More government, more service - and lower taxes?
As Ruskin considers incorporating into a city, voters can look to other areas where residents chose to seize local control.
By LETITIA STEIN
Published September 18, 2005
BRANDON - Imagine the stucco homes and strip malls of eastern Hillsborough County consolidating as one city.
In population, greater Brandon instantly would soar into the ranks of the 10 largest cities in Florida. It could rival St. Petersburg or Orlando and dwarf Clearwater.
But Brandon hasn't pressed for cityhood since the late 1980s, when cattle still grazed on grassy fields now home to a regional mall. Longtime residents groan to recall the debate over incorporating a city. Some call it the I word, like it's dirty.
A city changes the way you live, from garbage pickup to parks. And nothing clouds talk about creating another layer of government like the threat of higher taxes.
And yet the idea continues to percolate.
Southeast Hillsborough's waterfront community of Ruskin, with a population of roughly 8,000 as of the 2000 census, is pondering such a change. Ruskin residents are exploring becoming a city to gain local control during a growth spurt.
And Ruskin's quest has stirred talk of incorporation in neighboring Apollo Beach. Both face long odds: Hillsborough hasn't added a city in 80 years.
Since Brandon's debate, Florida has added nearly two dozen cities. Newbies like Deltona, DeBary and Bonita Springs can inform similar communities across Tampa Bay by their experiences with incorporation - and the news might surprise them.
Dollars and senseTrue or false? Taxes rise when cities are born.
Jackie Salyers felt confident of the answer a decade ago. She voted against creating the city of Deltona, fearing higher taxes in a community where businesses compose only 3 percent of the tax base.
Salyers admitted her mistake six months after Deltona incorporated on the third try in 1995.
"It was the worst thing I ever did, to vote against it," Salyers says.
Tax rates never rose in Deltona, now proposing a cut for the coming year. Today, Deltona residents have lower property tax rates than neighbors in adjacent, unincorporated Volusia County.
Other young cities boast repeated tax cuts.
DeBary, Deltona's neighbor, inherited a windfall after incorporating in 1993 with two power plants in its boundaries. Three tax cuts later, DeBary touts the lowest ad valorem tax rate in Volusia.
In southwest Florida, Bonita Springs also has rolled back property taxes three times. The 5-year-old city on the Gulf of Mexico enjoys flush coffers from high-end development.
Before incorporating, advocates predicted that a city government in Bonita could do more for less. Now they know for sure.
"There was some real truth in what they said about the amount of money that was going from Bonita to the county treasury and not coming back to Bonita," said Larry Frye, who had opposed a city in Bonita Springs. "That has stopped."
"Government lite'"You been feeling okay? Haven't seen you in a while," DeBary City Manager Maryann Courson recalls greeting a resident during a recent visit to City Hall.
DeBary offers lean government with a personal touch.
Six people work in a tiny City Hall. The city has a total of 16 employees for 18,000 residents.
People call this "government lite."
The concept took off in southwest Florida in the late 1980s. Growing communities wanted more say over local affairs, but not the expense of policing, road maintenance and offices stacked with bureaucrats. To save money, new cities contracted out for services.
"Instead of every individual owner paying, you put your money together and contract for it," says Joe Mazurkiewicz, a consultant who advises communities about incorporation.
When DeBary incorporated, no one wanted a big government. The community faced possible annexation by nearby Orange City. A local civic association campaigned for a city to protect DeBary's identity.
DeBary, and later Bonita Springs, created contract governments. Both pay their home counties or private companies to provide services.
If the county fails to honor its contract, the city can charge fines. It can decide when to pay for extra services, like more sheriff's deputies on the street.
Government lite isn't weightless. Since incorporating, Bonita Springs has jumped from three employees to 38. Initially, elected officials volunteered their time. Eventually, voters agreed to pay salaries.
Bonita has limited needs, despite a growing population of more than 41,000. Sixty percent of residents live behind gates, many in communities with private roads.
Is government lite perfect? Some say the city could do more with unpaved, private roads, and that developers enjoy too much clout.
But simple things, like clearing litter from the road, get more attention than when Bonita answered to Lee County, based more than 20 miles away in Fort Myers.
"You have five commissioners for the whole county," City Manager Gary Price says. "I have seven council members, including the mayor, for 36 square miles. Who do you think can give the best attention?"
Grass is greenerDeltona's first and only mayor points out a well-manicured median maintained by the city. Then he shakes his head at an overgrown adjacent strip that the county is responsible for mowing.
"If you're not a city, you're at the whim of outside sources," Mayor John Masiarczyk says.
Quality of life is a fuzzy phrase. You can't look it up in the dictionary. You know it in your gut. Masiarczyk's instincts told him that incorporating would make life better for Deltona.
It took a decade - and two failed ballots - to persuade Deltona's voters to adopt his vision.
Originally planned as an expansive retirement community, Deltona is home to families that commute to Orlando. During the incorporation debate, skeptics doubted that a young suburban city could repair roads and improve stormwater drainage.
Ten years later, roads are repaved throughout Deltona, now home to 80,000 residents. The city had paid the bill for an $8-million municipal complex before its doors opened.
For quality of life, parks are a telling statistic. In DeBary and Bonita Springs, the park departments employ about half of the cities' total staffers.
DeBary landscaped its main thoroughfare this summer. Bonita Springs has built a band shell for community events. It plans a downtown entertainment district with a riverside park.
But Deltona's mayor says the best perk of cityhood is getting an invitation to county and school district planning sessions. Before, officials didn't take Masiarczyk seriously.
"I was just Yahoo John who lived in Deltona," he says.
Distant governmentOver and over, Ruskin residents have begged Hillsborough's planners: Slow down the bulldozers that are erasing our greens spaces. Don't let rooftops own our horizon.
This summer, Hillsborough finally adopted a blueprint, designed by residents, for Ruskin's growth. Too little, too late, some muttered.
Hillsborough invites citizens to speak out at public hearings where developments are approved. From Ruskin, that's more than 50 miles round trip to the County Center in downtown Tampa. Ruskin's voice, Commissioner Kathy Castor, lives in Tampa.
Last year, Ruskin activists began exploring incorporation. With a city, local people could make rules based on local needs - and maybe tap into grants available to cities.
They hired Mazurkiewicz, the consultant, to crunch the numbers. Currently, residents are waiting for an update to see if Ruskin has the tax base to finance a government lite.
If the numbers work, Ruskin leaders aim to see the issue on local ballots in November 2006.
"There's just a lot of interest in having this determined by the local people, as opposed to by Tampa," said Wade Clark, chairman of the Ruskin Incorporation Committee, spearheading the push.
Nearly two decades ago, many in Brandon felt the same way. The Greater Brandon Chamber of Commerce brought an incorporation proposal to Hillsborough's state lawmakers. Before residents can vote yes or no to a city, lawmakers must approve.
Emotions ran high on both sides. Advocates claimed a city in Brandon could offer the same services as the county - possibly more - without raising taxes. Opponents shuddered at the threat of higher taxes, no matter how uncertain. Development in Brandon was out of the bag, they argued. What good could come from more government?
County officials fretted that Brandon's exit would fragment planning for Hillsborough's growth, and encourage other areas to incorporate. When unincorporated areas form their own cities, the county loses some tax revenue from those property owners.
In the end, residents never got to decide. Hillsborough's state lawmakers refused to carry Brandon's contentious request to Tallahassee.
Today, most of Brandon's homeowners wouldn't remember the debate. They moved in after Brandon's city dreams were extinguished.
Yet across east Hillsborough, incorporation remains a lingering question: What if?
Letitia Stein can be reached at 661-2443 or lstein@sptimes.com