February 21, 2003

The Board of County Commissioners of Brevard County, Florida, met at the Brevard City/County Summit on February 21, 2003, at 9:00 a.m. in the Bernard Simpkins Fine Arts Auditorium at Brevard Community College, Cocoa Campus, 1519 Clearlake Road, Cocoa, Florida. Present were: Chairperson Jackie Colon, Commissioners Truman Scarborough, Ron Pritchard, Nancy Higgs, and Susan Carlson; and Mayors Rocky Randels of City of Cape Canaveral, Judy Parrish of City of Cocoa, Skip Beeler of City of Cocoa Beach, Daniel Trott of Town of Indialantic, Mary O’Neill of City of Indian Harbour Beach, Phillip Crews of the Town of Malabar, John Buckley of City of Melbourne, Mark Crispen of Town of Melbourne Beach, Robert Downey of Town of Melbourne Village, Edward Geier of City of Palm Bay, Carol McCormick of Town of Palm Shores, Larry Schultz of the City of Rockledge, Bob Bolin of City of Satellite Beach, Ron Swank of the City of Titusville, and Bob Willmarth of the City of West Melbourne.

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS

Chairperson Jackie Colon led the assembly in the Pledge of Allegiance.

The Invocation was given by Chairperson Jackie Colon.

City Manager Tom Harmer welcomed everyone to the City/County Summit; stated he currently serves as the President of the Brevard County Public Managers’ Association; and they were fortunate to be an active participant in developing the summit, working with the County, Brevard Community College, and other sponsoring organizations. He recognized Mark Ryan, City Manager of the City of West Melbourne for his vision and leadership in making the Summit a reality. He stated the Managers’ Association looks forward to the opportunity the Summit presents to have the cities and County meet to discuss as one group some of the important and difficult issues related to the future of the County. He stated the first goal is to educate everyone on what is going on around the State to create opportunities to work through; there are a lot of examples the County would classify as successful; but there are also areas and issues that have challenged the local governments. He stated Dr. Lance deHaven-Smith will share some interesting information, trends, and insights to help set the stage for the second and perhaps most important goal today, which is insuring that there is and continues to be an active dialogue between the cities and between the cities and the County in the common areas of interest; and the summit today will be a foundation and important first step for future summits and meetings as everyone works together to make the County the best it can be.

Chairperson Colon stated the Commissioners have a lot of opinions and diversity; but it is exciting to know that there will also be the opinions of the 15 municipalities. She stated Mark Ryan has been a behind-the-scenes man; and presented him with a plaque in appreciation of his dedicated service organizing the first City/County Summit in Brevard County. A representative of the Space Coast League of Cities presented a plaque to Mr. Ryan in appreciation of his work on the Summit.

Mark Ryan, City Manager of the City of West Melbourne, expressed appreciation for the plaques; stated this is the first of what they hope will be many summits; and it is going to be a wonderful day to work on some visions and strategies for the County.

Chairperson Colon introduced Le Roy Darby, Dean of Educational Services at Brevard Community College Cocoa Campus, who sang “God Bless the U.S.A.”

Dr. Thomas Gamble, District President, Brevard Community College, welcomed the assemblage of leaders of the County; stated there is no question they are stronger together than apart; and he looks forward to the product of the Summit.

Mr. Ryan, on behalf of the Brevard County Public Management Association, the 15 municipalities, and the Board of County Commissioners, presented Certificates of Appreciation to Dr. Brenda Fettrow; CH2M Hill, Inc.; Kirkpatrick and Pettis; Gray, Harris & Robinson, P.A.; Waste Management; Florida City County Management Association; Time Warner Entertainment; and Gary Cunningham of CIA Developers, Inc. He stated former Melbourne City Manager Henry Hill was instrumental in development of the Summit; and his hard work and efforts are appreciated. He presented a Certificate of Appreciation to Commissioner Jackie Colon in recognition of her leadership.

Chairperson Colon introduced Rafael Montalvo, Associate Director of the Central Florida Office of the Florida Conflict Resolution Consortium; stated in that capacity Mr. Montalvo has facilitated or mediated numerous large and small scale processes to build consensus around controversial public policy issues and has trained hundreds of individuals who participate in public policy discussions or consensus building.

Rafael Montalvo stated in the agenda there are more detailed objectives to begin a dialogue among the different Brevard County jurisdictions to improve intergovernmental relations and provide an understanding of the legal and strategic framework; specifically there is the issue of annexation and how it affects intergovernmental relations; and they will discuss issues in the County related to that topic and identify strategies for making annexation more orderly. He stated today is an opportunity for the elected officials of the County to begin to explore possibilities and begin a process of building an understanding of the issues and possibly ways they may be addressed. He stated this is the beginning of the process, not the end; Dr. deHaven-Smith will be speaking in relation to the topic of annexation and urbanization; and the remaining time this morning will be turned over to the elected officials to try to get a broad sense of what is working in the County in intergovernmental relations and what are some of the challenges that may remain to be addressed. He stated the afternoon will be focused more narrowly on urbanization and annexation issues. He stated he and Chris Peterson are here only as moderators to smooth the flow of discussion; the focus is on the elected officials; and the audience will listen, but there will be no opportunity for group participation. He introduced Dr. Lance deHaven-Smith, Professor of Political Science at the Rueben Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University, former President of the Florida Political Science Association, and author of numerous books, many which deal specifically with government in Florida and the topics the group will be talking about.

