High Springs City Commission moves toward placing alcohol question on ballot, increases Fire Assessment Fees

BY DAVID LIGHTMAN

HIGH SPRINGS, Fla. – At the June 26 regular meeting, the High Springs City Commission agreed to place the Sunday alcohol question on the ballot and agreed to raise Fire Assessment Fees by $27 for residential users, along with increases in other categories.

Fiscal Year 2023 audit

The meeting began with a presentation on the Fiscal Year 2023 audit. Brendan McKitrick of James Moore & Co. said, “As you all are aware, we are late with the audit. As you may or may not be aware, we had significant challenges in receiving the numbers we need to start the audit. Essentially, what happens with the audit process – we get the numbers and then we validate those numbers. Our understanding, and kind of working with Diane and her staff, is there were significant challenges, specifically in your accounting software, really created by the previous staff… I think there were over 300 transactions that had to be corrected, just to get ready for the audit.” 

McKitrick said this audit was completed on June 16, and FY24’s audit should be completed much more quickly because the systemic errors have been fixed. He mentioned errors in utility billing, other accounting errors, and inventory errors. McKitrick said the corrections brought the City into compliance with State statutes.   

The audit found five material weaknesses in utility billing rates, untimely completion of account reconciliation, timeliness of year-end close and financial reporting, timeliness of bank reconciliations, and preparation of the schedule of expenditures of state financial assistance, along with a comment about a lack of budget compliance. A list of the findings and management’s response can be found on page 77 of this document.

Responding to Commissioner Katherine Weitz, McKitrick said, “It’s hard to articulate how messy the accounting numbers were.” He clarified, “Everything has been submitted [to the State].”

Sunday alcohol ordinance

The first item of business was discussing options for the Sunday alcohol sales ordinance that was recently brought up at the Joint City Commission/Alachua County Commission meeting. Attorney Danielle Adams said, “One of the things that staff did was, they put together an aerial map of your central downtown area, and one of the things that you need to keep in mind when we’re talking about putting in places that derive 51% or more of their sales from alcohol sales and not food is that they can’t be within 500 feet of a church and they need to be in Commercial zoning… I really want you to see that the church situation in High Springs really does limit where new places can go in, and that’s a longstanding ordinance, and it’s not uncommon at all. Almost every city has that rule about how close a predominantly-alcohol-sales establishment can be to a church.” 

Adams said her office needed direction and said the City has many options, including creating special zoning categories.

Commissioner Chad Howell said, “My main goal here is to support our local businesses.” 

City Manager Jeremy Marshall said the Land Development Code will be completely rewritten within the next year, and it would be easy to include a new category for Breweries, with its own set of rules. He said the downside is the length of time it would take before going into effect, “but it is very well an option.”

Weitz said Police Chief Antoine Sheppard said there are never any alcohol-related incidents arising from the brewery, including DUIs. She said the requirement for 51% food sales on Sundays is not properly enforced since no one actually checks the receipts. Weitz questioned why more Special Use Permits weren’t requested in the past year, since the Commission made that option available to the brewery. Weitz said she had prepared Special Use Permit applications for the brewery for all of the remaining Sundays through the end of the year but didn’t want to completely dispense with the alcohol ordinance because it provides protections.

Commissioner Wayne Bloodsworth agreed, “I want to leave it as it is right now, continue to keep it as the ordinance is right now, today, with all the special dates that they’ve already put on path, and still have the [Special Use] Permitting to be able to continue moving forward… You knew how it was when you opened that line of business. Nobody’s against your business. You knew that moving forward, and you accepted it… I’m not in favor of putting it on the ballot because you have outside subdivisions that have more people than inner-city locations in the old part of town of High Springs. Those are going to outweigh what the inner-city people that have to live down in this area may not want… Back in the day, you couldn’t get nothing in this town. It was a ‘dry town’… I don’t want to stop progress,… but we still want to keep our fine little town as it is.”

Mayor Tristan Grunder said he wanted to put it on the ballot to give all High Springs residents “a say.” 

Attorney Adams clarified that if the petition is completed with the requisite number of signatures, “You can’t stop it from going to the ballot.” Bloodsworth said, “I would not stop that.”

Motions

Weitz made a motion to support the brewery’s efforts to secure enough signatures on the petition to place the question on the ballot and encourage them to apply for more Special Use Permits to open on Sundays. Weitz’s motion died for lack of a second.

Howell made a motion for “the City Attorney to carve out an ordinance stating that businesses that manufacture their own products on-site can sell alcohol on Sundays.” His motion also died for lack of a second.

Grunder passed the gavel and made a motion to have the City Attorney’s office bring back the documents necessary to put the question to the electorate on this November’s ballot, as suggested by Adams. 

Weitz asked Grunder if he wanted all the changes to the existing laws listed on the petition being circulated. Grunder said he did, and he amended his motion to reflect that. Howell seconded the motion.

Public comment on alcohol sales

During public comment on the motion, one speaker said only three people are against the brewery being open on Sundays, and she suggested that some people have a grudge against the brewery. 

Janet Evans said, “I’m really uncomfortable with the atmosphere that’s been created in our community, where people who oppose having the brewery open on Sundays are being shamed, dismissed, and potentially targeted with libelous and slanderous comments. If you look at the recently-posted musical video on the brewery website, the brewery and its supporters put out an entirely emotional plea for support while attacking citizens of the same community who disagree on this move… The brewery went into this agreement knowing what the law was. This isn’t an ‘us versus them.’”

Kiffin Ayers of the High Springs Brewery said, “The videos and whatever, those are citizens having satirical fun.” He added, “There’s 46 other businesses that are open on Sunday morning that would love more traffic.” He said he appreciated the option to open on Sundays for special events and holidays by using Special Use Permits.

Another speaker stressed making “God and family more important” than the Chamber of Commerce. Attorney Adams cautioned against incorporating any religious ideas into any ordinances.

Commissioner Andrew Miller said, “The Chamber has nothing to do with this topic.”

Bloodsworth said, “All we’re trying to do here is follow the law… I don’t have a personal vendetta against you.”

Vote

The motion to put the changes listed on the petition on the upcoming November ballot passed 4-1, with Bloodsworth in dissent.

Talking about the Special Use Permits, Marshall said, “The way I understood it is, I can approve it for federal holidays and community events such as fundraisers.” He asked if the Commission wished to lower this standard and allow the brewery to be open every Sunday if they apply for a permit.

Adams said the Commission always has discretion to approve Special Use Permits, regardless of any holidays or city-wide events.  

Changes for meeting dates, board appointment

Commissioners decided to move the August 14 meeting to August 21 at Bloodsworth’s request, due to a scheduling conflict.

Adams asked to move the July 24 meeting to July 22 due to her own scheduling conflict, and everyone agreed.

Weitz was nominated and unanimously selected to be the representative from the High Springs City Commission to serve on the Joint Water and Climate Policy board with the County.

Renewing electric franchise agreement with Duke Energy

The next item was renewing the electric franchise agreement with Duke Energy. Adams said the City will receive 6% of base monthly revenues, which is the industry standard. Weitz made a motion to approve the franchise agreement ordinance, and Miller seconded the motion. It passed unanimously during a roll call vote.

Fire Assessment Fee

The last item of business was a resolution increasing the residential Fire Assessment Fee by $27 to $250 per year. Fire Chief Joseph Peters said they would also like to raise commercial users to $0.24/square foot, industrial/warehouse users to $.07/square foot, and institutional users to $0.16/square foot. 

Weitz made a motion to approve the Fire Assessment Fee resolution, and Howell seconded the motion. It passed unanimously during a roll call vote.