CRYSTAL RIVER - For the past three years, City Council member Susan M. Kirk has often disagreed with the council majority. In one of the council's most controversial decisions earlier this year, Kirk voted against the annexation of 500-plus acres at the southern end of the city limits.
She was the only one.
"I make decisions based on facts," Kirk, 51, said recently. "There were too many questions left unanswered," such as the impact any eventual development on the land will have on city services.
Her opponent for Seat 3, Phil Jannarone, 69, said the council acted appropriately.
Jannarone, a retired operating engineer, said the annexation was an "excellent opportunity" for the city to generate revenue without raising taxes and enabled the city to control the development of an area that was previously under the county's control.
"That area is in our back yard," he said.
The two are vying for a four-year term on the council. The job pays $5,428.44 per year.
With the annexation garnering most of the attention this past year, there is another issue Jannarone said is important for the city's future: the fate of City Manager Susan Boyer.
Jannarone said a new council with Kirk, Seat 1 candidate John Kostelnick and Seat 5 candidate James Farley would likely move to fire Boyer. He credits the city manager and her staff with helping to bring progress to the city.
"I think the city manager is doing a fine job, and we should do everything to retain her," he said recently. "She has been the shining light from the day she walked in the door."
Kostelnick and Farley have denied the charge, as has Kirk.
"It's in the best interest of the city to keep our city manager," said Kirk, who this week gave Boyer a 4.125 rating out of a 10 on the city manager's annual evaluation and voted with fellow council members to give her a 2 percent merit raise.
"You don't just go around firing people," Kirk said. "This is their livelihood, their reputation."
The two candidates do manage to agree on a few issues.
They believe wetlands and the environment should be preserved and oppose development that would damage them, and both candidates are not averse to development at less environmentally sensitive areas. They also agree that the city should have a say in the development at its outskirts, and they support annexation generally.
They do not agree, however, on whether the city government should fund civic groups and events, including the Christmas parade and the July Fourth fireworks.
Jannarone said he would not support giving taxpayer money to civic groups, but offered to donate "a majority" of his council salary to them if he is elected.
Kirk said the city should designate a percentage of the annual budget for civic and community involvement. They also do not agree on new sources of revenue for the city. Among other ideas, Kirk has proposed raising the city's sales tax by a half-cent or penny, and coupling that with a slight decrease in the taxes residents pay. That way, she said, the tourists and snowbirds will foot most of the bill.
"You want ways to put your hands in someone else's pocket, not in our residents'," she said.
Jannarone disagreed with the increase in the sales tax, arguing that it would force businesses, such as car dealerships, to leave the city for more tax-friendly areas, and also force residents to leave the city to do their shopping.
He said the "only viable alternative to raising taxes" is annexation in "other profitable areas" such as land with businesses and low-density housing. Those areas are better because they do not put as much strain on city services as does high-density housing, he said.
