BRADENTON BEACH – Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) members discussed hiring a separate CRA attorney at an Oct. 20 meeting after learning that the city could be out of compliance with statutory requirements.
CRA Chair Scott Bear, Police Chief John Cosby and city Treasurer Shayne Thompson attended a Florida Redevelopment Association meeting from Oct. 14-17 in West Palm Beach.
“First and probably foremost, one of the things they told us is it is probably not a good idea, in fact in one session, it was also suggested that it was illegal, to have the city attorney be the CRA attorney,” Bear said. “So, we need to look for a CRA attorney through Trask. My understanding is they do have a CRA attorney who can help us, so we need to engage that person really quickly.”
The city has retained the Trask Daignault LLC law firm on an interim basis with Erica Augello as lead attorney. Retired City Attorney Ricinda Perry formerly represented both the city and the CRA.
“We’re finding out that we need specific knowledge attorneys for certain things,” Cosby said. “One size fits all is out the window, so I 100% agree with chairman Scott, we have to get this person on as fast as possible. I asked Terri (City Clerk Terri Sanclemente) while we were there to call the firm, and she spoke with Erica.”
Cosby said the Trask firm has an attorney that specializes in CRAs and expressed an interest in meeting with them once the agreement with the firm is signed, which was scheduled at the Oct. 23 commission meeting.
Bear said that there were two statutory updates, one in 2019 and one in 2024, that impact the CRA board.
“We need to do a couple things,” Bear said. “The update required that as of Dec. 1 this year every CRA must submit a status report. We’re going to need to work with the CRA attorney, once that person is under contract to get on that report, because we’ve got about a month to put it together and then brought back to this board for approval.”
Bear said the 2024 update stipulates there cannot be events in the CRA without a specific plan.
“The other thing is, during an event, you have to have a table set up with a handout that you provide to people that are there explaining how the event helps with the redevelopment of the CRA,” Bear said. “So, we’re going to have to pretty quickly work with someone to get that together and then figure out how we’re going to man a booth and do the handouts and explain it. That’s going to be a big issue for events within the CRA going forward. It could result in some really ugly actions if it were proven not to be consistent with that statute.
“One of the other things that I took away was in 2019 there was legislation that said every CRA will sunset in 2039 regardless of what is in the plan,” Bear said. “So, our current CRA plan has us going into 2046 or 47. That doesn’t matter, the legislation sunsets us in 2039, unless and this was the thing I took away, unless we do a resolution from the CRA to the city commission requesting approval to extend the sunset beyond 2039. So, we’re going to need to get that resolution done quickly.”
Bear said the legislation set a date of March 1, 2026 to have the resolution approved and in place.
“The last thing I took away is, there are very specific things that need to be included in the CRA plan and also on the website,” Bear said. “We do have a CRA page on the city website, so we’re OK there. One of the first things I think we need to do is get the CRA attorney to review our plan and make sure it’s complying with the legislation.”
“I think the three of us have a clear path forward, we just have to get the right people into place and move forward,” Cosby said.
“Some of the presenters have availed themselves to help us,” Thompson said. “One had been the CRA director in Palmetto, and Delray Beach has expressed an interest to help us as we move forward.”
The Bradenton Beach CRA district extends from the south side of the Cortez Bridge to the southernmost property lines along Fifth Street South.
