Commission chair optimistic about Lake County
Commission chair optimistic about Lake County
greg jones | Staff Writer
gregjones@dailycommercial.com
In her return engagement as chairwoman of the Lake County Commission, Leslie Campione is optimistic.
She has broad plans for the new year and has broken down her objectives into several categories, including: Economic development and tourism, recreation, fiscal responsibility and budget problem solving, public safety, transportation and solid waste, social services, environmental protection, growth management, intergovernmental coordination, and quality of life.
"I firmly believe that it is an elected official's job to constantly evaluate the cost and manner in which these services are provided, and to challenge the manager and department head to evaluate and re-evaluate the logistics of delivering services," she said, "(Because) the natural inclination is to conclude that the level of service can only be maintained through the same or more funding versus greater efficiency and innovation."
County Manager David Heath, who met with Campione last week to discuss the issues, said the county's budget will have a lot to do with what gets accomplished.
Heath and other county leaders have begun the budgeting process much earlier than in previous years to prepare for another low revenue year. The county has had several budgeting workshops that included transportation, the sheriff's office and the general fund.
The county is scheduled to hold other budgeting workshops that include parks, libraries and agricultural education services. Commissioners could ask Lake's constitutional officers and department heads to cut another 5 percent from their budgets for next fiscal year unless a windfall of cash becomes available.
"The only issue that could hinder anything getting accomplished would be the finances," Heath said.
Campione wants to continue to encourage economic development and tourism in the county. She said her goal is promote cooperation and collaboration between the private sector, county government and city government to help foster an improved economy. She also said she wants to include the Lake County School Board, Lake Tech, Lake-Sumter State College and local private schools in the process.
Campione believes promoting economic development and tourism will achieve two objectives: the creation of a positive economic environment where the public sector is seen as a facilitator for private prosperity and not as an obstructionist; secondly, to assure that academic curriculum and workforce training meets the needs of existing and prospective employers. She wants to target industries such as technology, agri-tech, manufacturing and health and wellness.
Campione believes economic development can be promoted by county officials continuing to hold industry roundtables that will enhance networking opportunities within existing industries such as manufacturing. She said this can help facilitate trade and collaboration between companies and to identify areas where Lake County can assist with the recruitment of new businesses.
Campione said it is important to coordinate economic development efforts with municipalities and the school board. She also said promoting events such as the 2nd Annual Wings & Wildflowers event, and continuing to visit with businesses to assess their needs will positively impact ant for economic growth.
"Last year, we completed 300 site visits and, in many cases, were able to facilitate relationships between these employers and Lake Tech and Workforce Central Florida to address workforce needs," Campione said. "In some cases, we were able to connect businesses together that had specific material and product needs that could be met from other Lake County companies."
In addition, Campione would like to lower maintenance costs of county owned parcels. She said she wants to continue evaluating the availability, accessibility, utilization and maintenance costs of existing and proposed recreational amenities, along with publicly owned lands, so county officials can determine whether there are remnant parcels, parks or vacant land that should be returned to private ownership with conservation easements. One example would be a "dry" lake bed in Mount Plymouth, which is owned by Lake County, but it is completely surrounded and occupied with private residences.
Campione said the county needs to explore ways to lower maintenance costs of parks and public lands by out-sourcing, volunteerism and coordination with sheriff's department for use of inmate work crews. She believes it is vital to work with municipalities to formulate an agreement with regard to fire and rescue services to promote countywide cooperation and coordination between the cities and Lake County Fire & Rescue Department.
"(We want) to continue efforts on the EMS Board to realize greater efficiency in staffing, shifts, coverage areas, coordination with fire departments with ALS personnel, billing, hard costs, insurance, supplies and lease space," Campione said. "And identify deficiencies in service areas and re-invest savings when possible with additional field staff."
Campione, who was commission chairman last year and given the big seat again this year, repeated her stance as far as keeping emergency medical services "in house." She said she recently introduced a resolution affirming her commitment to keep EMS under county rule because she thought it was important for the public and employees to understand the commission's intentions to maintain the service rather than having a private company run EMS.
Friday, January 04, 2013 - www.dailycommercial.com/4jan2013ch