The ongoing feud between Polk County Commissioners George Lindsey and Neil Combee over a proposal to increase the sales tax to pay for road projects has taken an odd turn.\n<\/p>\n
The Ledger reports Combee has filed an ethics complaint against Lindsey, alleging he met with Commissioners Martha Santiago and Rick Wilson to try to persuade them to vote for the half-cent sales tax he was proposing in exchange for being appointed as commission liaisons to two committees in which they were interested.\n<\/p>\n
However, when the vote occurred, only Lindsey voted to put the measure on the ballot.\n<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, this is a serious charge and it seems prudent to await the outcome of the investigation before anyone draws any conclusions.\n<\/p>\n
In addition to the ethics complaint, which is a non-criminal violation, holding a private meeting involving two or more elected officials concerning an item on which they are likely asked to take action is a second-degree misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to 60 days in jail.\n<\/p>\n
According to The Ledger, Commissioner Wilson has denied any such meeting occurred.\n<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the article alluded to the politics surrounding the whole discussion.\n<\/p>\n
There could be something to that.\n<\/p>\n
Lindsey is term-limited as a commissioner, but may become involved in a citizen initiative to put the tax measure on the ballot.\n<\/p>\n
If he were to be discredited by a successful ethics investigation, that could certainly affect the initiative effort.\n<\/p>\n
Combee, who is a real estate agent, is running for property appraiser, which would likely increase his state pension. The salary for the property appraiser is higher than for county commission or state legislator, the other offices in which Combee has served. An official’s top salary is one of the factors determining pension payments.\n<\/p>\n
That means Combee certainly has a financial stake in winning a higher-paying position.\n<\/p>\n
And in any election campaign, the more publicity you can obtain for any measures you think the public would support, the better.\n<\/p>\n
That includes voting against controversial items, such as the development of Creek Ranch, when you are sure they are going to pass anyway to make yourself look good in the public’s eyes.\n<\/p>\n
This will certainly be something to watch as it develops.\n<\/p>\n
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The ongoing feud between Polk County Commissioners George Lindsey and Neil Combee over a proposal to increase the sales tax to pay for road projects has taken an odd turn. The Ledger reports Combee has filed an ethics complaint against Lindsey, alleging he met with Commissioners Martha Santiago and Rick Wilson to try to persuade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gci"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2460,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459\/revisions\/2460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}