Newberry City Commission temporarily tables fire assessment fee changes, discusses Big Box Retail Ordinance

Updated at 10:30 p.m. to clarify a question asked by Commissioner Coleman.

BY DAVID LIGHTMAN

NEWBERRY, Fla. – At their August 26 Regular Meeting, the Newberry City Commission voted to table proposed fire assessment fee reapportionments that would increase fees for some businesses by more than 700% and discussed ideas for a Big Box Retail Ordinance with staff.

Fire assessment fees

The first public hearing item on the agenda was the final adoption of the new fire assessment rates. Assistant City Manager Dallas Lee said, “Our recommended action tonight is going to be for you to open the public hearing, receive public comment, and then table this conversation until September 9^th. That’s our first Budget Hearing. There’s been a couple of items that have been brought up in the last few weeks that we want to make sure we fully understand and have the all the answers available to the Commission and the public before you guys vote on your final fire assessment.” The first reading of the fire assessment fee reapportionment was on July 8.

Lee showed the following slide that breaks down the number of EMS and fire rescue calls received from different categories of users:

Lee explained, “We had a large increase in Industrial/Warehouse. Their call volume went from 1% to about 13%. Some slight increases in Commercial. A slight decrease in Residential and a decrease in Institutional. So the proposed rates based off that study were no change for your Residential uses, increase for commercial of 7 cents a square foot, an increase in Industrial/Warehouse of 22 cents per square foot, and a decrease in Institutional by 17 cents a square foot. Again, all of these rates are derived from call data.” (See slide below.)

Mayor Marlowe said he thought they should follow Lee’s recommendation and table the item until September 9. He suggested that staff should work on a plan to operate under the current fire assessment rates if they are unable to finalize new rates before the deadline of September 15. 

Commissioner Tim Marden said, “I would appreciate a little bit of extra time to figure out some other options.”

Commissioner Mark Clark asked Lee, “If we keep this one [the current rates], are we fully funded?”

Lee answered, “If you kept the existing rates, it would generate less revenue, but it’s not substantially less. So we could absorb the old rates in this year’s budget.” Lee said he thought the shortfall would be less than $10,000.

Commissioner Rick Coleman pointed out the danger of driving away businesses with high fire assessment rates and said, “I’m definitely not for that.”

City Manager Mike New said one specific Industrial/Warehouse business has been responsible for the large increase in the number of calls in that category, and Code Enforcement is working to prevent more calls from them by bringing them into compliance. 

Marden said, “I don’t like that one business is throwing it for everybody else. That just doesn’t make any sense at all.”

During public comment, Ultimate Boat, RV and Mini Storage owner Todd Russo said his fire assessment fee will increase from about $4,500 per year to over $29,000. Russo said, “We are lumped into Industrial/Warehouse, and I just think maybe there needs to be some different categories in there. Essentially, we are a parking lot with shade. We do have metal buildings. They’re open air. We have two buildings, I think, consisting of 19,000 square feet, but most of the 117,000 square feet is open. It just can’t be covered, and we’re in the same group, which raises our rate tremendously.”

Another commenter mentioned that his business’s fee will also increase over 700%. He said, “It’s actually three times what the City of Gainesville is, and I find the City of Gainesville to be very unhospitable.”

Mayor Marlowe agreed that they need to develop more specific categories before passing anything.

Commissioner Marden made a motion to table the resolution until September 9, and Commissioner Tony Mazon seconded the motion. It passed unanimously.

Big Box Retail Ordinance

Mayor Marlowe reminded everyone that Newberry has a “zoning in progress” ordinance in effect to allow more time for them to develop a Big Box Retail Ordinance.

Stacey Hectus, Director of Community Development, gave a presentation on the work staff has been doing. She said staff began working on Big Big Ordinance options in March after the City initiated discussions, and, as Marlowe said, the City passed a zoning in progress ordinance in June for retail establishments over 80,000 square feet.

Marden said he liked the idea of keeping the ability to grant a “special exception” for any businesses they might choose to allow.

Commissioner Monty Farnsworth said, “I think we should take it on a case-by-case basis instead of having a size restriction.” Marlowe reminded him that a special exception would give them that ability. 

Hectus encouraged the Commissioners to send her pictures of buildings in other areas that they think would be appropriate for Newberry. She said staff would use the pictures to narrow down the parameters for an ordinance. Mayor Marlowe said public engagement such as a workshop will be possible once staff has something to present.

Newberry Charter School

Commissioner Coleman read some “loaded” questions from Save Our Schools Newberry that he had promised to read. Responding to a question about the legitimacy of the charter school after the close vote, Mayor Marlowe said, “The Department of Education has already ruled on this. They’ve already said that the vote passed and the vote hit the standard. So that’s a decided question.  Anyone who continues to say that the vote didn’t pass is incorrect and is purposely misleading people, because we have very clear communication from the Department of Education that it did pass.”

Responding to a question about why the City plans to loan money to the charter school board (appointed by the City Commission) to pay for lawyers and other consultants helping to prepare the charter school application, Marlowe said, “You guys have not voted to loan anybody money. You guys have voted to pay the bills for the new school board in order to get the application moved forward.”

Marlowe said that four classrooms at Newberry High School have been waiting a long time to have their broken air conditioning fixed by the County, and he cited that as one reason of many for why local school control would be preferable.