Media Update

By Ron Cunningham
Editorial page editor

Well, this will certainly be an interesting election.

And I'm not even talking about all the stuff at the top of the ticket.

No, dig a little deeper in your November ballot and you'll encounter the latest salvos in the ongoing city-county taxes and turf wars.

First will be the County Commission's "in your face, Gainesville" road tax.

Rammed through over the strenuous objections of six of the seven Gainesville city commissioners because it is heavily loaded in favor of the suburbs to the detriment of the urban core.

It could have been a collaborative effort, but that's not the way we "do" local government here.

Still, this won't be a one-sided battle. The city will be playing offense as well as defense.

If city commissioners have their way there will be some annexation bids on the ballot as well, the latest attempt by Gainesville to eat into Alachua County's suburban property tax base.

City commissioners will say it's all about bringing quality urban services to badly underserved west Gainesville. But, really, it's a turf and taxes grab.

In your face, Alachua County.

The thing is, if history is any indication, these latest city-county battles will be fought to a draw.

Voters here are not big on road taxes; at least two previous transportation sales tax initiatives have failed. And if this latest one is as loaded against Gainesville as it appears, it is almost certainly doomed because county-wide tax initiatives never pass without heavy Gainesville support.

As for Gainesville annexation, it fails far more often then not.

If past is prologue, the county public employee unions will campaign successfully against "liberal Gainesville" trying to put their deputies and firefighters out of work.

But here's the really interesting dynamic playing out in this latest round of turf and tax wars.

There's another gang in play.

Also on the November ballot will be proposed state constitutional Amendment No. 4, the latest in a continuing wave of property tax relief initiatives.

And they almost always pass.

The gang behind Amendment 4 is the Legislature, whose members care nothing at all about local government finances. They just like to pass out tax breaks like party favors.

"Amendment 4 goes before Florida voters in November at a time when the recession has forced county and city governments to trim spending over the past five years by $3 billion," reports the Tampa Bay Times. "If the amendment passes, they'll have to cut another $600 million by 2015, according to a legislative analysis, with more to come."

Tallahassee to the locals: In your face.

All of which means that while our city-county turf and taxes wars will almost certainly continue, there will be fewer taxes to squabble over in years to come.

At some point, perhaps it will occur to us that maintaining our system of rival, duplicative local governments is a waste of our diminishing tax dollars.

That we're paying for more city-county competition than we need or can afford.

The property tax revolt is all about doing more with less.

How about less local government for starters?

By Cindy Swirko
Staff writer

Angel was minutes away from death, on the euthanasia table at Alachua County Animal Services, when she pawed her way to a new life.

When Angel started pawing lovingly at the staffers, they said they could not bear to inject the deadly chemicals. Now the buff-colored shepherd mix is alive and well, in the arms of a rescue group.

"The dog was just breaking their hearts," said Animal Services interim Director Vernon Sawyer. "They noticed it was a real sweet dog, no real behavioral issues. It was putting its paw on them and wanting to love on them. They sent out photos and pleas for help with this dog. We've had a rescue group and individuals wanting to help out."

Angel has been at Animal Services about a week. She was a stray found with a puppy around the Lubee Bat Conservancy in northeastern Alachua County. It is not known if the puppy, which resembles a yellow labrador, is Angel's baby.

Angel has heartworms, a deadly parasite that is costly to treat. Dogs with heartworms are not adopted to the general public, Animal Services staff said, but they are available to rescue groups that will have them treated.

Under county ordinances, a dog must be kept at Animal Services at least three business days if there is no evidence that it is owned, five days if ownership evidence exists and seven days if the animal has a current license.

None of the local groups took Angel, and she was scheduled for euthanasia Thursday.

"I was in the room with her. We couldn't do it. It was just one of those you couldn't do," shelter supervisor Jessica Lauginiger said. "It does happen, not every day, but it does happen."

Sawyer said that since he became interim director several months ago, he told staff that if any animal is on the euthanize list but a plan for saving the animal can be developed, the animal should be spared until other remedies are exhausted.

In the first quarter of the year, the agency took in 1,215 animals. Of those, 139 were returned to their owner, 451 were taken by rescue groups, 175 were adopted at the shelter, and 356 were euthanized, Sawyer said.

