At Tuesday’s commission meeting Melissa Cribbins announced in response to a public comment that the county had engaged a law firm to review the South Coast Community Foundation, although what aspects are subject to review are unknown. Cribbins confirmed the firm had yet to provide a legal opinion, not surprising since she only approved hiring them that day. I inquired as to why she rushed to approve the SCCF in the absence of an opinion and she explained.

“There is nothing that’s happened that is actually going to fund the South Coast Community Foundation at this point. You know, there is still time to work through all of that. The community enhancement plan is the only thing that will fund it and in the absence of that it is just an empty shell.”

At Friday’s meeting of the Bayfront Investment Corp group, David Koch steered discussion away from whether the BIC should be an intergovernmental agency or another nonprofit say, we still have two years to decide. So why the fever pitch to join the SCCF???

Watch the meeting here

UPDATE Cribbins added the following statement to her official Facebook page [Emphasis added]

I just sent the following email to The World Newspaper, clarifying our process regarding the SCCF:

Just to clarify: I never said it was an “unofficial” vote. What I said was this:

The County rules require ratification of votes taken in worksessions. Taking votes in worksessions is not unusual. We frequently have topics that require an in-depth discussion, and for those topics, we hold worksessions. These worksessions are open to the public and are noticed as public meetings. When we take a vote at these worksessions, the vote is placed on our consent calendar for ratification at the next Board meeting. In this case, the deadline for the agenda had passed when we had the worksession, so it would normally be on the May 20 consent calendar. The consent calendar is passed as a whole, and individual items are not considered. However, any Commissioner may pull an item from the consent calendar and ask for it to be put on the regular agenda under new business. Whether a commissioner will choose to do so, I cannot say.

By now, everyone knows that late agenda items are added at the last minute almost routinely. Administrative assistant, Bobbi Brooks, regularly sends an amended meeting agenda on Monday afternoons in advance of the Tuesday meeting. Additionally, the board can agree to add an agenda item during the course of the meeting. Finally, someone advised me that the county’s rules of procedure require that any vote taken during a work session be added to the consent calendar of the next regular board meeting. Instead, Cribbins waited for the 20th meeting when John Sweet would be in attendance and Bob Main, thus far the only dissenting voice, would be gone.