⚡️ Cities vs. counties
Greetings. For you today, cities take their beef with the county to Tallahassee, leaders try tech to make a better downtown, annexation update, voter deadlines, go back in time and a first for Stet.
🚦 Who gets the money to fight gridlock?
The fight between cities and counties over who gets the money developers pay for road work could be decided this year by the Florida Legislature.
Cities back a bill that would give them control of the money that otherwise goes to counties. Counties object.
At stake in Palm Beach County: $20 million a year in developer fees that go to roads.
The bill would let cities use the money for their priorities, which would go beyond road-building to include sidewalks, bike lanes and other alternative modes of transportation.
Counties would have to negotiate with cities to get a share. They argue road projects would stall, resulting in gridlock.
“The impacts of a given project don’t stop at the city boundaries,” Deputy Palm Beach County Administrator Patrick Rutter said at a Jan. 30 state Senate committee hearing.
What’s happening: The bill could end a long-running dispute in Palm Beach County.
The county sued Palm Beach Gardens in 2021 to force the city to keep collecting and paying county road impact fees. Gardens had insisted state law allowed the city to collect the money as a mobility fee and keep it, depriving the county.
A Palm Beach County Circuit judge disagreed, ruling in the county’s favor in March 2022. An appellate court agreed in October 2022.
The court ordered Palm Beach Gardens to pay the county back $3 million in fees it collected but did not share. The city balked, asking the court for clarification. The court hasn’t ruled and the case has been dormant since October.
Palm Beach Gardens Mayor Chelsea Reed and City Attorney Max Lohman have appeared in front of several legislative committees to push Senate Bill 688, which has passed two committees and awaits action in a third, and House Bill 479, which has made it to the House floor.
“The county tells the municipalities how it’s going to be. They collect the impact fee and they impose it. And then in many incidences … those improvements don’t get built,” Lohman said at the Jan. 30 hearing. “This will require the local governments to enter into an interlocal agreement to apportion that single fee out.”
They’ve been joined by officials from Lake Park. That town just south of Gardens charges developers both the county impact fee and the city mobility fee.
Developers say two fees is unfair and Lake Park Town Manager John D'Agostino agreed.
He cited these figures: The county collected $1.2 million in impact fees covering roads and six other categories of impact on a single project: the 336-unit Nautilus 220 high rise in Lake Park.
The town charged the same developer $736,000 as its mobility fee.
Impact fees paid to the county don’t help Lake Park, D’Agostino said. The town’s few roads can’t be expanded.
“What we’re asking here is not only for clarity but for equity and fairness as it relates to a small community of 9,000 residents,” he said.
Joining Rutter in arguing for amendments to clarify how the money can be spent has been the Florida Association of Counties.
“To have a model where that person trying to get to work or trying to get home has to stop or go around a city or get out and ride a bicycle for a few miles to get to the other side doesn’t seem like an effective transportation system,” FAC lobbyist Bob McKee said at a Jan. 9 Senate committee hearing.
“The bottom line: … The future of the state is not going to be easy, free, clear transportation. We’re going to have gridlock.”
🖥️ How big data will guide downtown decisions
Four years into testing data-gathering sensors installed on Clematis Street, West Palm Beach leaders are poised to add more.
What’s happening: This month, CRA Director Christopher Roog rolled out the program for residents of the Historic Northwest Neighborhood.
Flashback: Florida Atlantic University and the city won financial support from the Knight and Community foundations for the mobility intelligence project.
In 2022, they landed a portion of a $26 million National Science Foundation grant to build on the work.
The grant is split across four other university and city teams to harness technology to transform downtowns.
The devices track cell phones to provide real-time data that can be used for solutions including:
Addressing crime.
Understanding how and what time of day public spaces are being used.
Managing such pests as raccoons or rats in public spaces.
Improving accessibility for disabled people.
Of note: No personal data is collected, project managers say.
A link to the dashboard of Clematis Street data is here.
At the Northwest Neighborhood on Feb. 8, Roog asked for feedback on how comfortable city residents are with technology tracking public spaces.
He shared this online survey.
And this video about the project.
What’s next: Roog said there are plans to share information about the project with the city’s other neighborhood groups and gather feedback.
🐌 Slow going for Gardens annexation challenge
It’s beginning to look like a lawsuit filed Jan. 5 will not stop the March Palm Beach Gardens annexation election.
Quick catchup: Residents of Hidden Key sued to block the election involving the largest of five zones, Zone 1. The court did not issue its first order until Feb. 7, after Hidden Key filed a motion to speed things up.
In its Feb. 12 reply, the city argued the issue does not require “immediate resolution,” as the four Hidden Key residents who sued will suffer no harm if the vote is held on March 19.
“However, harm may come … by denying 5,220 of their fellow voters residing in Area 1 the right to vote,” City Attorney Max Lohman wrote in the city’s reply.
On the dispute over voters asked to annex both into Palm Beach Gardens and North Palm Beach, Lohman wrote: “That future litigation, if it were to occur, would be between Palm Beach Gardens and North Palm Beach, would not require the (four) petitioners’ participation, and would not be complicated to resolve.”
