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'Contract' might give Lealman protection

By becoming its own city, an unincorporated area can ward off nibblers, a county commissioner says.

By ANNE LINDBERG
Published October 8, 2006

LEALMAN - Pinellas County Commissioner Calvin Harris vowed to create a "contract city" to protect the unincorporated Lealman area from being ripped apart by piecemeal annexations.

"We will make you a contract unincorporated area," Harris, who is running for re-election, said Wednesday during a candidates forum hosted by the Lealman Community Association.

The idea, Harris said Thursday, could apply to other unincorporated areas that want to be free of annexation. Those areas could include East Lake and Palm Harbor, he said.

A "contract city" is a new concept that has "not been formally done," but has been discussed by Pinellas officials and activists, Harris said.

"I am supportive of that idea," he said.

The concept would work like this: Residents in an unincorporated area would vote to form a city.

The city would then contract with the county, which would continue to provide municipal services. The "city" would pay Pinellas based on the level of service desired, and residents would be taxed at the rate necessary to fund those services.

Currently, property owners in the unincorporated area pay a municipal services taxing unit for the county to provide services like police protection. The MSTU replaces the city taxes that municipal residents pay and is in addition to other county taxes. Everyone in the unincorporated area pays the same MSTU rate - 2.356 mills - but that might change for areas that became contract cities.

Harris said the tax rate for municipal services to contract cities could conceivably be less than the MSTU, depending on property values and level of services.

The real benefit, Harris said, is to protect communities from annexations, which take tax dollars out of the unincorporated areas, leaving those behind to pay higher taxes to make up for the losses.

The prospect of a "contract city" pleased Lealman Community Association head Ray Neri, who has long worked to protect unincorporated areas from annexation.

"A collective group of people should have the right to control their own destinies," Neri said.

"We welcome the support of the county commissioners because, in the final analysis, this is the right thing to do."

The concept of creating a city out of the Lealman area is not new but has been too contentious for much progress toward realization.

[Last modified October 8, 2006, 07:51:30]