[Goldwingnut]

Originally Posted by Shipping up to Boston

Agree
While 'politicians' (generalization) pay attention to forums like this, they love no shows at public meetings. Zoom participation not as effective. Attend, speak if its allowed and your objections will be part of the minutes of these meetings. May not change a thing but it's more effective than a rant after money is appropriated and work is completed....

I am going to have to disagree with you. I sat on the CDD10 board and PWAC for 7 years and was Chairman of both for the last 4 and 2 years respectively. I, like all of the other board members (except 1 on PWAC - represents Brownwood) are residents and hated meetings with no shows and poor turnouts. We would much rather hear from the public for their input and when making decisions.

The worst part about getting public opinions is that even after being presented with FACTS, many still rant on repeatedly with misinformed opinions. Most people do not fully understand the issue, history, agreements in place, and legal background and ramifications that the Supervisors or Commissioners do. This background information is explained to the public by both the elected officials and district staff but tends to fall many times on deaf ears as it doesn't match their opinions. So much misinformation is passed on this website, nextdoor, facebook, and on that other online site that can't be named here that it is sickening to those at the front of the room (a major part of why I started doing my videos was to help counter this). Many think their words and their meanings are no heard, they are, loud and clear, but because they are either misinformed or un or under informed on the issue, they will carry little influence on the board members.

For me, one of the most frustrating times are budget season and the budget workshops, I sat over 40 budget workshops in my tenure on the CDD boards, throughout all of these a total of 5 residents were in the audience and a grand total of 2 questions were asked - 2 questions total in 40 meetings! But once the budget is finalized then it's twisted and maligned on social media, then the crying and outrage starts. Supervisors are accused of "being in the developer's pocket" and being puppets because people "know" that the developer is making a fortune on every deal that the district government carries out.

Interestingly, during my time on the boards, the 2 biggest items in all of the budgets that involved developer owned companies were the IT contract with TSG and the printing contract with the Daily Sun, in total these represented less than 2% of the total budgets. These agreements with "interested parties", aka the developer, are documented in the annual audits conducted on all the CDD and committee finances. And yes, these agreements are competitively bid.

My comments above also hold true for the 2 years I've served on the BOCC except the participation, by percentage, is much worse. The level of misinformation is also worse.