150 people attended our annual meeting on October 10^th. The main topics of discussion were taxation and fee simple title. County Attorney Alison Rogers and County Commissioner Grover Robinson answered questions from the audience.

During a short business meeting, the PBA membership approved a change to the bylaws to change the membership
year to follow the calendar year beginning immediately. The dues will remain at $30 per year per leasehold. The Board of Directors was elected as follows: Jim Cox (President), Scott Holland (Vice President), Glenn Windham (Treasurer), Maria Weisnicht (Secretary), Ray Ascherfeld, Max Scroggin, and JJ Waters.

Jay Baynes gave an update on the many projects that our environmental group, BeachKeepers, is evaluating.

Lila Cox gave a short update on the various tax litigation cases. The Portofino case contesting the amount of assessment is being appealed. She indicated that the leaseholders may have to file another lawsuit on the new land taxes. She referred attendees to the Tax Lawsuit website (www.pbtaxsuit.com) for more information and reminded everyone that they needed to keep their  mailing addresses current with the attorney.

Jim Cox introduced the guest speakers and gave a short overview of the work the PBA directors have been doing to engage the Escambia County Board of Commissioners to find remedies for the double taxation problems including fee simple title  legislation and lease fee offsets.

Commissioner Grover Robinson gave a short presentation, reiterating many times that the BCC is not responsible for the taxation of the land – that the property appraiser and tax collector have taken this issue on independently from the Escambia County Board of County Commissioners (BCC). Alison Rogers explained that Escambia County cannot legislate offsets. However, the BCC can send tax revenues (on the land) to the SRIA who as the landlord for our leases can refund lease fees.  She also mentioned Florida Statute 196.199 which says that legally the state can tax leased property. This is a complex issue because of timing, residential vs commercial leases and weather the tax revenues will be escrowed and for how long. There was never any mention of using taxes collected on the improvements to offset the shortage in land tax revenues for the commercial leaseholders. The county taxes commercial and residenital leaseholders a total of $18,000,000 in ad valorm taxes (schools get 53%, county gets 47%).

Another issue was mentioned but not discussed in detail (the creation of a waterfront authority to include  all waterfront properties in Escambia County). Grover stated that he was not in favor of a plan that would take revenue generated on Santa Rosa Island to spend elsewhere. Right now all the lease fees generated from Pensacola Beach stay on  the island and are spent by the SRIA.

Fee simple title concerns were discussed including need for a Senate sponsor, offset of lease fees (see related article on our website), Municipal Service Benefit Units vs Tax Units, future of SRIA (elimination of SRIA requires state legislation not a BCC  resolution). Another attendee pointed out that the value of our homestead should be calculated retroactively to the date our leases were in effect, not based on the current value.

For more information on this meeting visit the website for Island Times at www.myislandtimes.com where you can read the current issue as well as archives of past issues.

Pensacola Beach Advocates  is sponsoring a Tax Forum on Tuesday, Nov 1, 2011 at 5:30 at the Pensacola Beach Community Church Hall. We have invited Danny Kepner of Shell Fleming Davis & Menge and Ed Fleming of McDonald Fleming & Moorehead to speak and answer your questions. Topics will include:

• Tax on Improvements – the First District Court of Appeals recently “certified” the residential leaseholders’ challenge, thus
  opening the door (for the first time) for an appeal to the FL Supreme Court.  Learn the next steps in this litigation.
• Tax on land – we will need to file a separate challenge to the taxation of leased land in 2011. Learn how you can be part of
  this litigation.
• Other novel options – some leaseholders with older leases that are silent on the issue of taxation may have another way to transfer the burden of taxation.

If you have questions that you would like the attorneys to address, please send them to info@pbadvocates.org.

Please join PBA if these issues are of interest to you. We work hard to keep you informed on critical topics. But there is a cost to our organization and we need your participation and financial support.

Membership dues are only $30 per year and can be paid at the door for new and renewing members. Or online from this website via Paypal.

Read more about issues and option surrounding double taxation.

PBA recently notified their members of good news on the tax litigation suit. Become a member so you can get this news as soon as we get it!

