Commissioner Robinson has put forth several proposals in an attempt to compromise with folks who prefer to have a ballot initiative.
The frustrating thing for me to watch is the fact that I think both parties want the same thing--open areas of the beach to be preserved for the use and enjoyment of the public.
The draft resolution, below, may just do the trick. The full BCC will have to weigh-in--but this could be it, this could be the "Beach Breakthrough" we have all been waiting for
We shall see......
4 comments:
Is a benefit of making the leases Fee Simple to provide more revenue in the coffers for ad valorem than the leases? In some ways I wish the Island had never been leased but it is.
Chairman Bergosh,
Thank you for posting this, and for your leadership in trying to find the language to bring all concerned parties together and more importantly, to preserve in perpetuity the public spaces at Pensacola Beach. The only concern I can see is that it could possibly be changed at some point in the future with a unanimous vote by the BCC. I would hope the District 4 vote would always be no, but sometime things change when there is enough numbers after a dollar sign.
No we don't want to give our beach away.
I don't think there are 3 votes on the board to move this to a ballot measure. I believe that working together to find a compromise that states that we, the BCC, will hold wide swaths of Pensacola Beach as a preservation area going forward is the way to go. Now, there is validity to the notion that a future board could undo this. However, even if a ballot initiative were added--what would happen subsequently if the fee simple bill once again was passed, succeeded in the House and Senate, and was passed into law, signed by President Trump? Then what would happen to the ballot measure that, by all accounts, would pass here locally if the BCC put the question to the voters? I think the Federal law would outweigh and trump (pardon the pun) the local ballot initiative even if it passed by a huge margin--but I'm not a lawyer so I don't know for sure how that would play..... Maybe someone should ask a lawyer this question......
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