Charter Review Board tops High Springs Thursday agenda

HIGH SPRINGS – The City of High Springs has decided to test out a preview workshop that would be held on the Tuesday prior to a regular City Commission Meeting.

On Tuesday, the Commission held the first meeting of its kind and agreed that it went well.

During the meeting, the commission reviewed the agenda for the upcoming Thursday, March 8, meeting. On Thursday, under unfinished business, they will be looking at an acceptance of the 2010 and 2011 fiscal year audit.

For new business, the first item on the agenda will be a consideration of poll workers for the April 10, 2012, special city election. Both Mayor Dean Davis and Commissioner Linda Gestrin said they would like to see changes in the list of poll workers provided by City Clerk Jenny Parham.

The Thursday meeting will also include a discussion about reinstating the city’s police dispatch call center instead of contracting with Alachua County to handle calls to the police department. Police Chief Steve Holley estimated that it would cost the city $180,000 a year to run a call center in High Springs, compared to $6,000 to $7,000 per month, the equivalent of $72,000 to $84,000 annually, if the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office handled the calls.

Related to the reinstatement of the High Springs police dispatch, the commission will be talking about creating a committee that would handle renaming the streets as required by the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office for the Combined Communication Center to properly dispatch police.

Vice Mayor Bob Barnas wanted to know how many people the committee would be comprised of, and also wanted to see the applications of those interested prior to the Thursday meeting. According to Parham, five or six people have turned in applications.

Discussion about creating a City Charter Review Board will be conducted on Thursday.

The charter has been changed approximately five times in the past year, Mayor Davis said.

“It needs to be standardized,” he said.

The commission discussed briefly about how the review board would be implemented. Commissioner Sue Weller asked if the review board would function without comments or direction from the commission, but Gestrin said she would be in favor of providing the board with items that concerned the commission. It was decided that further discussion would take place during the regular commission meeting.

In addition, the commission will also discuss participating in a student exchange program with the University of Florida, authorizing a donation for the Babe Ruth 2012 World Series in Alachua, consider the need for a city staff engineer, and discuss adding a follow-up section on the agenda. They will also look at the need for updating the city’s website.

Weller said that the meeting was helpful, but that it didn’t provide an opportunity for citizens to comment. There were only two people at the Tuesday 3:30 p.m. workshop.

She said she would be interested in seeing how the regular commission meeting on Thursday plays out before making a final decision on the Tuesday workshop. If the commission ends up rehashing everything stated on Tuesday, Weller feels that the workshop would be unnecessary.