On October 14th, the Florida First District Court of Appeal granted the motion for certification in the lawsuit known as 1108 Ariola v. Jones that involves about 2,400 residential parcels on Pensacola Beach.  This improves the possibility that this case concerning the taxation of improvements could be heard by the Supreme Court.

The First District Court of Appeal has certified to the Florida Supreme Court the following question related to the taxation of leasehold improvements on
Pensacola Beach as of matter of great public importance:

Whether the appellant leaseholders are equitable owners of the leasehold improvements on the subject real property when they have neither a perpetual lease of the underlying real property nor an option to purchase such property for nominal value.

The attorney in this case will now petition the Florida Supreme Court for consideration of this case.  The Supreme Court can decline, but this action by the First District Court of Appeal improves the chances.

No other case involving taxation of the improvements on Pensacola Beach or Navarre Beach has made it to the Supreme Court.  None of the other Pensacola Beach cases on improvements could even ask for consideration by the Supreme Court, because the decisions by the lower court were simply affirmed by the appeals court.

Pensacola Beach Advocates will sponsor a forum on taxation on Pensacola Beach in early November. Everyone should be aware that land in addition to improvements will be included in the 2011 tax bills that will be issued around November 1^st.

Lila Cox,  Communciations Committee
Pensacola Beach Advocates

Informed Citizens Giving a Voice to the Beach

On October 4^th, there was a joint meeting of the SRIA and the Board of County Commissioners to discuss the double taxation issue  on Pensacola Beach.  The commissioners agreed they need to “make leaseholders whole” on the double taxation issue, but  left many questions unanswered.

They proposed escrowing the ad-valorem taxes on the leased land (about $3.3 million per year) until the tax litigation is decided.  If the courts rule the land is NOT taxable, then the taxes would be refunded and the lease fees and SRIA would likely stay  in place as they are now.  If the courts rule the land IS taxable, then the escrowed monies would be given to the SRIA  to refund lease fees.  But the amount of the escrowed taxes is not enough to reimburse both the residential and commercial lease fees, and who gets refunded and how much they get refunded is unknown.

There was also some concern about the timing of dispursements from the County to the SRIA. The County collects taxes in arrears (your payments starting in November are for the year 2011) while the SRIA collects lease fees in advance.  Also the county is dependent on Janet Holley (Tax Collector) deciding if and when she is going to release those tax dollars to the county or hold them in escrow.

Commissioners and our Congressman Jeff Miller continue to work on getting legislation approved for giving leaseholders fee simple title to their property. They do not have a Senate sponsor for the bill and are working with Senator Rubio to get his support.  See related articles on Fee Simple Title.

Commissioner Grover Robinson and County Attorney Alison Rogers will be at the PBA Annual Meeting next Monday, October 10^th at 5:30 at the Beach Community Church to discuss this issue and answer leaseholders questions.  Please plan to  attend and bring a neighbor.

Additional Information

SRIA Board Chairman started out the meeting with a brief presentation summarizing the history of the island and its ownership and the current budget for Pensacola Beach. A few facts:

• Pensacola Beach is 1474 acres
• 60% of the land mass is in parks and public lands
• Population is 2738
• There are 3811 residential leases and 139 commercial leases
• SRIA brings in $6 million in revenue between residential lease fees ($2.5 M) and commercial lease fees ($3.5M).
• The annual SRIA budget is – $6 million.
• In addition to lease fees, Pensacola Beach currently generates close to $2 million in bed tax revenues for the county, $3 million in toll collections and is expected to collect $3million in taxes on land in addition to $5million on improvements. A total of $17 million in benefits to the county (excluding $ paid for schools and sheriff).
• The SRIA provides a variety of services that benefit residents and visitors – beach cleanup, security, special events, hurricane preparedness and recovery, road and landscaping maintenance, public safety, building permits and oversight.

The environment arm of PBA, Beachkeepers, had its inaugural meeting on Thursday, August 25^th at the SRIA.  The meeting was attended by 27 enthusiastic volunteers who got things off to a first start in anticipation of others joining in.  JJ Waters, chairperson, gave an overview of the Beachkeepers mission and how we hope to proceed.  Attendees were asked to break down into 4 groups representing the areas of greatest concern determined from our recent survey of PBA members.  Each group was asked to identify a team leader, brainstorm on action ideas for their topic and develop a short term goal their group could address by the end of this year and a long term goal.

