PORT ST. LUCIE \u2013 The City Council here voted unanimously Oct. 13 to decline participation in a municipal lawsuit against the State of Florida in which 25 cities and counties have opposed the implementation of Senate Bill 180, calling it the \u201clargest incursion into local home rule authority\u201d since the 1968 adoption of Florida\u2019s Constitution.<\/p>\n
City Council members had previously discussed the issue on Sept. 22 and directed staff to further investigate the matter and report back.<\/p>\n
Some of them expressed dismay that it had come back so soon since they were still not prepared to decide on joining the lawsuit, which has already been filed.<\/p>\n
One of the primary contention points of the bill authored by Pinellas County Sen. Nick DiCeglie \u2013 whose stated purpose was to ensure municipalities didn\u2019t hinder rebuilding after hurricanes \u2013 was that \u201cany person\u201d can sue the local government alleging violations of the law with new zoning or land use restrictions. That municipality then has 14 days to repeal the restriction before litigation begins.<\/p>\n
Before the Council actually took up the matter in the latest meeting, its liaison with the state legislature, Chris Carmody, mentioned the issue in his legislative update.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did talk to Rep. [Toby] Overdorf and asked him specifically what he though about this bill,\u201d he said. \u201cHe said, Fiona McFarland, the House member who had this bill, and her Senate counterparts are very interested in doing some fixes on that. I don\u2019t think they\u2019re going to outright repeal what they did, [but] I do think they\u2019re going to do some tweaking on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
A short while later when the city clerk read the resolution into the record \u201cauthorizing participation\u201d in that lawsuit, Councilman David Pickett was the first to pose a clarification question.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat other big cities have signed?\u201d he asked. \u201cI want to make sure we weren\u2019t the only big city joining the lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n
When City Attorney Richard Berrios admitted he didn\u2019t have that information on-hand, Councilwoman Stephanie Morgan expressed frustration that the Board was actually considering approval that day.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the last meeting, it was stated that we didn\u2019t want to be hasty with this, and then all of a sudden, it\u2019s on our agenda,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve got a little bit of heartburn with that [and] with Chris giving his report that they are hoping it\u2019s going to brought back for modifications. I don\u2019t like lawsuits to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilman Anthony Bonna concurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not in support of moving forward with the lawsuit,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s premature. I think the best legislation is made through the legislative process, and the legislator has indicated they\u2019re willing to look at this and make some fixes in January. The lawsuit\u2019s going to move forward with or without us. I don\u2019t really see a huge benefit to the city for tacking onto this when in two months they\u2019re going to be working through the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
For her part, Vice-Mayor Jolien Caraballo admitted to being \u201cconflicted\u201d over the city\u2019s possible participation in the lawsuit but doesn\u2019t have much hope that the aforementioned tweaking would help. She also alluded to other developmental interests that are opposed to any changes to that legislation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWould I be considering the lawsuit had I not received a letter from an attorney basically letting us know that if we passed anything, they are probably going to sue us,\u201d she said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t even be thinking about it quite honestly [and] be in agreement with most of the Board that we shouldn\u2019t add on to the lawsuit. Based upon Mr. Carmody\u2019s comments, I did not feel 100 percent hopeful that we\u2019re going to see resolution this session in regards to the concerns we have. I guess my question is, will we be taken seriously at the state if we don\u2019t participate in the lawsuit? We\u2019re potentially going to get sued, unless everyone\u2019s saying they\u2019re going to stop moving forward with the mobility fee right now. I want to have a bit broader discussion on really what the strategy\u2019s going to be for this Board.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Shannon Martin, like some of her colleagues, expressed consternation that the matter was even before the Council that day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see another side about joining it that could be political in nature as well,\u201d she said. \u201cAgain, I was surprised to see this on the agenda when we just had that conversation literally at the last Council meeting. So, I\u2019m not inclined to jump into it right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Mayor Martin prodded staff for a reason, Berrios admitted culpability and told her the Board could table the resolution to a date uncertain instead of voting that day if it preferred. He\u2019d also found a list of the cities requested by Council Pickett at the onset.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe Council had asked for a follow-up on it when it was coming back,\u201d he said. \u201cI must have misinterpreted right away, so I can take the blame. I do have a list of the cities. The bigger cities would be Fort Lauderdale; you have Destin, Lake Alfred, Windemere, Delray Beach, Deltona, Stuart, Manatee County, Orange County \u2013 I can just keep going \u2013 but there\u2019s a bunch of plaintiffs already.\u201d<\/p>\n
The closest large city on that list aside from Fort Lauderdale would actually be the City of West Palm Beach. Councilman Pickett, however, continued his resistance, fearing that smaller cities would be tempted to not join the suit if Port St. Lucie did so. While other Treasure Coast communities like Vero Beach have debated the idea, Stuart has been the only local community so far to joined.<\/p>\n
Pickett then made a motion to deny the resolution, which was seconded by Councilwoman Morgan. When Mayor Morgan questioned Berrios whether tabling or denying was better, the attorney recommended sticking with the motion on the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the appetite changes, the litigation progresses or that willingness of the Legislature to move forward with changing 180 changes, you can revisit that,\u201d Berrios said. \u201cWe\u2019ll consult with Council on the availability of joining the lawsuit at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n
The City Council then voted unanimously to deny the resolution to participate in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT ST. LUCIE \u2013 The City Council here voted unanimously Oct. 13 to decline participation in a municipal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172,563],"class_list":{"0":"post-15182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-port-st-lucie","8":"tag-port-st-lucie","9":"tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","10":"tag-port-st-lucie-news","11":"tag-st_lucie"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}