His Land's Not Even Tied to Storm Drains. Yet, the City Makes Him Pay More Than Anyone
Owner of Properties on 16 Sues Green Cove Springs Over Fees
Second of two parts: The first installment attempted to explain the issues as a children’s story. The link is at the bottom.
The overall issue at a recent public hearing of the Green Cove Springs City Council boiled down to a simple question: Is it legal to bill a property owner for a city service that the city does not and cannot provide? Is it fair?
By the end of the September 2 public hearing on an ordinance to approve the city stormwater assessment rolls, one city councilor was convinced that companies controlled by Ward Huntley should not have to pay the majority of a $94,600 usage fee for his properties along Highway 16.
City officials responding to Councilor Darren Stutts could not articulate why it was fair to charge Huntley tens of thousands of dollars in use fees if his properties were in no way connected to the city stormwater drainage system. Stormwater runoff from Huntley’s properties flows to the St. Johns River through ditches and culverts, none owned by the city.
According to his local attorney Mark Scruby, Huntley has been trying for two years to get out from under the fees. Voting after the hearing, city councilors once again approved the same fee structure, which forced6 Huntley to file a lawsuit.
Huntley sued the city on September 22 asking a Clay County judge to declare all his stormwater charges invalid—past and present—because they violate the city ordinances and state law.
Two other lawyers for Huntley, stormwater ligitation specialists from Tallahasee named John L. Fiveash and Edwin A. Steinmeyer cited the applicable ordinance, writing in the lawsuit:
The term “usage charge” is defined in…the Code to mean “the amount of the stormwater usage service cost charged to each tax parcel owner based on the amount of stormwater utility system capacity they consume.”
According to the lawsuit, fees for Huntley’s property are also unlawful because they fail the equitability test. According to the lawsuit, Huntley’s two properties constitute the first and second highest stormwater charges of all city properties.
Properties not paying any stormwater usage fees: The Magnolia Point residential neighborhood, exempted because it has its own drainage system, and Reynolds Industrial Park, the sprawling complex a couple hundred yards down Highway 16 from Huntley’s properties. Exempting these properties while charging Huntley smacked of giving these huge entitities a “free pass,” Huntley’s people said.
Landscape architect Kelly Hardwick, also representing Huntley, made yet another argument that stormwater fees for Huntley properties were unfair to the point of being unlawful. Hardwick told the Council:
This city is comprised of 7,500 acres, at least 50 percent if not more of that is commercial or governmental property (meaning it is owned by the city). Those properties have to be included. Mr. Huntley owns .03 percent, if you consider it that way. Yet, he is paying nine percent of this usage fee. This is not equitable.
These arguments prompted Stutts to conduct a Q&A with city officials about the charges. Watching the video of the meeting, there’s a moment worth noting after one of Huntley’s people once again reiterated that drainage on his property has zero reliance on city infrastructure. Stutts thwn questioned a city official, who is off camera, about this:
Stutts: Let me ask this: Is he correct that they are not contributing (to the city system)?
Official: I’m not really prepared too go back into stuff we did in 2020. That’s why we are going to back into it all in October. We’ve been following the same guidance since 2020.
Stutts: And we paid an outside source to come up that, I guess.
Official: Yes, it would be an outside consultant, engineer.
Stutts: Well we definitely need to go back to them, if we paid for something, and its not right. My problem is we paid for someone to do something and now we’re on the hook for something we’re assessing wrong.
At no point during the hearing did anyone dispute the assertion that Huntley’s properties do not connect to city storm drains. Yet, City Attorney Jim Arnold declared at the end of the hearing that it was “not 100 percent certain” that the city was in the wrong.
Arnold said the city manager has the authority to waive the fees. “They also have, of course, if they don’t get the relief they’re seeking through the city manager…they have the right to file a lawsuit,” the city attorney said.
So, as a result of the city’s less than total certainty that the fees are unlawful, Huntley has found himself in a position of having to hire two high-buck law firms, each charging hundreds of dollars per hour, just so he can stop paying fees for a service that he does not use and has never used.
It would be as if the council were taxing Huntley for ownership of a dog with a white-tipped tail, when they can clearly see that the only pet he owns is a tabby cat. Click to read the children’s version:
Good article. Informative.