The four groups and their team leaders are Wildlife Conservation (Teri Stephens); Alternative Transportation/Parking (Jay Baynes); Dune Preservation/Restoration (Terry Preston); and Litter/Recycling (Lois Hausman).  This group is so interested in the environment on Pensacola Beach that several people expressed an interest in working on more than one topic.

Beachkeepers will meet again on Thursday, September 8^th at 5 pm at the SRIA.  The groups will work on further refining their goals and action steps.  Additional participation is encouraged.

Please consider joining PBA and getting involved in one of our committees.

Now that Escambia County is taxing us on our leaseholds (land), we are in a “double taxation” situation.  Even though we are being taxed on the land and improvements in 2011, the lease fees we pay to the SRIA do not go away.  The SRIA Board adopted the 2012 budget at their August 24^th meeting.  This budget goes on to the County Commissioners for approval.  As is always the case, the budget of the SRIA which provides services to visitors, locals and tourists is supported completely by residential and commercial lease fees.  Fortunately, there was no increase in residential lease fees.  This is the result of PBA successfully challenging the proposed increase for 2011.

Representatives of PBA having been meeting with County Commissioners and SRIA members and urging them to take quick action to provide leaseholders relief from “double taxation”.  The SRIA Board will discuss possible remedies at the September 28^th board meeting.  There will be a joint meeting of the SRIA Board and the Board of County Commissioners in town on at 4:30 pm on October 4^th.  We need a large turnout at this meeting.

Please show your support for our efforts by joining the PBA

The status of the law suits remain pretty much the same as reported in the last newsletter.  We wait for a response from the First District Court of Appeal and the Florida Supreme Court.  It is worth noting that 2 attorneys have filed notice with the Supreme Court for Amicus Curiae, “Friend of the Court”.  This can be done by someone who is not a party to the case but believes the court’s decision may affect its interests.  In both cases, they are offering information to assist the Court in reversing the decision to tax the land on Navarre Beach.  You can follow this link and insert case number 1445 to see docket information on the Navarre Beach land case

http://jweb.flcourts.org/pls/docket/ds_docket_search%20

Escambia County Property Appraiser, Chris Jones, sent out the Notice of Proposed Property Taxes in August.  Almost everyone noticed the increase in taxes, but it took extra effort to determine the assessed value of the land that accounted for the increase in taxes.  This is the first time the leased land is being taxes as ad valorem property.  Suffice it to say that this Notice was less than user friendly.  You can see a clear breakdown of the assessed value of improvements and land by doing a property search on the Property Appraiser’s web site.  Use the following link and insert any number of the search criteria available on your Notice (name, address, etc.)

http://www.escpa.org/CAMA/Search.aspx

The Notice of Proposed Property Taxes provides an opportunity to question the accuracy of the value and to check that appropriate reductions and exemptions have been applied.  If you can not resolve differences with the Property Appraiser’s Office, you can file a petition with the Value Adjustment Board (deadline of September 2, 2011).  In order to contest the legality of taxing the land, a complaint must be filed in the Circuit Court within 60 days of the tax roll being certified.  That deadline usually falls around mid-December.

PBA President, Jim Cox, convened an August 23^rd meeting of representatives who worked with the attorneys on the residential, commercial and Portofino law suits concerning improvements.  Attorneys Danny Kepner and Ed Fleming updated the group on the status of the ongoing cases and discussed options for challenging taxation of the land.  A lot depends on whether or not the Florida Supreme Court agrees to consider the Navarre Beach case.  If they do not agree to take the case, our options are limited (but not gone) to successfully challenge the land tax on Pensacola Beach.  A follow-up meeting of this group is scheduled for mid-September.  PBA will keep you informed on this important issue.

Please join PBA

The County has engaged Baskerville Donovan to do an engineering review of the ideas that were generated by last spring’s Master Plan, and develop cost estimates, priorities, and likely funding sources.  Baskerville made a presentation the SRIA on August 24th.

