A negative vote by State Sen. Bobby Powell (D-District 30) put the final nail in the coffin of the controversial Acreage incorporation bill at the Palm Beach County Legislative Delegation meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 8 in Belle Glade.
State Sen. Tina Polsky (D-District 29) and State Sen. Lori Berman (D-District 31) had already cast negative votes on the bill, thereby ending the vote.
Legislative Delegation Executive Director Victoria Nowlen explained that according to the rules, local bills must pass with a majority vote of house members present and a majority vote of senators present.
“Having not received the vote, this local bill does not pass,” Nowlen said.
That means that the bill will not be considered by the state legislature during the 2022 session and, therefore, will not be voted on by Acreage residents during the 2022 election cycle, as supporters had hoped.
“I would encourage the public to bring it back next year,” said Delegation Chair State Rep. Mike Caruso (R-District 89) after the vote.
The hearing at the Palm Beach State College campus in Belle Glade, which had been postponed from the delegation’s Oct. 28 meeting in West Palm Beach, still drew about 150 residents who spoke both for and against the bill.
State Rep. Rick Roth (R-District 85), who sponsored the bill, said the proposal, if approved in Tallahassee, would allow the residents of unincorporated portions of the Indian Trail Improvement District to vote on a referendum to create the Village of Loxahatchee.
Roth was concerned about widespread confusion over the process.
“I’ve heard everything across the board from, ‘They’re going to vote today,’ I’ve also heard, ‘If we vote to incorporate, the taxes are going to go up 50 percent,’” Roth said. “There is so much misinformation out there.”
He reiterated that the bill would allow the residents of the proposed municipality to hold a referendum on incorporation, and this was the third bill that he has sponsored to allow the residents to go in this direction.
“I am following a pathway that was set up by the legislature in 2021,” Roth said. “I was then advised by the chair of the committee to amend the bill so I could pass it. It took out the part about going to referendum from the bill that was passed in 2021. It instead allowed the Indian Trail Improvement District to spend funds to do a feasibility study and set up a charter committee and to submit the study and the charter in a new bill, which is what we are doing today.”
He added that there has been undue outside influence and big money trying to affect the outcome by misinforming the public and the delegation to try and stop the vote by residents.
“They want to stop that before we even get to Tallahassee with our first committee,” Roth said. “My goal is to continue the effort that I started three years ago. I’ve been in numerous meetings in Loxahatchee, and told people over and over again, I am representing everybody in my district. This is not an effort for me to try to get Loxahatchee incorporated.”
During public comment, Citizens Committee Member Louis Colantuoni said that the area has changed dramatically since he moved there.
“When I moved there in 1978, it was 1,180 residents. Today we are 44,800,” Colantuoni said. “I think people realize here in Palm Beach County that change is going to happen, and it has happened all around us. This change brings forth the need for local representation to be able to represent our citizens and represent our needs, especially since we are surrounded by six municipalities that already have the advantages of home rule authority.”
Acreage resident Diana Demarest said she was not completely opposed to incorporation but did not like the way the process had got to this point.
“I’m opposed to the way this was done,” she said. “I have to say that the transparency on this was horrendous. Most of the people didn’t know they were having meetings in the middle of a pandemic. Those rooms were pretty much empty. On the Zoom meetings, we would have our hands raised, and we were pretty much ignored. If anyone had questions, you were pretty much treated as a child, like you didn’t have a right to question the situation.”
ITID President Betty Argue said the district followed the legislature’s authorization to conduct a study and to have a charter review committee draft the charter.
“Sixteen people from different areas in our community participated in that,” Argue said. “We had more than 20 meetings, a couple of Saturday meetings where we spent six hours there hashing over names and other issues with respect to the charter.”
During discussion, Powell said it was apparent that many residents of the community had not been aware of what was happening, and he asked if a new community would be sustainable. Roth said the numbers show that it would be.
“I think, quite honestly, that the feasibility study does have good information, and at this point, we can be in favor of this bill based on that information,” Roth said.
Powell pointed out that he is a certified planner, and public participation is one of the most important things that they do.
“Our number one goal is to serve the public interest, and with that, I believe it is important for people in their community to have a complete understanding,” Powell said, asking Roth if he felt residents should have more time to discuss the bill.
Roth said he felt the process was working, and the decision making should take place after the bill is approved.
“We do have a great opportunity to move forward, and people are going to be more involved during the next six months as they anticipate this bill being passed,” he said. “I think the process is working well. I’ve said all along that the process is transparent.”
Powell said that as a planner, he would send out notices to all residents notifying them of a planned project. “Public participation is a major issue,” he said. “I would unequivocally have to be against this today. We can fix this prior to going to Tallahassee.”
Hmmm……Democrats rejecting. City of WestLake must be lining their pockets.