PRESENTATION, RE: INTERGOVERNMENTAL CHALLENGES IN FLORIDA’S
URBANIZING COUNTIES

Dr. deHaven-Smith congratulated the group on taking on such a task; stated he has followed local government in Florida since he was a young man; and Brevard County is at a turning point. He stated the County is approaching 500,000 in population; and it has to make some difficult choices about the roles of the cities and the County and the relationship between the cities collectively and the County. He stated yesterday he was in Jacksonville talking about Nassau, Duval, St. Johns, and Clay Counties; they are trying to cooperate on some regional initiatives; there are two regions around the State, Central Florida and Northeast Florida; and the rest of the State just fights with each other. He stated to the extent it is possible to cooperate, the County can get good advantage; and displayed pictures of the County from the 1920’s and 1940’s. He stated Brevard County has a history unlike a lot of counties in the State, which have very little history; displayed a chart showing population growth from 1790 to 2000; and advised the population starts to increase in 1950; and the curve shows it growing at over 100,000 people a decade coming into the County. He stated it is creating some serious problems, but the County probably has not seen anything yet; and it is going to get very difficult in intergovernmental relations. He displayed a map showing Brevard Community College and the area surrounding it; stated the map has a dot for every person living in the area; and an overlay shows the City boundaries. He stated there are unincorporated areas inside the City; it is not uncommon to have enclaves; and the problem is who provides services to those areas. He stated many counties in this situation have developed a “let it burn” rule; this upsets residents and governments; and the County has managed so far, but as it urbanizes, it is going to get crazier. He stated this is one of those issues that requires hard work and is contentious; and he will explain the problems that arise from the situation and provide examples of counties that have tried to deal with it more or less effectively. He stated there are simple solutions; and ultimately it is necessary to decide who is going to do what. He stated this situation arose because governments formed in advance of population growth in the State; counties and cities have grown all over the State; and millions of people were poured into the system. He stated in 1821 there were two counties in the State, Escambia and St. Johns; and displayed a chart showing, in 20-year increments, new counties being created. He pointed out Mosquito County, which became Brevard County in 1860; and advised there were no new counties created after 1940, so the County structures were in place. He stated the County governments were much as they are today with Commissioners, Constitutional Officers, and a court system; and they carried out the State requirements and enforced the laws. He displayed a chart showing the incorporation of cities by decade; advised there were some time periods when there was a great deal of incorporation; but there has not been much recently. He commented on the period before Statehood and after reconstruction; and stated there was a land boom in the early part of the 1900’s with a lot of incorporation. He advised there was a lot after World War II in the late 1940’s and 1950’s, but very little after that. He stated initially the people in the unincorporated area do not incorporate; it is hard to incorporate in Florida; once a county urbanizes, the unincorporated residents do not want an urban county government, but want something closer to home; and they end up going to the cities, which creates some problems. He stated it is a long-term trend; a third of the cities were created before 1925; some were created beginning in 1952; but none were created after 1963. He displayed a chart showing population growth in the State, starting with a million people in 1900 and ending with over 16 million today; and stated over 13 million have poured into the State since 1950. He stated there were no new counties after 1940; and there is a county government system that is really a horse-and-buggy system, which counties are making work, but it is not easy. He stated it is hard to modernize; the problem being faced in terms of the unincorporated urbanization is common in Florida; but Brevard County is not as far along as many counties are, so has a chance to deal with this proactively. He displayed a chart showing the number of residents in Florida living in the unincorporated area; advised approximately two-thirds of Floridians lived in cities in 1970; in 1974 there was a spring of coastal resorts and small beach communities, but not much inland growth; and in the mid-1980’s approximately half of the population lived in the unincorporated area while the remaining half lived in cities, which continues today. He stated there are relatively few large cities; and displayed a bar chart showing the distribution of cities by size. He advised half of Florida cities are less than 5,000 people; 80% are less than 25,000; and the State has a lot of little cities. He stated what happens in urbanizing counties is that the unincorporated are is serviced by the County government; Dade County is serving 1.1 million people in the unincorporated area; the biggest city, Miami, has 365,000 people; but the unincorporated area is several times that size. He stated Brevard County has approximately 185,000 of its 500,000 population in the unincorporated area; the biggest city is approximately 80,000; so there is a large unincorporated area. He stated the question becomes what the County is going to do and how it is going to serve that population; and suggested it could put the people into the cities, encourage incorporation and annexation, or get involved in urban service provision on a big scale. He stated there are up and down sides to whatever choice the County makes; and displayed a map showing the distribution of population in Florida. He displayed a list of the ten largest cities in Florida; noted Tallahassee is really a small town; and the biggest city aside from Jacksonville is Miami at 365,000. He noted Pembroke Pines has 120,000; Brevard County has two cities in that range along with a lot of small cities, which is fairly typical. He stated the problems from unincorporated urbanization include difficulty in delivery of urban services; the County was not built to deliver urban services; it was built to be a rural county; and advised of the structure of the shire system, on which the County system is based. He stated when counties were first created in Florida, there was just a sheriff and judge; there was no jail; and it was pretty tough. He stated this is a system designed to deploy central political power across a large geographical area and do some basic functions; and when counties get involved in urban service delivery in the unincorporated area, they end up dealing with areas that have very different levels of urbanization, with part being truly rural, part being as urban as any municipality, and variations in between. He stated cities are used to create central uniform city level services; when counties have to deliver all kinds of services, it works well when there are approximately 400,000 people, but when there are a million people, it gets crazy and difficult to track; and the counties end up creating service providers and service units. He stated often early in county development, the cities provide the water and water treatment; it is a very expensive thing to develop; they need to be able to sell their water to recoup the investment on the facility; and if the county gets in the business of selling water, both can end up with more capacity than they need and not be able to recoup their money. He stated county commissions were not intended to deal with urban issues like zoning; but in Palm Beach and Broward Counties, 80% of the work of the commissions is zoning. He stated when a city looks at zoning, it understands the community character and the issues; but the county commission is pretty far away, so it is difficult for them to deal with zoning issues in a systematic way. He stated as urbanization occurs outside the cities, the developers request annexation if their densities are increased; but if the city says no, they will go to the county to request increased density, saying they will not let the city annex them; and that can be bad for public policy. He stated often there is an enormous intergovernmental conflict, especially over annexation; once annexation is non-controversial, it goes smoothly and people are happy; but there will be annexations that will cause problems and leave a bitter taste in the mouths of both the city and county. He stated that bitter feeling will permeate the rest of government; it will end up with a circular firing square with officials shooting at each other and embarrassing each other and themselves; but Brevard County is not on this trail very far, and is at a turning point. He stated the County has not urbanized in the unincorporated area as much as many places, in spite of the large unincorporated population; displayed a chart showing population growth; and advised all of the cities were created by 1963, and there has been a doubling of population since that point. He stated looking at the number of unincorporated residents relative to each of the cities shows that the city population, if added up, is substantially bigger than the unincorporated population. He noted that is not true in many counties; in many counties there is an incorporated population that is dwarfed by the unincorporated population; and once it reaches that point, the horse is so far out of the barn that it cannot be bridled. He stated the County still has a chance to decide what kind of organization it is going to have outside the cities; and displayed a chart showing population growth since 1980 for the unincorporated area. He stated Palm Bay, Melbourne, and Titusville are the big cities; all of the cities have been growing, but it looks like Palm Bay has really taken off; and he suspects some of that may be annexation. He stated the unincorporated area looks like it is growing faster; but if all the cities are added up, they are growing faster than the unincorporated area, although that will change. He stated if nothing is done, it will end up with the unincorporated area growth and the cities being surrounded by unincorporated growth. He displayed a map showing counties with high parts of their population within the unincorporated areas; stated Brevard County has a relatively small unincorporated portion relative to the incorporated population; but that will not last long unless action is taken. He stated pressure is building now because of the nature of the population growth in Florida; what has been seen so far is relatively minor growth for this region; but with the aging of the baby boomer population, population growth in the County will amplify and dramatically increase. He displayed a graph showing age differences of Florida population in 1970, and compared it to population in 2010. He stated baby boomers are anyone born between 1946 and 1964; in 1970 the baby boomers where children; and those children are now approaching retirement. He noted a baby boomer turns 50 every seven seconds; that population was bundled together when it went to college; baby boomers did drugs and protested; and they are remembered in part because they were all in one place, in the universities. He stated after they graduated, they went into society and became invisible in some ways; they have not been visible because they have not all been in one location; but they are getting ready to come back to one place, which will be a dormitory setting, and will be getting a check from somewhere else. He stated they are going to keep coming to Florida; Florida is a dream to someone shoveling snow in Cleveland; as individuals age, they become less and less comfortable in cold weather; and they have to come to this part of the United States to have warm weather, so they will keep coming. Dr. deHaven-Smith displayed a chart showing the percentage of the population in Florida 65 and older in 1970 and in 1994; stated it is at approximately 19% today; and during this time period, Florida became a senior state. He stated the Social Security Act was amended in 1965 to add Medicare; the World War II generation made more money than previous generations; they had enough money to move and did; and there was an influx in Florida. He stated they are not expecting a big change between now and 2010; but there is an enormous change by 2025 when 26% will be the Statewide average of seniors. He stated doubling the percentage of one of the senior counties would be the people who actually vote; and a lot of people do not vote, but seniors do. He stated approximately 50% of the voters will be seniors, so it will be a dramatic change. He stated it will be an older population; there will not only be more seniors but they are going to live longer; the fastest growing age in the State today is the 85-plus group, which is the World War II generation; and they were great but they drank and smoked while the baby boom generation, which did recreational drugs in college, quit smoking and started jogging, so will live a lot longer. He stated there is going to be a large senior population that will be a lot older; that is a dramatic change that will happen in the State; and it will be like what was seen in the 1970’s and 1980’s. He stated the reason he says seniors will be coming to Florida has to do with where seniors choose to live; and displayed a map showing the percentage of the population 65 and older by county. He stated the map shows that seniors do not live right in cities; they usually live about a county or two out; and they want health care, movies, and recreation. He stated they do not want to be in the middle of nowhere, but don’t want to be downtown either with the noise, traffic, and pollution, so they live about a county out; and Brevard County is about a county out. He stated the development patterns for each county as they urbanize tends to go through a set sequence; they start rural; and retirees lead the boom because the seniors do not have to live near employment. He stated developers come to Florida and buy 5,000 to 10,000 acres, lay it out, and then go back to New York or Ohio and sell it lot by lot; that is how people who lived next door to each other in New York end up living next to each other in Florida; and 10% of Floridians are from New York, but they live congregated in just a few counties. He stated Brevard County is at the early part of stage 3; there is a pretty good senior population; as they move in, young economically active working adults with young children move in to provide the medical care and services for the senior population; and that creates an interesting political dynamic. He stated culturally both groups dislike each other; the politics develop in such a way that the seniors move in, get organized, and they will deal with the thing that grates on them, which is traffic; there will be a moratorium; but young people want to see the growth continue, have economic development, and look to the future. He stated it is a fairly contentious period; and if it is not stewarded well, it will end up floating back and forth. He stated one year the seniors will win and there will be a moratorium; but the next year, the pro-development forces will win and sweep everyone out of office. He stated after there are 800,000 to a million people, the seniors stop coming and start leaving because they do not like the urban area. He stated as they leave, the ethnic minorities come in behind them; right now there is a 32% minority in Florida; by 2025, it will be at 42%; so there will be a dramatic change. He stated Brevard County will see an influx of seniors; that will last ten to fifteen years, followed by seniors leaving. He stated he knows the County does not believe this can happen; but commented on other parts of the State where this has happened, such as Dade County. He stated Broward County is thought of as a fairly large retirement center; it does have a fairly large senior population; and displayed a chart showing increases in the Broward senior population in the 1960’s and 1970’s and decreases since 1980. He stated the Broward seniors are going to Palm Beach County, which is the next county north; and Palm Beach County is known around the world as a retirement center. He stated Orange County has a very small senior population; but Lake County to the north of Orange County is taking on the character of a community that caters mainly to seniors. He stated there is a band of senior concentration around Jacksonville; but they do not live in Jacksonville. He stated Brevard County has a sizable senior population that is expected to go up as the baby boom generation retires; but when there is an influx of population to the unincorporated areas, problems are created. He stated there is no incorporation because it is hard to incorporate; it is necessary to be at least two miles away from an existing municipality to form a new city; and it is also difficult to annex. He stated under Florida law unless there is a single land owner who comes to the city asking to come inside the borders, there is an involuntary annexation; it involves a majority vote of the city council and the people being annexed; and the problem is that it is only possible to annex under these conditions if there is an almost identical match with the city. He stated if a city is low income and tries to annex an affluent development, the people being annexed will object because they do not want their taxes to go up to support and subsidize city services for the poorer parts of the city. He stated conversely an area that is low income near a better income city will not be annexed because the city would then have to provide services to an area that does not generate sufficient taxes to pay for the services; so it is necessary to find a close match between the income and character of the community to successfully annex. He stated there are consequences; and one is city/county conflict. He stated cities and counties fight with each other; some people think it is because the city and county elected officials are immature and foolish; but in truth, they are being responsible and are driven into conflict by the circumstances. He stated a group of elected officials such as are present this morning who are willing to talk this through is a rare thing; and a more likely scenario is to be pushed into a very intense conflict. He stated cities have to annex to survive financially; one of the problems they face is the free rider; if a large city is surrounded by urbanization, the city has assets that are used by people countywide such as shopping and recreational areas; the suburbs do not have to build the urban amenities that the cities already have; so the surrounding areas go into the cities and impose burdens upon it. Dr. deHaven-Smith stated Palm Bay, Melbourne, and Titusville will be downtown Brevard County for everybody; the difficulty for the cities is while they are providing regional support, they cannot tax outside their borders, so they end up being burdened by free riders, which can financially bankrupt a city. He stated it is possible to get some of the money by putting in parking meters or anything that a fee can be charged for, but it is not possible to recoup everything. He stated another problem is dual taxation; counties can levy two types of ad valorem taxes; one is countywide for all residents, whether inside or outside the cities; but they can also levy exclusively in all or part of the unincorporated area, a municipal service tax. He stated that was introduced in the mid-1970’s to encourage counties to place the tax on the unincorporated area of the county to assure those residents pay for the all the services they are using; there is a tendency politically for the county to try to provide as many services as possible with a countywide tax; the county does not like to separate out a tax just to impose on the unincorporated area; and it is a kind of double whammy. He stated they have to raise the tax and then focus it, so it is going to make people mad; the tendency is to levy the tax countywide; but many services in the urbanization are not delivered in the cities, such as the Sheriff. He stated the Sheriff patrols the unincorporated area; and the cities have their own police departments; but they are paying a countywide millage that supports the Sheriff. He stated this has been litigated, but it is not going to change; and recommended the cities that are bitter about this get over it. He stated not only are there people using all the services the residents are paying for, but they are taxing the residents to pay for the roads and everything to support the urbanization that is killing the cities. He stated the cities are pretty upset about it, and with good reason; but the counties have their own set of issues. He stated when the county is urbanizing, it is difficult to put in place the regional road network, police protection, and fire protection; the county looks at the growth and development on a countywide perspective and deals with the overall urban form, if they take upon that issue; so it is very difficult. He stated about 800 people per day are coming into Florida; they do not bring their roads or schools with them; and Florida does not get a dime from them until they are here, so the State is always behind on capital services and facilities. He stated the counties are frenetic in trying to keep up with all this; they are trying to put everything in place; then when a city annexes something barely telling the county, it is very upsetting to the county, and may alter the pattern of urbanization that the county has been planning, and make some services and facilities that the counties invested significant resources in obsolete. He stated one of the things cities do is referred to as cherry picking, which is when a city does not expand its borders in an orderly fashion so they are square and even, but instead takes the good stuff and bypasses the lower income areas; and that leaves the county trying to serve an unincorporated area that is scattered and caught up in little enclaves, which is frustrating for the county. He stated the county has the sense it is the only one looking at the county as a whole; but the cities are looking at it just from their point of view. He stated the cites feel that they have to annex to survive financially; they are getting taxed to subsidize sprawl; they are annexing when they get a chance; and the county feels like the cities are cherry picking and disrupting everything. He stated if the county builds a fire department to serve a large area, and then the area is annexed in part, it is not like the fire department goes away; there are still firefighters and a fire department; but they do not have the population to service, and have to lay off people, which puts the county in a difficult situation. He stated the county may be put in a financial crunch if it has been levying a municipal tax; and explained how MSTU funds would be lost if an area was annexed as those funds would go to the municipality. Dr. deHaven-Smith stated the County’s tax base can be seriously impacted by an annexation, but still have the same costs; so both sides can be harmed financially, both sides have their futures at stake, and it is a tough situation for everyone. He stated he looked at the south Brevard area; he suspects there are problems there now or problems emerging in different parts of the County; and pointed out the municipalities of Melbourne, Melbourne Village, Palm Bay, Palm Shores, and West Melbourne, which have a number of enclaves. He stated he does not know how the cities or County feel about it, but it is bedeviling in terms of how services are provided; and it indicates there has been some difficulty in making rational municipal borders. He displayed a map showing growth between 1990 and 2000 around city borders; noted there has been significant population growth around the cities; and now they are either going to have to expand the borders or the County will have to make sure those people are paying their fair share of taxes with an MSTU. He stated if it is left the way it is, there are going to be some problems on both sides. He commented on the difficulty of providing services to an enclave; and stated another problem is the County is going to get diverted into a bunch of small issues and get caught up in turf battles. He stated one problem now is traffic; right now traffic flow is pretty good; but as there is urbanization around the cities, a lot of people will start driving through and the regional road network will become a local road network. He stated people will begin to use the interstate to go one exit; so the regional system will become local and make it difficult to commute outside the area. He recommended trying to limit the extent of local traffic on the regional system by putting controls on land use, integrating it with transportation planning, putting in traffic signalization, and dealing with school bussing. He stated what happens is the County and cities will not decide who is responsible for what; it will not be possible to tell a County road from a city road; and there will be race, class, and financial issues. He stated one way to deal with the problem is to consolidate; but recommended the County and municipalities forget this; and displayed a chart showing the number of cities and counties that consolidated in Florida since 1967, and another showing that only one was successful. He stated only the first one, Jacksonville, was successful in consolidation; it consolidated in 1968 after the Florida Constitution was rewritten; it consolidated because of corruption problems; and the expectation was that consolidation was the way to go. He stated there were incentives for consolidation; it made a lot of sense; and if it can be done, that is great; but the problem is every time it has been voted on in Florida since then, it has been voted down because the people who reside in the cities do not want to give up their cities. He stated there is a tendency to look upon consolidated government as a big distant monolithic government thing; it is hard to sell; so it has not worked out politically. He stated the next option is charters; Brevard County has a Charter, which it can use to override municipalities; in certain respects the County should consider doing some things on a Countywide basis, like transportation planning and building a road network; and he is amazed the County has not done that yet. He stated 17 counties have charters; most of the urban counties have charters; but the charters are what is called starter charters, in that they are like other charters and do not do much. Dr. deHaven-Smith stated when people start talking about developing a charter, the Sheriff, who is powerful, will say he does not like charters; and the people will do a starter charter which does not make many changes. He advised the Board to stay away from that; stated constitutional officers have a lot of influence; people like to be able to vote for their Sheriff; and if the desire is to go after those people, he would recommend finding another target. He stated what has proven successful around the State are single-function authorities; instead of trying to consolidate or knock off constitutional officers and put them under the Board of County Commissioners, the County should pick something that is significant that needs to be managed Countywide and do it; and examples are growth management, criminal justice, fire protection, emergency services, and juvenile justice. He stated this is a way of getting economies of scale, some cohesion of planning, and direction Countywide in the areas where it is needed without having to talk on the issue of consolidation, which is not going to succeed. He stated there is a down side; if the County does the and earmarks money for it, the County budget can easily end up with all this money going into special functions but no money for unpopular things. He stated annexation planning has been done around the State with limited success; Orange County is the first county to develop joint planning agreements; Pinellas county did this with a charter revision, but it has not worked very well; and Broward County has a policy that is putting everything into the cities in a two-tiered system where the County takes on countywide functions and the cities take on city functions. He noted many cities are contracting with the Sheriff because police departments are expensive; and they get the Sheriff to handle the jails and some countywide functions like data. He displayed a map of Broward County, showing the unincorporated areas; displayed an overlay showing where the African-American population in Broward County lives; and stated the city boundaries bypass the black areas, which is cherry picking. He stated they cannot have segregation; it is bad; and it makes no sense for service delivery; so the County has decided to put everyone into municipalities. He stated they did not do this through typical annexation policy; the legislative delegation came in and picked an unincorporated area; the first was Bonaventure, which is a large retirement area between the cities of Sunrise and Weston; the Legislature let the people in the unincorporated area choose whether to go into one city or the other; and that was the choice, as they could not form their own city. He stated he did a study for the Legislature to help them pick which city to go into; and the people of Bonaventure voted to go into Weston because it had a name for affluence, while Sunrise had some corruption. He noted a lot of times the decisions are driven by things other than service delivery. He stated he wondered when this started if the citizens would revolt, but that has not been the case; if they are given a choice, the voters are reasonable about it; so it is a good thing to consider. He stated the downside is the MSTU revenues; when there is an annexation, the municipal tax revenues in the unincorporated area that had been going to the county would be going to the cities; so Broward County is losing all that revenue and has a big drop as a result. He stated Lake County is working on joint planning agreements; Lake County is wedged between two natural preserves that are federal and State lands; it has the I-75/turnpike corridor running right through them; and all the growth is being channeled through the County. He stated population growth has been rapid; Lake County is only at about 200,000; all the cities were formed prior to 1930; and they have some really neat cities with very large growth in the unincorporated population. He stated the unincorporated area is bigger than the municipal population; there are quaint cities like Mount Dora; but the odds of them being able to keep them like that when the county grows rapidly are slim to none unless they work aggressively to limit growth around the cities. He stated where the population is outside the incorporated area, urban nodes need to be created to promote compact contiguous centralized urban development; or it will end up with the sprawling peanut butter thing that will be a wave over the cities. He displayed a map; stated the yellow spots are cities and the dark spots are population around them; the joint planning agreements are going to have the cities designate an area for future annexation; where they can annex, they will do so immediately; but the residents will have to vote on it. He stated the problem for the cities is they cannot get people to come into the city; the residents in the unincorporated area say their taxes will go up; their taxes will go up because their taxes are now being subsidized by the countywide millage that the county has been levying; and the way around it, that Lake County is using, is to designate future municipal areas and have the County come in and put MSTU revenue rates on them that cover the cost of service provisions. He stated the cities will provide the service wherever possible; the county will enforce city land use standards in those areas; and the idea is there will not be any benefit to the community to stay outside the city, and so gradually it will be wanting to come in. He stated one issue they have to deal with are how big it should be; the cities want the big areas, while the county does not; and another issue is how the county will maintain compact development. He stated the maps show the kind of sprawl Lake County already has; it is difficult for a county commission to designate areas for growth and other areas for low growth; and the county will want to say no, but without a very clear plan, that is very difficult. He stated Lake County has clearly decided where it is going to allow development and where it is going to channel it away; one question is what the county is going to do with areas that are already urban but are not cities and whether the county will get into service provision or whether it will ask the cities to come in; and it will have to make some decisions about that. He stated Pinellas County did an annexation policy through its charter; Largo was a big city in the central part of the county and Seminole was south of it; in annexation and intergovernmental issues, it is not always city versus county, but sometimes is city versus city; and it can be just as bitter. He stated they put in the charter that cities would develop future annexation areas; each developed a future annexation area, but they only applied to voluntary annexation; Largo decided to do an involuntary annexation in the future municipal service area of Seminole; and it was all over at that point. He stated Palm Beach County made an effort to control development and promote compact contiguous development along the coastal corridor; it decided it was going to channel development into certain areas; and it has a string of cities running up the coast, a conservation area connected to Lake Okechobee, and an agricultural area west of Boca Raton. He noted Boca Raton introduced a growth cap in 1972 that would have limited the total area of population in the city to 44,000; it went to court where it was litigated by developers; the court asked where the number came from; and the city advised the commissioners decided if the population was currently 22,000, that 44,000 would be right; and this was deemed an arbitrary and capricious denial of developers’ rights, so it got tossed out. He stated they came back with an urban growth boundary through the commission; this was bordered by an agricultural barrier that was zoned for agriculture and intended to stay in agriculture to prevent urban sprawl west of the cities; just west of Boca Raton they created an area where one could get increased density for a planned unit development; and everything developed as a PUD. He stated with all the development west of Boca Raton, it was necessary to widen the east/west corridor; once that was in place, there were problems with setting precedent for location of gas stations, so growth got out of control; eventually the land became very valuable around the agriculture reserve area; and the County bought it. He stated the county figured how much it would be to put the roads in; they could buy the property for approximately $4,000 an acre, or $40 million for the whole thing; or they could have built an expressway that would have cost a billion dollars per mile; and Brevard County should look at the lessons to be learned. He stated unless the County is going to urbanize wall-to-wall and have the County get into urban service provisions, it has to figure out where it is going to develop and where it is not, which is tough to do. Dr. deHaven-Smith emphasized the need to have a good plan upfront; stated it cannot be arbitrary; and if the County is going to limit development, it has to have good reasons to do so and has to build a constituency for it. He stated the County should purchase land development rights where it can and cordon off those areas, using natural boundaries; if someone wants to develop, they have a right to develop unless a good reason can be given why they should not; and the very good reason has to be a plan. He stated the plan can be based on evacuation or community character, but it has to be reasonable and treat every development decision like a policy; and the Board cannot approve a gas station on a corner unless that is where it wants to put a bunch of gas stations; so the County would have to make some pretty difficult decisions to be able to do that.

