Board of County Commissioners - Brooksville, Florida

Kathy Fornes

My name is Kathy Fornes.
I am 74 yrs old and my husband is 81. My husband is a Veteran and we have both worked our entire lives. I was a school teacher for 35 years.

Then, suddenly we were homeless, lost everything we had worked and paid for... house, workshop, and cars underwater following Hurricane Milton. We had to be pulled out by EMTs and my husband sprnt 2 months in the hospital as a direct result. We have been living with friends ever since.3 months later there is still 4 feet of water in the house and around it.

There are millions of us being crushed under the bombast of lazy people wanting handouts. There are millions who are victims of the hurricanes and fires, none of which was our fault.

Through it all, we have gotten no help, unanswered phone calls and confusing delays from Hernando County, FEMA and the FEMA funding that the county controls.

Our property flooded before in 2017. The house did not flood, but the property did
We had to live somewhere else for 6 mos and replace all the flooring. At that time, we learned that the property had flooded before up past the windows, but we did not know that as the sellers lied on the contract.

We do not live on the coast or near the river. We did not buy in a flood zone though the designation was changed AFTER we flooded. No one else on our street is flooded. At the time. I contacted every government agency with no help from any. One person said, "Oh it's just rain." Another geologist showed us that there had been a sinkhole beside us where there was now a wetland/ reservoir. He told us that when it is open water will be dispersed, but clogged, water will back up.

Fast forward to 2024, when the county permitted building on that wetland/ reservoir. Again I called everyone I could think of, including an environmentalist who confirmed that yes, it was a wetland area. Yet a highly elevated house was built next to us, with the dirt washing down into the reservoir. Reviewing the permit, it did not contain the required language requiring homeowners to contain water on their property. That did not happen, and to add insult to injury, and neighbor across the street dug a trench to move his water over to us.
This is the result:

.and as of today, 3 mos later, it looks like this

I do not understand why the county has not improved drainage over the last 40 years to protect permitted residences. I do not understand why there has been no help through this nightmare. I have no idea why I have been paying taxes to Hernando County. Please advise.

C Kelly

County commissioners ignoring my 100% evidence that our planning and zoning department under Chris L and others is totally being ignored under chapter 10, Sec 10-29 Residential lot requirements! I have had two meetings, one with Alan P (no longer employed) and Chris L interim development services, Director. Both have different philosophies, BUT the ordinance clearly states certain requirements. it has been proven to CHri and OMar over and over again that the builders are not fulfilling certain requirements with the infill of Springhill. After meeting with Chris L Omar (building& zoning),. I truly believe that the builders are coming before the people ! I’m with the understanding that this is an infill of a current/past subdivision and it still has requirements that are not being met. PERIOD!
Looking for others to support that we have written counties Ordinances and they need to be followed !!! Again, if you feel that you live in an area that’s been misrepresented, please speak up!!! If, the County Commissioners want to change those ignored regulations, ask to be on the committee. Read Ordinance Chapter 10, Community Appearance, 10-17, 10-29, 10-32, 10-33 & 10-36

Dawn Thielhart

Are you kidding me The Commissioners meeting medium income changed from last month 64000 to 50000 this month - Habitat donated to political parties and YOU are giving properties away when you complain you do not have enough money - GET IT TOGETHER.... Don't complain no money and you give a 600000. property away - UNREAL

Kelly

No one in this county wants to do their job. Code enforcement is completely useless. All these people see is dollar signs and couldn’t care less about the people or safety of this county. If you want a better county, try listening to the people and actually responding to them. Thanks to you guys I have a criminal and sex offender running a business out of their garage next to me and no one I report it to will do anything about it. Seems suspicious, doesn’t it

Also, we need to protect our nature and stop all this rezoning and developing. You’ve destroyed what this county was — The NATURE coast. None of the residents in Hernando County want all of this development, but the BOCC doesn’t care about this county or the residents; they just care about pocketing the money.

john casper

There's some good employees within the county. But the majority of the time nobody returns calls. Whether that's their fault or the commissioner's fault for not staffing them properly I don't know I will find out, there is no reason that it should take more than 24 hours to get a call back let alone a month. I've been waiting a month for a call from an employee and I've talked to several employees about this employee without any results. If this were a business you would be bankruptt because nobody would do business with you. Unfortunately we don't have that choice. Fortunately we do have our first amendment rights which says we have the right to air our grievances against our government.

Rob Harper

Our county commissioners are inept, self-serving and embarassing. For example, they awarded a huge increase in contract to Republic Waste Services, agreed to become Republic's bill collector by adding their bill to our assessments, and thus made us - the consumer - virtually powerless to combat horrible waste management services. Their employees refuse at times to pick up timely placed garbage or admittedly throw our recycle containers about our yard in order to 'get our afternoon's as the Republic employee recently told me.
The board's environmental concerns are non-existent as evidenced by permitting mining without cleanup.or restoration. Our county is littered with former mining sites that sit unattended, overgrown and as a testament to our inability of unwillingness to hold contractors such as CEMEX accountable.
We could go on and on but it serves no purpose.
Rob Harper

Tim Martin

Great group of commissioners and are truly people trying to make Hernando County a great place to live again . Keep up the great work County Commissioners.

B Uehl

Since this pandemic started not once have we heard anything from these commissioners. They obviously don't care about the people of hernando county.