LARGO - Except for extending the city attorney's whoppingly big contract for part time services, the Largo City Commission, to the accompaniment of the usual giggles, zipped through a thin agenda Tuesday night, with one big issue, lurking in the background, on many minds.
That issue, expected to come before the commission next month, is that of allowing a funeral home to build a crematorium adjacent to a residential neighborhood.
During the March election campaign, some candidates indicated their opposition to the Moss-Feaster project on Wilcox Road. Those promises might have helped Pat Gerard, Rodney Woods and Gigi Arntzen get elected.
What is interesting, in the eyes of some observers, is that there could be a tie commission vote on this issue that has engendered much opposition from residents in the area.
Commissioner Harriet Crozier will definitely have to recuse herself in any discussion and vote on the crematorium. She is an employee of the funeral home.
Arntzen, in fact, may be a close call on that score - she is a former employee of the funeral parlor and though she does not have a clear-cut conflict of interest as does Crozier, there is a tie there.
On the contract for the city attorney, Alan Zimmet, was rewarded for his faithful service (though he is wrong on legal questions now and then), with a generous contract extension.
Some wonder why he was awarded a 2.5 percent raise on top of the $106,290 he already is given for part time work (attending two meetings a month, no office in city hall, exact work product hard to pin down).
Raising even more wonderment is that the city will also purchase a laptop computer for Zimmet which he will personally own. Commissioner Andy Guyette questioned this and City Manager Steve Stanton offered in the alternative a 4 percent increase for Zimmet.
Commissioner Gay Gentry was totally baffled as to why Zimmet was being given this gift. Zimmet gave an artful and clever argument as to why this was an innovation of accumulating property in lieu of an even greater raise.
In the memo to the commission accompanying the request for Zimmet's raise (which brings him to $108,947 a year, almost $2,100 a week), Stanton extolled in great detail the work Zimmet performs for the city, which, if absolutely true, would not give Zimmet any time at all for performing similar services for the city of Safety Harbor and the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority.
Given his other responsibilities and the number of working hours in a week, simple arithmetic (even at 60 hours a week) will demonstrate that Zimmet could do nothing other than part-time work for his multiplicity of clients.
Stanton cites Zimmet's work in some annexations and that he "has been instrumental in the charter review process" (wink, wink) for which he was paid extra compensation.
In addition to the $108,947 Zimmet is given for being the city's lawyer, he gets paid for city litigation, worker's compensation matters and other legal matters.
Commissioner Mary Black suggested that there be a cap on the salary paid to the part-time lawyer. Again, when Black was trying to make some points, Gerard attempted to shut her up.
The city earmarks more than $500,000 a year for legal services, the lion's share of which goes to Zimmet and his law firm.
Mayor Pat "Shaky" Gerard again pulled her squelch tactics when a citizen criticized Zimmet's performance and challenged the mayor on denying him his First Amendment rights.
Moving into the chump change area (but still taxpayers' money) is the bagatelle thrown Commissioner Gigi Arntzen's way that demonstrates, if nothing else, while there may be great disparity in what is bestowed on those in and around city hall, the city is never niggardly.
Arntzen got authorization to begin what undoubtedly will be the first of many boondoggles while she is a member of the commission.
She plans to attend something called the "institute for elected municipal officials" June 2-4 in Deefield Beach (on the east coast) for a cost to the taxpayers of $763.12.
What possible benefit this is to the city of Largo or its taxpayers is hard to discern, but like so many orgies staged for those who feed at the public trough they are automatically approved by colleagues.
Arntzen, a newcomer to the commission, is being accorded what seems to happen so frequently - the fringe benefit of traveling to far and exotic places to schmooze with fellow elected officials.
Apparently the costs for Arntzen's sojourn at the event, which is sponsored by the Florida League of Cities, a private insurance company and lobbyist for municipalities, are already paid because May 4 is the deadline for registration and hotel fees.
Approval for her junket was given in the consent docket and as such was generally overlooked. One sensible nay on the voice vote came from Rodney Woods.