In an email to commissioners, Ivey seemed to point to the city’s scheduling of frequent meetings as a chief reason for stepping down.

“Because I am concerned about my ability to attend all of the additional meetings that are necessary to accomplish City business, as well as the volume of work (which exceeds what I anticipated) as a result of the meetings, I must regretfully resign as City Attorney,” Ivey wrote in the email.

Although the commission’s regular commission meetings are scheduled just twice monthly, the second and fourth Thursday of each month, the commission has been meeting considerably more frequently than that.  Between commission meetings, special commission meetings, emergency commission meetings, joint commission meetings, workshops and Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) meetings, the commission has met as many as a dozen times in one month.  Many of those meetings have lasted as long as five hours or more.

Ivey is just one in a long line of officials to part ways with the City over the last several months.

Former High Springs City Attorney Thomas DePeter resigned Jan. 13 when it became apparent that the majority of the commission intended to replace him in the ensuing weeks.

When pitching his firm to the commission in January, Ivey proposed a rate of $50 per hour up to 80 hours per month with no retainer or minimum required and additional time available at a negotiated rate.  Also topping the list for attorney’s being considered earlier this year was Brent E. Baris, P.A. of High Springs.  Baris proposed a rate of $100 per hour with an effective retainer or minimum of $3,000 monthly for 30 hours of services.

Ivey said he would continue to serve until commissioners hire a new city attorney.  When that will be is not yet clear.

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The City conducted a door-to-door survey to identify issues that might improve its grant score. It will be submitted in the next few weeks, and if approved could close the $2 million to $2.5 million funding gap.

Former Archer City Manager John Glanzer is helping the City as a temporary employee until a new city manager is hired.

“We’re really kind of in a holding pattern right now waiting to see what will happen in October with our request for an increase in grant award from the State,” Glanzer said. “Once we know that information then decisions can be made, as far as how to move forward from that point.”

After submitting a preliminary engineering report and environmental study in October 2011 to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s State Revolving Fund, the City was awarded a $2.7 million grant toward the project. The grant has a 120-day timeline for the City to establish the balance of funding for the project.

The total sewer project will cost approximately $11 million, according to Archer Interim City Manager John Mayberry.

“Until we close the funding gap it’s not in the best interest of the City to move forward with the Rural Development loan at this time,” Glanzer said. “We really need to finalize what is the max number of dollars we can get, grant money wise, from the State and that will more or less identify what the loan on that will be.”

Those are unknown answers that will not be answered until this fall, he said, but funding will be through the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development agency.

Building the sewage system to replace the 50-year-old septic tanks in Archer has been a decade-long process.

Archer Mayor Frank Ogborn said they’ve had to work around the constraints of the federal budget cycles and the process is moving as fast as possible.

“We as a City commission understand that we are under a deadline. We have to be under construction or we’ll have to pay that loan back,” Ogborn said. “No one is more understanding of that than we are.”

In the door-to-door survey, there were open sewage found in backyards and septic tanks that were not properly maintained.

Ogborn said the sewage system would benefit Archer by attracting more businesses.

Glazer believes there is a cost for homeowners who use a septic system despite the nonexistence of a monthly fee.

“The reality is if you own a septic system a lot of people get the mistaken idea, ‘Well I flush the toilet and nothing happens so it must be working fine,’ ” Glazer said, “and they never really have their septic system looked at or maintained unless a problem develops that they actually see.”

“But that doesn’t mean the septic system is operating properly,” he said.

Glanzer said another issue that’s affecting the sewer project is that Congress hasn’t passed the budget for USDA.

“USDA Rural Development is restricted because there’s no budget,” he said.

“The funds that are available, not just for the City of Archer but municipalities throughout the United States, are restricted because USDA doesn’t know how much money they’re going to have.”

The U.S. House Agricultural Committee released a Farm Bill draft July 5 that plans to cut spending by $3.5 billion a year. The current Farm Bill ends Sept. 30.

“USDA is very conservative about who they loan money to and grants they give, so that hurts the small municipalities,” he said.

Glanzer is optimistic that the project will be completed in the next year or two if the grant scores are approved by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

“If the community does not move forward with it and you have a community that is strictly on the septic system, the ability for that City to grow is going to be severely restricted.”

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The amendment would first require two public hearings and approval by commissioners before it could be placed on the November ballot for voter approval.

