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JUSTIN GEORGE, COLLEEN JENKINS and SUZANNAH GONZALESElected leaders say their job is to make decisions. If the public disagrees, they wouldn't be re-elected, they argue.
Should the Suncoast Parkway be extended through Citrus County? The County Commission doesn't have final say, but its opinion - at this point, supporting a Citrus leg - certainly carries great weight with the state.
Because the issue is so important and divisive, and because the commission's voice is so potentially persuasive, many people wonder why the commission doesn't formally poll the people through a referendum so commissioners can better gauge their constituents' views.
But commissioners don't think they need a referendum. And Inverness City Council members didn't hold one last week before they voted to disband the police department and turn over the city's watch to the Sheriff's Office. Nor has the Crystal River City Council held a referendum, even as it takes significant steps toward annexing more than 500 acres south of the city.
Members of all three elected bodies say it's their job to make such axis-tilting decisions. That leaves residents who disagree to fume about being shut out and shut up.
"They (county commissioners) can put it on the ballot, but they won't," said Morris Harvey, president of the Citrus County Council, which represents almost 20 groups, including homeowner associations and activist organizations. The council opposes a parkway extension.
"They're just strongly opposed to letting the people be directly involved," he said of commissioners.
During a meeting of the Suncoast Parkway Advisory Group last week, county Commissioner Roger Batchelor was asked why he doesn't refer the parkway to a vote. State transportation officials have said they will take their parkway plans and go home if commissioners told them to leave.
Batchelor responded by saying a vote was taken. He has run for office repeatedly over the years, he said, each time placing his support of the parkway on his platform for all to see. The public's response: re-election.
Other commissioners support the right to referendum, such as commission Chairman Josh Wooten. But he said a public vote should grow out of public outcry or demand, and he doesn't see that yet concerning the parkway. "I always thought those type of things should come from the grass roots," he said.
With the possible Suncoast Parkway extension still a decade away, Wooten said, a vote now would polarize the community and would have no power. The state ultimately decides whether the toll road should be built.
Government by ballot box, he said, would only slow things down.
"If you start doing government by referendum," he said, "it can be dangerous and costly, and it can make government even slower than it is."
Commissioner Jim Fowler said he doesn't believe referendums would give him mandates to follow, anyway.
"I don't believe that a referendum will tell you conclusively what the wishes are of a community," he said, adding that most people don't vote. "I don't think there's any way numerically to determine the wishes of the general public on any issue."
Besides, he said, most people want "government out of their lives and pocketbooks." They want to leave governing to those in charge, he said, as long as the basics - schools and safety - are covered.
Commissioner Gary Bartell said people need to think past the parkway. He never wanted it to come up here, he said, but now that it's stopped at the Citrus line, he must consider it.
Since it exists south of here, he said, it's already dumping traffic into Citrus. Citrus taxpayers have a choice: Either get the state to finish the toll road so traffic has somewhere to flow or shoulder the burden of building future roads that will inevitably be needed.
Voting no on a referendum, he said, could leave voters with a big bill.
Often, Commissioner Vicki Phillips said, referendums are born out of emotion and sometimes voters can regret their decisions.
Phillips said it's the job of elected officials to carefully study issues and make informed decisions. If they're not doing that, there is recourse.
"If people aren't happy with what I do," Phillips said, "then I expect people not to elect me."
In Crystal River, dozens of business owners along U.S. 19 could soon become city taxpayers thanks to the proposed annexation, which would lead to the construction of a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Thirty-three property owners have consented to the plan; 32 have not.
City residents won't get a vote.
Annexation plans usually require a public referendum. But in this case, city officials drew the plan to exclude the few properties in the proposed area that housed voters. That means the Crystal River City Council isn't obligated by law to hold a referendum on the issue.
Instead, only 50 percent of the landowners by acreage and 50 percent of landowners by parcel must agree to the annexation.
Most council members see no reason to veer from that path. In their eyes, local government has a constant, built-in referendum system: Election Day.
"If the (elected officials) are not representing the pulse of the majority, then they are replaced," council member John Kendall said.
Both Roger Proffer and Kitty Ebert said they have spent recent months conducting their own informal polls of public opinion. For her part, Ebert sent out an open letter to some 850 residents that hit upon what she viewed as the pros and cons of the impending project.
She couldn't find any negative aspects to the annexation and neither could most of the residents who called her to discuss the newsletter, Ebert said.
Proffer said he has gauged residents' opinions by talking to more than 100 of them throughout the process of pursuing the annexation. He hasn't heard of any disapproval, either, he said. "It doesn't appear that the people who live in the city limits are against annexation," Ebert said.
When asked whether the city should hold a nonbinding referendum, she responded: "I don't think it's necessary. I don't think there's a reason for it."
Even council member Susan Kirk, who has voted against the proposed annexation, doesn't think the issue calls for a referendum. Like many of her colleagues, she said voters need to trust the people they elect into office to make such decisions.
Referendums are time consuming and costly, she said, and can't be done for every issue.
"If you set a precedent . . . you begin to really bog down the whole process of government," she said. "And it's slow enough."
Only council member Robert Holmes was open to the idea of holding a referendum, though he too worried about the high price tag that comes with such a vote.
"I wouldn't mind it if it was done fairly, and everybody learned the facts instead of just reading the newspaper," he said.
However, he predicted most city residents probably would vote in favor of annexation.
In general, a referendum vote occurs in Inverness only if there is a proposed change to the City Charter.
City residents considered abolishing the city's police department in a referendum vote in February 1981 because, at that time, eliminating the department would have entailed a charter amendment, according to Denise Lyn, the city attorney.
However, the charter was amended with voters' approval in 1987, Lyn said. The approved amendments no longer made a referendum vote necessary for issues such as eliminating a city department, and the City Council became the decisionmaking body.
"The City Council may, from time to time create, divide or combine or abolish departments whether authorized by the Charter or in any manner it deems advisable or necessary for the proper and efficient operation of the city," the charter states.
In the 1987 charter amendments, voters also reserved their right to have some say in city issues: "The electors of the city reserve the right to petition "Issue Elections' called for the purpose of approving or disapproving an issue, including but not limited to, Charter amendment initiative, referendum, annexation, recall, straw ballot, or other public question to be voted upon by the electors."
Inverness council members Jacquie Hepfer, John Sullivan and Marc Wigmore agreed in separate interviews that a referendum vote would not have been appropriate in the most recent debate on the police department, citing the charter as their guide.
Further, Hepfer and Sullivan said making decisions is their job. "We are charged to make decisions and that's what we did," Sullivan said. ". . . That's what we're elected to do."
Referendum voting, aside from those pertaining to charter changes, Hepfer said, would be "like shirking our responsibility."
She said that voters often react emotionally and not to the facts in referendums, and they end up being more costly for the voters in the long run.
Council members Ken Hinkle and Richard "Dick" Kaufman did not return calls seeking comment.
- County reporter Justin George can be reached at 352 860-7309 or jgeorge@sptimes.com Crystal River reporter Colleen Jenkins can be reached at (352) 860-7303 or cjenkins@sptimes.com Inverness reporter Suzannah Gonzales can be reached at (352) 860-7312 or sgonzales@sptimes.com