Dr. deHaven-Smith advised in summary, there is a lot of urban sprawl outside the urban areas; that creates a lot of conflict and confusion for both sides, the counties and the cities; the remedies include consolidation and charters; there are some countywide functions that would work; the Board should stay away from the constitutional officers as that is not a good idea; and the joint planning agreements can work, but they are tough to accomplish. He stated the group heard what it would take to apply the city land use standards in the unincorporated areas; it is not easy to do; and it is possible to do an urban growth boundary, but it would be necessary to have a good plan and be willing to stick to it. He displayed a graph delineating the four basic options; stated typically the pattern is to start out mainly with most people living in cities, but then growing rapidly within the unincorporated area, and ending up with a big urban county with a lot of development in the unincorporated area. He stated Leon County would be an example of a small to moderate sized county that is mainly incorporated; Broward County is a large county where the population is mainly in the cities; Pinellas County is comparable to that; and Hillsborough and Sarasota Counties have a couple of big cities, but the unincorporated area has not had much incorporation at all. He stated those are the choices the County has; Leon County and the Tampa area are the only ones that might consolidate; the Pinellas/Broward County model is going to a two-tier system, sorting out what the cities and county do, and getting as much land into the cities as possible; urban counties take on urban services on a large scale; and Brevard County is right in the middle. He stated the question is whether the County will go in the direction of Sarasota/Hillsborough County, Pinellas/Broward County, or work out some moderate policy in between. He stated those are the choices the County has to make; and if it does not make a conscious decision, it will bounce into one or other of the choices.

