CMUD Done Deal?

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Update: 9/23/21 @ 3:15PM

Carl Flick, President of NSNA (Northwood Shores Neighborhood
Association) attended the 2nd. Planning Board meeting in person, and his remarks are in quotation marks. When Mr. Flick mentions ” yesterdays” meeting he is referring to the 2 Planning Board meeting held on Sept. 21 ,2021.

I attended the meeting in the comfort of my home and my comments in Italic.

“Northwood Shores has been negotiating with the City and with Jeff Greene on two major fronts. The first is to allow the public to participate in unfiltered community meetings. The second is to hold meaningful discussions on limiting the extreme 350′ height to under 267 feet.

The July 20, 2021 Planning Board Meeting had a 5-0 vote rejecting a revised CMUD and returned it back to planning staff because it was inadequate.There were 2 board members absent.

The mayor (James) was having problems with the Planning Board, so he let several board members go and appointed several new ones. Yesterday’s meeting was their first. They came with little history. They essentially stacked the deck with a clean slate of board members who did not know the issues surrounding CMUD.

We did prevail in getting scores of letters sent to the planning board opposed to the 350′ height. But the way the city’s planning staff dealt with that deluge of complaints was to deliver the stack of dissenting letters, not in advance, but to give it to the planning board as they sat down last night at the meeting. So board members had no time to review those letters.”

The Mayor appoints board members and the City Commissioners approval is needed, and it is required that they confirm the Mayors appointment’s at a City Commission meeting.

I examined the City’s CC Agenda back to June 2021 and the Mayor did not submit any names for approval to the Planning Board. I assume he picked up the phone and dismissed them for not going along with what the city needed for passage of CMUD. His three new choices did his bidding, but I challenge if the Planning Board is a legal board and has the right to make any decisions. The three dismissed members obviously have what City leaders are lacking. It’s called integrity.

I joined the meeting and heard Lobbyist Harvey Oyer, who’s job it is to sell the city on developer Jeff Greene’s CMUD project, and he made the statement saying changes to the Joel Daves Park would be needed to accommodate CMUD development. For those readers new to the City Joel Daves is a former Mayor and the city honored him with a park named after him and is located at 2410 N Dixie Hwy. Mr. Oyer stated Mr. Daves was fine with changes that were needed to the park, in fact he drove the point home by restating all was fine with Mr. Daves.

It would be easy enough to verify how Mr. Daves felt about needed changes to his named park, but the City lost a gentleman when he passed on in July. Who’s to know if Oyer’s statement is true or not.

“Last nights Planning board meeting resulted in a 7-0 vote approving the proposed CMUD changes and sending the proposal to the city commission meeting- to be held in October 2021.”

City Commissioners receive all stories written on WPB Watch and it’s up to them to investigate the issue coming before them with a request for approval from City Staff.

They should be upset about the meetings being held with selected invited guests, and a planning board that may have been illegally approved by Mayor James alone.

The picture is of me looking into the Flagler meeting after being removed from City Hall and not allowed to join the meeting. My name was not on the invited list.
City Commissioners please do the job you were elected to do.

 

 

The picture of Joel Daves park was taken from the city website and you see the water view. I don’t believe Mr. Daves would be OK with the City’s planned changes to accommodate developer Green’s vision. If you knew Daves he was the people’s Mayor. He was not owned by developers.

The end.