Last week Carol Jacobs and I attended the Florida Association of Special Districts Legislative update in Tallahassee. This was a great event to review what is before the legislature this year that impacts special districts, the climate and politics. It appears as though local home rule is still under attack by the legislature, this includes special districts. This is also the amendment year for the Florida Constitutional Review. This happens every 10 years. A committee is formed called the CRC to review the constitution. There is actually a proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution that would require special districts to have a referendum every 10 years as to whether or not to continue being allowed to continue. This particular bill could have disastrous unintended consequences in the ability for special districts such as ours, to obtain funding (long term and short term) for projects since it would be unpredictable as to whether the special district would continue to exist 10 years later. On the other hand, such a bill would be beneficial to taxpayers who have dependent districts and wish to eliminate that tax vehicle. Cities such as Westlake are using their dependent special district to finance their infrastructure which the residents will have to pay for. If this amendment were to pass, it would be very difficult to get financing to continue on that path for them.
Thursday morning during breakfast I received a call from our County Commissioner, Mayor Melissa McKinlay advising that the proposed comprehensive plan for the City of Westlake was on the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council’s agenda the next morning, Friday in Stuart at 9:30. While driving back from Tallahassee, I spent the day on the phone discussing and preparing for the meeting with our District attorneys and engineers, as well as other local leaders that will be impacted by the City.
Friday morning, Carol Jacobs and I attended the TCRPC meeting to speak on the proposed comprehensive plan. Our attorney Frank Palen and traffic engineer, Joe Capra attended and spoke as well. The President of the ALA, Tim Sayre also attended and spoke on behalf of the community. Mayor McKinlay did an excellent job discussing the potential impacts of the proposed comprehensive plan as well as the history of how we got to where we are today with the City of Westlake created with only 5 rental residents. The TCRPC voted unanimously to submit their staff report to the DOA with a recommendation of denial and strong verbage regarding the problems with the comprehensive plan mainly its’ inconsistencies with the regional planning objectives and the extrajurisdictional impacts and lack of coordination and cooperation with the surrounding jurisdictions. While the TCRPC does not have the authority to reject the proposed comprehensive plan, they are part of the state review and hopefully their comments will be considered by the State DOA.
This is the link to the story on the TCRPC meeting in the Palm Beach Post Officials balk, say Westlake’s plan creates opening for more homes