The summit recessed at 10:45 a.m. and reconvened at 11:00 a.m.

DISCUSSION, RE: INTERGOVERNMENTAL CHALLENGES

Mr. Montalvo stated the next 45 minutes will set the stage by talking about the successes of intergovernmental coordination in the County to date, what were the issues involved, what kinds of cooperation took place, and the factors that can be identified that made it easier to collaborate on those issues; and then the group will move on to some of the remaining challenges.

Commissioner Pritchard stated one success has been in the management of solid waste; the landfills are County-operated; and there are contracts with various service providers; and municipalities and the County have worked together to achieve a good balance using best management practices. Mr. Montalvo inquired if there was anything that made it easier to cooperate on that issue; with Commissioner Pritchard responding probably because it is a large geographical issue. Commissioner Pritchard stated everyone needs to have their garbage picked up and disposed of properly; the County was in the best position at the time to manage it; and through the cooperation and various agreements, they have managed it properly.

Mayor Randels stated he can give the perspective of a small beachside community; Cape Canaveral is trying to provide the best services at the lowest price to the residents; and they do not care whose city decal is on the side of the vehicle. He stated they partnered with the Port over the Sheriff’s Department providing protection for both entities; they worked with the Port on fire protection and sharing of equipment; they have done very well with the County, with approximately 23 interlocal agreements; and it seems to work for them. Mr. Montalvo inquired is there anything that sparked the cooperation on those issues; with Mayor Randels responding it has to do with the residents understanding the benefits in partnering with the neighboring cities.

Mayor Swank stated in Titusville they are working toward some annexation issues; and the City has worked with the County on that. He stated there is an MSTU in the City; it is collected by the County for parks; and the County maintains the City parks. He stated it is an agreement that has worked well; there is no duplication of services; the County provides the services very well; and it is efforts like that which all the communities want to do. Mr. Montalvo inquired is there anything that prompted that cooperation. Mayor Swank advised it is the result of the City’s observation of the County’s quality of service with parks and recreation. Commissioner Scarborough stated the City was contributing to the County for parks with general revenue, which became problematic in budgeting for the City; people were not distinguishing between City and County parks; and by arrangement they developed a single MSTU.

Chairperson Colon stated the Parks and Recreation referendum was an achievement; the County asked the municipalities what they needed; and she is very proud of that. Mr. Montalvo inquired if there are other factors that made it easier to cooperate on those issues; with Chairperson Colon responding the main key was asking what was needed; the citizens advised exactly what was needed; some areas did not want it; and in those areas the referendum did not pass.

Mayor Geier stated the cities became the sales people for the referendum because the cities were asked what they would like to see built in joint partnership; and some of the successes have not been completed like the replatting of Palm Bay in cooperation with the County. He commented on an interlocal agreement between Palm Bay, Melbourne, West Melbourne, and the County for police response on Palm Bay Road; and stated they are still in the learning process.

Mayor Crews advised of the Malabar fires, and the support of the County and other municipalities in fighting the fires. He stated it was a model for interaction. He stated the school system is a single function for the County. He advised of the countywide coordination of fire services and emergency services by radio. Mr. Montalvo inquired what brought everyone to the point of wanting to pitch in. Mayor Crews stated it was communication and the statewide problem with fires in the last few years that has led to collective responsibilities. Dr. deHaven-Smith inquired if it is a countywide fire service or intergovernmental cooperation; with Mayor Crews responding there are city and county services.

Mayor Buckley stated one of the most significant areas of working together is on transportation with the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) in developing roads in the County. Mr. Montalvo stated the MPO is a formalized structure; and inquired if there are any other factors that have made cooperation on transportation more effective; with Mayor Buckley responding the joint planning agreements and decisions on responsibility for services on roads.

Mayor Schultz stated Rockledge jointly plans with the County and surrounding areas; it is currently working on a stormwater pond project in cooperation with the County; and the City provides first responder services to subdivisions close to its borders. He stated they also work well in the area of recreation; and these things have come about because of mutual need and mutual benefit.

Mayor Parrish advised of Cocoa’s willingness to work together, vision, desire to optimize services, and working to make things the best they can be. She advised of cooperation with police and fire services so everyone does not have to have a ladder truck or helicopter, cooperation on a school stadium, working with School Board on stormwater issues, a YMCA cooperative effort, work with Florida Fish and Wildlife on a conservation area, and work on the Brevard Zoo. She commented on the failure of the Parks and Recreation referendum in Central Brevard due to the vote in the unincorporated area. She stated in looking at providing services, they need to look at who is in the best position to provide the service. Mr. Montalvo stated Mayor Parrish highlighted the role of leadership.

Commissioner Pritchard stated the City of Cocoa provides water throughout the County, which it gets from Orange County. He advised of discussion with Dr. deHaven-Smith in 1985 in Broward County; and stated if they follow the same concepts as Broward County followed, the municipalities will be taking over what are currently unincorporated lands. He stated the issues the County is facing today are the same issues Broward was facing in the 1980’s.

Mayor Willmarth advised the City of West Melbourne found it advantageous to transfer land to the City of Melbourne, which was better able to deal with it. Mr. Montalvo advised that is an unusual situation.

Mayor Bolin stated Satellite Beach is very proud of its relationship with the County Commission; and advised of the purchase of beachfront property to keep it in its natural state. He advised of the County’s support of a park project by the library, soccer fields, a skateboard park, and a dog park, and of the City’s good relationship with its neighbors, Patrick Air Force Base and Indian Harbour Beach. Mr. Montalvo inquired are there particular circumstances that have made it easier to bring about those cooperations. Mayor Bolin advised Satellite Beach is unique in its number of volunteers. Mr. Montalvo stated the residents are predisposed to that type of cooperation.

Mayor Geier commented on the Tourist Development Council and beach renourishment; and stated every city is unique, but has similar problems. He recommended, when looking at cooperation, that everyone look at what services the cities are already providing; and commented on the issue of first responders.

Mayor Parrish commented on the cooperation between the cities and the County in working on the Amtrak issue.

Mayor Randels stated on the issue of duplication of services, Dr. deHaven-Smith mentioned an alternative about levels of services, with the County providing social services and the cities providing lower level of services; and inquired has there been any success with that. Dr. deHaven-Smith responding that is what the County and the cities have to sort out; there is no one size fits all solutions; and there may not be just one solution for a given county. He stated some counties have municipalities providing services in the unincorporated areas; they may have county providing fire protection in municipalities; and the key is to sort it out and make decisions upfront. He stated in terms of successes, the counties that are urbanized such as Tampa/Hillsborough, Broward County, and Orlando may have cities where the Sheriff provides all the murder investigations for cities. He stated this can be sorted out across functions and within functions as well. Mr. Montalvo stated they will go into more detail in the afternoon session.

Commissioner Carlson advised Brevard Tomorrow is an example of the communities working together; noted there is a two-page list of agreements between the County and municipalities; but where they are hamstrung is on annexation.

Commissioner Higgs commented on collaboration between the Sheriff and local law enforcement on issues of security and safety.

