Since Okaloosa County’s Tourist Development Council scandal erupted last May, when it was learned that TDC director Mark Bellinger had misused public funds and then committed suicide, the Daily News has repeatedly urged stricter oversight on the part of county commissioners — to whom Bellinger was supposed to report.
“County officials were oddly incurious about recent TDC expenditures,” we noted in a May 12 editorial. “… If a county commissioner or two, or perhaps County Administrator Jim Curry, had scrutinized one of those $700,000-plus bills for TDC-related ‘advertising’ and then demanded that … Bellinger explain it, the wrenching controversy of the past 11 days might have been avoided.”
We weren’t alone. A Tallahassee law firm examined TDC polices and concluded that Bellinger “was able to avoid detection through a combination of false information and an absence of effective supervision.”
Those who were supposed to provide effective supervision were, of course, the county commissioners. So what did the commissioners do this week? They asked for the resignations of four TDC members and the TDC’s attorney.
The TDC members are volunteers. They serve only in an advisory capacity. They weren’t Bellinger’s bosses.
Nevertheless, the commissioners voted unanimously to boot them.
Commissioner Nathan Boyles admitted the TDC members were “misled and lied to” by Bellinger. But he said they need to resign because “citizens of Okaloosa County want to see a commitment to a fresh start.”
Commissioner Kelly Windes said the TDC members need to resign “to turn the page on the TDC.”
In other words, the demand for resignations was primarily a cosmetic strategy, one designed to make voters think the commissioners were taking bold steps to clean up the TDC mess.
Meanwhile, county officials who were responsible for “an absence of effective supervision” are still calling the shots. Who’s going to demand THEIR resignations?