The Flagler Beach City Commission on Thursday tabled its proposed annexation of the Veranda Bay land parcel until next month, as a result of a legal threat sent just the day before. The letter containing the threat, addressed to Mayor Patti King and distributed to the City Commission Wednesday afternoon, was sent at such a time as to force the City Commission to only approve the annexation if they felt completely confident the lawsuit had no standing. The commissioners weren’t noticeably shaken by the letter, but they agreed it needed to be reviewed before a vote.
The letter in question was written on behalf of the nonprofit Preserve Flagler Beach & Bulow Creek and Stephen Noble, a resident of John Anderson Highway. Its author is S. Brent Spain, a land use attorney with the firm Theriaque and Spain. Spain stated in the letter that he was unable to attend the Thursday meeting himself, but his presence was substituted by a massive crowd of community members, most of whom seemed to be anti-annexation. As the item was tabled, none had the opportunity to share their thoughts with the City Commission.
Chair Scott Spradley brought up the letter at the beginning of Thursday’s meeting, stating that he felt tabling the motion was wise. He made it clear that neither he nor the Commission as a body knew whether or not the legal threat had any merit, but held that until it could be examined by City Attorney Drew Smith and the legal representatives of the proposed community’s developers, it was best to hold off on approving or disapproving. “If this threat had come up a month or two months ago, we would have digested it, we would’ve decided what if any action we should take,” Spradley said. “We would’ve decided whether that should affect our decision to annex Veranda Bay or not.”
Commissioner Rick Belhumeur motioned to table the agenda item until the next meeting on January 23rd, at 5:30 pm. Commissioner Eric Cooley seconded. Without any opposition from any of the commissioners, the motion to table passed unanimously. Regardless of how each commissioner stands on the issue or how seriously they take the threat, none were so bold as to want to vote in the face of a potential lawsuit.
“This has been pending for many months,” Spradley said on Thursday. “There have been challenges all along the way, both to the city and Veranda Bay. We’ve gotten it to this point, I don’t see anything short of what’s happened with this threat of a lawsuit that would kick [the can] even further down the road.”
Advocates against the annexation, many of them opposing it on environmental conservation grounds, were reservedly pleased with Thursday’s outcome. It didn’t kill the annexation and subsequent development, but it bought them time to continue their fight to prevent, or more likely shrink, the Veranda Bay annexation.