Mayor Crispen commented on cooperative efforts between the Town of Melbourne Beach and the County on the library.

Mr. Montalvo stated intergovernmental coordination is an intractable issue; but the group has highlighted a range of successes and range of factors that contributed to the ability to deal with these issues. He stated he would like to touch on the challenges that are being faced in intergovernmental coordination and why they are challenges.

Mayor Swank stated one of the challenges for the City is in the area of annexations; the City is planning for its future and annexing some property; but it does not necessarily fit in with the County’s plan. He commented on annexations by the City throwing the County’s plan into a tailspin, fire stations being made invalid by annexations, creation of issues, and keeping lines of communications open.

Commissioner Scarborough stated his District includes the Cities of Cocoa and Titusville, which have water and sewer; and advised of annexing, cherry picking, and benefit of County not having to provide services. He commented on problems with transportation, finding out about annexations at the end of the process, the Flagler property, and need for more lead time and discussion on annexations.

Mr. Montalvo stated effective legal context is not always positive.

Mayor Geier stated the biggest challenge is money and where it is going to come from; and commented on competition.

Commissioner Carlson stated the cities are aware of development occurring in the County; there were attempts at growth management reform some years ago; and one problem is the Comprehensive Plan was driven without a State vision. She stated the State needs to show some leadership in the comprehensive planning process so everyone can live together successfully; but right now each individual community has a comprehensive plan with a future land use map; and there is a need to look at that so annexation can help everyone rather than being used against each other. She stated there are serious issues to be ironed out at the State level; and commented on the need to have joint planning agreements with some meat in them.

Commissioner Pritchard stated the County is at a juncture where it has the opportunity to move aggressively and dynamically in the right direction; where Brevard County is now is where Broward County was in the mid-1980’s; and there is a need to look at various ways to provide various services. He commented on the efforts of Broward County to provide fire services, which resulted in mutual aid agreements, need to feel a part of the decision-making process, and element of distrust between municipalities and the county. He stated Brevard County is fortunate in that it has twice the land and half the population Broward had when it faced these issues; and recommended learning from history.

Mayor Buckley stated one of the challenges the City of Melbourne faces is trying to get rid of enclaves; and the County created an enclave with Post Commons.

Mayor Schultz stated one area that is a problem for cities and County is transportation funding; there is not enough money to go around to fix the roads that need to be fixed; and there is a need to take positive steps with gas tax and impact fees. He noted this is a big issue.

Commissioner Higgs stated core cities have declined in their economic vitality and ability to hold property values; that happens if the County is not vigilant in managing growth outside the cities; and the challenge is to keep the cities as economic centers and focus on keeping the cities vital economically.

Commissioner Carlson stated Post Commons was created because of differences in standards and costs of doing business in the County versus the City; and that is what drives the market and creates the enclaves.

Mayor Crews commented on Malabar’s preserved acreage, the EEL’s Program, contentious issues, reverse annexation, and progress in working with the County. Mr. Montalvo stated the issue is between the preserved lands and the tax base.

Mayor Downey stated no one has mentioned stormwater drainage; but as the County grows there will be big problems; and commented on overloading systems in Melbourne Village.

Mayor Parrish stated Cocoa provides a lot of services for the County and surrounding cities such as fire protection, police, and Code Enforcement; advised of people driving through the City, being outvoted at the MPO meetings, dirt roads in North Brevard, and stormwater retention on Dixon Boulevard. She stated the City provides a lot of runaway shelters and churches; when something comes up like an upscale retail mall, that is attractive to the City, the County gets more taxes than the City does; and the mall will provide jobs and contribute to the community. She commented on the tax cap and trying to set the budget. She advised Central Brevard has the dump, the jail, power plants, and adult entertainment.

Mr. Montalvo noted there is an array of challenges to deal with; and advised in the afternoon, the discussion will be related to growth and annexation.

The Summit recessed at 11:55 a.m. and reconvened at 1:15 p.m.

“America the Beautiful” was performed by Brevard County District 4 employee Yvette Torres.

INTRODUCTION OF CITY AND TOWN MANAGERS

The Mayors introduced the City/Town Managers of their municipalities.

DISCUSSION, RE: URBANIZATION AND URBANIZATION POLICY

Mr. Montalvo stated urbanization does sometimes cause tensions between cities and counties over a range of issues, such as planning and zoning, service provision, annexation, tax rate, and tax base. He stated by urbanization, he is talking about growth and growing portions of the County; and Dr. deHaven-Smith’s suggestion was one way to address the tensions at a policy level rather than moving from one discussion to the next is to define the roles and responsibilities of the cities and county. He stated a variety of possibilities were highlighted in the earlier discussion; and there are a lot of options. He stated the discussion this afternoon will be exploratory and touch on a number of issues that the group will not be able to resolve today; the hope is that this will be an opportunity to talk about things with people that might not otherwise get to talk about these things; and there will be a variety of perspectives in the room. He stated the group can benefit from the different perspectives while respecting the fact that they exist; and the focus, while the discussion will be about specific issues and specific places, will be on general approaches the County can use in the future to address these issues better. He stated there are two questions to start with, is there currently a policy on urbanization in the County, and if there is not, what roles are emerging spontaneously in cities and counties in dealing with growth. He stated the hope is to go from there to look at a number of different options to consider for use in the future, and then look at the pros and cons of those options; and they will wrap up the discussion with some next steps for carrying the discussion further.

Dr. deHaven-Smith inquired if there is a policy on enclaves to get rid of them in cities; and if a city comes to the County Commission and wants to get rid of an enclave under ten acres, will the Board do it. He noted by law that can be done; he noticed when looking at the land use map that the enclaves in the cities are quite large and numerous; and inquired if the cities have a problem. He inquired if the County has a policy on land use in terms of urban growth boundary or urban services boundary and how that relates to the cities in different parts of the County. He stated he is also interested to know what services the County is providing relative to the cities; it sounds like the County does the recreation planning and the cities like that; and it sounds like some cities are providing water to other municipalities and possibly the County. He stated there is some sorting out to do; and inquired if there is an annexation policy or overlay.

Mayor Swank stated enclaves are a problem trying to provide services in an efficient manner to the citizens; with a County enclave in the City, the County has to try to provide services, which makes it a nightmare; and they have been trying to address the County enclaves. He noted State law makes it difficult to work with the County; but it is still an issue, not with the counties, but at the State level, as to how they can take care of the enclaves.

Mayor Schultz stated the policy of the Rockledge City Council is that they want to annex the two enclaves; they have tried over the years to do that, and have had some success annexing some parcels within the enclaves; but the biggest stumbling block is State law. Dr. deHaven-Smith inquired if they are larger than ten acres; with Mayor Schultz responding yes.

Mayor Crispen stated there is land between the City and Patrick Air Force Base and another area that has struggled with service provision; they would like to annex those areas; but because of the difference in the County and City regulations, the people in those areas perceive it is easier and less expensive to live in the County. Dr. deHaven-Smith inquired if there is a policy with enclaves in the County. Commissioner Higgs responded the County abides by State law and the wishes of the people in the area; and she cannot recall a single instance when a community wanted to be annexed that there was a problem when the citizens made the request to the Board.

Dr. deHaven-Smith stated the problem with enclaves is normally citizens are in the city and have a presence in the city, but are not paying a city tax; most of them may be on septic tanks while the city is on wastewater treatment; and the city wants them to come in, but they do not want to sign on to wastewater treatment, so they do not want to come in. He stated that is why the law allows the cities and county by agreement to annex an enclave of less than ten acres.

Mayor Geier stated the enclaves already exist; if the discussion is about State Statute prohibiting them from solving the problems, then the policy they may want to look at is that the County will not create any new enclaves at this time, so the only thing they will have to deal with is the Delegation to eliminate the problem of the ten acres. He stated State Statute is the
problem they are wanting to solve, so they should start at the beginning and make a policy that the County will not create any new enclaves. Commissioner Higgs advised the County does not create enclaves.

Mayor Crispen stated the other thing the County could do to help with the enclave problem larger than ten acres is having the levels of service in the enclaves consistent with the cities.

Mr. Montalvo stated he is trying to capture some of the possible strategies as they go along; and one was simply a policy of no new enclaves, and another is equalizing service between the enclave and the surrounding areas.

Commissioner Scarborough stated it is more than just having an understanding between the city and the County; there are people that are confused; they do not understand what is happening; and recommended being proactive by having someone have a meeting at their home with the Mayor and a Commissioner there to explain to them. He stated there is one case where there is a fire station around the corner; the service level will go up; and there should be a full analysis so when people walk into a public meeting, they are not confused.

Mayor Parrish stated the City of Cocoa brought in each enclave individually and focused on each area; bringing them into the City did not cost as much as being in the County; they broke it down for them and answered all the questions; and they still voted to stay outside the City. she stated one out of four was annexed; this is the first year the Council even looked at the 50%; and everything has been voluntary.

Dr. deHaven-Smith stated it is a tough thing to say to people in the County that by ordinance, they are going to go into the city; there is the sense that people are being forced to do something they do not want to; but the reality is the enclaves are costing everybody a lot of money. Mayor Parrish stated they do not care. Dr. deHaven-Smith stated he knows that, but the problem is trying to get them in Countywide.

Commissioner Pritchard stated the problem with the smaller enclaves, especially the undeveloped strip of land on the west side of the Cocoa Beach City Hall, are the issues of liability, maintenance, and jurisdiction. He stated another single family home a little further south on A1A is an enclave; the person there is manufacturing and displaying wares, which the City of Cocoa Beach would not allow; so there is a problem with compatibility. He stated it is time for the County to develop a policy to take the small enclave areas and have the city annex them; but larger areas, such as Snug Harbor where the people have chosen to stay as they are, are not what he is talking about.

Mr. Montalvo stated the suggestion was for the County to proactively approach a policy to incorporate those.

