounts, residents must go online, click into each individual Agenda Item, and then
dig into the background material; in plain language; and if one is sitting in the audience with
only the paper Agenda in one’s hand, he or she cannot tell how much money is being approved
when the Board votes on the Consent Agenda. He continued by saying Titusville, as the Board
heard, and other nearby cities already do this to make their spending decisions easier for the
public to follow; the Titusville City Manager, Tom Abbate, as the Board saw, reads the consent
agenda out loud and discloses the spending dollars; therefore, he asked the Board to change
how Consent and Business Items are presented to the public, and to direct staff to update
Board Policy BCC-97 to match; the requested changes are straightforward for the Consent
