The Palm Coast City Council today threw cold, brackish water on County Administrator Heidi Petito’s comprehensive but expensive financing plan for a long-term solution to saving the county’s 18 miles of beaches.
At least three council members favor sending the proposal to the ballot for a referendum, which would almost certainly fail and delay the enactment of an already lagging beach-management plan to 2027, after the next general election.
Beaches are daily getting eroded more critically, not least because the county did not ramp up plans to manage its beaches until well after Hurricane Matthew in 2016, what Petito has been referring to as a “wake-up call” to grave erosion. But as her administration has rolled out various plans since last year–none as complete or detailed as the current plan–cities have repeatedly proven to be the main obstacle, with Palm Coast in particular raising the sharpest objections. Without Palm Coast’s support, Flagler Beach has no incentive to endorse the plan.
Palm Coast is facing its own challenges. The council may soon be compelled to call for the largest utility rate increase in the city’s history, in the shortest time. Council members see the county’s ask for the beach to compound the costs to rate and taxpayers, which is inaccurate: Petito’s management plan adds to Palm Coast’s revenue bottom line. And while it would increase the sales tax marginally, Palm Coast Mayor Mike Norris himself said today that most necessities, like medicines and groceries, would be exempt.
In contrast with his almost shrill opposition to any beach plan that would cost “a dime” to Palm Coast residents when he addressed the issue at a joint government meeting earlier this month, Norris turned out to be the mildest voice on the beach proposal today, repeatedly suggesting that it is a work in progress that warrants discussion. It’s what Petito wanted to hear. But Norris was outnumbered.
“I think if we’re going to do this, we need to put it up to the voters in a referendum,” Council member Charles Gambaro said. “The citizens of Palm Coast could potentially get hit with a utility rate increase, and then the Board of County Commissioners decides to move forward with another half-cent sales tax. I mean, that’s on top of what’s happening within the city of Palm Coast. So to the extent possible, I’m always in favor of trying to let the citizens make the choice.”
The existing half-cent sales tax supplement had, before 2012, been put to a referendum–and passed. But that was in 2002, in a different political environment. When it came time to renew it, Palm Coast refused to support the county because the county wanted to change the sharing formula. Knowing that it would fail at the ballot box without the city’s support, the county pulled the nuclear option: it adopted the sales tax increase anyway, with a supermajority of the commission, as required by law (the measure passed, 4-1).
Since the sales surtax had not won passage by referendum, the revenue could not be bonded. It could only be spent as it was accrued. That was a big loss. The county would take the same approach with the additional half-cent–pass it by a supermajority vote. On the other hand, if it floated the sales tax increase of the new half-penny through a referendum, it could then bond revenue.
Those nuances were not discussed today, and may be irrelevant anyway: a referendum on the sales tax may be a non-starter. Residents are not as willing to pay for sand as they are for children’s laptops (the school board continues to be successful with its decennial half-cent sales surtax).
The county had done a poor job of pitching the beach-management plan in early February: it lacked substance and numbers. Petito has remedied that.
The plan calls for the county to assume the initial costs of rebuilding the beach for $42 million, and for the cities to support increasing the sales surtax by half a penny and spend either half their proceeds or the full proceeds on beach maintenance over the next six years. It also calls for shifting $1 million a year in tourism-tax revenue from capital improvements around the county to beach management.
It does not require the cities to raise property taxes or give up existing dollars. Palm Coast and Bunnell would get more revenue from the new sales tax. But it does require barrier island property owners to pay a $160-a-year fee, or tax, since their properties would most directly benefit from the beach-management plan.
Petito and Deputy Administrator Jorge Salinas crafted the plan at the direction of the County Commission, which has not yet seen it in its present form, with an abundance of details about costs and breakdowns in revenue sources and responsibilities.
Petito has been presenting the plan to local governments since unveiling it last Thursday in Marineland, followed by a presentation to the Bunnell City Commission on Monday and Palm Coast this afternoon. The administrator is doing so ahead of a March 12 joint meeting of local governments to discuss the plan.
“I understand that it’s a joint asset that everybody uses. But then obviously some people benefit more than others,” Council member Ty Miller said. He sees the benefits of the sales tax, which “socializes that cost to other people than just the people that live in this county,” and for that reason would support that approach over others. But “if the residents are going to pay for it, I think that they should possibly decide whether they want to or not, whether they think that asset is valuable enough to them to pay that.”
Neither Miller nor Council member Theresa Pontieri support shifting $1 million a year (for three years) of tourism-tax revenue from capital improvements to beach management. That would be another blow to the plan, though cities don;t have the ultimate say in that regard. The County Commission could act unilaterally–and has, some years ago, when it increased the beach management pot.
Additionally, Pontieri was “very hesitant to vocalize any support to use this for the beach, knowing that we have what I consider to be higher priorities that we cannot get grant funding for”–namely, additional sheriff’s deputies, which she said the sheriff is almost certain to ask for at budget time. She was sympathetic to Petito, but she said the County Commission itself had to weigh in first with its own support of the plan. It has not done so.
Then Petito threw her a curveball: “Well, if I could, if you were to levy the half cent for law enforcement or public safety, do you feel strongly that you would still put that out to referendum as well?”
“I don’t see the difference. I do think it would have a better chance of passing, though,” Pontieri said.
Without Palm Coast’s support, the county’s plan as a comprehensive, all-county approach is dead, though it may be too early to call out the embalmer. “We’re willing to work the county,” Norris said, “and the county is going to have to decide what they’re going to do, and we’re going to do what we have to do.”
The Beach Management Plan in Details:
- Flagler County’s Coastal Erosion and Management: Comprehensive Report
- Flagler County’s Coastal Erosion and Management: Executive Summary
- Flagler County’s Coastal Erosion and Management: Slide Presentation to Local Governments
