In this age of communications, it is always amazing to hear people complaining on how little understanding they have on the many issues of concern or interest to them. In fact, there is so much information being disseminated that it's often difficult to assimilate this flood of knowledge. But there is obviously no such thing as too much of a good thing; therefore your county government is taking another major step in making County Commission meeting information available to the public.
There will be a test with the County Commission agenda in April to have all agendas and backup information placed on the Internet at the County's website. We expect this information to be available Friday, April 12. To get agendas and back-up information, go to our website located at www.co.monroe.fl.us and click on the "Monroe County Commission Meeting Agendas and Minutes" link. The pages displayed will be the most current agenda for the next upcoming meeting. Agenda back-up information will be viewable with Adobe Reader. If you do not have Adobe Reader, you may download it by clicking on the "Get Adobe Acrobat Reader" button on the website. Once in the agenda you may view the back-up information by clicking on the "View back-up information" link for the item you are interested in viewing.
This will be helpful to those with knowledge of the jargon used by computer technologists (computerese), but what about poor Joe who doesn't own a computer and wants to know what awful plans county government plans to spring on them at the next Board of County Commissioners meeting. Well, these agendas and their back-ups are distributed to the County Libraries and readily available and the news media sometimes publish and sensationalize anything that may be controversial.
There is a sinister and ulterior motive for inundating the public with tons and tons of information. By receiving so much facts and data, the mind is frazzled and has trouble focusing on what is really important at this time. Consequently, if it's really important to you, you can always refer back to that time tested and time honored Conch source "The Coconut Hotline".