Mayor Swank stated he heard it is the cities that are doing the annexing and creating the enclaves; and he is confused. Mayor Geier stated Mayor Buckley has a situation in Melbourne that is basically an enclave. Commissioner Carlson stated Post Commons was due to the cost of doing business and the differences between the City and the County; it was up to the property owner; but if there had been a policy in place that they would not create enclaves, that could have been avoided. Mayor Swank stated the City of Titusville realizes there are problems with enclaves; they have developed a plan within the City to identify, work on, and eliminate the enclaves; and in the near future, the City will be presenting the 17 or 18 different enclaves within the City that are less than ten acres, and try to work with the County to eliminate those to square up the City lines. He stated that leads to the issue that was mentioned earlier; there are enclaves that do not want to be part of the City; and inquired if the enclave is receiving all the city services without having to pay for them, what is their incentive to annex in.

Mr. Montalvo stated an issue is incentives if services are provided for enclaves to remain outside the municipality.

Mayor Downey stated Melbourne Village is not planning to annex, nor could it; it costs the County extra money to service the enclaves, but those people have a tax rate that is lower than the surrounding city; and that is the incentive to keep the enclave out of the city. He inquired if it would be possible to tax the people within the enclave at the same rate as the surrounding city, thereby encouraging them to go into the city.

Mr. Montalvo stated the suggestion is equalization of taxation between the enclave and the city.

Mayor Parrish stated if there was a joint policy between the County and the cities, the enclaves would be forced to join the city.

Dr. deHaven-Smith encouraged them to think of it as a policy issue and understand the reasoning for the different sides because right now there are a lot of enclaves. Mr. Montalvo stated equalizing taxation between the enclaves and the surrounding area is a way of moving incentives; and they could have a joint policy instead of a County policy.

Mayor Beeler stated the group is talking about equalizing taxes and equalizing other types of issues; one of the things the City sees is it has stronger Code Enforcement than the County; and people want fire and police protection, but not stronger Code Enforcement to limit what they can do with their property. He stated if that could be equalized, it would help because there is a perception by people in enclaves that they can do things that others cannot.

Commissioner Higgs stated the interlocal agreements on provisions of services in particular areas is the first step; and that can be achieved if everyone gets together on reasonable costs and access to services because everyone can do without the pain of annexing. She stated doing the interlocal agreements would be a savings to everybody.

Mayor Willmarth stated the differential between taxation was mentioned; another issue was the differential between the Building Code, Sign Ordinances, and procedures; and suggested working on agreements with the various cities so the rules would be the same in adjacent municipalities.

Dr. deHaven-Smith stated the next question has to do with land use in the cities and County; and inquired if there is a land use policy that promotes or discourages development or channels it into existing municipalities, or do the municipalities have a policy of not opportunistically annexing enclaves with a lot more interest. He stated some places have an urban growth boundary; some places urbanize across the board; and inquired how is space allocated.

Commissioner Scarborough stated there was a concept in Florida about urbanized areas; the Board has preexisting heavy development that runs contrary to the historical concept; and if that concept had been incorporated into growth planning, there would not be some of the problems in the State today. He stated they would have driven heavier development to the cities; what is causing it to occur is water and sewer exclusively; and they get the lowest and worst possible common denominator unless there is water and sewer.

Commissioner Carlson stated comprehensive planning draws the lines and determines the County’s position on zoning; the County is based on the future land use maps; but there is an ability to make things as urbanized as the Board wants; and that is because of a flaw in the State process. She stated if a policy were in place, it would assist in not allowing the Board to urbanize in the County.

Mayor Swank stated that creates a division when the city and the County work together, and the County, in the development process, says it is going to have an area built up and create a municipality without it being a municipality; it pits the County against the cities; the cities are the ones traditionally providing services; and this is driving a wedge rather than helping.

Commissioner Higgs stated land uses should not be driven by the availability of water and sewer; it should be what they want the community to be; and the Board has taken a position that it will not increase the density if schools are overcrowded. She suggested the practice of the cities also not increase density when schools are already overcrowded.

Dr. deHaven-Smith. inquired do the cities extend water in return for annexation and annex in ways that are disruptive to the County’s land use plan. Commissioner Higgs stated cities have annexed property and changed the land use plan from what it was. Dr. deHaven-Smith. stated some predictability is needed to show where the cities will annex and how they will raise densities; and they should not make it urban and opportunistically exceed that. He stated the cities need the ability to expand their borders; that is why he is raising this issue; and he heard that if interlocal agreements could be worked out, this could happen.

Mayor Parrish stated there was a comment about making the area more intense, but in Cocoa there have been instances where they made it less intensive, and it was still fought. She advised of the Florida Association of Counties and State League of Cities meeting last year; and stated there was a feeling that State laws did not allow them to keep up with annexations. She stated they now have urban counties to deal with; trying to undo them would be too hard; and they have to deal with what is there. She stated the City of Cocoa is surrounded by three such areas, Viera, Merritt Island, and Port St. John; the City is built out so it is doing heavy redevelopment; and it has no place to go but into those areas. She commented on the industrial park and contracting with whoever is in the best position to provide services to provide those services. She stated working on long-range planning to provide water at reasonable rates is a positive step; and commented on joint planning agreements.

Dr. deHaven-Smith stated Brevard County is not as far along as other counties; it does not want to go that route; and it can say it has these urbanized areas and does not want to continue this. He stated Cocoa is landlocked; it is surrounded; there are beach cities that have problems; Titusville is in a different situation; and to be able to get a rational policy is going to require differentiation between the cities, which is a hard thing to do.

Mr. Montalvo stated they will see if there are any strategies that can be distilled from the discussion.

Mayor Swank stated as to future boundaries and land use, the City has said its boundaries will be Parrish Road to Kings Highway; they have identified boundaries in the long-term vision, and it is no secret; however, they have not identified any future land use in those areas. He stated that may be something they should do in cooperation with the County so they will understand what the development would be; and one of the concerns they have is the schools. He stated schools are envisioned because Viera is growing; they are saying they want to move schools into Viera; but because Titusville has overpopulated schools, they are not able to develop. He stated because someone decided to put a school in another area, that has created a problem; and water is another controlling factor.

Chairperson Colon stated there has to be a middle ground; coming from a municipality and now sitting as a County Commissioner, she is able to see how critical it is to be able to communicate; the County is 72 miles long and the areas are quite unique; thinking that one solution will fix all is not realistic; so this meeting is very productive. She stated the Commissioners can see the needs of everyone; for the first time they are able to discuss this; she can understand the kind of pressure that the City of Cocoa is under; and this is about the County being able to say how can it help and vice versa.

Mr. Montalvo stated it is a dialogue between the cities and County about how they can help each other.

Mayor Willmarth stated it was mentioned that Broward County is urbanizing everything; Commissioner Pritchard stated Brevard County is where Broward County was in the 1980’s; suggested sitting down with the County to develop a strategic plan, which would project where every city would have control of land decisions; and advised eventually the County will be urbanized where they want it to be.

Mr. Montalvo stated the suggestion was for a city/County strategic plan. Dr. deHaven-Smith advised that could be done with an annexation overlay.

Commissioner Pritchard stated the issue is not developing middle ground, but developing common ground; annexations have been done on the sly; the city wants to get it done before the County finds out or before another city finds out; and usually by the time the County finds out that something is going on, it is well underway. He stated they need to develop a comprehensive strategy; and suggested having a meeting to look at where the cities are going because inevitably the County will be getting out of that kind of business and the cities will be getting into it. He stated he foresees going the way Broward County did; and the County can learn from someone else’s history. He stated schools have a policy of not counting portables as classrooms; and the County has adopted an agreement to not look at funded school construction as being a classroom a year from now. He advised of denial of a rezoning in Merritt Island even though there was a funded school expansion that would be completed before the project was completed. He stated on one hand they are saying classrooms have to be built before development, but the schools are not getting any money until there is development, so it is a catch 22. He suggested a meeting with the cities with an overlay of the County showing where the cities would like to go and where the County may have to dictate the cities are going.

Mr. Montalvo stated the suggestion is the general process of putting cities and counties together including the School Board in this case and letting school-siting drive some of the decisions more than in the past.

Commissioner Pritchard stated school capacity is being used as an unfounded mandate; and commented on portables, funded school expansions, funding for schools, and managing growth. He stated he does not want to see what happened in Broward County. He stated there is a viable community plan saying certain things will go here and the County would like things to go there; it is done with the municipalities; and it is incrementally built up.

Mayor Parrish stated the high school population is up 200 from last year, but there is room; so they do not have that problem at this time. She advised of Merritt Island High School, which historically had portables, got rid of the portables because there were not enough students, and now has portables again and is overcrowded. She stated if the population is going to be elderly and giant schools are being built, they are not going to be needed in 10 to 15 years; and there are knee-jerk reactions to what are perceived as problems but might or might not really be problems.

Mayor Geier stated he wants to touch on comprehensive plans; an annexation may fit under the City’s plan, but when it is annexed the County says it does not fit under the County’s Comprehensive Plan. He advised of the City creating a reserve area for water and sewer and being sued by the County, and being sued over annexation; and stated that does not send a good message. He stated he agrees with Commissioner Pritchard that an overall plan is needed; but the plan would not include annexation; and they have to be able to sit down and make this plan with the County recognizing that eventually everything will have to be in the cities. He stated if they keep putting everything outside the city limits, then there is competition; the County’s impact fees are cheaper than the city’s, so people are going to go to the County, not the city; and things will just keep on the way they always have with problems. He stated if the group does look at a master plan, annexation must be included; it is not going to be easy; Titusville is different than Palm Bay, and Titusville is different than Cocoa; but there are a lot of similar issues. He stated they have so many different priorities; but they have to sit down, make the plan, and be sure everything is included in it.

