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Arguments about turf and control derailed Pinellas County's attempts to approve a home rule charter in 1973 and 1976.
The 24 cities in Pinellas hollered that the county was trying to take over their powers and create a consolidated "metro government" - a term they spoke with a grimace of distaste.
The county constitutional officers, such as the sheriff and the clerk of court, said the county was trying to turn their elected positions into appointed ones - appointed by what would be a too-powerful county government.
With city officials and constitutional officers campaigning hard against the proposed charters both times, both were defeated by voters.
Is history about to repeat itself?
The lobbying, the infighting and the accusations already have begun. The term "metro government" already has been resurrected. A county constitutional officer already has declared that a new charter would be "the beginning of the end" for elected constitutional offices. And the county's mayors already have begun organizing their opposition. But there isn't even a proposed new charter yet. There is merely the possibility of assembling a group to write one.
Nevertheless, at a meeting Monday morning in Clearwater, a group of 13 residents and elected officials will assemble to decide whether a charter revision commission should be assembled to write a new or substantially modified charter for Pinellas. The meeting, from 8 to 11 a.m. in the county's Swisher Building at 509 East Ave., is open to the public.
Why are people so agitated about a charter? What is a charter anyway?
A charter establishes the powers and duties of a local government and the rules under which the government will operate - rather like the Constitution does for the U.S. government. Lots of cities have charters, but in Florida, county governments traditionally have not had them. County governments originally were mere extensions of the state government, charged with fulfilling at the local level only the functions the state ceded to them.
But in 1968 a state constitutional amendment gave counties the right to "home rule," which meant that, if they wrote a home rule charter approved by local voters, they could take for themselves any powers not specifically forbidden by state law.
Thirty-six years later, only 19 of Florida's counties have charters. And in two of those, Pinellas and Volusia, the charters weren't written locally but were created by state legislators.
That's how Pinellas finally got a charter after those defeats by the voters in 1973 and 1976. State legislators, tired of all the squabbling and demands on their time by Pinellas officials, created a county charter that was approved by Pinellas voters in 1980. However, it wasn't a true home rule charter because the legislators, who apparently didn't quite trust Pinellas, retained for themselves some significant power over the county. Some of the things that true home rule counties can do, Pinellas can't do without asking permission from the Legislature.
The 1980 charter had another oddity too, a concession to the 24 municipalities here. If the county wanted to take for itself any functions, services or regulatory authority of the cities, it had to get approval in dual referendums in the county and each city.
There are some in Pinellas who want to break free of the shackles of the 1980 limited home rule charter. Some of those people are in county government. Some are members of the Pinellas County Charter Review Commission, made up of residents and elected officials.
The 1980 charter says that every six years, a 13-member group will be named to spend six months reviewing the charter and will take any needed changes to the voters. The Charter Review Commission has been meeting since January, but it wanted to do more than just fix punctuation and streamline charter language. It took up several substantive and controversial proposals during the past six months but found the dual referendum requirement or the Legislature could make changes difficult or impossible to implement.
Frustrated, the review commission began debating a bold step: attempting to reconstitute itself as a charter revision commission that could toss out much or all of the existing charter and rewrite it to give Pinellas, for the first time, true home rule. That could lead to the creation of a more powerful and independent county government if voters approved.
The Pinellas Mayor's Council got wind of that idea and organized a quick presentation against it at the last review commission meeting. Some speakers said if there is a revision commission created over their objections, it shouldn't be the current review group, which has only one city representative. Its membership instead should reflect the population of Pinellas, almost 70 percent of which lives in cities. County Commission Chairwoman Susan Latvala, who serves on the review commission, said that was unfair, this being a county charter, but the cities want their interests protected.
State Sen. Jim Sebesta, also a review commission member, had a prediction: "If this revision goes to a vote, it will be the worst shootout you've ever seen. It will be bloody."
With everyone drawing weapons to defend their turf, we will find out this week whether the Charter Review Commission takes up the gauntlet.
- Diane Steinle is editor of editorials for North Pinellas. She can be reached by e-mail at steinle@sptimes.com To send a letter to the editor for publication, go to www.sptimes.com/letters