Update 3/28/2022
Hello all!
Due to some house bills that were being fought at Tallahassee that would possibly affect the process of this project, we wanted to wait to post anything until the air cleared….
The 2022 State of Florida Legislative Session is now over! Fortunately, some potentially harmful legislation was not approved. HB1035, if passed would have taken away a fair opportunity for our community to have a vote on incorporation. It proposed a requirement of a referendum (vote) with 60% of registered voters participating in the vote, in order to approve the referendum, in turn, in order to propose a local bill to request a referendum on incorporation. In short, a vote to have a vote before communities would even have the facts. This was a preposterous amendment designed to ensure there are no further cities created in the State of Florida. Even the presidential elections don’t get that turn out . While this would have made those who are opposed to becoming a municipality extremely happy, it would have taken away the right for our community to have an opportunity to have an informed vote on an incorporation proposal. Our State Constitution gives the right for people to choose to govern themselves at a local level. The legislature has the right to create the process for people to make that choice. It should not be made to be impossible through procedural rules as this removes the rights of the people. This is a decision that should be made by our community not outsiders with something to gain! Thankfully, it died in committee for this session! Time is of the essence to protect our rights!
New tool for discussions! If you are using the app called Nextdoor, we have started a group for the community to get involve in discussion regrading your questions, comments and concerns. We only ask that you remain civil, no bashing, and most importantly, no misinformation posts. For example, a post of “we cannot change any County codes unless we make them more stringent.” This folks, is misinformation and we have serious problems with this. If someone posts something like this, then we are constantly backpedaling to have to correct this, as soon as possible, in order to not confuse those before they read such info. Had it been posted as a question, “Are we able to change codes, remove codes, currently enforced by County”, is what we want and need. This way, folks that are not aware and interested, will follow and wait for a correct answer to be posted. We do have a lot of the pros and cons posted on the web site, votelox.com, but have not yet pushed this info over to the Nextdoor group as of yet, due to the numerous amount of topics already being discussed. If you would like to join in on the discussions, the group can be found at https://nextdoor.com/g/f58gmvpsm/ .
Our next meeting will be on April 2nd, and full details should be posted later today to include time and venue. We apologize for the short notice but obtaining a location has been trying due to the ups and downs of Covid. We ask that you bear with us, we plan to put up a full regular schedule shortly and may have on the fly meetings in between the regularly scheduled meetings if necessary. Please let us know if you have any questions!
Regards,
Bob Morgan