Well, really it is Deem and Pass, but it is so shady and so sinister, that Demon Pass kind of seems like an appropriate name, and now our own Alachua County Comission has its own version of it.

Deem and Pass is a trick that Congress can use.  Remember a while back when Pelosi was threatening to use Deem and Pass to deem that the Obamacare bill was passed without ever having had a vote on it.

Here is how it works:  an elected body has a controversial item that they want to try to get by without too much attention, or having any recorded votes for it, so they never put it up for a vote.  Instead, they put a substitute item up for a vote that has no purpose but to support or make an ammendment to the item that they don't want the recorded vote on, to begin with, so they pass the second item. Since the second item has no other purpose than to affect the first, they DEEM the first item to have passed by virtue of having passed the second.

Well, the Alachua County Commission has learned a trick or two from congress.  A consent agenda item for the April 22, 2011 meeting is a vote to confirm that a County Commission Proclamation declaring that February 20, 2011 was Cynthia Moore Chestnut Day.  It turns out that a county commission proclamation was delivered and read, at Cynthia Chestnut's church, by the Chair of the commisison, Lee Pinkoson, without having ever appeared on any agenda or having been voted on by any commissioner.

Normally, proclamations are on the agenda of the meeting at which they are being given.  This makes the county commissioners accountable.  In this case, a proclamation was issued and delivered without the full commission having had an opportunity to know about it, and now, there is an item on the consent agenda to confirm that it was delivered.  I suppose that if the commission confirms that it was delivered, then we are to deem the proclamation to have passed.

I don't give one hoot about whether or not this has to do with Cynthia Chestnut.  That isn't the point.  The point is that somebody requested it, and the county manager's staff then just did it and then asked the commission to approve it, after the fact.  Folks, that is a case of the tail wagging the dog if there ever was one.

This is not how county business should be done.

Email the county commission at bocc@alachuacounty.us and tell them what you think.