How else to explain why a majority of the Spring Hill Fire and Rescue District commissioners are unwilling to have their bimonthly meetings televised on Hernando County Government Broadcasting (Ch. 19 on Bright House cable)?
Five months after the fire commission instructed Chief J.J. Morrison to research the logistics and cost of televising the meetings, the fire commission decided this week that $2,000 a year was too high of a price to bring government closer to the people it serves.
This determination to cling to the shadows of their cozy boardroom comes on the heels of the commission's decision earlier this year to move one its two monthly meetings from the evening to the early morning, which made it even more difficult for working taxpayers to attend.
In the absence of Commissioner Richard Martin, who was called to active military duty, only Commissioner Daryl Hamilton championed the inherent benefits of televising the meetings. "They need to know what we're doing with their money," Hamilton said in a futile attempt to persuade his lackluster colleagues.
The wrong-headed decision by Commissioners Gene Panozzo, Jeffrey Hollander and Tommy Marasciullo speaks volumes about the public-be-damned attitude that pervades this panel of detached public servants. It is evidence the commissioners are out of step with their constituents and technological trends.
Televising the meetings makes for a better-informed public, which, in turn, demands more responsive government. That prospect must be what frightens the fire commissioner so.
Commission Chairman Hollander said he supports the concept of broadcasting meetings, but he opposes it for now. The timing is bad, he reasoned, because the district is just beginning to overcome the negative image it created for itself after an unseemly scandal last year brought into question the judgment and credibility of the fire board, the chief and several firefighters. The commission members also are stinging from the realization in November that the public did not have enough confidence in their leadership to make the district independent of Hernando County Commission oversight.
Hollander's logic is faulty. If he and his colleagues are truly emerging from last year's bad press, and are regaining the public's trust, then they should be eager to let taxpayers witness how professional and focused they have become.
The truth is more likely that Hollander knows if television viewers in the county's most populous community actually saw how the commissioners operate, they would be embarrassed for them and demand some changes.
Next time you bump into a Spring Hill Fire and Rescue District commissioner, ask him what he's trying to hide. If he claims he's concealing nothing, tell him to prove it by investing your share of the $2,000 in tax money needed to televise the meetings.
It shouldn't have too much of an impact on the district's approximately $9-million annual budget.
