The Pine Tree Water Control District Board of Supervisors will meet Monday, Nov. 7 at the Wellington Municipal Complex, where the supervisors will continue discussing the termination of an interlocal agreement with the Village of Wellington that has been in place since 2004.
The Wellington Village Council, at its Oct. 25 meeting, approved Pine Tree’s request for the termination of the agreement.
The Pine Tree Water Control District comprises about 4,000 acres located west of Flying Cow Road and east of the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge.
Pine Tree was created in 1971 as an independent special district. It does not have ad valorem taxing authority, but uses a special assessment to fund its duties and related activities. Annexed a decade ago, the district lies within Wellington’s municipal boundaries.
Most of the district, about 2,800 acres, is owned by the South Florida Water Management District, which has a representative sitting on Pine Tree’s three-member board. The SFWMD recently decided during budget discussions not to pay its assessment to Pine Tree, as well as several other special districts, because it asserted that it did not receive any benefit in return, explained Wellington Director of Administrative & Financial Services Tanya Quickel, who serves as liaison to the district. She added, however, that the SFWMD’s decision is not related to the district’s decision to terminate its agreement with the village.
Quickel said that the Pine Tree board has discussed excluding the SFWMD property from the district.
The interlocal agreement provides for the village to manage Pine Tree in accordance with its water control plan. The services include stormwater management, drainage, aquatic weed control and road maintenance.
It was anticipated that Pine Tree would ultimately become a dependent district of the village, but in 2006, a referendum was conducted of Pine Tree residents, and it failed to receive a majority of votes.
“Pine Tree residents really want to manage it on their own, and we’re simply complying with their wishes,” Village Manager Paul Schofield said. “We entered into an agreement with them on annexation that they would become a dependent district, and they chose not to do that. They’d rather do things their way. As long as they can legally do the things they want to do, we’re very happy to let them provide the form of governance that they want.”
Schofield said that the district has the drainage infrastructure to continue without the village’s involvement.
“They operated for years and years providing it,” he said. “We provided them management services under contract. They’ll just go back to doing it the way they were doing it before. The board would like closer supervision over day-to-day activities. We treat Pine Tree very much the way that we treat the council, in that they are responsible for policy, but day-to-day operations are the staff’s purview, and they’d like a little more say in the day-to-day operations. We’re happy to give them that; it’s just not the way we work under our charter.”
Schofield said that the village will continue to provide the Pine Tree area with potable water services.
The termination notice has a 270-day time period, and Quickel said that the village will work with the Pine Tree board and residents to assure a smooth transition.
