PSA - Can't Be Fixed.

What a mess. It's been 33 years and the PSA is operating without the mandatory contract that is necessary to ensure transparency, standards for performance, and assurances that the PSA is meeting the requirements of its citizens. Camden1st believes the mandatory, but missing, enforceable PSA contract must control PSA operations before any elected official earns our grace and before the PSA receives another dollar of County or City funds. It took the theft of PSA millions just to bring officials’ attention to the woeful PSA management. Years after the IRS reported the PSA director had scammed the employee taxes, (while nobody in charge was watching) the PSA wrote in their minutes they might still be able to negotiate a “settlement” with the IRS.

By the way, that million and a half comes out of taxpayers’ pockets twice. The first time when it was stolen, a second time in the IRS "settlement", and a third in the form of higher insurance premiums, and as a shortage to the US Treasury for payroll and retirement taxes that will be paid by all Americans. Will some criminals “get away with it?”

Yet the Tribune and Georgian implore us to be “Kinder” to politicians. The problematic PSA Board is comprised of appointees chosen by County and city elected officials. We elect a minority of the nine Board members as city and county elected representatives -- (because, you know, citizens are not responsible enough for the job)(but the required, enforceable contract would solve that). Even those elected and appointed Board members admitted in their November 2023 minutes they STILL had no idea what it costs to run the parks and they've bought some software that oughta do the trick. And getting caught in the PSA schemes apparently does not result in the PSA schemers' indictment. Frankly, Mr. Publisher, it’s hard to be kind to politicians who, among many things, ignore us, give away/steal/waste our money, and remain unaccountable because they fail to abide by the PSA-enabling legislation.

5. Way back in 2020, or thirty years after the PSA’s founding --

--the Tribune & Georgian reported, “Commissioner Ben Casey said he thinks the PSA's powers are unnecessarily broad and it probably would have been better to dissolve it and start over with a new model.” 

That hasn't happened through Mr. Casey's last two election cycles. As a 2024 candidate for re-election, and as the newly reconfirmed Chairman of the County Commission, will Casey immediately submit a resolution and vote to dissolve the PSA? How about at a Special-called Meeting for dramatic effect? Or does he think he and his buddy elected officials fixed the PSA without the required enforceable contract, fixing the ongoing performance and accountability problems, and without prosecuting all those involved in prior illegal activity?

6. Will It Come To This?

Many County residents do not realize they pay a special tax to fund the PSA. About one-third of us live outside the city limits of Woodbine, St Marys, or Kingsland.  Property owners outside the cities just paid an “unincorporated property tax” with more than half a million dollars going to the PSA. The cities also kick in the same per capita for PSA services, but their PSA Board representatives live in their respective cities. What’s plainly unacceptable about the county’s unincorporated share payment is that District 2 Commissioner Martin Turner nominated a resident to the PSA Board who does not live in unincorporated Camden County. That person may be entirely capable and conscientious but they don't even live in any District that is partially in unincorporated Camden. That could very well be considered taxation without representation. We have enough of that already in Atlanta and Washington.

In 1773, the Sons of Liberty tossed 342 chests of British tea into Boston Harbor to protest taxation without representation. The American Revolution had begun. Shouldn’t our incumbent Commission Chairman from District 5, the District 3 incumbent Commissioner/wannabe Sheriff, the unannounced lame-duck District 1 commissioner, and the District 2 commissioner who nominated the Board member who doesn't pay unincorporated taxes, have learned along the way that they should practice one of the founding principles of the United States of America?

7. Did Any Elected Official Figure This Out?

From the PSA Master Plan:

The pie-in-the-sky PSA Parks & Recreation Master Plan tells us it will cost $94,630,000 to implement. That's if there is no inflation after 2021! That does not include the ongoing park operations and maintenance costs. Considering that the 2024 PSA parks budget includes $859,648 and twenty-two cents from county and city taxpayers this year, it would take 110 years to build the PSA’s Master Plan if everything costs the same now, 25 years, 50 years, and 100 years from now! This is NUTS and WE paid for this ‘so-called PSA Master Plan.’ What did the County Chief Financial Officer tell the Commissioners when she was asked to do the math?

Our PSA taxes must double immediately if development costs stay the same as when they were estimated in 2021 to build out the PSA Master Plan in just 50 years. Such a plan is simply deceitful because the PSA and our elected officials promise something 50 or 110 years from now while asking for our vote in March and asking for our money last month without explaining (and probably not even understanding) the cost.

Don’t hold your breath for that Woodbine Rec Center or Kingsland Sports Complex – 110 years is a long time.

The PSA mess speaks to the same type of mismanagement that:

• Wasted $12 million (and counting) on the "spaceport";

• Hasn't been able to solve the noise or money-losing "features" of the Camden County Gun Range;

• Can't solve the problem of the majority of County Park bathrooms being locked all day, every day;

• Lost control of the now marginally functional Animal Control unit. Do Commissioners know the County website tells us Animal Control has a Monday to Friday 8 am to 5 pm phone number to report a rabid animal?

• Balked at paying $45,000 to repair over 50 jail doors that wouldn't open or close properly;

• Spent millions already on the centrally-located emergency "Resiliency Center" but told freezing citizens (if those freezing souls could get to Woodbine) they would be billeted in the vacant jail extension; and

• The jail extension is vacant because the Commissioners never provided funds so Sheriff Proctor could staff it!

• There's much, much more... but you get the point.

It's time to change elected management and those staff managers and consultants who can't bring the required solutions to the table.

And negotiate and sign the required contract, or dissolve the PSA!