STUART — A failed City Commission vote on May 11 to place a referendum on the ballot limiting the lease or sale of the city’s two municipal ballfields may have gained new life on May 26.
A lone commissioner secured consensus from fellow commissioners to schedule a discussion and deliberation item in July, allowing the board to consider any new information that could persuade dissenting commissioners to revisit their positions.
That vote failed 2-2 because both Commissioner Laura Giobbi and Mayor Sean Reed no longer had a slow-growth majority due to former Mayor Christopher Collins’ resignation to campaign for a County Commission seat this fall.
Commissioner Giobbi, who failed to convince either Commissioner Eula Clarke or Commissioner Campbell Rich to support the referendum during the earlier meeting, now sought to revive that debate.
“Two weeks ago on this dais there was a motion that died, but Commissioner Clarke mentioned the possibility of getting more information regarding the restriction of the future long-term lease or possible sale of ballparks,” she said. “This would have accomplished no lease greater than 10 years or no sale of property without going out for a vote by constituents of the city. There was lots of talk that evening about reaching out to [Community Services Director] Jim Chrulski, reaching out to the county, reaching out to staff. I was just wondering if any of that has taken place over the last two weeks because the long-term goal was to possibly get this on the referendum in November.”
City Manager Michael Giardino offered her an official response, recalling that commissioners had questions about the history of the ballfields and how the city initially came into possession of those properties. He did not give her any hope on the potential referendum revival, however, which is complicated by the fact most commissioners have rejected appointing a replacement for Collins prior to the upcoming election.
“Commissioner, the item two weeks ago ended where it ended,” he said. “However, staff took notes, and we are going to address each one of the items that we took notes on and any others that come up. We didn’t put a timeline to it, but we should be ready to present something on that very topic.”
Commissioner Giobbi then expounded on her goal.
“I would like to get a consensus of the Board to be able to ask the city manager and the staff to put that together and have it on an agenda at some future date,” she explained. “Keep in mind if we want it to be on the November ballot, we’d have to probably get it to board of elections probably at the end of September or the beginning of October. So, can I get a consensus of the Board for that?”
While Mayor Reed acknowledged his support, Commissioner Clarke said she was “not against it,” and Commissioner Rich wanted more formality.
“The motion failed,” he said in reference to the May 11 vote. “You would need to make a motion to put it back on the agenda.”
City Attorney Lee Baggett subsequently asked for more clarification.
“Commissioner Giobbi talked about this white paper and information about the ballfields,” he said of her request two weeks prior. “There’s also an issue of whether or not it has to come back. It’s an ordinance that failed in the last meeting. We have to have a first and a second reading of an ordinance. Are you asking to bring back the ordinance, or are you asking to bring back a white paper?”
“I’d like to get it first on a D&D,” she answered. “Let’s discuss it, have all the information in front of us and move forward from there and maybe add it to the next agenda after that. I’d like to have everything available when we do the deliberation and discussion. I look at it as being something very simple so the community knows the pros of doing this versus the cons of not doing this. I think that’s what needs to be communicated to the community.”
Even with that, Mayor Reed wanted more specificity.
“Can you clarify for Lee what you are looking for?” he asked.
“I’m looking for a consensus to have this D&D take place over the ballfields with a complete white paper that shows the pros and the cons to the proposal [and] what it actually means to the citizens and the ballpark,” she explained. “Hopefully with a proper amount of time, we could get a proposal back on the agenda so that we can have a first and second reading and vote on it.”
After Baggett gave his blessing to the idea, both Commissioners Clarke and Rich offered their conditional consensus.
“I just want to make sure that we follow the comprehensive plan based on the intergovernmental coordination, the inventory and all the other factors that are required and not just pros and cons,” the former said.
Commissioner Rich agreed.
“That’s fine, as long as we agree that in the D&D it will include obligations to comply with the comp plan,” he said.
Giardino closed out the discussion with a final comment.
“To Commissioner Clarke’s point, the idea of pros and cons could be subjective,” he said. “So, we will stick to the facts, the numbers, the utilization of ballfields [and] how these things are scheduled, those kind of things. Let others determine what the pros and cons are. If staff has an obvious pro, an obvious con, then we will bring that up. We’ll stick to the facts and do our analysis.”
The City Commission then gave its consensus for having the D&D by the end of July.