VERO BEACH — The Vero Beach City Council on Tuesday decided not to switch from a board to a special magistrate system to review code infractions, but the board won’t work without willing members.
Mayor Dick Winger had in November proposed the city appoint an attorney to a special magistrate position to review matters that would normally come before a group of seven local residents.
Part of the reason for this is that the board sometimes cannot meet due to a lack of quorum, leaving the city with a “non-functioning board,” according to the majority of the city council.
Another reason for the vacancies is the city council’s recent dissatisfaction with the code enforcement board’s August decision in the short-term rental case involving former Vice Mayor Tracy Carroll and her husband renting out their Central Beach home to vacationers.
The quorum problem exists because there are currently three openings on the board that need to be filled by volunteers. This can cause delays in the administrative part of the code enforcement function.
“Ninety-five percent of what it (the board) does is due process,” Winger said. “The board is really a jury of peers, or a magistrate which is really a judge.”
Councilwoman Pilar Turner expressed concern about having a magistrate who is on the city payroll.
“If the magistrate is being paid by the city you’re creating an inherent bias in the system,” Turner said.
Instead of scrapping the current system, the council decided to get proactive about recruiting people to serve. “I think we need to concentrate on getting people back on it,” Vice Mayor Jay Kramer said.
City Attorney Wayne Coment said that some members had dropped off out of concern for the fact that the city council voted to second-guess a decision of the board and is appealing the matter to circuit court in the Carroll case.
Only three people have challenged code enforcement citations in the past three years, so the board has not seen much action on that front. But the Carroll case has thrust the board members into the spotlight and questioned their motivations and allegiances. Two of the three members who said the ordinance was vague had previously served with John Carroll when he was a member of the code enforcement board.
The city’s attorneys contend that the board overstepped its legal boundaries in voting that a city ordinance was too vague to enforce. It is the city’s position that the board must rely upon the staff interpretation of the ordinance and, when there is an appeal, simply decide whether or not there was a violation.
If willing volunteers cannot be found, the council may revisit the option of hiring a magistrate or getting one to donate his or her time, as Coment said is the case in the City of Tampa.
“If we keep running into quorum issues and we can’t get people to serve, then we’re going to need to address it,” said Councilwoman Amelia Graves.
The council did not vote on a motion made by Turner and seconded by Councilman Craig Fletcher to keep the current system that has been in place for more than 50 years. Winger instead declared a consensus to fill the open positions on the board.
Interested parties should contact City Clerk Tammy Vock at (772) 978-4709 or email her at TVock@covb.org to obtain an application for the volunteer position.
