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Port Richey To Consider Holding Dissolution Vote

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By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: January 28, 2009

PORT RICHEY - It would appear residents will again be given the opportunity to decide whether they want to dissolve the city.

On Tuesday, the City Council directed City Attorney Michael Brannigan to draft a "fair and unbiased" ballot question on the fate of Port Richey for a yet-to-be-scheduled special referendum.

The City Council vote was 3-2, with Councilmen Mark Hashim, Phil Abts and Perry Bean voting to have Brannigan write the ordinance that would authorize the referendum. Mayor Richard Rober and Councilman Steve O'Neill voted no.

Brannigan said he planned to have a draft of the referendum ordinance ready for the first of two required readings at the Feb. 10 City Council meeting.

The vote came two weeks after City Council decided not to set up a referendum after receiving a petition bearing 225 signatures. The petition urged council to call a vote on whether to dissolve the city.

At the time Brannigan suggested the petition would founder on the same wording in the city charter that doomed a 2004 petition calling for a dissolution vote.

Although they did not call for a referendum at their Jan. 13 meeting, councilmen said a petition signed by 225 residents showed a large portion of the community wants to vote on the future of the city.

The city held a nonbinding straw ballot in 2007 in which 53 percent of voters opposed a carefully worded ballot question. The question asked if the city should spend up to $250,000 to explore the legal and financial issues that doing away with the city could entail.

Over the decades there have been a number of referendum votes on whether to dissolve the Port Richey city charter but all were defeated.

Council members said Tuesday they had heard over and over again during the past two weeks the message they believed the petition handed in Jan. 13 was delivering.

"I've never been so beat up over an issue as I have with this one," said Abts. The people administering the verbal lashings reminded him that when he ran for office a year ago he promised he would let the people's voice be heard on dissolution if the issue came before council, he said.

While being on the council has given him a different perspective on whether there should be a referendum on the doing away with the city, Abts said, "When I was campaigning, I did give my word to those people that I would allow a vote if they asked for a vote."

"Now I feel differently, but I have to be a man of my word," he said.

Bean and Hashim also voiced a need to address the spirit of the petition, even if the petition itself is flawed.

"I do believe that the petitioners in full faith have done what is required of them," Bean said. "We have a clear mandate here."

Bean proposed and Hashim seconded a motion to have Brannigan "draft a properly worded, fair and unbiased referendum question allowing the citizens to vote on whether to dissolve the incorporated city of Port Richey, to be placed on a special ballot as soon as possible following instructions from the supervisor of elections."

O'Neill said there has not been enough discussion on the costs and other financial issues involved in doing away with the city.

"There's been no discussion of impact. There's no discussion other than police and fire cost," O'Neill said. "There's no numbers thrown around."

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