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Yanking item from ballot sets legal tiff

The furor over St. Pete Beach redevelopment plans is complicated when commissioners remove a question from the ballot.

By PAUL SWIDER
Published February 19, 2006

ST. PETE BEACH - City commissioners decided Tuesday to remove a referendum question from the March ballot until the matter is settled in court, but that action prompted more lawsuits as opponents try to force the referendum.

Citizens for Responsible Growth, a group opposed to the city's redevelopment plans, had appealed a court decision outlawing three referendum questions. The city countered by appealing a fourth question the court allowed that the city says is illegal. With the matters in limbo, city officials said, the commissioners then removed the fourth question from the March ballot.

"I think it would be inappropriate to have voters consider it while it's on appeal," city attorney Tim Driscoll told the commissioners at Tuesday's meeting. The commission then passed a resolution and scheduled a special meeting to repeal the ordinance that put the matter on the ballot. Those actions were illegal, according to Citizens for Responsible Growth attorney Ken Weiss.

Weiss filed papers with the court Thursday demanding that the city leave the referendum question on the ballot because to do otherwise would show "contempt" for the court. He also said the city's unscheduled vote to remove the question was illegal, as would be acting against its own ordinance before canceling it.

"The commission has stated on a number of occasions that it would comply with a judge's order if he ordered them to put the voter's proposed amendments on the ballot," Weiss said. "This is not their own private city in which they can unilaterally disregard the law merely because they don't like it."

Driscoll said the resolution was legal because the commission had a Wednesday deadline for preparing ballots. That deadline came up again Thursday when Weiss filed another action asking for emergency consideration, naming Deborah Clark, the Pinellas County supervisor of elections, as a defendant. There was no emergency hearing.

The specific referendum question in play would require a unanimous City Commission vote on any comprehensive plan changes that would affect five or fewer parcels of land. The city has said this is an ill-defined issue and may never arise, but would still contravene state law. City Manager Mike Bonfield said despite the finite and technical nature of the question, Citizens for Responsible Growth is using it for political gains.

"They're clearly trying to use that as a referendum on other matters," he said.

Bonfield pointed to a CRG flier that tells people to vote for the referendum but doesn't say what the referendum is, only that voting for it will put "development plans back in the hands of citizens."

The city has spent $110,000 on legal action through December, a point that has now become a rallying point for both sides. Citizens for Responsible Growth has pointed to the cost as city money used to oppose voters, but others have peppered city commissioners with pleas the city seek to recoup its costs from CRG for wasting city money prolonging the issue. Even Commissioner Ed Ruttencutter, who has championed Citizens for Responsible Growth's efforts, admitted that one of the group's recent actions is "questionable."

City officials point to the $20,000 spent defending a CRG challenge last summer that the group later dropped. Driscoll and Bonfield say the group proposed to drop the matter if the city promised not to sue for attorney's fees, but Weiss insists there was no such agreement. The stipulation on CRG's withdrawal does state all parties will pay their own fees.

Bonfield said the latest turn of events would never have occurred but for Citizens for Responsible Growth's decision to appeal. Without that, the city would have allowed at least the one referendum. But once CRG appealed, the city would have to go to court, so it made sense to pursue all the issues, Bonfield said.

[Last modified February 19, 2006, 01:08:19]