11/19/2013AP - Laserfiche WebLink

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The Board, at its August 20th meeting,requested that the County Attorney's Office and the District staff work with City of Fellsmere staff to resolve this issue. In an abundance of caution,the County Attorney's Office requested that the matter be brought to a court of competent jurisdiction by October 1, 2013. However, in an attempt to avoid spending public funds on litigation, the Board requested that the City of Fellsmere City Council waive any potential defense based upon the statute of limitations in order to allow time for discussions between the staffs. The Fellsmere City Council granted this request on September 5th and the County Attorney's Office and District staff, and the City Manager and the City Attorney met. The City Manager did not raise any complaint with respect to the fees charged by the District. Additionally,the District offered to have a fire safety inspector stationed in Fellsmere twice a week and have a fire safety inspector also available by appointment on other days. The City Manager acknowledged that the City's Building Official is only present one day per week. The City Manager stated that his main concern was with the District's interpretation of the Florida Fire Prevention Code. In order to resolve the issue, the City Manager requested that the District Board be expanded to include two representatives from municipalities located within the District. Unless the Board retained the authority to approve the District's budget,the District would no longer be a dependant district but an independent district, requiring approval from the Legislature. The second option discussed would be for the City of Fellsmere to withdraw from the District, pursuant to Section 208.08 of the Indian River County Code of Ordinances, and then enter into an .. interlocal agreement between the City and the District with respect to those services that the City needs from the District. The fee to be charged to the City for all of the other District services would need to be determined,but has been estimated by the District staff to be over$1.5 million per year. Finally, we discussed the option of seeking an opinion from the Attorney General's Office. However,the City Manager and City Attorney were not supportive of seeking a non-binding opinion from the State. The District staff has analyzed the two options discussed with the City of Fellsmere and does not support either option. First, changing the membership of the Board undermines the concept of a single,unified and consolidated District, which was overwhelmingly approved by the voters of the District. Plus the proposed change would give more power to those citizens in the two member municipalities and dilute the power of the other citizens of the District. Right now,the voters vote for each of the five Board members. However, if two municipal members are added,then only the voters of Fellsmere and the other chosen municipality would be able to vote for six members of the Board, while the other voters of Indian River County would only be able to vote for five of the members. There are four municipalities within the District,which raises the question of which two municipalities would be chosen for Board membership. It is important to note that Fellsmere has the third largest population and fourth largest taxable value of the four municipalities in the District. The proposed selection of Fellsmere over either the City of Vero Beach or the City of Sebastian would seem to under-represent those cities. Under the current structure,Fellsmere residents,like all other residents of the District, get to elect all five (5) members of the Emergency Services District 155