Flagler County Commission Votes To Drop Legal Challenge Against Veranda Bay Annexation In Flagler Beach

Pulling back from the brink of another legal battle over annexations in Flagler Beach, the County Commission today voted against pursuing a challenge of the city’s annexation of Veranda Bay and accepted the argument that 121 homeowners there explicitly agreed to annexation when they signed their covenant. 

In any case, not a single homeowner from Veranda Bay showed up at the meeting to contest the annexation. 

“How many of the people on the 121 lots are in the room today complaining about it. Just curious,” Property Appraiser Jay Gardner, a Flagler Beach resident, told commissioners. “The fact that we don’t have 120 something people waving their fingers at us, I don’t think it’s appropriate for our commission to step on the city of Flagler Beach, where they’ve looked at this and worried about it, and it is a benefit to our city.”

Cornelia Manfre, the commercial real estate broker, stood before the commission and, just as County Administrator Heidi Petito had scolded the body for its sloppiness and lack of professionalism less than an hour earlier, scolded the commission for risking litigation and professing responsibility to ghost constituents instead of to the general economic wellbeing of the county. 

“With 135,000 people in the county, that’s who you’re responsible to,” Manfre said, taking out a stack of currency and counting it out as she continued: “I don’t want to take another dollar from my pocket to pay for excess legal fees on lawsuits that don’t need to be had. I am asking you. You are team Flagler. You are the problem solvers. Let’s get this moving. Let’s bring these companies in here, establish a stronger tax base and look for the beauty of cooperation between municipalities.”

Commissioners agreed to seek an Attorney General opinion–not to address the Veranda Bay question, but to address similar issues in future annexations. In other words, the advisory opinion will have no bearing on the commission’s stance regarding Veranda Bay. 

The question before the commission wasn’t whether to sue or not, but whether to start the process toward a lawsuit. Under state law, the process requires a local government to first attempt conflict resolution with the government it may sue, just as Flagler County and Flagler Beach just did over the Summertown annexation. The conflict resolution worked, and the matter was put to rest. 

Commissioners Kim Carney and Leann Pennington raised the issue of Veranda Bay. State law says individual homeowners must agree by petition to be annexed. No such petitions exist. But individual homeowners in their covenants signed agreements to be annexed at some point.

Flagler Beach City Attorney Drew Smith said the city has accepted those signatures as legally sufficient. Carney and Pennington question whether the covenants are enough. There is no court precedent to indicate who is right. Today’s special meeting was to decide whether to trigger another conflict resolution process. 

“Should you elect to proceed, to go forward with such a challenge,” County Attorney Michael Rodriguez said, “it would be the first decision on this basis.” A related Attorney General’s opinion is not binding law, and doesn’t directly address the Veranda Bay situation. Losing would mean the county would pay legal fees for both sides. 

To Commissioner Greg Hansen, the whole discussion was moot since “everybody has agreed to the annexation,” including Flagler Beach government, as long as homeowners signed a document approving annexation when they bought their property. Beyond that, it’s an issue between the property owners, the developer and Flagler Beach, the city argues–not Flagler County. 

Proceeding might have cost the county the agreements it won through the previous conflict resolution, among them a nearly $1 million pledge by the developer, Ken Belshe, who represents SunBelt Land Management, to help maintain John Anderson Highway as construction proceeds, and another pledge to give the county three years to buy 153 acres out of Summertown for preservation. Those pledges are to be ratified as a contract between the developer and county government later this month. 

Carney doesn’t see the connection between the challenge and the pledges. 

Commissioner Andy Dance called Carney’s position “naive.” He had pictures of the headwaters of Bulow Creek–the headwaters the 153-acre acquisition is intended to protect–flashed on overhead screens during the special meeting. “The glaring thing that you see here is the clarity of the water. This is like spring water at the headwaters of the creek,” he said. He also referred to the picture of an osprey. 

“I think we’d be naive to not think that taking 164 action doesn’t affect the negotiations that we have worked out with the developer at this point,” Dance said, citing the state law that refers to conflict resolution. “As you make your decision, this is what we are jeopardizing, in my opinion, and we’ve worked too hard to get to this point to where we are pursuing preservation that affects the pristine quality of the headwaters.”

“It should not be the way we do deals in Flagler County,” Carney said. “The developer in this situation has flaunted his environmental protection policy and the way he makes decisions, and this should never come between us, looking out for the betterment of the east side, of Veranda Bay versus Bulow Creek.”

Belshe explicitly told the commission that he would not back out of his deals with the commission. “I will not, will not back out of that agreement,” he said. “I want to state that right here today. It would be unreasonable. It would be unfair on my part, and it would be, I feel,  unethical on my part to do that, so I will not do that.” He spoke in defense of the annexation signatures, and said he was so confident that he would win a legal challenge that he would “indemnify the city of Flagler Beach on their legal expenses if this comes up.” 

He was more concerned about how the County Commission’s conflicting and conflict-ridden messaging on Summertown and Veranda Bay was affecting ongoing deals for his properties’ future. “I am working on a deal with a major development company,” he said, “that has agreed verbally with me to do a deal on Summertown that will change the retail and commercial landscape of that area forever. It’s a great, great deal, and it will really expand the retail opportunities, the dining opportunities of that area over there for the citizens.” The deal would result in some 150 jobs. 

“They told me, though,” Belshe continued, “they said, ‘We cannot and will not get involved in this and sign on the dotted line until you resolve all these issues with the county. We don’t want to get involved in that.’ I don’t blame them, but that is what’s standing in our way.” He had asked Manfre to address the commission. 

Sandra Nietubic and John Tanner were not supportive. Tanner, the former state attorney, a resident of John Anderson Highway and the attorney for Preserve Flagler Beach and Bulow Creek, the nonprofit that’s opposed SunBelt’s plans in Flagler Beach since 2019, told the commission that he considers the annexation “illegal” because of the signature issue. 

Nietubic called the Veranda Bay annexation “a problem from the beginning.” She lives on a street of Palm Drive, where residents have previously blamed Veranda Bay for flooding, a claim the developer disputes. Raymond Royer, a candidate for the County Commission, said residents want “more sensible development. They continue to stress to me, they are disgusted by these developers coming in at free will and use this blanketly ‘give them what they want.’ Shame on Flagler Beach.  But we just had an election, and it seems like a young man just got elected, and the old guard is gone.”

Royer was half right: City Commissioner Rick Belhumeur was defeated with R.J. Santore’s election, but Commissioner Scott Spradley, part of that old guard, was not. 

Belhumeur addressed the commission in defense of Veranda Bay. “Not only were there no ‘victims’ present screaming about their future taxes,” Belhumeur later said in a text, “but I spoke to the County Commission about me not understanding the logic behind our own representative commissioner, fighting this annexation that will not only provide tax revenue for the City of Flagler Beach, but also additional taxes collected for the County because of the commercial being added to Veranda Bay portion specifically.”

Commissioners Andy Dance, Greg Hansen, Kim Carney and Pam Richardson voted to drop the legal challenge. Pennington voted against the measure.