Animal Services distributes a list of dogs that are slated for euthanasia to rescue groups. Lauginiger and adoption coordinator Dwinnie Slade sent out an email specifically about Angel's near-death experience along with photos.

Sawyer said a Tallahassee-area rescue group called New Kingdom Destiny has agreed to take Angel.

"She needed help, and we just feel fortunate that we are able to give her the help that she needs," New Kingdom owner Karlene Deware said. "We will get her accustomed to being with people again and medical care. At that point, we'll evaluate her, and if we feel she can go somewhere else, we'll try to get her a home. If she has to stay with us, that's fine."

Meanwhile, Sawyer said a local veterinarian will treat Angel for heartworms at a greatly reduced rate.

The puppy is available for adoption at Animal Services.

"It's possible the puppy is Angel's. The puppy is in our adoptable area. She is young enough that she wouldn't have the heartworms yet," Lauginiger said.

The Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE — Florida lawmakers may give a last-minute budget break to the state's court clerks.

A new state budget that takes effect on July 1 reduces the budget of court clerks by nearly $30 million. Court clerks have already announced that the cut is forcing them to lay off hundreds of employees, close branch offices and curtail office hours.

But a legislative panel is being asked to allow court clerks to spend additional money to cover the gap. The panel may meet later this month to consider the proposal.

A spokesman for Gov. Rick Scott said that the governor has already signed off on the proposal because the money would come from court fees and fines and not the state's main budget account.

County court clerks handle everything from court files, traffic tickets, and child support. The budget for the clerks, however, is set by the Florida Legislature.

Many clerks have already announced their plans to deal with the budget cut. But clerks say that if lawmakers approve the budget fix they can at least start filling some positions.

"It gives you the opportunity to start ramping up again," said Sarasota County Clerk of the Court Karen Rushing.

Palm Beach County Clerk of the Court Sharon Bock said the extra money would prompt her to reconsider a decision to shorten the hours her office is open to the public. She pared back the hours to ensure she is not paying overtime to have employees process last-minute court filings.

For years, there has been a tug of war over the budget of the court clerks. Florida lawmakers have controlled the overall budget of the clerks since 2009, even though the clerks are elected officials.

When budget negotiations finally ended this spring the amount of tax dollars going to the clerks was cut.

Lawmakers made the cuts even though clerks warned the decision would force them to concentrate more on criminal cases than civil cases because most criminal cases have strict deadlines. Some of the types of cases that could be impacted by the budget cuts include foreclosure cases, landlord tenant cases and even some of the processing involved in child support cases.

The Legislative Budget Commission is tentatively scheduled to meet on June 26 where it would give clerks the ability to spend up to $29.5 million that could be generated by fees and fines. Legislators this year passed two bills that were designed to help the clerks collect money owed to the court.

By Sean P. McCrory
Staff writer

The Alachua County Commission has agreed to move forward toward putting a three-fourths-cent transportation sales-tax referendum on the November ballot — but again with a prohibition on transit spending.

The commission on Tuesday voted 3-2, with Commissioners Lee Pinkoson and Mike Byerly voting in dissent, to hold a public hearing on July 10 to consider a 15-year tax to improve county and municipal roads. In a nod to Gainesville city commissioners, who had urged the commission to reconsider how tax revenues would be spent, county commissioners did agree to eliminate the ban on using tax revenues for sidewalks.

This past Thursday, city commissioners had voted to request that the county reconsider its 3-2 decision last month to spike a quarter-cent sales tax referendum for the city’s bus system. As an alternative, city commissioners voted unanimously to push for more of the tax revenues and for lifting the ban on sidewalks included in the county’s pavement-only approach.

County commissioners on Tuesday discussed the proposal for almost three hours before moving forward with the three-fourths-cent referendum that did not include transit spending.

Before voting against the proposal, Byerly argued for reinstating sidewalk funding, noting that sidewalks represented a “tiny amount” of the transportation budget — less than 1 percent.

“In fact … 0.16 percent is the amount of total transportation funding that the county has spent on sidewalks and bike paths in the last 20 years,” he said.

Pinkoson opposed including the city’s bus rapid transit (BRT) proposals in the tax referendum, saying he wanted additional analysis of the city’s plans so the financial impact would be clearer.

