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Lealman leader seeks 'county city' status
By ANNE LINDBERG, Times Staff Writer
LEALMAN -- Saying he has seen too many petty, backstabbing actions from elected officials in some "little governments," the community association's leader says he will press for the formation of a nontraditional city to protect the east Lealman area from annexation. Ray Neri envisions a "county city," a municipality formed from the area east of Kenneth City between St. Petersburg and Pinellas Park. The county would continue to provide all services for the cost of the MSTU, or municipal services taxing unit, which the county levies on property owners in unincorporated areas to provide the services that cities usually provide. Under its current setup, the MSTU goes primarily to the sheriff. The arrangement, Neri said, would give east Lealman definite boundaries that would protect it from annexation while maintaining the tax rate. A previous study showed that incorporation could raise the tax rate in east Lealman as much as 50 percent depending on the level of government services desired. "If the county's interested in saving its tax base, this is a way to do it," he said. Neri denied that he'd given up on the idea of creating a city of Lealman that would eventually stand on its own. "We can't take anything off the table," he said. "But we're always in a position of trying to find a better way to do it." At the same time, he said, Lealman community activists have long fought against repeated annexations of county properties. If they succeeded in forming a traditional city, unincorporated areas such as Tierra Verde and Palm Harbor might follow suit. The activists then would be guilty of stripping the county of vital tax base, Neri said. Neri said he had discussed the idea with Pinellas County Administrator Steve Spratt, who "didn't discount the idea" and said there were a lot of details that would have to be worked out. Spratt did not return a phone message asking for comment. It's also unclear whether east Lealman could function only on the MSTU without extra county money. Mark Woodard, the head of the county's Department of Management and Budget, did not return a phone call asking for comment. The Lealman area, particularly the eastern half, has been a hotbed of anti-annexation activism. Neri and the Lealman Community Association, Lealman Fire Commission members and others have accused the adjoining cities of cherrypicking high-tax properties. The poorer residents of Lealman are left at the mercy of high taxes and an eroding community identity, they say. The only way to stop that would be to form a city, creating definite boundaries that would be inviolate. A county-funded study showed incorporation could be done -- at a small tax savings to Lealman residents or a huge tax increase, depending on the level of services offered. Traditional cityhood also would mean the formation of a city council and elected officials, which Neri sees as a dubious benefit. "I've seen little governments," he said. "I've seen what it does." Kenneth City officials are always at odds and sniping at each other over little things, Neri said. The same has happened on the Lealman Fire Commission, he said. It's even happened on the board of the Lealman Community Association, where a spat broke out last year over by-laws. "You start to see these crazy inefficiencies," Neri said. "They simply can't play well with each other. ... It's terrible. It's incompetence." There's no reason to think a Lealman City Council would be any different, he said. And that, he said, would be a disservice to an area that needs to concentrate on redevelopment and revitalization.
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
