Port Richey dissolution backers vow to file lawsuit
A group seeking to dissolve Port Richey wants the city to act on their petition within 30 days.
By ALEX LEARY
Published June 24, 2004
PORT RICHEY - Backers of a plan to dissolve Port Richey say they will go to court if city officials do not act within 30 days on their request for a referendum on the November ballot.
"Whatever it takes, we're going to pursue it until the people who pay taxes in the city can be heard," Dr. Robert Goluba, a dentist who is helping organize the effort, said Wednesday.
Goluba reacted strongly to the city clerk's insistence that the petition submitted Tuesday, bearing the signatures of about 300 residents, is inadequate because it does not fully outline the proposed ordinance for dissolution.
"No matter what we do, they are not going to be satisfied with it,' Goluba said. "But there's obviously a substantial number of people who feel the same way we do."
He said the new City Council majority, which has pledged to be more receptive to community concern, should feel obligated to give voters the chance to decide.
The council briefly discussed the petition Tuesday night, mostly whether the signatures were valid (at least one person's name appears twice) and whether the petition was properly documented. The council turned the matter over to city attorney Jerry Figurski.
Three thousand people live in Port Richey, which was incorporated in 1925. Proponents say the main reason for abolishing the city and becoming part of unincorporated Pasco County is financial. Port Richey property owners pay taxes to the city and the county.
Why support a local police department, the proponents argue, when the Sheriff's Office can provide law enforcement? Goluba noted that a wide majority of Pasco County's 344,000 residents - including Gulf Harbors, Trinity and Wesley Chapel - live outside cities and "seem to be doing just fine."
But whatever the reasons, city officials have resisted the effort on procedural grounds. Clerk Shirley Dresch, who is acting city manager, said the petition does not follow a provision of the City Charter, which states it shall set out "in full" the proposed initiative ordinance.
The petition as currently written calls on the City Council to "adopt an ordinance dissolving the municipal corporation."
"They have to at least give the people they are asking to sign some explanation of what they are trying to do," Dresch said. "You can't just say, "Let's dissolve the city.' It's not that simple."
Dresch also suggested the group of five men spearheading the effort needs to form a political action committee.
Dissolution is rare in modern Florida. A few municipalities were abolished in the late 1970s and early '80s, and the town of Golfview was absorbed into Palm Beach County in 1998, according to Lynn Tipton, director of membership development for the Florida League of Cities. State law permits citizens to seek dissolution as long as they follow petition guidelines in the city charter, Tipton said.
The state requires the city come up with a plan to deal with its debt, assets and financial obligations to employees, such as retirement benefits. Port Richey has two major debts: $1.5-million for the new City Hall and $1.7-million for water and sewer bonds refinanced in 1994. Also, water and sewer infrastructure is showing its age. "The county is not going to repair that for free," City Council member Bill Bennett said.
"Quite likely you will have special taxing districts to pay off the debt," Mayor Eloise Taylor said.
That possibility is not being mentioned in the current debate, Taylor said. Neither is the fact that residents would face a tax for county fire service, she said. The city provides fire protection as part of its general millage rate, which is 5.82. The county rate is 8.28 mills. A mill is $1 per $1,000 of assessed property value.
Tipton said the city presumably could settle its debt by selling some of its assets, such as land and utility infrastructure. Those decisions would have to be worked out with the county before a referendum. County Administrator John Gallagher could not be reached Wednesday for comment.
Taylor and others say for all the people who signed the petitions there are many more who seem to want to keep the city and its services, including police.
They portray the April election, in which voters chose to retain a police dispatch center and elected a slate of candidates pledging reform, was a strong affirmation of that sentiment.
"I know you are going to see dramatic change in how the government operates," Taylor said Wednesday.
