Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

A tale of one city - maybe

As a Palm Harbor group pushes incorporation, a county commissioner says it's a bad idea.

By RICHARD DANIELSON, Times Staff Writer
Published October 17, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT County Commission member Susan Latvala opposes incorporation.

PALM HARBOR - The idea of incorporating Palm Harbor as its own city is back.

But the latest round of discussion has only just begun. Even under the most optimistic scenario, a referendum on incorporation would be more than a year away.

Still, some local activists think Palm Harbor residents should start gathering information and sorting through the pros and cons of incorporation.

"This is more exploratory than anything," said Jim Kleyman, the spokesman for the Greater Palm Harbor Community Coalition, an informal partnership of community groups.

One of the things behind the discussion is the belief by some Palm Harbor residents that a city government might be more responsive to their needs than Pinellas County is.

With the extension of the Penny for Pinellas sales tax, for example, Kleyman said some people believe Palm Harbor "got a small percentage of what we would have been entitled to if we had been incorporated."

But County Commissioner Susan Latvala, for one, does not see incorporation as practical.

"What we don't need is another layer of government," she said.

* * *

At the coalition's request, state Rep. Peter Nehr, R-Tarpon Springs, has agreed to sponsor a bill in the House to allow Palm Harbor residents to vote on whether to form their own city.

That doesn't mean that Nehr, a former Tarpon Springs city commissioner, is taking a side on whether to incorporate Palm Harbor. He simply supports giving people a say.

"I feel that in this particular situation the citizens should have a choice with a referendum vote," he said Tuesday.

And that doesn't mean that the vote will even take place. A lot of things would have to happen for the referendum to be scheduled.

First, Nehr said supporters of incorporation should line up a co-sponsor in the Senate. Otherwise, the bill is not likely to go anywhere.

"I feel it would be a futile attempt to do something, if they don't have a Senate sponsor on board," he said.

Organizers should know whether they have a Senate sponsor by the end of the week, Kleyman said.

Supporters also would have to work to convince the Pinellas County Legislative Delegation to support the bill.

With sponsors in both chambers and the delegation's support, the bill would be considered during the Legislature's regular session next spring. If it passes, then a referendum could take place in November 2008.

* * *

Latvala, who attended the coalition's meeting last week, said coalition members should survey the community, even informally, to see how much support there is for the idea.

She does not think there is much.

"There's just this handful of people who think that Palm Harbor is not getting its fair share," Latvala said.

Far from being unhappy, she said North Pinellas residents she talks to "seem happy with the government they have."

This is not the first time the idea of incorporation has come up.

About five years ago, Scott Fisher, then the president of the now-defunct Old Palm Harbor Community Association, drafted a study that concluded that incorporation would benefit residents, create a more responsive local government and might even cost taxpayers less.

That effort fizzled, but Fisher has continued to work on the idea, and some North Pinellas residents still think the county is not responsive enough.

The coalition itself was born during the discussions leading up to this year's referendum on whether to extend the Penny for Pinellas 1 percent sales tax from 2010 to 2020.

During 2006, Kleyman said, Palm Harbor groups sought Penny money for various projects but were told their projects weren't qualified.

"We came back and said, 'Well, the cities, the municipalities get millions of dollars for their projects,'" he said. "We were told, 'Well, you're not a municipality.'"

In response, Latvala said she and county officials spent "endless hours" in meeting after meeting with Palm Harbor residents on the Penny for Pinellas.

The resulting Penny project list does include money for North Pinellas projects, including expansions of the Palm Harbor and East Lake libraries, improvements at Wall Springs Park and the construction of a new firehouse in East Lake, she said.

"I'm very, very proud of the process and how well it worked," Latvala said.

* * *

Along with getting the Legislature to pass a bill, organizers would have to do a state-required feasibility study. Then Kleyman said members of the community would want to sit down and go through the advantages and drawbacks of incorporation.

"This is a monumental process," he said. "This is something that is going to take a lot of time and money."

Among the questions to answer would be what areas to include in an incorporated Palm Harbor - East Lake? Ozona? Crystal Beach?

Residents also would have to consider the structure of any municipal government they created: should there be a strong mayor (as in Tampa and St. Petersburg) or a city commission and city manager form of government (as in Clearwater and Tarpon Springs).

"There's a lot to explore here," Kleyman said. "This is just a first step."

As part of the work, coalition members plan to consult with the Florida League of Cities in Tallahassee.

The league does not take positions on whether individual communities should incorporate, said Lynn Tipton, the organization's director of membership development.

Instead, it provides local groups with information, including copies of a feasibility study that Palm Coast in Flagler County did before it incorporated in 1999.

State law requires such feasibility studies, which Tipton said are "really complicated and hard." Palm Coast's study is a model, she said, because it's well-organized and presents data accurately.

Sometimes, however, local groups start to figure out how daunting the process is and have second thoughts.

"There's a couple communities a year that choose not to proceed with it," she said.

Richard Danielson can be reached at Danielson@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4152.

[Last modified October 16, 2007, 21:23:42]