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HomeMy WebLinkAbout_1998 08 17 City Commission Special Minutes SPECIAL MEETING CITY COMMISSION AUGUST 17, 1998 The Special Meeting of the City Commission was called to order by Mayor Paul P. Partyka at 8:05 a.m. ROLL CALL: Mayor Paul P. Partyka, present Deputy Mayor Cindy Gennell, absent City Manager Ronald W. McLemore, present (telephone) Attorney Bob Guthrie, present COMMISSIONERS: Robert S. Miller, present Michael S. Blake, present Ed Martinez, Jr., absent David McLeod, present Discussion of legal issues related to Battleridge appeal by the City of Oviedo and the lP.A. Agreement with the City of Oviedo and Seminole County: Mayor Partyka stated that the people present were Manager McLemore, Attorney Guthrie and himself; from the opposing City, Bob Dallari and Manager Gene Williford. Mayor Partyka also stated that Fred Lindhart was present, the legal attorney for the developer. , Attorney Guthrie stated that basically as the Mayor stated, they attended the County Commission meeting and it was a protracted hearing, the Mayor read into the record the letter that had been sent to the County Commission outlining our reasons for approving the Battleridge project and justifying why it was a good project. We had up and down sessions where a series of discussions, where it looked we were doing well at one point in time and then basically at the point in time of the vote, it was approved four to one that the County would join in the Oviedo challenge to the Battleridge plan amendment. Attorney Guthrie said that is where this stands at this time and stated that nothing has been served on us by Oviedo or the County. Attorney Guthrie said for that reason, and what he and the City Manager has been talking about is that he is not sure that if a delegation goes to Oviedo tonight, he doesn't feel that we (the City) should talk about Battleridge; to do that, it would require us to anticipate issues, maybe give them "ammo" that they don't currently have; they have an obligation to come to us so our proposal was that we discuss Battleridge this morning if the Commission desires, but that we not talk about Battleridge, instead we focus on the current issue that is framed out as a result of Commissioner Morris coming to the Commission meeting, and that is the Joint Planning Agreement and what to do with that. Attorney Guthrie said the current status for the agenda today is Battleridge and the Joint Planning Agreement and we think we should devote our energies this morning talking about the Joint Planning Agreement. Attorney Guthrie said as the Commission knows, Manager McLemore wrote City Manager Williford a letter that outlines our position regarding the Joint Planning Special Meeting City Commission August 17. 1998 97-98-40 Page 2 Agreement and the request that Oviedo delays their consideration of this documents. Attorney Guthrie said he and the Manager concur (as a result of their joint discussions) that we focus on our request that Oviedo delays this, and certainly not considers this on August 25th that we open negotiations with the City of Oviedo to see if we can come to an agreement on territorial issues and then bring in the County, to have either a tri-party agreement or a series of Joint Planning Agreements between the City of Winter Springs and Seminole County and the City of Oviedo and Seminole County. Mayor Partyka added as background, he met with Bob Dallari, at the breakfast meeting (that he mentioned at the last Commission meeting) and said that it went well and stated that Mr. Dallari said that we (both Cities) should be talking to each other (the Commission vs. the Commission) and suggested that one of the first things to do, provided we get through this Battleridge situation, or concurrently with Battleridge, to have some sort of social, to get to know each other as people vs. politicians. Mayor Partyka said the matter with the County, there is going to be some sort of mediation with Battleridge. Discussion on the City of Oviedo's meeting for this evening. Mayor Partyka stated that he would like to start talking with the City of Oviedo relative to the Joint Planning Agreement. Attorney Guthrie said the Commission needs to discuss an alternative if the City of Oviedo tells us they are not going to stop and go forward with the Joint Planning Agreement if the County is willing. Attorney Guthrie said the Joint Planning Agreement is in the Comprehensive Planning Act, it is not a development order, it is not one of the traditional things that can be challenged under Chapter 120 of the Florida Statutes - Administrative Procedures Act and the Comprehensive Planning Act. Attorney Guthrie said he thinks that at some point in time we are going to take a position that it is a development type of order, it is a thing that can be challenged administratively because it impact the inter-governmental coordination elements of all three of our plans. Attorney Guthrie said one position that we can take is that the inter-governmental coordination element of the respective plans of the City and County have to be amended