As it is currently proposed, the charter amendment would prevent the City from borrowing more than $1 million unless there is a natural disaster or four of five commissioners approve a referendum, which would then require voter approval and the debt must be paid back within five years.

Vice-Mayor Bob Barnas said the move for a charter amendment is a way to reign in borrowing by the City.

Commissioner Sue Weller said she was concerned that the $1 million was arbitrary and that the amendment would tie the hands of the City in the foreseeable future.

Weller cited a countywide transportation tax initiative, for which the City has agreed it would make certain roadway improvements totaling $3-5 million if the tax passes in November.  Those improvements would be funded by the taxes, but would potentially require upfront funding through a bond.  But, Weller said she feared the proposed charter amendment would prevent the commission from moving ahead with its promises.

Defending the amendment, Commissioner Linda Gestrin said the changes would “give the taxpayers more say in what goes on.”

She pointed to the first three phases of the City’s sewer system, which she says has cost some $8 million.

Commissioner Scott Jamison vehemently opposed the move, saying it was a way to curtail the sewer.

Although he agreed the concern over the debt is legitimate, he said the reasoning of some commissioners didn’t pass muster.

“You make the comment if you don’t have the money you shouldn’t borrow it, and yet we just put a couple hundred thousand dollars into something we don’t have the money for,” Jamison said, referencing a proposed in-house police dispatch service that is expected to cost the City an additional $150,000 annually.

“This [amendment] handcuffs future commissions and takes even more away from them,” he said, adding that it meant “less authority for commissioners in the future and less ability to do their jobs.”

High Springs resident Joyce Hallman was in favor of the amendment saying, “I urge you to go forward with this ordinance.”  She disagreed with Commissioners Jamison and Weller, adding “The Charter gives too much power to the commission.”

Others, however, stood in opposition to Commissioner Gestrin and Vice-Mayor Barnas.  Resident and former High Springs City Attorney Thomas DePeter worried that the push for the amendment was too rushed.  He pointed to inconsistencies and contradictions within the proposed referendum, adding, “It’s not well drafted.”

DePeter also agreed with concerns raised by Commissioner Weller about the process by which the proposed charter amendment came to be, including calling an emergency meeting to push the amendment ordinance forward.

Weller urged her fellow commissioners to allow a Charter Review Committee to oversee the process and develop possible amendments, as is called for in the City’s Charter.

Mayor Dean Davis, Vice Mayor Barnas and Commissioner Gestrin voted in favor of moving ahead to get the ordinance on the November ballot.  Commissioners Weller and Jamison opposed the move.

Despite the commission’s decision to hold the first of at least two public hearings on the matter on July 19, laws regulating public notices and public hearings may have put a kink in their plans.  There appears to be a discrepancy with the earliest possible dates on which the public hearings can be held while still meeting ballot deadlines.

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HSPD Chief Steve Holley presented commissioners with an agreement for CAD software that would cost the City some $39,000 in the current fiscal year.  Those expenditures, and others required for the startup would be taken from the City’s contingency fund, which would require a budget amendment, according to City Attorney Ray Ivey and former city attorney Thomas DePeter.

Commissioner Scott Jamison, who has opposed bringing the dispatch back to HSPD due to costs, objected altogether to the City using contingency funds to restart the dispatch service.

“This isn’t an emergency.  This is a purchase of choice,” Jamison said of the dispatch center.

The City already submitted a letter in June to discontinue dispatch services with the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office Combined Communications Center (CCC).  That started a clock, which calls for the City to take over its own dispatch services on Oct 1.

By Tuesday evening, Holley said, “Time here is my enemy.”

In requesting approval of the $39,000 purchase agreement, Holley said, “Things have to start moving now, to make it.”

Whether or not the dispatch center will be up and running in time for the Oct. 1 deadline seems to be in question, especially since the commission is now moving forward with a budget amendment to make necessary adjustments allowing for the transfer of funds to make the purchases.

The first public hearing on that budget amendment has been scheduled for July 30, adding a nearly two-week delay to the timing.

There seemed to be other unanswered questions about dispatch related costs, including personnel, training, and additional equipment.  By the end of discussions Tuesday, City Manager Jeri Langman said she would be meeting with Holley to nail down all of the anticipated costs that would impact the current budget.  Preliminary estimates projected some $90,000 in costs during the current budget year to get the dispatch started by Oct. 1, the start of the next fiscal year.

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