Volusia County voters will decide this November whether to create a conservation lands registry that would require a supermajority vote from council members in order to remove, sell or transfer any listed lands.
Seven representatives serve on the Volusia County Council, so a supermajority vote would require votes of approval from five of them. Right now, state statute allows for council members to sell any county-owned lands with a simple majority vote: four of seven votes, in Volusia’s case.
The supermajority threshold would not apply in cases of eminent domain, or any time a listed property is “being used for a public purpose by the County,” according to the ballot proposal drafted by the county’s charter review commission.
The proposal has raised concern from some residents, particularly in regards to its “public purpose” clause. In recent council meetings, drainage easements, fire stations and solar farms have been mentioned in discussions about what might qualify as a “public purpose.”
“I don't want to put words in their mouth, but I think what the charter review commission was looking at was … not boxing us in,” said Assistant County Attorney John Chumley at a May 19 council meeting. “If those lands could be used for something like, say, a fire station or something like that, to serve that area, that we wouldn’t be accidentally hemmed in.”
Speaking at Tuesday night’s council meeting, Resident Catherine Pante made an impassioned plea for council members to advance an alternate ballot question: one without an exemption allowing for conservation lands to be used for a “public purpose.”
“We need a competing ordinance to make the bad one fail,” Pante said. “Selling is not the main problem. It is the ‘county purpose’ loophole.”
Rather than enhancing protection for conservation land, Pante argued, the proposed amendment would be “a gift” for those seeking to develop it.
“The council would not need to sell conservation land, if it could simply repurpose it for whatever uses it chooses without meaningful oversight,” Pante said.
Council Chair Jeffrey Brower wanted to advance a ballot question that would require an unanimous vote from council members to sell or transfer conservation lands, and would not establish a registry. But council members voted 4-2, with one member absent, to table that proposal indefinitely.
Some council members and charter review commission members said Tuesday that two competing ballot questions about the same issue would likely cancel each other out. That’s what happened in 2006, when Volusia voters rejected two ballot questions about a proposed urban growth boundary.
“Historically, when we've had opposing amendments on a ballot, they've both failed,” said District 5 Councilmember David Santiago. “Because it has confused the people. And I'm not saying that people are not smart. I think they probably just get frustrated: ‘this makes no sense, I'm going to say no to both.’”
RELATED: Following public outcry, elected leaders delay talk on Volusia Forever
Resident Gary Singleton is among those concerned about what the proposal might mean for the future of lands protected through Volusia Forever.
“Forever means forever, not until a group of politicians can vote to remove it,” Singleton said. “This amendment would allow politicians to do as they want, not what citizens voted for.”
Singleton and several other residents said they’d rather see an amendment requiring voters — not just council members — to approve selling or changing the use of any conservation lands. The county’s legal experts have said they believe state law would preempt such an amendment.
Volusia County voters will get to weigh in on the proposal on Nov. 3.
