Note: This is the second of two articles today on Thursday evening’s hearing before the County Commission on next year’s property tax rate, budget and special taxing district. See the first article here: “County Commission’s Kim Carney Peddles False and Misleading Claims in Opposition to Sales Tax for Beach Protection.”
In spite of near-unanimous opposition from an overflow crowd at the Flagler County Commission Thursday, the commission adopted by a 4-1 vote a controversial special taxing district covering all unincorporated property owners on the barrier island, including the Hammock, to help pay for beach protection.
The opposition was unrelenting but civil. Forty people spoke in a 90-minute segment. There was not one voice in support of the taxing district as an unmixed funding mechanism. There was not one voice opposed to a sales tax increase for that purpose, and many supported the taxing district in conjunction with the sales tax increase.
(In the crowd, there were some, like west-side resident Marvin Clegg, opposed to the sales tax, and what had filled the chamber was a proposed tax strictly affecting the barrier island. A sampling of Palm Coast or west side residents’ opinions would have likely been different.)
The support for the sales tax, at least from the barrier island, was an unambiguous rejection of a three-member commission majority that blocked the imposition of a new half-cent sales tax as the central pillar of an “elegant” long-term plan–in Commissioner Greg Hansen’s word–to fund beach management. Without the sales tax, the plan collapsed.
Commissioners Kim Carney, Pam Richardson and Leann Pennington oppose the sales tax. Commission Chair Andy Dance and Greg Hansen support it.
The 34th person to address the commission, an Ocean Hammock resident, said: “Everybody in this room seems to think that the half-cent sales tax is the right way to go, and I happen to agree with that. Wasn’t sure I did before, but now I do. And my question is for the people that voted it down: You said no. What was your solution to the funding problem after you said no. What did you come to the table with after you said no.”
There was no answer. There was plenty of exculpation, at least from Carney and Pennington–Carney claiming, with false and misleading statements, that she could not approve a sales tax even if she wanted to, and Pennington, citing a Petito memo and claiming more accurately but disingenuously, that “even if codified in an ordinance or an interlocal agreement, future boards retain the power to amend, repeal or redirect the funding. One board cannot legally bind another to a permanent spending decision.”
“Doesn’t mean you don’t do it,” Dance said.
Pennington’s approach, echoing Carney’s, would by that reasoning let future unnamed and unknown commissioners veto initiatives of the current commission. Neither Carney nor Pennington explained why they did not apply the same reasoning to the rest of the budget they were willing to approve.
“In my opinion, and based on the show of force here tonight,” Dance said, “I think if a half penny was passed with language that dedicated its use for beach nourishment and for the different things that we’ve allocated, there’s pretty good consensus that future boards are going to listen to the same people that are here and would abide probably by those same plan if it’s multi year.”
Opposition to the special taxing district took on a more emblematic purpose by highlighting the tensions that stopped the commission from adopting a long-term beach-management plan, and the questionable claims by commissioners who sank it.
That’s likely why opposition to the taxing district was sharp even though there will not actually be a tax levied next year. It’s a placeholder for a future tax. It worries property owners all the same, if not more: the open-ended nature of the place-holder, residents fear, could turn into a tax of several hundred dollars for each property, especially in the absence of a sales tax to lighten the burden.
The special tax wasn’t even the biggest concern for residents. The unfairness and inequity of it is. As they see it, they are shouldering the cost of beach management and protection without anyone else in the county doing so.
That’s not exactly accurate. The county is appropriating a portion of the property tax, the existing local sales tax and a large portion of the tourism sales surtax to beach management, all of which applies uniformly across the county. That adds up to $8.2 million for beach protection in 2025-26. So all county residents are paying something. But the special taxing district would single out unincorporated barrier island residents to pay more, and it would not include Flagler Beach, Beverly Beach and Marineland. At least not yet. Dance said he is supporting the taxing district in hopes of continuing negotiations with the cities to pony up.
As crafted, the proposal would apply to 10 miles of the barrier island–all the properties outside of Marineland, Flagler Beach and Beverly Beach.
The technical term of the special tax is Municipal Service Benefit Unit, or MSBU, on the assumption that the money raised will provide a specific service benefiting the properties being taxed. The benefit in this case is protection from beach erosion, “because we’ll be building back wider, higher dunes,” County Administrator Heidi Petito said. “We’ll be restoring beaches to act as buffers against waves, storm surge and erosion, which should protect homes, utilities, roads, notably A1Aand any other public infrastructure. We’ve got six county parks on the barrier island. It’ll also provide environmental and habitat benefits.”
A consultant is conducting a study that would set the rate to be levied in 2026-27 according to a “scientific” process, Petito said. “You’ll know how much you’re being asked to pay, and you’ll also be told how much that cap is going to be.” The crowd did not like the “trust us” tone of that promise.
“I know there was some confusion when people received notices, even though this is something that we’ve been talking about at least since I’ve been your County Administrator the last four years,” Petito said.
