Big Wins in Last Night's Meeting

The Board of County Commissioners Stacked Up Some Significant Wins Last Night-- the long meeting was worth it!

 ...and a lot of it was not even noticed.

But that's okay.  

Yes, it was a long meeting, excrutiatingly long.  But after it was over and I could take stock of what was accomplished--yeah--it was a lot of winning.

Here are some of the highlights of the wins:

--We funded the final portion necessary to finally, after 8 years, #OpenOurBeach at Perdido Key, access #4.  That one slipped by most folks--more than likely because we ended up veering off course and discussing other facilities we can fund with Tourist Development Tax dollars--most notably a replacement/enhancement for the Bay Center.  But we passed it, $90K from CARES act to finish it up. 300 feet of public access and 35 parking spots.  It is going to be fantastic

--The board voted to do the right thing and pay to defend the former paramedic employee who was treated disgustingly unprofessionally and unfairly by our former county administrator, a former healthcare administrator-- so-called "medical administrative professional" ---who was for a short time consulting for our former administrator,  our now former HR director, our "investigations" department,  and the county medical director.  Bogus charges were cooked up against this employee, concocted in what many believe was a conspiracy against him and made of whole cloth in retaliation for his filing of a bonafide harrassment complaint against his supervisor........wait for it........the medical director! Due process was not followed, our policies were ignored by staff for months, and this employee was left hanging out to dry.   Astonishingly--this very same paramedic worked for 13 years with a sterling record, never once disciplined for ANY patient care issues.  He makes a complaint against his medical director-----and poof, abracadabra she revokes his priviledges to work AFTER she finds out about the complaint he made and subsequently DEMANDS that he be fired!  Then, unbeknownst to any staff in EMS or the Administrator's office---she, the medical director then sends a dosier-like list of serious-sounding alleged complaints to the state department of Health in an effort to strip this employee of his license and steal his livlihood.  There is a paper trail and evidence of all of this that is so apparent, clear and straightforward------- Stevie Wonder could see it.  No wonder we had to settle his suit against us for $200K . Faster than Emeril Lagasse says ".BAM!".. Next up for this paramedic who was wronged---------a first class legal defense that we voted last night to provide for him for his upcoming administrative hearing at DOAH--where he will finally be vindicated and be done with this nightmare county staff put him through once and for all!  

--We voted unanimously to award our EMS and Paramedic Employees with nice-sized raises--and we also approved the payment of incentive pay for our hard to staff positions.  We value our first responders and this significant pay increase is the manifestation of that committment--no matter what some disgruntled individuals think!  We also approved the Fire Cadet program to help recruit, develop, and train up a pipeline of talented individuals to work in our Fire Houses and fill positions, eventually, as they arise.

We shot down the ridiculous Future Land Use transmittal items for OLF-8---as the FLU as presented would have eventually led to a situation where up to 50% of the remaining acreage of that field may have become succeptible, via future local zoning changes only, to becomming high-density, high impact 4-story apartments, condos, and townhomes.  We knocked this off the agenda, and the item will be coming back with a LOT more red (commercial) and LOT less YELLOW (Mixed Use Urban)---which will allow more of the field to be used for the intended purpose of job creation and less of it to be used for what nobody in Beulah wants------more high density housing!

And finally---we did the right thing by unanimously (4-0, Doug left the meeting early, frustrated apparently) voting to increase our interim administrator Wes Moreno's pay commensurate to the level of work he has been and will be putting in as our new Administrator.  He will be paid the low end of our latest recruitment range--$173,000.00.  It's a tough job, and he will earn every dime and he already is...

Yes, it was a long meeting, but it was full of some significant, heavy duty wins for our county and for county staff and for Public Safety EMS First Responders.  A GREAT night!