Loading...
87-EERESOLUTION NO. 87-~--~ A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF BOYNTON BEACH SUPPORTING THE FLORIDA LEAGUE OF CITIES LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM. WHEREAS, the City of Boynton Beach is, and has been for some time, a member of the Florida League of Cities; and WHEREAS, through Boynton Beach representatives the City does participate in the development of the Annual Legislative Program for the Florida League of Cities; and WHEREAS, the City of Boynton Beach is concerned about the actions taken by the Legislature in regard to the ability of Florida municipalities to carry out their responsibilities in an effective, efficient and meaningfu manner, which is the aim of the Legislative Program of the Florida League of Cities. NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA: Section 1. The City of Boynton Beach does support the Legislative Program of the Florida League of Cities and specifically and strongly supports the 1987 Legislative Priorities relating to: A. One Cent Local Option Sales Tax B. Sanitary Sewers Disposal Facilities C. Sunshine Law/Attorney-Client Privilege D. Tort Liability E. Eminent Domain F. Annexation a summary of which is attached and made a part of this Resolution and resolve that this Resolution be forwarded to Governor Martinez and the Members of the Palm Beach County Legislative Delegation. PASSED AND ADOPTED THIS /~;~Z~ay Of .,~z~ 1987. ATT EST .' (Corporate Seal CITY OF BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA Vice Ma))q~F~r~ - ..... ~ Commissioner CommiSsioner 1987 Legislative Priorities r'~lorida Lea~ of Cities, 201 '~/. Park A~e, Post Ofltc~ Box 1757. Tallahassee, FL 32302: (904) 222-9684,1-(800) 342-8112, 282-5010 One-Cent Local Option Sales Tax The State Constitution requires that dries only levy taxes that the Legislature has au- thorized by general law.' Everf source of tax revenue available to a municipality is either capped or frozen. The federal government has abolished general revenue sharing and all other federal support is in jeopardy. Growth has put tremendous strains on our infrastructure needs. The state has mandated that cities develop and fund five-year capital improvement programs before development can occur. We will be asking the state Legislature to give local officials the authority to raise dollars locally. The Florida League of Cities fully supports and has officially endorsed the Local Gov- emment Section of the State Plan Committee Report We believe the Legislature should au- thorize the county to impose a local option sales tax that would be shared with the cities based on an interlocal agreement Our program calls for: · A one-cent local option sales tax allowed in one-quarter cent increments. · The tax could be levied by majority vote of the county commission. · The tax would apply only to the first $10,000 of any purchase. · The money could be used for any capital expenditure and also could be used for debt retirement. · The tax would be bondable. · The money raised would be divided between the county and the cities in the county based on an interlocal agreement Cities representing a majority of the county's municipal population could determine the dries' share. · Absent an interlocal agreement, the money would be divided based on a formula. Florida League of Cities, 201 W. Park Avenue, Post Office Box 1757, Tallahassee, FL 32302; (904) 222-9684, 1-(800) 342-8112, 282-5010 Sanitary Sewage Disposal Facilities Certainty and stability in the state's Department of Environmental Regulation (DER) permitting procedures will promote the construction and operation of environmentally sound sanitary sewer dis- posal facilities and will help ease the financial burden facing the rate payers of these services. PERMITTING BY DER - A city's ability to plan for its lucre wastewater treatment and disposal needs relies heavily on the certainty and stability of the state s permitting procedures. P. resent law limits operating permits to five years. We :believe that five-year operating permits are not adequate to assist a city in rear'aging and funding present and future wasteWater treatment and disposal needs. Operating pemaits shored more properly reflect a period of time that coincides with the useful life of a facility and the term of its bonded indebtedness. We believe the department should be given the authority to adopt criteria delineating the circumstances in which it will issue operating permits for durations of up to 25 years. Then a city could use the criteria to plan for its facilities for the future. CONSTRUCTION PERMITS- Current law requires DER to receive a detailed engineering plan from a city in order to issue a construction pel-i¥fit for a wastewater facility. DER has determined, and we agree, all that is needed is a preliminary engineeringplan before the permit is issued. Should this pro- posal become law, city governments could save money by not paying for the development of construc- tion plans until they know what is approved by DER. RECLASSIFICATION OF WATER BODIES - Water bodies in the state that have been classified by default should be sought out by DER and reviewed. There are a number of artificially created water bodies like sewage disposal drainage canals and ditches that were specifically created to handle recad- cled water and ~eSe water bodies should be classified accordingly ...... WASTEWATER TREATMENT- Wastewater can be treated so that almost all of the pollutants are In some cases, discharged water can actually improve the quality of the believe that a city should be allowed to discharge high quality recycled of water even if that body fails to meet water quality standards for reasons unrelated to the dr'9 effluent. By the 21st century our population is expected to increase by approximately 50 percent, as is the number of gallons of w~stewater per day that will have to be treated and disposed of by city govern- ments. From both a' financial and planning perspective, an additional one-half billion gallons of waste- water per day is just one of the major challenges facing city officials as they attempt to responsibly plan for the future. Florida League of Cities, 201 W. Park Avenue, Post Office Box 1757, Tailahassee, FL 32302; (904) 222-9684, 1-(800,t342-8112, 282-5010 Sunshine Law Attorney-Client Privilege The importance of communication between clients and lawyers in proper representa- tion is universally recognized. The Florida Supreme Court has stated, "The confidential re- lationship of an attorney and client is a sacred one that~is indispensible to the administration of justice." The importance of this communication was further recognized in the Lawyers Code of Professional Responsibility: Both the fiduciary relationship existing between lawyer and client and the proper functioning of the legal system require the preserva- tion by the lawyer of confidences and secrets of one who has em- ployed or sought to employ him. A client must feel free to discuss whatever he wishes with his lawyer and a lawyer must be equally free to obtain information beyond