“Most people wouldn’t make an investment based upon this type of information,” Pinkoson said, to which Commissioner Paula DeLaney responded: “But you don’t have confidence that the citizens wouldn’t?”

Pinkoson then responded loudly, saying, “OK, now I’m tired of that, Paula. I’m really sick and tired of that, because what this is, essentially, is you’re putting out a concept without the information that comes back behind, and quite honestly, I think it’s misleading to put a concept out where people really don’t understand the implications of their vote and say, ‘OK, we want you to vote on this concept.’”

Commissioner Susan Baird continued to oppose including transit projects in the tax referendum, saying the bulk of the money should be spent on improving county roads.

“It is a very difficult decision, a difficult situation; however I think we started out with something really very simple, and that was just a way to fix our roads,” she said.

Commissioner Winston Bradley, who had been criticized at Thursday’s City Commission meeting for being in the majority that voted to kill the transit tax, suggested that the county instead consider an infrastructure tax and leave consideration of BRT for the future.

Bradley dropped that suggestion after it was pointed out how cumbersome such a process would be, though he criticized the city for what he said was its unwillingness to compromise.

“The city decided that what they want is what they want, and they’re not willing to compromise at all, on anything,” he said.

The tax now will move closer to being voted on in November, though DeLaney said she thinks its chances of passing are slim to none.

“I don’t think this tax moving forward in its current configuration has a chance in the world,” she said.

By Jon Silman
Staff writer

The deputies came for them before dawn, hoping to catch them napping. They carried telescoping poles with hooks so they could roust them from their roosts in the trees.

Neighbors say the feral chickens have roamed the Newnan's Lake neighborhood around Southeast 73rd Terrace for decades, part of the fabric of this semi-rural enclave where goats are not uncommon sights and lawn care is decidedly optional.

A rash of noise complaints — at least 60 since January from a recent arrival — have forced the government to act on an issue that has been percolating since at least 2010.

And so at 4:30 a.m. on Friday, deputies — trailed by a crying resident toting a videocamera — began snaring the squawking birds, putting them in cages to be shipped to farms farther out in the country.

But dozens of the wild chickens remain, as does the bad blood among some neighbors.|

Caught in the middle are the deputies and code enforcement officials who are trying to balance their duties and the county ordinances with the wishes of residents who say they just want to retain their neighborhood's unique character.

Joy Drawdy, the neighbor with the video camera, says the problem started when Jennifer Van Bergen moved in less than a year ago.

Van Bergen said she has called the Sheriff's Office "dozens of times" because her next-door neighbors, Michael Roth and Betty Taylor-Roth, own a rooster that routinely wakes her up at 4 or 5 in the morning.

She denies, however, being responsible for the recent rooster roundup.

"I'm being blamed for it," she said in a phone interview. "I had no direct involvement in the removal of the chickens."

The legal issues with Michael Roth and Betty Taylor-Roth predate Van Bergen's arrival, records show. An Alachua County Code Enforcement Board meeting agenda from 2010 notes that the couple were cited for raising livestock or poultry on parcels less than the required five acres.

Betty Taylor-Roth said she does not own chickens, but she does leave food out for the neighborhood ones.

Code Enforcement disagrees, and records show the Roths were found guilty in April and fined $100 a day and $420 in court costs.

Alachua County Zoning Administrator Benny Beckham said complaints against the Roths for noise continued and that enforcement officer Leroy Frazier recently talked with a deputy about removing the chickens.

"Codes enforcement asked us to assist them," Alachua County Sheriff's spokesman Art Forgey said. "That's why they went out there at 4:30 in the morning.''

Drawdy said the deputies came out Friday afternoon and warned that they would be by later that night to snatch the sleeping poultry. She said they told her they were going to grab only roosters and not hens.

Drawdy recorded the incident to make sure it was done humanely.

She said the whole thing was unnecessary. The neighbors, she said, would have taken care of the issue on their own.

That point is subject to some debate, however, as deputies and code officials note the dispute shows little sign of abating.

Forgey, who noted that Van Bergen has called deputies at least 60 times since Jan. 1, said his agency is "the catch-all in this problem. We've been wrapped up in the middle of it."