Community:
Don’t look to Tallahassee for efficiency.
This past Sunday, your state Legislature declared sine die, which means it is the end of the session. All of your local elected officials took a collective deep breath, and said, we live to fight another day, and work to protect the rights of our citizens who have a right to self-governance under the Florida Constitution.
During this session, you had legislators working tirelessly to dictate when you could hold your local elections and to decide what trees can and cannot be removed in your city. And they tried to take away your city’s right to regulate vacation rentals. They tried to dictate what businesses can operate in your cities and tried to end the use of Community Redevelopment Areas that are used to reinvest tax dollars to remediate blighted areas. Downtown Winter Garden and Cranes Roost are examples of what these cities have been able to do with CRAs. Ironically, our state legislators had
one job. And that is to provide a budget on time. But after two months, they didn’t do that. And so, at the expense of Florida taxpayers, they extended the session because the one and only job they had to do was put on the back burner.
Why? They were too busy trying to pass bills dictating what cities can and cannot do.
As president of the Florida League of Mayors, I often appear before committees to represent the League and our cities. One such committee had a hearing on Senate Bill 1400 regarding vacation rentals.
The bill wasn’t getting through as hoped, so a few committee members huddled during the meeting. You see, they don’t have to live in the sunshine and discuss things in public like our local elected officials do. They then provided amendment upon amendment until Sen. Daphne Campbell, D-Miami-Dade, said, “I don’t even know what we’re voting on. We need to table this.”
Chair Tom Lee, R-Thonotosassa, would have none of that.
Then Sen. Greg Steube, R–Sarasota, made a motion to end all discussion at 11:45 a.m., which was promptly seconded and passed. It was 11:35, and there were 30 people waiting to speak. Representative government? As mayor, I have been in meetings until midnight assuring everyone had a chance to speak. Not so in Tallahassee.
Then Steube made another motion to end the meeting at 11:55, which was promptly seconded and passed. I would like to say this is rare, but I saw more of these tactics than I have seen in my 15 years of traveling to Tallahassee.
House Bill 773 had at least half a dozen amendments filed in one committee meeting. Do you have a bill that looks like the vote will be close in committee?
No problem. You just add another committee member to push it through. Yes, this also happened. I can only speculate on the consequences if your local mayor, commissioners and council members ran their public meetings like this. Perhaps it’s time to hold our state officials to a higher standard. After all, they go to great lengths to tell us how our local governments should be run.
State officials were busy trying to pass bills dictating what cities can and cannot do.