Last Thursday, the Pensacola City Council voted to hold a special meeting regarding the Emerald Coast Utility Authority’s proposed storage tanks on North Palafox Street. The five members in attendance requested that City Attorney Lysia Bowling to give her legal opinion whether any statutory requirements were violated by ECUA.
Some have opined that Florida law required the utility to receive to city approval before erecting the tanks that residents of North Hill have opposed for two years.In March 2016, 22 residential property owners, 3 corporations and the North Hill Preservation Association jointly filed for temporary and permanent injunction against ECUA for its North Palafox tank project.
Since 2016 was an election, the issue has been dormant until recently.
North Hill Preservation Association yesterday presented Council President with a petition against the tanks.
From: president@historicnorthhill.com
Subject: Submission of our official Petition Against the Construction of Sewage Storage Tank on Palafox Corridor
Date: September 18, 2017 at 9:31:27 PM CDT
To: EBurnett@cityofpensacola.com, bspencer@cityofpensacola.com
Dear City Council President Brian Spencer and City Clerk Ericka Burnett,
Please find attached our official petition to the City of Pensacola against the construction of the sewage storage tank in the Inner City CRA District on the Northern Palafox Corridor which is adjacent to the Historic North Hill District, the Long Hollow Neighborhood, the Eastside Neighborhood, in addition to being adjacent to the Hollice Williams Recreational Center/Park where our City Pool, tennis courts, football & soccer fields, basketball courts, and the new to come Skatepark will be built. Now is NOT the time to add a blighting influence in our CRA District that was established in 1984 for the express purpose of eliminating blight. The City Council has already declared sewage storage to be a blighting influence in the CRA District when it agreed to pay ECUA $19.5 million dollars to remove sewage storage from the City because of the release of noxious fumes. ECUA will try and say that the tanks will only be used in an emergency, but once built, they can legally use them as often as they wish and there will be nothing that you or anyone else can do to stop it.
There are places for all industrial type tanks that release noxious fumes, and it’s called the Industrial Zoning District. You have an empty, clean, ready to be utilized piece of property 1.2 miles up the street in the Industrial Zoning District where this tank could and should be built. It will cost $400 a foot for the pipeline according to our court records and deposition with ECUA’s engineers. You already pay ECUA this amount of money every year in your Interlocal Agreement. Make them spend it on moving the tank where it belongs and where it can be used without destroying the chances of continued economic revitalization to the Palafox Street corridor, or degrading residential property values.
You would never allow this use near the Roger Scott Recreational Complex or the Bayview Recreational Complex and we implore you not to do this to Hollice Williams Park either.
Our neighborhoods have waited 33 years for the City to begin work in our CRA District. Please do not let the addition of blight be your first project.
Please let me know if you have any problems opening the document. It is 38 pages long. Please forward to the City Council members.
Thank you for your assistance,
Melanie Nichols, President
North Hill Preservation Association, Inc.
See petition_77250_19-09-2017.
City Attorney Lysia Bowling’s record for legal opinions and expertise hasn’t been good.
The request for a city attorney legal opinion comes on the heels of the council repealing an anti-panhandling ordinance that Bowling drafted after it was challenged in federal court by the ACLU of Florida. She assured the council last spring the ordinance would stand up to a legal challenge.
In April, she gave conflicting legal opinions regarding the council’s desire to hire a budget analyst – Dueling Opinions on Veto.
In June 2016, Bowling had an opportunity to provide an affirmative defense that might have saved the John Sunday House but didn’t.
In April 2016, she opined that council resolutions weren’t binding on the mayor and he could ignore them without a veto.
Then November 2015, Bowling rendered an opinion in favor of the radio tower in the Long Hollow Conservation District. Several local attorneys, including former Hayward’s chief of staff, disagreed with her opinion.
And where is Mayor Ashton Hayward on this issue? As the city’s strong mayor, Â what does he believe is best for the city? He has had two years to work on it -how would he recommend it be resolved?