Background: The Hidden Key residents had argued there’s no precedent in state law for what happens if the same residents are annexed into different cities at the same time.
Finally, Lohman disputed the term “quagmire,” suggested by the four Hidden Key residents.
“The annexation referendum is scheduled; the ballots are printed; and the vote by mail ballots have been sent out. The expense of the referendum has been fully realized by the city of Palm Beach Gardens. Seeking to determine the will of the people, rather than just the will of the petitioners, does not constitute a quagmire,” Lohman wrote.
Of note: The city has $175,000 budgeted for election expenses through Sept. 30.
In a footnote, he added: “A referendum is pure democracy in action and is not a quagmire. A simple majority of the votes cast in Area 1 will determine the outcome of the proposed annexation. The petitioners dislike this because they want their votes to count for more than the other 5,220 voters in Area 1.”
The court could invalidate the results after the election, meaning the Hidden Key residents face “no irreparable harm,” he wrote.
What’s next: Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Cymonie Rowe will rule. If she agrees with the city, it means slow going. Both sides would be given time to file briefs before a court hearing, making it difficult to reach a decision before early voting begins March 9. Even at a faster pace, she’d still have to give the city time to respond.
The shooting of Romen Phelps
Stet Palm Beach’s detailed account of the May 2022 shooting death of Romen Phelps at Dreyfoos School of the Arts appeared Sunday on the front page of The Palm Beach Post, the first collaboration between the area’s largest newsroom and Stet.
Stet’s story, which went out in a special Friday email, described how the off-duty West Palm Beach police sergeant who shot Phelps, Christopher Nagel, had been in the room with him for less than two minutes when the shots rang out. The sergeant told the school police officer who had tracked Phelps, 33, after he crashed his way onto campus in a fit of bipolar mania, to go get help, leaving Nagel and the school principal as the only ones in the school’s theater when the shot rang out.
The story, based on detailed police investigative reports, also showed how Phelps had been released from Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center the night before despite eccentric behavior and a combative attitude that prompted medical officials to call police to the emergency room.
The state attorney declined to prosecute Nagel in the shooting and Phelps’ mother has not sued, unable to line up a lawyer willing to take the case. Read the story here.
🫐 The juice
Form 6 lawsuit: Municipalities and dozens of local elected officials from across Florida filed state and federal lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of a new law that requires the officials to fill out Form 6, disclosing detailed information about their personal finances. Palm Beach County cities joining the suit: Briny Breezes, Palm Beach, Delray Beach, Wellington and Lantana. (News Service of Florida via WLRN and see the state lawsuit here)
Obituary: Former Palm Beach County Sheriff Bob Neumann died Feb. 5 at age 81. Neumann, a Republican and former FBI special agent, was sheriff from 1997 to 2000. (WPTV)
Israel trip: Local executives of the United Way, the Urban League, Palm Beach State College, the county school district, the Community Foundation and the Supervisor of Elections Office are joining the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County in Israel this week. (WPBF Channel 25)
Freshwater releases: The Army Corps of Engineers began to release freshwater from Lake Okeechobee over the weekend, raising blue-green algae fears along both coasts. (The Palm Beach Post $$$)
Whole earth art: The annual jewelry, art, antiques and design show that closes today in West Palm Beach features another art form: nature. Among many fossilized works at the Palm Beach Show is the hind leg of a giant woolly mammoth, standing 8-feet-tall. (ByJoeCapozzi.com)
🗳️ March election: Last day to register
If you are eligible to cast a ballot, but not among the 860,000 registered voters in Palm Beach County, today is the last day to register for the March 19 municipal election and presidential primary.
What’s at stake: Not every city has an item on the ballot. Here’s a list of cities that do: Belle Glade, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Greenacres, Highland Beach, Hypoluxo, Juno Beach, Jupiter Inlet Colony, Lake Park, Lake Worth Beach, Lantana, Loxahatchee Groves, North Palm Beach, Ocean Ridge, Pahokee, Palm Beach, Riviera Beach, Royal Palm Beach, South Bay, Tequesta, Wellington and West Palm Beach.
Annexation questions await residents outside of Palm Beach Gardens, North Palm Beach and Wellington.
Also: Florida Republicans will decide on a candidate for president.
Only registered Republicans can vote in the presidential preference primary. (There is no Democratic presidential primary in Florida this year.)
Today is the last day to switch parties before the primary. You can register to vote online or update your voter registration here.
To see a personalized sample ballot, or request a vote-by-mail ballot, go online here.
What’s next: Early voting begins March 9.
📜 Historic moment: MacArthur Foundation land selloff
It’s been 25 years since the city of Palm Beach Gardens contended with the massive impact of the MacArthur Foundation’s Florida land selloff, including 4,000 acres in Gardens and more in Jupiter, Riviera Beach and West Palm Beach. Joel invites Stet readers to a free panel discussion featuring several officials who were involved in managing the impact. The event, brought by the Palm Beach Gardens Historical Society, is at 6:30 pm Thursday at Palm Beach State College’s Meldon Hall in Building BB on the Gardens campus. For background on the land sale and a flyer and map with event details, click here.
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