Second District Court of Appeal rules with North Port on effort to contract city limits
Resident group weighing options after facing second-straight setback in its push to have North Port commissioners reconsider its bid to contract city limits
Earle Kimel
NORTH PORT – A Florida appeals court has ruled for the city of North Port, signaling that a long-running legal fight over a grassroots effort to push North Port to contract its boundaries may be nearing an end.
Growth in Wellen Park has helped push North Port to the top of many lists for fast growing cities, including one by Southern Living Magazine.
The 2nd District Court of Appeal declined to overrule a lower court judge's decision upholding the city’s denial of a citizen petition to contract the city limits.
The appellate decision last Friday came 10 days after a three-judge panel of Stevan Northcutt, Nelly Khouzam and Robert Morris heard arguments in the case and asked attorneys on both sides to submit briefs.
The judges were asking for clarification as to why the panel still had jurisdiction on the de-annexation case, after implementation of new state laws that changed the process of municipal contraction from a court-like process to a legislative one.
But their decision to act quickly left John Meisel, president of the West Villagers for Responsible Government, the group behind the de-annexation effort, perplexed.
“We are completely stunned and flabbergasted at the court’s ruling, especially when the court stated that they wanted supplemental briefs and spent the entirety of the hearing with questions related to concerns about their authority as to whether it was a quasi-judicial or legislative decision,” Meisel said of the court's hearing. “Then they don’t even follow up on their requests for supplemental briefs but then they issue a ruling without any explanation.”
The citizens group has 15 days from the May 3 ruling to ask the court for a written ruling with an explanation of its reasoning.
Meisel stopped short of saying the residents would do so.
“We’re reviewing all legal options,” Meisel said. “We’re not done seeking our constitutional right afforded us under the statute.”
In an email informing city commissioners of the decision, North Port City Attorney Amber Slayton wrote: “While we have always been confident in the City’s legal position related to all aspects of this contraction petition, this has been a multi-year process that has cost the City a great deal of time and money.
“It is gratifying to see that the legal battle is almost over and that the City is likely to prevail as expected,” she added.
What did the appeal court rule?
The West Villagers maintain that Twelfth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Danielle Brewer misapplied case law in her October 2023 decision that the City Commission had given the residents' group due process and followed the state law when it reaffirmed a previous denial of the efforts by citizens seeking to shrink the city boundaries.
The residents asked the appeal court to send the case back to Brewer for reconsideration.
The court denied the request and a petition asking that the city pay the resident group’s attorney fees.
What do the residents want?
The West Villagers group wants the North Port limits contracted to the Myakka River and Wellen Park and other properties west of the river reverting to unincorporated Sarasota County.
The movement started in 2020, as residents grew frustrated with how the City Commission managed North Port's budget, taking issue with decisions such as the construction of the North Port Aquatic Center, instead of using funds to upgrade and maintain infrastructure.
A state law approved in 2023 by the Legislature amended aspects of the law for annexations that would block future similar resident efforts anywhere in the state.
What’s next?
If the residents do not file a motion asking for clarification – or if that motion is denied – the court decision would become final.
In addition to asking the appellate court for a clarification on its ruling, the West Villagers for Responsible Government can also appeal an April 2 denial by Brewer of a petition that would have compelled North Port to place the contraction to a vote by residents living west of the Myakka River.
In that denial, Brewer essentially said that the decision to introduce a contraction ordinance was up to the elected city commissioners.
In an unrelated case that would test the new state statutes on municipal contraction, residents of Jewfish Key, a 38-acre island that is now part of the town of Longboat Key, are seeking to separate from Longboat Key and be considered unincorporated Manatee County, in part because of Longboat’s limits on short-term rentals.