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Charter changes trial date selected
By LORRI HELFAND
Published September 17, 2006
When governments fight each other in court, a mediator often is brought in to smooth out the differences. But time is a premium in the case of 21 Pinellas municipalities vs. the county's charter review commission and other Pinellas officials. A batch of proposed amendments to the county charter is scheduled to go to voters Nov. 7, and attorneys for the cities argued Thursday that there is no time for mediation. Agreed, said Circuit Judge Robert Beach, who decided to skip the mediator. He also scheduled a trial for Oct. 16 after attorneys from both sides okayed the date. About 35 local officials and attorneys attended the hearing, during which Beach agreed that some proposed charter amendments, if passed, might injure the cities' interests. He said at least one charter question could be ambiguous. County attorneys had argued that the cities did not prove legal harm and that citizens' rights would be deprived if they didn't get to vote on the amendments. Twenty-one of the 24 municipalities in Pinellas filed the 40-page suit last month seeking to have all proposed county charter amendments removed from the ballot. The cities have contended the county's charter review commission violated Florida's Sunshine Law and public meeting procedures. They also say the commission crafted language that is "unclear, ambiguous and confusing." The cities took the rare step of filing the suit, which also names the County Commission and Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark as defendants, after spending months protesting proposed charter changes they feared would usurp their power. For example, the cities have argued that three proposed amendments regarding annexations would place constraints on them that go beyond state law. One amendment concerns annexation of commercial land. It would require consent from 67 percent of the property owners rather than the current 51 percent. Another key complaint in the cities' case concerns the right of municipalities to opt out of certain countywide regulations. Attorneys for the county plan to file a motion to dismiss the cities' complaint. A hearing on that motion is scheduled for Sept. 25.
[Last modified September 16, 2006, 20:36:08]
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