that volunteered by his client. A lawyer should be fully informed of all facts of the matter he is hah- dling in order for his client to obtain the full advantage of our legal system. Cities in Florida, however, are denied the basic attorney-client privilege because of the application of the Sunshine Law which has been interpreted to mean that these discussions take place in a public meeting. Open discussion between an attorney and the governmental body retarding pending litigation is not in the best interest of the public. To adequately in- form his client, a lawyer must discuss strengths and weaknesses of the case, legal conclusions, strategy and alternative methods of proceeding. If these matters, are discussed at a public meeting, an adversary may, misuse this information for the benefit of a private individual to the detriment of the gene/'al public. We believe there should be a process whereby a city council and its governmental at- torney could meet in private to discuss pending litigation if: · The government is presently a party to litiffation or litigation is eminent; · The attorney advises the government that he desires advice concerning above men- tioned litigation; · The subject matter of the meeting is related solely to settlement negotiations or strate- ~ sessions related to the determination of what litigation expenditures should be incurred; · A tape recording is made of the entire meeting and filed with the government agency's clerk immediately following the meeting; and · The tape recording is made part of the public record upon conclusion of the litigation and exhaustion of all appellate remedies. Florida League of Cities, 201 W. Park Avenue, Post Office Box 1757, Tallahassee, FL 32302; (904) 222-9684, I-(800) 342-8112, 282-5010 Tort LiabiliW Until July of this past year, govem,,ments gener~!y could not be subjected to liability for injury or damages resdlting from their discretionary decisions. Discretionary decisions in- dude, for example, the derision to 4-lane rather than 2,1ane a highway, to design a road with a 65-degree curve rather than a 75-degree curve, to install a traffic light rather than a stop sign or to locate a school'bus stop at one location rather than another. If, however, this type of de- cision created a known dangerous condition that was not readily apparent to someone who could be injured, the local government had a duty to warn persons of this danger or to avert it. Failure to warn of or avert the danger could subject the local government to liability. The reasoning for this type of immunity was grounded upon a concept of separation of powers which would not permit a judge Or jury to second-guess the reasonableness of the planning decision made by the governmental body. - Additionally, the law placed a cap on the collectibility of judgments: $100,000 per per- son or $200,000 per incident Any excess amount would be reported to the Legislature and paid by the local government after the Legislature passed a claims bill. In July 1986, the Florida Supreme Court held that the purchase of liability insurance waives a local government s immunity for all decisions including,discretionary decisions up to the coverage limits of the po?_y. In other words, the purchase of insurance, in and of itself, ex- pands the local government s liability to a greater degree than if it had not purchased insur- ance in the first place. Until this decision, governments had a relatively stable body of case law from which to gauge the actuarial risk assodated with performing various services. Governments could develop, adequate risk management programs to minimize potential liability and insurers were in a better position to measure the actuarial risk of insuring governments against liability. The effect of this decision has been to thrust the case law governing local government tort'liability into a state of disarray. We believe a concept which subjects the prudent govern- ment who purchases liability insurance to a greater degree of liability than the govemment that does not, is unsound. Florida League of Clti~s, 201 W. Park Avenue. Post Office Box 1757, Tallahassee, FL 32302; (904) 222-9684, 1-(800) 342-8112, 282-5010 Eminent Domain City governments often find it necessary to use their power of eminent do- main to acquire land for public purposes such as roads, public buildings and facili- ties, downtown redevelopment and the preservation of natural resources. How- ever, city government's exercise of this power is often frustrated by the prohibited costs associated with eminent domain actions. Current law says that a city government must fund not only its own legal rep- resentation, court costs, appraisal and engineer services, but also those of the prop- erty owner in question. Even if the city offers a reasonable price for the property, the property owner is under no obligation to accept the offer. And in fact, he can re- ject the offer, the parties can go to trial, a jury can decide the just value of the prop- erty in an amount less than th,at which the city originally offered and the city must still pay for the property owner s court costs arid legal fees. Therefore, there is no in- centive for the property owner to settle the claim and no risk on the property owner for refusing a legitimate offer. We believe there should be changes that call for a reasonable "offer of judg- ment'' procedure. Under this proposal a city could offer to pay the property owner a fair price for this property and if the property owner rejects the offer and a jury later places a value on the property less than, the offer by the city, then the property owner would be responsible for his attorney s fees and court costs incurred after the offer was made by the city. Florida League of Cities, 201 W. Park Avenue, Post Office Box 1757, Tailahassee, FL 32302; (904) 222-9684, 1-(800) 342.-8112, 282-5010 Annexation To implement an effective growth management policy, it is necessary to make a reasonable determination of the most effective means of providing infras- tructure. Any such determination must take into consideration urban growth pat- terns and a reasonable and effective method of determining municipal boundaries. Florida has one of the most restrictive annexation laws in the nation. The sta- tute requires a dual referendum (a separate vote in the city and in the area to be an- .hexed) if there is one person in the area to be annexed who objects. This is a cum- bersome and expensive process which fails to recognize the overriding state interest in effective provision of services and planned urban growth. The policy has fostered needless duplication of services and resulted in the creation of numerous enclaves which cannot be effectively serve& We believe that changes should occur that would allow for municipalities to waive "in-city elections" for annexations by referendum, and allow cities to annex enclaves (unincorporated areas totally surrounded by one city) by ordinance. Florida League of Cities, 201 W. Park Avenue, Post Office Box 1757, TaUahassee. FL 32302; (904) 222-9684, 1-(800) 342-8112, 282-5010