Santa Rosa residents show up in droves to oppose a proposed north county utility authority

The several stakeholders due to be impacted by creation of a North Santa Rosa Utility Authority came together Tuesday at a Milton City Hall complex whose meeting room wasn't big enough to contain all of the interested parties.

State Sen. Doug Broxson was joined by state Reps. Joel Rudman and Alex Andrade to present the legislative case for creation of the authority, while Robert Smith, spokesman for a coalition of utility members, was flanked by cohorts who oppose the move.

Judging from public commentary following the discussion, Smith and company had strong support from the more than 100 people who turned up to listen in.

The Milton City Council, having taken their seats behind their boardroom dais, provided the backdrop for the event. Many in the overflow crowd, including at least three county commissioners, were forced to listen to the discussion from the hallway outside the meeting room.

At what was billed as a round table discussion, the state lawmakers presented the coalition with a list of questions about North Santa Rosa County utility operations. Smith, meanwhile, had a list of questions for the delegation along with a set of demands, which, if honored he said, could convince coalition members to support creation of the authority.

The gathering comes just days ahead of Monday's convening of the Florida Legislature. Rudman said the local bill to establish the North Santa Rosa Utility Authority must be introduced in the state House no later than Friday.

"That's just a placeholder," he said. "There's plenty of time to consider all options."

As he's maintained all along, Broxson, whose idea it was to create an authority to unite 11 water and wastewater utilities serving Santa Rosa residents north of the Yellow River, said his chief focus is finding a way to effectively manage wastewater treatment.

"The original concept was exploring the possibility of Pace and Milton, two of the major wastewater treatment providers in the county, talking to each other and exploring how we can leverage our resources and talents and come up with long-term solutions to provide wastewater treatment for this county," he said.

Broxson pointed out that Pace Water System operates at about two-thirds of its wastewater treatment capacity, while Milton, which has been trying for 14 years to construct a new treatment plant, is operating at close to full capacity. The existing plant is aging and continues to dump thousands of gallons of treated wastewater into the Blackwater River each day.

He said there have also been concerns expressed about how the 11 co-ops that provide potable water to segments of the North Santa Rosa County community operate.

The list of questions the legislators had for Smith and the Utility Coalition primarily centered around their individual operations. There were questions about the boundaries of individual service areas, whether utility board members are elected or appointed and whether the utilities operate under Florida's Sunshine Law.

There were also questions about audit procedures, public records requests and how complaints are handled.

The lawmakers also expressed concerns about how the utilities, some of which serve rural areas with small customer bases, will be able to handle increased demand as development booms in the county.

Tony Baker, the director of the Pace Water System, wondered why legislators want to create a regional water and wastewater utility when the Santa Rosa County Commission has authority over the county's utilities.

"It's ridiculous you're doing this and not the county," he said.

Previously: North Santa Rosa utilities unite against "bad legislation" creating oversight organization

The coalition has met on a couple of occasions with Rudman, R-Navarre, and for the first time Tuesday signaled there might be a compromise in which the utilities would support the bill.

The utility members want only waste water treatment utilities to be governed under the initial utility authority.

The legislation calls for a committee of local leaders, including the chairman of the Santa Rosa County Commission, the mayors of Milton and Jay and the general manager of the Pace Water System, to create a framework within which an elected board will govern the utility authority.

Coalition members want the majority of those appointed to the original committee to be representatives of the North Santa Rosa utilities. The coalition wants developers and home builders, or any of their employees or family members, left off the initial board.

They also want homebuilders, developers and associates left off the final five-member board that will eventually be elected to serve as permanent overseers of the regional utility authority. They don't want the governing board to be a paid board, as the existing legislation calls for.

Following the meeting, Broxson, R-Gulf Breeze, said the discussion had gone about as he'd expected and his planned next step is to "fact check" the requests of the coalition to see if the suggested amendments to his bill could be added to the document.

Broxson and Rudman slipped out of the meeting rooms as county residents began airing their opposition to the bill. Rudman, standing in a hallway away just outside where the public forum portion of the meeting was being conducted, said concerns about the legislation have been heard and will be given due consideration.

"The thing they wanted from us is to do the right thing for the citizens of Santa Rosa County," Rudman said. "That's what we want to do, do the right thing by the people of Santa Rosa County."

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: North Santa Rosa County utility authority proves unpopular in Milton