ANNA MARIA ISLAND – Mayors in the three Island cities received a trick on Halloween in the form of a letter from the Florida Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA). The Oct. 31 letter states that the Florida Legislature has directed the organization to begin reviewing the potential consolidation of services and government entities on Anna Maria Island.
The OPPAGA study is expected to begin immediately.
While Mayor Dan Murphy of Anna Maria declined to comment on the study and Mayor John Chappie of Bradenton Beach was unable to comment due to illness, Mayor Judy Titsworth of Holmes Beach spoke to The Sun concerning the pending study.
“I’m feeling really threatened,” Titsworth said. “I’m not concerned about the city of Holmes Beach’s worthiness to be a city. I feel the city will show when audited that we have every right to be a city. We’re thriving. We didn’t ask for this study and neither did the residents. It’s not supposed to be government from the top down, it’s supposed to be a government for the people, by the people and that’s not what’s happening in this case. We didn’t ask for this.”
The study into whether or not certain services among the three Island cities should be consolidated or the cities themselves merged into one came about as a result of a Manatee County legislative delegation meeting in January in which delegation members brought up consolidation without warning to the three Island governments.
Legislators have since demanded that the three mayors work to consolidate services themselves. In the past, Titsworth said she’s hosted regular meetings of the three Island mayors and that some efforts to standardize services across the Island have been made. During an October legislative delegation meeting, neither consolidation nor the pending study was mentioned.
As the study progresses, representatives from OPPAGA are expected to meet with city leaders and staff in each Island city. Items ranging from tax rates to expenses, staff numbers, services offered, utilities, infrastructure, number of voters and number of residents are all expected to be analyzed during the study.
While most OPPAGA studies are conducted at the request of a municipality’s residents or government leaders, this one was requested by state leaders. And though it’s not common, state leaders have the ability to present a bill to the Legislature for a vote to consolidate the three Island cities without the input of city leaders, property owners or voters.
Typically a municipality is only dissolved at the state level when the city is insolvent or the level of residents has dropped to such a small number that it can’t sustain the city’s government. Titsworth said that Holmes Beach doesn’t suffer from either problem. She added that she also believes the cities of Anna Maria and Bradenton Beach are still strong despite a recent lack of people running for office in those municipalities.
“No one wants to lose their incorporation,” she said, adding that she plans to show her city’s strengths at every turn during the auditing process. “The best thing we can do right now is work harder to prove them (state leaders) wrong and show the strength of the community and city.”
