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Planners to offer annexation advice
By ANNE LINDBERG
© St. Petersburg Times, LEALMAN -- As residents in unincorporated Pinellas County consider legal action to protect their borders and tax bases against land grabs by adjoining cities, a county agency wants to counsel cities on how to proceed with annexations. On Monday, a committee of the Pinellas Planning Council will meet to discuss the mechanics of annexation. Uppermost on the minds of many in Lealman will be the seemingly unchecked ability of cities to annex into fire districts. The Planning Council advises the County Commission on matters of development and annexation. Its members are mayors or other elected officials from each of the county's larger cities, a School Board member and a county commissioner. Several smaller cities jointly appoint one member to represent their interests. In the past couple of years, Seminole, Pinellas Park, St. Petersburg and Kenneth City have annexed land in the Lealman Fire District. Much of the property is commercial, and the loss cut severely into Lealman's tax base. Last summer, Seminole annexed land along Park Street that includes such businesses as Target, Don Pablo's and Hops. The land was valued at about $36.1-million, with an estimated annual tax revenue of about $199,000 that is now going to Seminole. Especially galling to Fire District leaders: They still have to serve the area because Seminole has no fire engines nearby. Seminole pays nothing for a service that Lealman provides. Since Nov. 7, 2000, Pinellas Park has annexed 27.15 acres in Lealman worth about $967,400 -- another $5,321 lost in tax revenue. Stung by the losses, the Fire Commission voted unanimously last week to be the first to try to regain those lost revenues under a new state law. The statute says, among other things, that cities annexing into special districts may have to pay the lost taxes for up to four years to give the district time to accommodate its budget to the loss. But Dave Healey, executive director of the Planning Council, said the law is not as clear as it might seem. The state law that created the Lealman Fire District would seem to conflict with the law that the Fire Commission cites, Healey said. "A reasonable person . . . will read those statutes and be at the very least confused," Healey said. The two statutes cannot be read together, he said. Either a new statute, a court decision, or an agreement among the parties will have to be thrashed out to make them work. Healey said the Planning Council has asked its own attorneys and the county's attorneys to look at the situation. It's also why the item is on Monday's agenda. It might be difficult to negotiate detente when the Lealman Fire Commission has not been invited to the table. Linda Campbell, president of the Fire Commission, said Friday that her group had not been officially informed of Monday's meeting. Healey said he had told one Fire Commission member about the meeting. Campbell said that's not enough. When the Planning Council talks about issues affecting the Fire District, the commission needs official notification, she said. Now that she knows about the meeting, the commission will send someone to the meeting. But she said the lack of communication contributes to the distrust that commission members and some Lealman residents hold for the Planning Council. "This is one of the reasons you've got the community of Lealman up in arms about it because no one seems to have our best interests at heart," Campbell said. "From what their past history has been, they've always leaned toward the municipalities when it's come to annexations." To which Healey said, "Poppycock." If you goThe Planners Advisory Committee of the Pinellas Planning Council will hold a special meeting at 2:30 p.m. Monday to discuss annexation within fire districts and the county's voluntary annexation ordinance. The meeting, which is open to the public, will be at the Planning Council, Suite 850, on the eighth floor of the Bank of America Building, 600 Cleveland St., Clearwater. For information, call 464-8250.
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