There was confusion because when the MSBU was talked about previously, it was always either as part of a larger mix of funding sources, including a new sales tax, or as an assessment that would apply countywide, if at varying rates. The barrier island’s rate would be a flat $160. Here, the barrier island felt it was being singled out to bear the mystery cost by itself.
Petito conceded that the MSBU is targeting only the barrier island, “because that’s the only area that we have jurisdiction over,” she said–again to grumbles, as Petito’s interpretation was as if deliberately avoiding mention of the failed sales tax initiative that the barrier island residents do support. “There’s a lot of confusion out there where people are assuming that the entire beach management program would be on the backs of only those in the unincorporated, and that is not true. It has always been looked at as a blended funding plan that includes all of these things.”
Except that there isn’t a blended plan. Not anymore. Petito is not to blame.
The $8.2 million the county is appropriating next year to beach management isn’t enough to bear the actual recurring cost, and especially not enough to build up the necessary reserve for future beach renourishments. So the only residents who would face an additional levy would be those on the barrier island, at least in principle, based on today’s “blended” approach.
“I’m actually okay with the MSBU as long as it’s reasonable and constrained,” said Dennis Clark, a member of the Hammock Community Association who often synthesizes Hammock concerns and advocates on its behalf. “What I have not heard, what I don’t understand, is how we plan to pay for the majority portion of the beach management cost.”
Like the 34th speaker earlier, Clark did not hear that plan Thursday, either.
Clark reminded the commission that only last February Petito had presented the actual blended, comprehensive plan that would have paid for all beach management needs, with everyone in the county paying for it. The MSBU would have generated only 12 percent of the revenue. The new sales tax would have generated 80 percent.
“But we don’t have a half-cent sales tax. We don’t have anything,” Clark said. “There’s 80 percent of that beach renourishment that has no funding.” He asked: is the sales tax still a possibility? And if it is rejected either by the commission or by voters in a referendum, what will provide the bulk of the necessary funding? Others asked the same questions.
Ron Boyce also asked for another vote on the sales tax option. “I believe your staff really worked really hard, and that was turned down by this board not too long ago,” he said. “Now, I watch these meetings every month from my own home, and I came down here tonight to ask you to rethink, rethink about it and put it up for another vote.
“The only fair way to come up with this money is the half in sales tax,” Don Albertson, who followed him, said. “Everybody uses that beach. It is not private. It should not be paid by the people, including myself, that live on the ocean. It should be paid for everybody.”
The commission also received a stack of emails. Stanley Tavanese and Waldtraut Chavez Tavanese wrote: “The proposal of an MSBU assessed to only the unincorporated barrier island residents is preposterous and unfair. On the other hand, the proposal whereby sales tax is increased by ½ cent is more feasible and equitable.”
So it went as the 40 speakers addressed the commission–a chamber so full that Dance had to ask 30 people to leave it and watch from a television monitor in the lobby. The word “inequities,” was heard, as were pleas “a funding plan that goes on year after year after year,” for less vagueness in the MSBU proposal, for more fairness in the county’s application of any funding plan, and so on. “All of Flagler County should be paying this,” one resident said. “Do not let this go to a referendum. Vote on it again.” Some suggested a toll increase on the Hammock Dunes bridge. (The county tried: Hammock Dune’s Community Development District rejected the request.) James Foster, a Hammock Beach resident, said he’d gathered 1,100 petitions opposing the MSBU.
Seizing on the comments in aggregate, Richard Hamilton called the process “defective” and vulnerable to legal challenge, and urged the commission to pull the MSBU proposal from the agenda and rework it at a later date.
Commissioners then spoke, Carney saying that “all municipalities, Flagler Beach, Marineland and Beverly Beach, need to come to the table and at least help us.” But they have. They’re willing to help–and support a sales tax.
“At least give us credit for trying to step up and do something, because no one before us has done it,” Carney said, again peddling an inaccuracy.
She was elected in November. The commission has been developing a beach management plan for four years, and spent the years after Hurricane Matthew and Ian in 2016 and 2017 rebuilding the shore with emergency sands, and enacting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ renourishment of 3 miles of shore in Flagler Beach. To say no one before had stepped up is a gross mischaracterization.
Carney continued: “We’re here. We’re almost here. We hear you. We hear you loud and clear. But we got to get more data to make this thing sound right or make it look right. We need more data.”
Pam Richardson just thanked the audience. Hansen reiterated what he’s been saying all years, almost plaintively now, about the elegance of the half-cent solution. Pennington spoke of future boards using sales tax revenue somewhere else. And Dance tried to put a bow on it all, before the commission voted on what by then seemed like an afterthought: the approval of the special taxing district, at least on first reading. The commission does it again on Sept. 22.
Most of the crowd filed out after that.
PeachesMcGee says
Living beachside is an expensive privilege all over Florida.
You pay extra for paradise. Don’t like taxes? Use the toll concept.
Wanna visit the beach side? $25 a day per vehicle.