WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. – A simmering summer-long controversy came to a head Monday at City Hall in Winter Springs.
Several city commissioners have been under fire since June for absolving a developer of almost a quarter-million dollars in tree fees.
On June 23, commissioners voted 3-2 to not charge the developer an additional $227,000 in arbor fees to continue construction on property along State Road 434 near the Winter Springs Town Center.
The developer’s attorney pointed to a 2017 agreement with the city and language stating the paid-in-full arbor fee covers “all current and future phases of the project.”
[VIDEO BELOW: Previous coverage of tree-fee controversy]
The attorney said the developer was “shocked” when the city demanded another $227,000 for mowing down more trees and clearing another corner.
“There’s a very high level of confusion on this,” a representative for the developer told the commission on June 23. “The $149,000 was paid.”
Arbor fees are commonly charged by municipalities to replace trees elsewhere removed during construction.
During the June 23 meeting, Winter Springs City Attorney Anthony Garganese said he hastily reviewed documentation that city staff had scrambled to compile on the initial agreement with the developer in the hours before the commission meeting and warned commissioners of potential consequences of their vote.
[BELOW: Winter Springs’ creek cleanup project]
“So you waive it here, they’re going to come back for the next portion and say they’re entitled to the same waiver based on their argument,” Garganese told the commission.
Despite the warning, a majority of commissioners - Mark Caruso, Victoria Bruce and Paul Diaz - voted to give the developer the benefit of the doubt and remove the $227,000 tree fee.
Bruce claimed the required arbor fee was “paid, not waived.”
“I’m going by the agreement, and the agreement states that it was for the project, which would have been the entire 45 acres, which is part of the legal description of the original agreement,” Bruce told News 6. “The first modification of the agreement is a party to the original. And so if you look at the jargon of the agreement and you’re not going to dig back into all these emails, the agreement is what we need to go by. That’s the legal binding developer’s agreement that was signed 10 years ago. And that is what I’m justifying my response by.”
McCann, Deputy Mayor Cade Resnick and Commissioner Sarah Baker disagreed that the $149,000 arbor fee already paid by the developer applied to all future phases of the construction project.
[BELOW: Mayor on why he supports arbor fee decision]
After the vote, McCann called out his commissioners on Facebook in a post that now has 62 comments.
“Each of the Commissioners who voted for the fee removal held private meetings with representatives of the project,” McCann wrote.
At the commission’s July 14 meeting, McCann acknowledged his controversial Facebook post.
“And I understand I said something on social media where I questioned a meeting with developers and that may have come across, and I regret the way that may have come across,” McCann said.
Caruso interrupted McCann.
“Mayor, you basically put it out there to the community that you’re challenging our ethics, that’s exactly what you did,” Caruso said.
McCann doubled down.
“As newly-elected officials, you should be concerned that that looks awful,” McCann said. “And I am telling you, it looks awful. I’m not backing down from that.”
Other Facebook posts on the tree-fee topic have since generated comments alleging “corruption,” questions about why some commissioners haven’t been “removed from office” and even calls for commissioners themselves to pay the tree fee.
Bruce said city staff - specifically Planning and Zoning - did not provide commissioners enough information at the June 23 meeting. She said she got her information from meeting directly with the developer’s representative.
[BELOW: Winter Springs commissioner explains vote in tree fee controversy]
“We were not given any information - Planning and Zoning, they weren’t giving any information,” Bruce said. “If we were not made aware, we would have been blinded and had no idea of the other party side. It was not presented to us. I had to ask questions in order to get it. Or it would just have been washed right over and no one would have known the specifics.”
A month later, at the commission’s July 14 meeting, commissioners voted to move forward with going back. They agreed to reconsider their tree-fee vote and discuss reversing it at the August 11 meeting, even at the risk of legal action from the developer, to which McCann said: “Bring it.”
The commission needs three votes to reverse the original decision.
After the three commissioners originally voted to remove the tree fee, one commissioner - Caruso - changed his vote to agree to revisit the arbor fee discussion based on “new evidence.”
McCann shared some of the “evidence” with News 6.
After extensive debate, Monday night’s City Commission meeting ultimately ended with a decision to rescind the prior decision.
As a result, the developer is now required to pay the higher, original arbor fee of $227,400 for the new phase, as originally intended in the staff’s recommendation.