before the Joint Planning Agreement can actually be implemented and can be used as a planning document - and said that would serve the purpose of requiring that a little time be invested in the process. Attorney Guthrie said time would work in our favor because time would allow us an opportunity to get involved and get past the current window that seems so critical to the Commissioner and the City of Oviedo for leverage purposes. Attorney Guthrie stated that the first option would be if they try to go forward with the Agreement and get the Agreement adopted, the we challenge it under the Comprehensive Planning Act as requiring a plan amendment before it can be implemented. Attorney Guthrie said another strategy, and one that is earlier in the process, is to try to trigger the provisions of CALNO and say we are an affected party; the CALNO Special Meeting City Commission August 17. 1998 97-98-40 Page 3 agreement says that the purpose of the agreement is to resolve inter-local disputes when informal negotiations have failed. Attorney Guthrie said we are trying informal negotiations, we've had the County Commission Chairman here and the Mayor and City Manager and he has broached the subject again last Tuesday, of them delaying and that was refused (on both occasions). Attorney Guthrie said if we get a similar reception at Oviedo then he said we can say we've exhausted informal negotiations and ought to try to trigger the provisions of CALNO and say we are substantially affected people and we'd like to have this concept mediated with the three processes. Attorney Guthrie said that under the CALNO agreement there is a three-step process: an executive settlement conference (which is what we are trying to do now), mediation and the final stage is the elected official settlement conference; and those are the three stages involved. Attorney Guthrie said filing a petition with the City of Oviedo and the County to trigger this is an option. Attorney Guthrie said if they decline to allow us to invoke CALNO, Attorney Guthrie stated that he thinks that this Commission should seriously consider going to Court and basically filing a declaratory action to get out rights under CALNO interpreted and move for an injunction to enjoin them from going forward until we've had an opportunity to exhaust our rights or exercise our rights under the CALNO agreement. Discussion. Manager McLemore stated that an important point (to him was) the goal is to make them decide whether they are going to talk to us or not and that was the goal of the letter and we are basically asking them to respond to the letter. In relation to the inter-local agreement with the County, there is two pieces, one being the problems related to that type of agreement and said that is what he thinks the City's main concern is and that is to fight that type of agreement from happening, because it has long term implications. The other is what the content of an agreement would be between the two of us, if they did decide to delay, and said that is something that he feels can be worked out if we ever get to the table. Manager McLemore said we have to be very careful to lay a basis of which we are willing to commit all the resources necessary to prevent that type of agreement from happening and secondly, Manager McLemore said it is real important to try to keep the two issues (Battleridge) and the inter-local agreement) separate. Attorney Guthrie suggested that the Commission authorize him to file a CALNO petition against the County as the County has already said no that they are not going to delay the process. Discussion. Commissioner McLeod said he would advise that the Commission goes ahead and files the petition with the County and give authorization if the City of Oviedo turns us down to file the petition against Oviedo. Commissioner Miller was concerned that the City's Joint Planning Map was never considered from 1995 and that the City of Oviedo's is being considered. Discussion. Mayor Partyka said for clarification, the City will find out where everybody stands tonight, and with what ever happens at the Oviedo meeting tonight, everything else is clear on what has to happen and what we will do. If the City of Oviedo agrees with Special Meeting City Commission August 17. 1998 97-98-40 Page 4 delaying the process, in the spirit of talking, then the August 25th meeting goes away. Ifit goes the negative way from the City of Winter Springs' standpoint, then the steps are very clear in terms of what we are going to be doing. Commissioner Blake asked if the City has received any official response from the County as to what the status is of the Plan that we (Winter Springs) submitted in 1995. Attorney Guthrie said we don't have anything in our records and we haven't gotten a response to the City Manager's letter to Gary Kaiser that indicates that. Commissioner Blake asked if we as a City have any legal standing or legal right to demand that the County at least act upon our submission first, given that it was submitted well before Oviedo's submission. Attorney Guthrie said he doesn't think we do, and that an interlocal