VERO BEACH — The City of Vero Beach has retained attorney Susan Trevarthen of the law firm Weiss Serota Helfman Pastoriza Cole & Boniske to defend the city’s code restricting short-term or vacation rentals.
Public records show the city will pay Trevarthen’s firm a blended rate of $220 per hour for legal services. City Manager Jim O’Connor signed a letter of engagement with the firm on Sept. 6 in accordance with a Sept. 3 directive from the City Council to hire an attorney.
City policy allows O’Connor to sign off on up to $50,000 in expenses without going back to the council for specific approval.
City Attorney Wayne Coment cannot represent the city in this matter because he serves as legal counsel for the Code Enforcement Board, which ruled on Aug. 14 that the city’s code as written is too vague to be enforced, which precipitated the need for outside counsel.
The matter came to the code enforcement board when Vice Mayor Tracy Carroll and her husband, John, appealed a $50 fine for renting out their Camelia Lane home in Central Beach by the week to vacationers.
Because decisions of the Code Enforcement Board are quasi-judicial, meaning that they are binding with all testifying parties being sworn in and other due process procedures being followed, the City Council in this case cannot simply vote to overturn the ruling, but instead must appeal the matter to the 19th Judicial Circuit.
According to City Clerk Tammy Vock, Vero has until Sept. 27 to file a challenge in circuit court. If the court were to affirm the ruling of the Code Enforcement Board, the city cannot go back and strengthen its regulations because in 2011 the Florida Legislature declared that the state – not local governments – would regulate vacation rentals, grandfathering in ordinances on the books before June 1, 2011.
South Florida-based Weiss Serota is regarded as one of the top governmental law firms in the state with a 20-year track record of representing cities and counties in everything from litigation to everyday municipal law and staffing government meetings.
Weiss Serota describes itself as “a high-end, boutique firm dedicated to a small number of integrated practice areas.”
Trevarthen specializes in land use, planning and zoning issues and chairs the firm’s Public Land Use and Zoning Group. Among Trevarthen’s experience, she lists “Represented municipal staff or governing bodies for contested quasi-judicial hearing in cities including Parkland, Weston, Hallandale Beach, Miramar, Deerfield Beach, Sunrise and North Bay Village” and “Worked with Village staff to develop and defend regulations of vacation rental properties and formula retail development in the Village of Islamorada, and draft vacation rental regulations for Town of Lauderdale-By-The-Sea.”
Weiss Serota in 2008 represented the Village of Islamorada in a challenge to its vacation rental ordinance and the ordinance was upheld in court, according to former Islamorada mayor Michael Reckwerdt, who served on the council during the drawn-out legal battle.
In her capacity as head of Weiss Serota’s Public Land Use and Zoning Group, Trevarthen’s regular clients include Cooper City, Weston, Miramar, Aventura, North Bay Village, and Homestead; the Towns of Cutler Bay and Lauderdale-By-The-Sea; and the Villages of Bal Harbour, Key Biscayne and Islamorada. Past clients include Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach, Sunrise, Hallandale Beach, Hollywood, Coconut Creek, Dania Beach, Cape Coral, Coral Gables and Miami Springs.