Amendment Proposed to City Council’s Majority Action Rule
A piece of legislation is currently moving through city council proposing an amendment to City Council Rule 4.601 (Majority Action). The proposed amendment in Ordinance 2024-0119, filed by the Office of General Counsel (OGC), would “provide that a tie vote on a quasi-judicial matter does not constitute a denial.”
This amendment is related to a San Marco PUD rezoning request that was denied by a tie vote last summer for a proposed mixed-use development featuring a self-storage component that was highly contested by the San Marco community.
Senior Assistant General Counsel Jason Teal explained this amendment emerged from a settlement agreement between the developer for this proposed project and the City of Jacksonville after the developer appealed the denial.
The tie vote being interpreted as a denial was “one of the points of contention” in the appeal, Teal said.
“The interpretation by the General Counsel’s Office of the Council’s rules was that the city council can only take positive action…or affirmative action by a majority vote,” Teal said. “Because the motion was made to adopt or pass the rezoning, the fact that it didn’t have an affirmative vote, which is defined in our council rules as a majority vote, then the interpretation was that it’s effectually a denial of the motion, which denied the rezoning.”
Teal referenced Florida Statute 166.033, which contains language on how a municipality must handle land use matters, specifically “the municipality must approve, approve with conditions, or deny the application for a development permit or development order.”
“The argument stated by the appellant in our case took the position that this means that there must be an ‘affirmative action’ to do one of those things,” he wrote in a later e-mail. “Our position is that our Council Rules identify the need for an affirmative action to approve, so when they don’t have an affirmative action (i.e. a tie vote) the motion fails.”
He added that OGC introduced the legislation “because the need for the filing of the legislation stemmed from a settlement agreement and not the normal channels.”
Should the amendment pass, in the event of any future tie votes on quasi-judicial matters, the city council would be able to follow avenues already available to it, which a bill summary for ordinance 2024-0119 explained, are “move to reconsider the item for the purpose of moving and acting on an alternate motion, rerefer the item back to the appropriate committee of reference for additional consideration, or take any other action authorized by the Council Rules or applicable law.”
Teal explained that last summer’s 9-to-9 tie vote was a rare occurrence – “the first time any of us can remember it happening” – and this legislation is a “recognition” that a tie vote “doesn’t restrict, prohibit, change any of the options that the council still has when they come to any vote on a quasi-judicial case.”
However, former District 5 City Councilmember LeAnna Cumber, an adamant opponent of the previous PUD rezoning request, said the proposed amendment to the council rule is “outrageous.”
“It’s a total gift to developers, and to developers who have controversial projects, because what the bill would do is it would make it so you would have to have a majority of members vote to kill the bill,” she said. “Tie votes fail, because in order to win, you have to have a majority. So what this would do is it would make quasi-judicial bills far harder to actually deny.”
Quasi-judicial matters are matters in which council members essentially sit as judges and cast their votes for or against an issue after considering expert testimony and reviewing competent, substantial evidence on the matter in question. Cumber explained council members must have “a legal reason” to vote against a quasi-judicial matter.
2024-0119 will go before the Rules Committee at its April 1 meeting.
The Resident News will continue to report on these matters as they develop.
By Michele Leivas
Resident Community News
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