Commissioner Higgs stated the citizens asked to develop the Comprehensive Plan and Future Land Use Map; that is the way the County has home rule; that is the way the cities have home rule; and when the effect of actions is inconsistent, then there are people in conflict. She stated people care about property abutting them if a development is inconsistent with their property; they hear a lot from cities about home rule; the County feels the same way; but the land belongs to the citizens. She stated the County feels just as much a part of the parcel of land as the cities do in annexation; and she understands it being a conflict when they do not agree; but not everyone wants to live in urbanized areas at four units an acre. She stated the Board feels as responsible for the development of the land as the cities do in their annexations; and it is a sense of reciprocal respect. She stated the idea of everyone going into an incorporated area probably flies in the face of the desires of the citizens; in recent years Merritt Island, Suntree, and Port St. John have said loud and clear they did not want to incorporate; so everyone needs to look at reality and understand what the citizens said.

Mayor Schultz stated there has been a lot of discussion about laying out of the maps, talking to each other, planning urbanized boundaries, and other things; but there is a mechanism already on the books that would call for all that to be done, which is the joint planning agreement. He stated the City of Rockledge has such an agreement with the County; if the County is putting in a development or rezoning something, the County coordinates with the City; and if the City is developing something along County lines, the City is obligated to coordinate and talk to the County on those issues. He stated there has been a lot of discussion about annexation, rules, and regulations; annexation is not black and white; there are mechanisms for pre-annexation agreements to tailor the requirements and make development more acceptable to both parties; and they should avail themselves of those kinds of activities. He stated one thing that has not been mentioned in all the discussions is private property rights; the group keeps talking about urbanizing, drawing boundaries, and emphasizing growth; but even assuming the County and city can agree, if the private property owner does not agree, there is trouble. He stated in the City of Rockledge, they stay away from getting into trouble with property owners; the private property owner has to be considered in all this; the group talks about annexing enclaves and everything else, but it is private property; so it is not as simple as everyone would like it to be.

Dr. deHaven-Smith inquired what urban services is the County currently delivering in the County; is it delivering wastewater treatment and water; is it a service provider like any municipality; and has the County consciously decided that or did it get pulled into it where there was some urbanization. He inquired if there is any opportunity to have the cities deliver some services in the unincorporated area and the County back out of some of those things, or does the County intend just to continue to be involved in urban services across the board.

Commissioner Higgs inquired if the cities want the landfills, animal control, mosquito control, or the libraries. Dr. deHaven-Smith stated the reason he asks is the County has a pretty full plate with streetlights, sidewalks, water, wastewater, etc.

Mayor Geier stated each area is different; the City of Palm Bay does it own sidewalks, public works, and recreation, although the County has some recreational facilities in the area; and it gets down to dollars and cents. He stated they are first responder, but cannot transport; and there is a need to expand with no duplication of services.

Dr. deHaven-Smith stated it is sorted out on a geographic basis; if the County does not have a decision made on getting into delivery of service, it is going to get into it and come into competition; the County is making land use decisions; and service delivery will influence those decisions. He stated the County needs the municipalities to cooperate; and unless they say upfront these are the services they are going to provide and these are the services the County wants the municipalities to provide, they are going to get into fairly intense issues eventually.

Commissioner Carlson stated it is interesting to see how the County has evolved in the urbanized services; EMS is one of the services the County does Countywide; and that was an evolutionary process because it was a level of service and quality of service issue. She stated there are other areas where they provide service countywide due to low cost; and commented on the Sheriff’s office and each municipality having its own police department. She stated the Sheriff’s office has a huge budget, but there are police departments in every municipality. She stated it has everything to do with money and the cost of doing business; some things the cities want to do themselves; some things they would prefer the County to do; it would be a healthy conversation to look at all the services to find out if the cities want to provide those services at a potentially higher cost; and if that is what the cities prefer, that is what the County could do.

Mayor Swank stated the City of Titusville has been negotiating for a joint planning agreement for a couple of years; and only two or three cities in the County have been able to successfully negotiate a JPA with the County. He inquired how the County Commissioners feel about the Broward model versus the County as a municipal service provider.

Commissioner Pritchard stated he lived the Broward experience, and is aware of the Broward model; when he first met Dr. deHaven-Smith in 1985, it was at a similar forum talking about the same issues; and it ended up that Broward County, after trying to go Countywide on just about everything, only did a few services. Dr. deHaven-Smith stated Broward County has a Countywide impact fee, does transportation planning Countywide, and has a regional road network; and it has impact fees for roads and schools. Commissioner Pritchard stated cities need to take control of their own destinies and decide where they anticipate growth and annexation; but there is an issue with property rights. He stated some people would like to remain on five acres, and not have to rezone to meet a city’s policy that there will not be more than 2.5-acre plots, for example; and if an overlay is placed on the map for annexation possibilities and everyone looks at a plan of development, it is going to prevent conflicts or having two malls almost next door to each other, and there will be an easier adaptation to provide common services. He commented on cities saying they want to maintain their own fire department or funding additional officers or EMS units; and stated there are options that are available within a Countywide system, but they need to be driven by the municipalities so everyone has an idea of where the municipalities would like to go.

Mayor Schultz stated the County provides city level services across the entire County; it did not happen overnight, but was an evolutionary thing that started 100 years ago; and he does not care whose fault it was, but it is problematic for those in cities. He stated it is not a viable alternative for the City of Rockledge to take over provision of garbage services in Viera or Suntree; he wishes there had been a conscious decision to have municipal services provided by municipalities, and have the County stick to Countywide services; but it is not that way and he does not think it will change because there is too much involved in the way of investment, time, and history.

Mayor Parrish stated it has been a gradual thing, but it is going over the top now; and cities are trying to compete directly for municipal services. She stated people pay extra to live in the city; and commented on the County providing paramedics and other services, and the feeling that the County is taking the city’s money to do that. She stated she does not see the County stepping out of municipal services and just handling jails, schools, libraries and roads; but the cities are starting to get upset. She stated they are trying to take control of their cities; they do not want to be stopped or threatened by lawsuits; and as much as the County and the municipalities cooperate in some areas, there are other areas where they have a long way to go. She stated she agrees the City should expand and the County should remain in the Countywide services area.

Chairperson Colon stated there is an opportunity to pick what kind of community the County will become; and after eight years of public service, she has witnessed different philosophies as far as elected officials. She stated there are some from the old school who do not want to see any changes; but there is now a more cooperative climate; and they have to figure at what point they want to grow up. She stated pointing fingers is not going to accomplish anything; the reality is the elected officials all serve the same taxpayers; and the voters are watching. She stated people came to Brevard County because they escaped from other areas; she wants to be able to talk about solutions; the discussion today has allowed her to be sensitive to the municipalities; but by the same token, the municipalities need to be sensitive to what the County is going through. She commented on the mental health workshop where the Board was shown the kind of community it was going to become; stated this is serious and costing a lot of money; and the County has not done a good enough job explaining to the municipalities the demands that are on the County’s shoulders.

Mr. Montalvo stated there is a need for mutual sensitivity and a common base of understanding.

Mayor Willmarth stated they were asked for areas where they thought there had been successful cooperation in the past; they had umbrella services of solid waste and the library system, which provide services to all the citizens in the incorporated and unincorporated areas; that is properly the function of county government; but he questions whether the County wants to get into the level of developing lots that are high density .16 acre, which is a traditional urban responsibility. He stated in West Melbourne there are not a lot of 2.5-acre lots; the City needs a place for people; 2.5 acres used to be the standard for building in the County; and maybe they need to go back to that arrangement.

Mayor Buckley stated a year ago when he asked the Legislative Delegation to consider something in the way of annexation, they laughed about it; this year there are some new people on the Delegation who were more sensitive to the issue; and inquired what Dr. deHaven-Smith thinks the prospects are for legislation this year. Dr. deHaven-Smith stated there is opportunity this year for some change to the annexation law; this is the most movement on the issue he has seen since he began following it; and two things are being proposed, one a requirement to get rid of every enclave in the State, and the other to change the way the annexations are reviewed. He stated right now all that is considered is whether the annexation is compact and contiguous; and the counties want it to be reviewed in terms of financial impact on the counties and not just geographic shape.

Mr. Montalvo stated this was a very good discussion; and some issues are tougher than others.

Dr. deHaven-Smith stated the group has made a lot of progress; right off the bat it talked about doing interlocal agreements and working out the tax and service issues with enclaves; and if the group can do the same kind of thing in a joint planning agreement around the cities, it can solve the problems without adding to the force of annexation.

The Summit recessed at 2:40 p.m. and reconvened at 3:00 p.m.

DISCUSSION, RE: ANNEXATION STRATEGIES

Mr. Montalvo suggested the group focus on the annexation issues and then move on to some productive next steps in the dialogue that started earlier; and stated the broad question is what sort of issues are arising with annexation in Brevard County and how might the County and the cities address those issues.

Dr. deHaven-Smith stated there was talk about the possibility of using MSTU’s and enforcing Codes consistent with the cities in some of the enclaves; the same thing could be done in future annexation areas developed by joint planning agreements around the cities without doing any annexation; and if people are encouraged to get into the cities, that would also equalize and disburse the cost more fairly. He stated the other option is to identify future annexation areas in an orderly way; and the problem is getting the cities to agree not to annex involuntarily in an opportunistic way. He inquired if the group wants to go the annexation route or the service delivery route, and are there places where the cities can see a need to annex and other places where the County could do it just as well. He stated the cities can negotiate with the County on land use on the borders so they are consistent with the cities and not have to worry about annexation; and the Comprehensive Plan of the County would have to take into account the future needs of the cities.

Commissioner Pritchard inquired if Dr. deHaven-Smith is getting back to the question of whether to adopt the Broward model or have future discussion. He stated there are several municipalities that have the opportunity for westward and northward expansion; they tend to border on the west side of the Indian River; Cocoa Beach has a couple of small enclaves; and he is encouraging the small half-block enclave to be annexed by the City, but the larger ones like Snug Harbor have demonstrated an unwillingness to be annexed. He commented on the South Beach area, Merritt Island, Port St. John, Scottsmoor, and areas like that, which wish to stay as they are, unincorporated but using city and County services. He stated areas like Palm Bay, Melbourne, Rockledge, Cocoa, Titusville, and the west side of the Indian River have opportunities for westward expansion; and suggested the Board meet with representatives of those five cities to look at an overlay and get some idea of what the cities would like to do in terms of potential annexation areas. He stated the idea is to not have a competition down the road with back door dealings; it is sort of identified who may be going where; and if a developer comes in and a development overlaps two boundaries, it would be up to the cities to develop whatever they could work out. Mr. Montalvo inquired which five cities Commissioner Pritchard was referring to; with Commissioner Pritchard responding it is six cities, Palm Bay, Melbourne, Rockledge, West Melbourne, Cocoa, and Titusville. Commissioner Pritchard suggested representatives of the six cities, the five County Commissioners and assorted staff meet and get an idea of what the cities have in mind; and he would like to see that happen in the very near future.

