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Seminole to present annexation program
By MAUREEN BYRNE AHERN SEMINOLE -- Mayor Dottie Reeder has gotten the go-ahead from fellow City Council members for the city to host a program that will focus on annexation in Pinellas County, and how it affects services and finances. Officials from Broward County, where all unincorporated areas have been mandated to form their own cities or join existing municipalities, will speak at the event. The city has scheduled the public meeting for 5 p.m. Feb 7 at Seminole Recreation Center, 9100 113th St. N, said City Manager Frank Edmunds. Seminole will pay $2,000 to host the event. "The whole reason for this presentation is to look at a county that has gone through a lot of what we are going through now and see that they did come up with a plan," Reeder said Tuesday. "Not that we want to duplicate what they've done, but we can learn from them." Cynthia Chambers, director of Broward County's Planning Services Division, and Marcie Gilman, assistant director of Broward's Budget Services Division, will be the guest speakers, Reeder said. Invitations are being mailed this week to elected officials from all 24 municipalities, Pinellas County and the Florida Legislature. Unlike Pinellas, which is in the process of figuring out annexation and how it affects the county, Broward has been struggling with annexation issues for the past two decades, Chambers said. The meeting stems from the County Commission's efforts to get state lawmakers to exempt Pinellas from current annexation rules. That plan appears to be dead, but it was enough to rattle some local mayors. They met last month and decided they needed a game plan. The public presentation is similar but has nothing to do with the planned American Assembly scheduled here in May. The three-day event will bring together up to 150 people representing a variety of interests to talk about problems ranging from transportation to annexation and how to solve them.
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