agreement, whether to do one or not do one is a governmental power and authority, it is a policy decision; and said that probably would be the County's response. Attorney Guthrie said that is why he feels we should use CALNO's agreement, as we are an affected person, we have a right under the agreement to be considered and if that fails we can challenge it say we have a right under the Comprehensive Planning Act to have a document to be considered in the Comprehensive Planning process and be considered under Public Hearings and part of a Plan Adoption process etc. Discussion. Commissioner McLeod asked if the City needs to hold their present position regarding the eastern boundary, rather than moving it back to align it with the Counties. Manager McLemore stated the Compo Plan as it currently exists, is "mushy" on annexation; it doesn't give any definitive of "where are we going in the future" relative to any of the boundaries. When reading the Compo Plan it doesn't address any eastern type of annexation beyond the existing City limits from a future planning perspective and said it basically says the City hasn't decided where we want to do at this point in time. Manager McLemore said he doesn't think there is an action to be taken based on some definitive language within the Compo Plan. Commissioner McLeod said that basically the City, during the Battleridge amendment, offered to pull back the City's easterly annexation areas to align with the County's. Presently we exceed the County's and we are in the process of bringing that back to align with the County's in a good faith effort and asked if we need to put them on notice in the near future that would say if they are not willing to talk with us about annexations and boundaries, then we (City) are not going forward to retract our present boundary annexation lines. Manager McLemore said when we first addressed the annexation, it originally included the Carol/Minter property, which took it further east; we agreed to cut the Carol/Minter/W eaver property out of the proposed annexation, therefore, moving the annexation westward to the urban service line the County had established. So, yes we did agree as part of the negotiations to cut out the Carol/Minter/Weaver property. Discussion. Manager McLemore said what makes that complex is all of the pleadings that we made in our Compo Plan amendment relative to the annexation, that has been sent Special Meeting City Commission August 17. 1998 97-98-40 Page 5 to D.C.A., and said that D.C.A. has made their decisions to find us in compliance based on all the representations that we sent to them for review and said part of that was the amendment to take the Carol/Minter/W eaver property out; the complex issue is would we in any way endanger our current finding of compliance by changing. We would have to go back and amend our current status with D.C.A. and say we want to drop out that part of the Compo Plan amendments that were forwarded to them and agreeing to pull the line back. Manager McLemore stated that we could do that but the question is is whether they would still find us in compliance or not. Discussion. Mayor Partyka summarized the discussions. Mayor Partyka clarified that D.C.A. has agreed to our Compo Plan amendment for Battleridge and said that Battleridge is annexed into the City. Mayor Partyka said the process as he sees it is: 1. There will be no discussion on Battleridge at the meeting in Oviedo tonight; 2. We will know the position, in terms of where we will go next after tonight; 3. We need to take the "high road" today at Oviedo's meeting, in other words we are here as a friendly neighbor to work with each other and we want to resolve these issues and said that we want to go on record that we agree to many of the same things as they do and there are a few points that need to be resolved; 4. If Oviedo takes us up on the offer of meeting, we will do that at the quickest available time to do that; 5. We ought to hold off all our alternatives for post meeting - tonight should be friendly, state our case, make is clear we are friendly. Mayor Partyka stated depending on what we hear from the meeting, we will take whatever appropriate remedies that come out of that - 1. start with the CALNO process of mediation and the second option would be (depending on what Oviedo does) challenging under the Compo Plan review. Attorney Guthrie said the relief we want from Oviedo is for them to voluntarily agree to put off the interlocal agreement with the County. Discussion. Motion was made by Commissioner Blake that if we (the City) does not receive any delay this evening, to our satisfaction, that the City Manager and his Staff tomorrow begins to implement the CALNO provision for intergovernmental coordination mediation as an affected party to this agreement and to include the filing of the appropriate pleading if necessary. Seconded by Commissioner McLeod. Discussion. Vote: Commissioner Miller: aye; Commissioner Blake: aye; Commissioner McLeod: aye. Motion passes. The meeting adjourned at 9:25 a.m. ~e pectfully Submitted, . ~-~A~ argo . Hopkins, City Clerk