Mayor Swank stated the question was how they felt about the Broward model versus the County providing the services; with Mr. Montalvo responding they will leave the question out and the Commissioners can choose to answer if they want.

Commissioner Carlson stated from a County Commission perspective, it is not always known what the cities want or how to define the rural aspects of what exists out there because the County is pretty much in control of that; and it would behoove the County to look deeper into the issue utilizing the land use process and maximizing so the County can request from the cities whether there are boundaries they are looking at. She stated each city would like to have green area around it to some extent; but in some cases it would not work because it is urbanized too much. She stated there are natural buffers on the mainland, which are the St. Johns River and the Indian River Lagoon; the County is going to grow all the way to those if it continues the way it is going; and there is a need to address the urban growth boundary definition. She stated she also wanted to discuss development of an enclave policy; the problem is a property is not an enclave until it is developed; a piece of property completely surrounded by a city is just a piece of property, not an enclave; but once it is developed, it is an enclave. She stated Post Commons is an enclave that is developed, but that was the choice of a private property owner; and if there had been an enclave policy of some sort, that could have been considered and incentives could have been crated so the enclaves did not exist and were not created naturally.

Commissioner Higgs stated in the few years she has been on the Board, there have only been two annexations that were contentious; there were strong feelings about those; and they can do a better job in terms of working together on service areas. She stated in response to Mayor Swank’s comments, the people on the South Mainland that she represents are in the historic communities of Grant, Micco, and Valkaria; and they would not find it consistent with their view to be annexed. She stated they have spent considerable time with the citizens trying to develop how they want their communities to look; they have done a lot of planning and talking; and annexation is not their view of where they want their world to go. She stated she would be very careful in working on that; but they should all work on agreements for delivery of services; and if those can be done, there could be some significant savings of money and do a better job for the citizens.

Commissioner Scarborough this is great coming together today; but before they leave, they need to decide to work together at fundamental levels.

Mayor Swank stated the Space Coast League of Cities has an intergovernmental relations committee; there was talk at the last meeting about restructuring it to have conversations with the County; and the point that has been brought out today is that communications is the biggest problem. He stated if they could continue the dialogue, it would make the whole process easier; and that is the key. He stated they have moved closer to understanding the other side’s issues; and they have made progress today.

Mayor Parrish stated she does not want to leave behind equalizing County and city codes and fees; that would be critical in defining boundaries and not being able to play one against the other; and commented on delivery of services and looking for a better delivery system for services.

Dr. deHaven-Smith stated there is a visioning process going on; and he was wondering if what was discussed today would properly go to that group, with one thing being taken up by the County and the cities dealing with each other. He stated it sounds like the cities deal with each other; and inquired if there are specific things that have been discussed today that need to be sent to the subcommittee.

Commissioner Carlson advised three of the five workgroups are trying to help; there are four city managers in the Governance Work Group, so much of what is being heard today will be relayed there; this should provide a conduit to get that information to that group; and some of these things might be part of the action plan.

Mayor Parrish stated she knows that Brevard Tomorrow is something Commissioner Carlson has worked very hard on, but there is no buy-in by the cities; and it is a limited group being represented, so she is not sure it is broad-based enough, although it is intended to be. She stated there is a feeling that this is going to be placed on people instead of allowing participation.

Mr. Montalvo stated part of the conclusions today went to that process.

Commissioner Carlson stated a lot of the issues that have been discussed today were part of the group discussions of the leadership as a whole; everyone had an opportunity to be part of the process; what came out of it was strategic planning elements; and the implementation is what is occurring now. She stated there has been considerable buy-in by cities throughout the community; but there are still impressions out there. She stated it is a large process and project; and they will have to wait until it finishes to see what happens.

Mayor Geier suggested following up on Commissioner Pritchard’s suggestion on the six cities, including all five Commissioners with one to bring back the report to the Board, with 180 days time span for the report.

Commissioner Pritchard stated there are five County Commissioners present, and this is a publicly advertised meeting, so he is assuming he can make a motion. Other Commissioners indicated that is not the case. Commissioner Pritchard stated if they don’t meet with the six municipalities that have ideas of annexation and controlling their destiny within the next 30 days, then they are doing a disservice to one of the purposes of today’s meeting. He stated he would like to contact the six municipalities and schedule a meeting; and he would like to have the five County Commissioners and the six municipalities be participants, so they can look at the County and make decisions on where the destinies of the cities lie. He stated they can work out something and have some idea of how to better prepare for future planning, including the Comprehensive Plan, land management practices, and everything that goes with that. He stated the idea is to delineate some idea of where the cities are moving.

Chairperson Colon stated elected officials come and go, so it would be critical to make sure the meetings are with the City Managers; that is what she does now; she meets with the City Managers and the County Manager; this is working already with Palm Bay, Melbourne, West Melbourne, and Indian Harbour Beach. She stated the City Managers are able to give the entire history and the bigger picture.

Commissioner Pritchard suggested it be the City Manager as well as the elected representatives to attend the meeting; the City Manager has the day-to-day administrative skills; the elected official is representative of the body; and with both the political and administrative sides, it would be the best of both worlds.

Commissioner Higgs stated each city has a comprehensive plan that outlines some of the things to be done; there are 500,000 people in the County; 250,000 of those are in the unincorporated area; and they want to know what the plans are. She stated there is a need to acknowledge clearly today that any discussions will come before the bodies and be part of the public process.

Commissioner Pritchard stated it is a lengthy process; and it is best to start now.

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Dr. deHaven-Smith stated among the next steps that were highlighted were: (1) further exploration of enclave policy focused on equalizing services and costs between the enclave and the surrounding area, (2) a meeting between the County and the six cities to begin to sort out the destinies of all involved, (3) the public process that recognizes those solutions can be brought back through the comprehensive planning process and involve the citizens of the cities and counties, and (4) the strongly expressed desires to continue the dialogue. He stated they have heard repeatedly that just having the dialogue has made everyone aware of the concerns of others around the table; and there is some value in continuing the dialogue and doing it in a slightly different way that is more communicative. He inquired if anyone has any reservations about saying those are the directions coming out of this discussion; and no response was heard.

OVERVIEW OF STRATEGIES AND NEXT STEPS

Dr. deHaven-Smith stated he has studied this issue around the State and worked with groups frequently on this; and he has some observations. He stated the members of the group get along on most things; there is regular cooperation going on; and he does not sense any deep embittered feelings, that are normally present, so the group is in good shape in terms of emotional rapport. He stated there is a great deal of cooperation going on; even the annexation stuff is only contentious in isolated instances; but it is necessary to deal with some of this or there will be some serious problems. He stated what happens is people leaving these meetings expect change; and if it does not happen, they get upset and frustrated. He stated sometimes there is a need to make some changes; in this particular area he has seen disagreement about a general direction of the County and the role some of the cities are going to play. He stated the City of Cocoa was well represented today; Mayor Parrish spoke cogently about the problems and difficulties that the city faces; and the concern on the other side is not to put people in cities who do not want to be there. He stated they have to work out these plans in advance; they cannot just go jerking things around; so it is a fairly fundamental question. He suggested beginning the process; stated Cocoa and the problem are not going to go away; and the cities are important to the future of the County. He suggested figuring out which cities are in the most trouble and need the most and be very supportive of them because if a city does not do well, it hurts the entire County. He stated citizens do not identify with counties; they identify with cities; if someone is coming to the County and there is a city that is not working out that is the way into the community, that is what they are going to see; and suggested having a sense of urgency in seeing about that. He stated he realizes the cities think the County is getting out of the urban services, but he did not hear that; he heard a lot of support for individual cities or groups of cities working with individual Commissioners to craft interlocal shared services agreements potentially in select geographic areas; but he did not hear anyone say anything about getting the County out of services. He stated one final piece of advice is to find something that can be done, do it, and be successful; and at the meeting that is coming up, if one small thing can be done such as a future annexation boundary, that could be an exemplar for future activity. He stated there have been successes; but the issues about the future, what the cities are going to do, who is managing growth, and is it bad growth management to let part of the County come into the city and increase density or is it a good thing, need to be dealt with. He noted the group will not be able to deal with that in a single meeting; but it can take a little piece of it and do it; and then use that. He inquired if there are any questions. He stated he is an outsider; and it is great to come down from Tallahassee and act like an expert. He stated the group has done a brave thing coming together as elected officials and meeting in an open session with open communication. He noted elected officials can redraw the future annexations, but managers will not be able to do that; and while the managers are important, ultimately the elected officials have to make the decisions.

Commissioner Pritchard stated Dr. deHaven-Smith has been doing this for over 20 years.

Mayor Geier thanked Commissioner Colon and the rest of the Board, Dr. deHaven-Smith, and Mr. Montalvo for the great meeting today.

Chairperson Colon stated she hopes everyone is leaving with a sense of urgency; she will be getting together with the City of Melbourne to look at the numbers; everyone is going to be busy; and thanked everyone for attending the Summit. She stated this is the first of many summits; one of the things discussed was school capacity; and in the Fall, the School Board will be meeting with the elected officials.

“Proud to be an American” was performed by Brevard County Code Enforcement Director Bobby Bowen.

The Summit was adjourned at 3:40 p.m.

ATTEST: _________________________________
JACKIE COLON, CHAIRPERSON BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA
____________________
SCOTT ELLIS, CLERK
(S E A L)