Tree Conservancy and Sierra Club claims with regard to Amelia Bluff rejected again

By Adam Kaufman

October 20, 2019

Florida Department of Economic Opportunity denied each and every exception raised on behalf of the Tree Conservancy and the Sierra Club.

The administrative agency charged with reviewing Administrative Law Judge E. Gary Early’s Recommended Order sustaining the City of Fernandina Beach’s approval of changes to the future land use map designation of a parcel on Citrona Drive has upheld and adopted that ruling.

The designation by the City of that 6.4 acre parcel from Conservation to Low Density Residential would permit the proposed 30 home Amelia Bluff development to proceed.

In a 17-page Final Order issued on October 16, 2019, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity denied each and every exception to Early’s Recommended Order raised on behalf of the Tree Conservancy and the Sierra Club.

The 15 exceptions proffered by the Tree Conservancy and the Sierra Club reiterated and are based upon allegations made in public statements and pressed on social media that had been argued before and ruled upon by ALJ Early. Each of the exceptions was found by the Department to be without legal basis, statutory foundation or support in administrative law.

The Department of Economic Opportunity determined that Early’s findings of fact were “based upon substantial evidence in the record” and that the proceeding before ALJ Early "complied with the essential requirements of law.” The Department’s consideration of Early’s ruling concludes: “The Department has reviewed the ALJ’s conclusions of law and finds that the conclusions of law … are reasonable. The Department does not have any substitute conclusions of law that would be as or more reasonable than the ALJ’s conclusions of law.”

The Amelia Tree Conservancy and the Sierra Club may initiate judicial review of the Department’s Final Order within thirty (30) calendar days of the Order’s October 16, 2019 filing.

Editor’s Note: Adam Kaufman, has been General Counsel, labor negotiator, and lobbyist for the Rochester City School; he was appointed by Governor Mario Cuomo as Counsel, Associate Director and First Deputy Attorney General to a New York State Special Commission; he served as an Administrative Law Judge, mediator and Regional Director of the New York State Public Employment Relations Board; now retired, for the last 13 years he was a labor arbitrator and mediator. A graduate of the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, he is a city resident.