Maitland City Talk

Due to the continued reduction of state revenues being received by Florida cities and counties over the past few years, on Feb. 22 and 23 of this year, the Florida League of Mayors (League) again organized a special trip called “Mayors Mean Business” to go to Tallahassee to lobby for legislation for our cities. Like last year, each mayor was asked to bring a prominent businessperson from his or her city to help express the needs of their respective cities. Because Bill Randolph did such a great job last year expressing those needs to our legislators, I asked Bill to accompany me again. Bill is a longtime resident of our city, has been involved as a volunteer for many years on numerous city and county boards, and is one of the most knowledgeable people on Maitland that I know. He, along with his wife, Joan, owns a very successful land planning and landscape architecture firm (JCR Consulting), which has been in business for 17 years. Bill, again, graciously accepted my invitation, and we began preparing for our trip to Tallahassee. We decided to expand the trip, arriving at the capitol earlier in the day on Feb. 22, working with our lobbyist, Louis Rotundo, and meeting as many of our legislators as possible before the scheduled meetings of the League began that evening.

The League again did a great job of organizing this special trip beginning with a Mayors’ Reception the evening of Feb. 22, where we got to share the concerns facing our cities with our fellow mayors and their business representatives. The morning of the Feb. 23, we started with a Mayors’ Breakfast, where we discussed and organized our legislative agenda for the day before returning to the capitol to continue visiting with our legislators. We then had a scheduled lunch where several keynote speakers updated us on Florida’s present economic and business climate, along with a special appearance by Gov. Rick Scott, who gave us a legislative update and answered questions. Upon the completion of our luncheon, we again returned to the capitol to continue meeting with our legislators before leaving for home late that afternoon.

Spending as much time as possible meeting with our legislators we felt was very important, as there are a number of legislative bills again this year being proposed that we were very concerned about. The following were the major ones:

Repeal of red light cameras (oppose): allowing red-light runners to continue causing T-bone collisions at intersections inflicting serious injuries and in some cases death. This bill did not pass.

Communications service tax (oppose): reducing revenues to cities by exempting more companies from paying communication service fees. This bill did pass, reducing the annual revenue to our city by an undetermined amount, but is believed to be substantial.

Alternate local business tax exemption (oppose): exempts real estate broker associates from paying local business taxes. This bill did pass, again reducing revenue to our city.

Numeric nutrients bill (support): allows Florida to override federal water pollution requirements and provides a flexible “threshold” standard. This bill did pass. If the bill had not passed, the cost to our city was estimated to have been in the millions of dollars.

Fertilizer ban repeal (oppose): would have removed Maitland’s more restrictive fertilizer control standards allowing more pollution in our lakes. This bill did not pass.

Pension reform bill (support): would have allowed local governments to work out provisions that were mutually acceptable to both sides of an issue. This bill did not pass.

Renewable energy bill (support): encourages renewable energy development in Florida by offering tax incentives. This bill did pass.

In past years, due to a prospering Florida, we were not as involved in our state government as we need to be today. Because of the present political climate, financial condition of our state and the economy, it is imperative that we become very involved and stay involved with our state legislators to preserve as much as possible, our right to “home rule” and our fair share of state revenues. The future prosperity of our city largely depends upon it.

Meeting of March 26

The Maitland City Council met on March 26 at 6:30 p.m. in the City Hall Council Chambers. Below is a synopsis of that meeting. The next regular scheduled Council meeting will be held on Monday, April 9.

Public Hearings:

Moved to continue the Public Hearings creating the Downtown Maitland Zoning District and the rezoning of properties within that district until the April 9 Council meeting.

Community Redevelopment Agency Decision Item:

A resolution amending the Community Redevelopment Agency operating budget for FY 2012 to complete the Adoption Phase of the Downtown Development Standards.

Decisions:

Authorized funding to expand the scope of the contract with Littlejohn Engineering to complete the adoption phase of the Maitland CRA Development Standards for the Maitland Downtown

To listen to a recording of the meeting, visit itsmymaitland.com