Ballot initiatives focus on firehouse upgrades, new charter

The best any of the Town Commission candidates on the ballot this month can hope for is six years on the panel. Term limits for the town’s elected officials require they step aside after three, two-year terms.

But two of the other issues facing voters this election season have much longer service lives.

Voters will decide (or not) on a new charter, sort of like a municipal constitution, this year. Those are supposed to be reconsidered every 10 years, according to Florida law.

And a spending measure voters are being asked to consider to finance upgrades to the town’s two fire stations are designed to last even longer.

The revised charter on the ballot grew from a process begun roughly a year ago. Hearings to consider changes were held last spring and summer, resulting in a package of alterations put before the Town Commission for ballot-placement approval.

But they were complicated and hard to boil down into ballot-readable language. So, commissioners voted to put one, revised charter in front of voters with all the changes baked in. Some are designed to accommodate modern-day realities that didn’t exist when the original was written. Some clean up bureaucratic loose ends and change wording to connect with state laws.

Perhaps the most meaningful change is in the way the new charter deals with revenue bonds – borrowed money repaid from fees, not property taxes. In the new charter, anything under $5 million wouldn’t require voter approval.

Other changes clean up language, update best practices based on new technology (digital recordkeeping, for one) and align town policies with state regulations or practices.

Such as:

• Establishes June 15 as the deadline of the budget to the Town Commission, instead of June 1.
• The Town Manager is given authority to hire an Assistant Town Manager, but isn’t required to.
• Clarifies role of Town Manager in setting compensation for collective bargaining units and as a purchasing agent for goods and services and ability to execute certan.
• Restates that all town employees are subject to state ethics enforcement and deletes specific local enforcement of local ethics codes through a Special Magistrate.
• Incorporates language ensuring the county Supervisor of Elections has authority to schedule elections.
• Deletes the authoiry of the Town Commission to conduct investigations of employees and deparments.
• Deletes a specific reference to 7 p.m. commission meetings immediately after an election.
• Deletes a requirement to keep an actual ordinance book in lieu of a digital format.

The fire station renovations, which will cost about $5.8 million, will include renovated and gender-specific sleeping and bathroom facilities and a new generator for the north station and a 1,300 square foot addition to the south station, including an additional truck bay. Among the specific changes are separate, vented storage locations for firefighters' protective gear. Coats, boots and helmets should be kept away from living quarters to prevent the off-gassing of hazardous materials.