Florence County Citizens In Action

Ladies and gentlemen and members of The Florence County Citizens In Action, thank you for being here today.

On March 20, 2008 petitions signed by over 11,000 citizens of Florence County were delivered to the Clerk of Florence County Council. That was three weeks ago and as far as we know, this mandate from the public has not been acknowledged or discussed by the members of council at an open meeting

The Florence County Citizens In Action is a nonpartisan volunteer watchdog group that promotes more open government. This press conference is twofold. It is about public information that was not made public and it is about the difficulty in receiving this information through the Freedom of Information Act. I’ll cut right to the chase - Florence County Council gave themselves substantial pay raises and never discussed these raises at a public meeting. The councilmen received a 25% two-part raise and the county Chairman received a 40% two-part raise. These raises were inserted into the 2006/2007 budget. Council received the first part of the raise in January 2006 and will receive the second part January 2008.