Commentary: OK Commission, Stop Kidding Yourselves About Taxes

Nero fiddled while Rome burned. The Fernandina Beach City Commission (FBCC) sticks its head in the sand as infrastructure and city facilities deteriorate. All in order to keep taxes at the rollback rate.

Most city residents will tell you that they moved to or stayed in Fernandina Beach because they liked the small town feel that included things like professional and friendly public safety personnel, many well-maintained parks beaches, and an exceptional commercial historic district replete with a variety of shops and restaurants.

As the city’s permanent and seasonal population has grown, there has been an increasing need for more personnel and more funds to keep the city functioning at the high level expected by its residents and visitors. 

Over the past 30 years, the city has expanded recreational services, such as skateboarding and pickleball, to meet citizen demand. New parks have been built. In growing recognition of the fragility of our barrier island, the city embarked on a major effort to preserve undeveloped land as conservation areas. Redevelopment of the downtown waterfront, long a black eye for the city, has been prioritized to both save the downtown from flooding and create a pedestrian-friendly space along the Amelia River. All of these actions, plus many others, have cost money. In some cases, the funds have come from grants; in others from public/private partnerships.

But in the final analysis, taxpayers have also paid for these improvements.

The previous commission attempted to break the cycle of kicking the can down the road when it came to capital projects like the Alachua Street crossing, Peck Center improvements, repairing beach accesses, and re-imagining the Amelia River waterfront. 

They also dealt with the chronic problem of staff turnover by approving an increase in the city’s pay schedule so that our lowest paid employees were being paid more than fast food restaurant workers. They worked with Fernandina Beach Main Street to improve signage and plan for improvements to the streetscape (lighting, sidewalks, landscaping) which had been neglected since the late 1970s.

Plans were in the works to deal with structural problems at both City Hall and the Atlantic Recreation Center. Bosque Bello Cemetery was identified as needing improvements. Ongoing work to improve streets and fund sidewalks was underway.

And then we had a city election that changed everything.

The biggest accomplishment of the FBCC in its first six months has been to fire the city manager, who was responsible for executing the commission’s priorities. He was doing that, but three of the commissioners decided he had to be terminated for reasons unknown. As a result, the city has been required to pay out severance pay and hire a search firm in an attempt to find a replacement. Meanwhile the city has been functioning with an interim city manager who is doing his best to keep the ship on course but who knows he is a short-timer.

As this “new commission” gets its feet wet in the reality of local government and city needs, they are faced with approving a budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year. Their answer appears to be to ignore advice of staff and demands of citizens for service and focus on one thing only: adopting a city millage at the rollback rate. This “Back to the Future” approach ignores the effects of inflation on city coffers and returns to the days of kicking the can down the road in hopes that “some other” commission will have the courage to tell the citizenry that running a city costs money, and like household budgets, the amount of money needed tends to increase over time.

The false hope that all the city’s needs can be met with grants should have been dispelled when Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed the city’s request for a million dollars to extend the seawall.

City commissioners are elected to lead the city forward, not backward. In the course of doing so, they may be required to take actions that are unpalatable to current residents as they consider the needs of future residents. Instead of sticking their fingers in their ears when the city manager presents a budget that calls for a tax increase, they should be prepared to listen. After any discussion or adjustment, they should be willing to explain to the citizens why such an increase is necessary.

Do citizens want to see the Atlantic Avenue Recreation Center or City Hall collapse? Do they welcome more lawsuits as downtown infrastructure continues to deteriorate? Do they want an increased response time from public safety personnel? I don’t. And I would go out on a limb to say I don’t think most other folks who claim to love our city do either.

The challenge for commissioners is to determine priorities based on input from all their constituents, not just the group that always complains about taxes. Finding the Goldilocks spot with respect to tax rates is necessary, even if it does involve an increase. Then comes the real job when commissioners need to sell the budget to the people. It has been done, and it can be done again.

Leading beats pandering any day of the week. So put away your fiddles, city commissioners.

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Commentary opinions represent the views of the author and the author alone. The Observer is happy to publish thoughtful opinions on issues of the day from all points of view.