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Letter to the editor

City drops suit over growth plan petitions

The legal tangle had named five as defendants, including two city commissioners.

By NICK JOHNSON
Published July 15, 2007

ST. PETE BEACH - The city agreed to drop its 2005 lawsuit filed against five residents, including two city commissioners, who petitioned on behalf of Citizens For Responsible Growth to repeal a change to the comprehensive plan.

Instead of the planned resolution that would drop Commissioners Linda Chaney and Harry Metz from two lawsuits, city attorney Timothy Driscoll presented a deal settling the city's involvement and both parties' motions for sanctions, during Tuesday's commission meeting.

After Chaney and Metz were elected to the City Commission, the lawsuits put the city in the precarious position of having commissioners vote on lawsuits in which they were named as defendants.

By dropping the case, the city will resolve the potential conflict of interest and allow leaders on both sides to come to a consensus on how to proceed with a comprehensive plan.

"I think everybody on both sides saw the value, saying let's spend our energy on things we can control as opposed to things we can't control, which is the court system," said Ward Friszolowski, mayor of St. Pete Beach.

Chaney and Metz were also glad to see an end to the lawsuit.

Chaney said she was eager to move forward but hasn't forgotten the initial gesture. "I think it's unconscionable that the city would sue its own citizens from having input in their own community," she said.

"It just means that CRG won because now the city's going to say the petitions are constitutional," said Metz, adding that this would allow the city to move on to more pressing issues. "I think we can really get a lot of other things done."

The resolution was passed unanimously, without the votes of Chaney or Metz, who abstained as Driscoll had advised.

The dropped lawsuits were a result of petitions Chaney and Metz collected with three other residents, before being elected, which effectively stopped an amendment to the city's comprehensive plan that would have allowed for new land development regulations.

The city contended the petitions were invalid, resulting in a city divided over comprehensive plans and the confusing swirl of legal action that ensued.

Over the next year and a half the lawsuits were followed by appeals and motions for sanctions from both the city and the attorneys representing the petitioners, Kenneth Weiss and Michael Larrinaga.

Another suit was also filed over the same issue by St. Pete Partners, property owners who claim they were adversely affected by the petitions, against the same five citizens and the city of St. Pete Beach.

"This started out as a simple request to the court to determine the validity of some petitions that were filed," Driscoll said. "It turned into a much more antagonistic litigation than it needed to be."

But things aren't settled yet.

Although the petitions are no longer being contested by the city, they are still being contested by the pending St. Pete Partners case.

For now, the city will continue to operate under the original comprehensive plan but depending on the courts decision, could end up operating under the amended plan after all.

"We're going to just stand on the sidelines and just wait and see what happens," Driscoll said.

The hearing in the St. Pete Partners case is scheduled for July 25.

Nick Johnson can be reached at nickjohnson@sptimes.com or 893-8361.

[Last modified July 14, 2007, 21:58:35]