The Ponte Vedra Municipal Service District discussed whether it should vote in favor or against the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club proposed its 30-year for development and renovations and planned unit development request.
However, at the time of the meeting, the 12-hour Ponte Vedra Zoning & Adjustment Board meeting was still taking place, so they decided to table voting on the matter until the October 9 meeting.
The proposal was initially unveiled to the public during a Ponte Vedra Municipal Service District meeting on May 8, but there have been many committees it has gone in front of since and the plan and waiver requests continue to change.
There was some debate of whether or not the MSD should even be voting on the issue in the first place, such as trustee Charles Callaghan who stated that either way voting on it was not something he believed they should get involved with either way because they are not legally bound to as part of the PUD’s overall approval process.
Trustees Mickey White, Brad Wester and Kitty Switkes all agreed and stated that the MSD voting for or against it may just add to the confusion already surrounding the situation for many residents in the community.
However, trustee John Cellucci was for putting the matter to a vote and believed that the MSD should take a stance on the issue either way as an elected board.
“If we don’t vote on it, then what are we all doing here,” Cellucci said.
When asked, MSD attorney Wayne Flowers informed the board that he had not seen the MSD take a position on a zoning issue in his more than two decades as the group’s attorney.
“But that doesn’t mean that it can’t,” Flowers said.
In other news from the meeting, Chairman Al Hollon informed the board that the reason Republic was late picking up some yard waste in the MSD area was due to volume and not staffing issues.
According to Hollon, he believes that in the next contract worked out behind between Republic and St. Johns County will most likely state a limit on the amount of yard waste that can be put out to the street at one time.
The MSD board also unanimously approved hiring Lewis, Longman & Walker at a cap of $43,000 to serve as a lobbyist firm to help present their changes to their charter to the state legislature for approval.
The MSD discussed hiring a lobbyist one year ago but missed its window las fall to hire one before the legislative session got underway.
“You need a lobbyist if you want this to move through the legislature,” Flowers said.
Scott Pearson spoke during the public comments portion of the meeting and requested that the MSD consider posting the monthly treasury report on its website or pass out to those in attendance at its meetings, so that residents will not have to request it because he didn’t know he could do that, and others may be in the same position.
The board agreed that it will look into posting the financial reports at pvmsd.org moving forward.
