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County sues to stop utility sale
By WILL VAN SANT BROOKSVILLE -- Hernando County filed a lawsuit in the 5th Circuit Court on Friday that seeks to kill the pending sale of Florida Water Services to two Panhandle towns. The lawsuit -- a subject of intensive legal deliberation for several weeks -- makes Hernando County the latest in a growing list of governments mounting court challenges to the $507-million deal. "This was the appropriate action," said County Commissioner Chris Kingsley. "We all believe the way this purchase was conducted was illegal." On Sept. 17, the towns of Milton and Gulf Breeze, which have a combined population of less than 13,000, took advantage of state laws that allow governments to form public authorities and purchase private utilities. After forming the Florida Water Services Authority, the towns entered into a purchase agreement on Sept. 19 with Florida Water Services, which serves 500,000 customers in 120 communities statewide. Hernando County is home to 33,000 of those customers; Citrus County is home to 12,000. The lawsuit alleges that neither town gave adequate public notice of the authority's first meeting, which took place in Pensacola on Sept. 19. Milton placed a notice of the meeting in the Pensacola News Journal on Sept. 16, Gulf Breeze on Sept. 13, the lawsuit states. No customers of Florida Water live in the newspaper's readership area. "Nothing they did at that meeting counts," because of the insufficient notice to impacted citizens, said assistant county attorney Kurt Hitzemann. "It's all void." According to the lawsuit, the towns were required to have a meeting to determine if the their purchase of Florida Water was in the interest of the public, which they failed to do. At the Sept. 19 meeting, the lawsuit states, "no member of the public from any location commented during the public comment portion." Further, the lawsuit questions how the towns interpreted the law, known as the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act, under which they joined to form their authority. The county maintains that the towns were obligated to get the consent of affected communities before purchasing utilities in their jurisdictions. "That was never intended to give them the ability to own utilities across the state," Hitzemann said of the cooperation act. Representatives for Milton and Gulf Breeze, who could not be reached for comment, have defended their purchase agreement as legal, honest and done with a noble purpose. Hernando County has never accepted that argument. The suit alleges that permanent harm would come to residents whose utility provider was an unregulated authority hundreds of miles away. Observers say the legal strategy of affected communities is to bombard the towns with so many court challenges that they question whether all the effort and legal fees are worth the estimated $1.5-million in cash the deal could bring them annually. "I would think it would be appropriate for the towns to make a cost/benefit analysis," said Hernando County Commission Chairwoman Nancy Robinson. -- Will Van Sant covers Hernando County government and can be reached at 754-6127. Send e-mail to vansant@sptimes.com .
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