Comments are being accepted on the Baskerville Donovan engineering study of the Master Plan.  The report from Baskerville Donovan is available on this web site for your review.  There is a project comment line (850) 430-1700.  Comments can dropped off at the SRIA office or emailed to masterplan@baskervilledonovan.com  Comments period closes on September 12^th.  The Master Plan Steering Committee meets on September 7^th at 11 am at the SRIA to discuss the report from Baskerville Donovan.  This meeting is open to the public.

PB Master Plan Report 8-24-11

Since the process of developing a Master Plan for Pensacola Beach has been a long process, it might be helpful to provide a brief recap.  In the fall of 2009, the SRIA selected a planning firm to develop a Master Plan as a vision for future.  EDSA from Ft. Lauderdale was selected and contracted with the SRIA.  A 13 member Steering Committee was appointed to provide guidance to EDSA.  Over the course of the next few months, the Steering Committee met and public workshops were held to encourage input on the Plan.

The SRIA Board adopted the EDSA conceptual Master Plan in April, 2010.  http://sria-fla.com/admin/documents/edsamasterfinal.pdf    The EDSA plan promoted the concept of a beach to bay experience.  The focus of improvements in the core area involved redirecting Pensacola Beach Blvd. to go straight into the Casino Beach parking lot.  Traffic patterns and pedestrian movement would be changed by the use of roundabouts, an elevated roadway, and a pedestrian walkway at grade beneath the elevation of the road near the current traffic light.  The cost of the EDSA Master Plan was roughly $336,000.

In our February newsletter we reported that the County awarded an engineering contract to Baskerville Donovan to do the engineering design of the Master Plan.  The $150,000 cost of the engineering study came out of Local Option Sales Tax funds.  Baskerville Donovan was tasked to analyze the feasibility of the ideas included in the EDSA report, make cost estimates, set construction priorities, and recommend funding options.  We were told that there will be public forums at several stages of the engineering process, but none were scheduled.

On August 24^th, Baskerville Donovan made a presentation of their preliminary findings to the SRIA Board with about 50 interested parties on hand.  They concluded that the roundabouts proposed by EDSA were unworkable.  Instead, they presented an option of extending the service road on the east side of Pensacola Beach Blvd.   The presentation included 5 options for changing the intersection with cost estimates and grades applied for the level of service achieved (E and F are failing levels).  Baskerville Donovan also entertained the option of moving the toll facility to the north bound lane, so that people would pay the toll upon leaving the Beach.  The board members were allowed to ask questions, but no one in the audience was permitted to speak.  Anyone wishing to comment was instructed to use the comment process.

It is not clear at this point how input from the Steering Committee or other comments submitted to BDI will be incorporated into the engineering review.  BDI’s final report on this phase is expected to go to the County by October 31, 2011.

Read more about the history of the beach master plan

Pensacola Beach Advocates
NOTICE OF ANNUAL MEETING
Monday, October 10^th at 5:00 p.m.
Beach Community Church Hall

Agenda Items:

1. Double Taxation on Pensacola Beach – What are the SRIA and the Board of County Commissioners going to do about it? Speakers include Commissioner Grover Robinson and County Attorney Alison Rogers.
2. The Beach Master Plan – Status of the engineering study, priority of projects and potential funding sources.
3. PBA Beachkeepers – update on current projects.
4. Secretary’s Report – Minutes of 2010 Meeting
5. Treasurer’s Report
6. Election of Directors

We have been receiving many emails from leaseholders on Pensacola Beach who are very concerned about double taxation for leaseholds since they received their tax notice from Escambia County recently. Please read previous newsletters and blog postings on the background of lease fees, taxation, tax lawsuits, fee simple title.

The Pensacola Beach Advocates organization has been involved in these important issues for years. These issues are complex and there are no simple solutions. We share your concerns and our board of directors has prepared this information to bring attention to this issue.  We will remain involved until it is resolved.

If you are concerned and want to support us please joint PBA and make your annual donation of $30. Come to our annual meeting in October.

Assumptions:

• We need to prepare a backup plan for Beach leaseholders assuming that the Florida Courts uphold the taxation of both land and improvements on Pensacola Beach and the leaseholders are faced with paying lease fees in addition to ad-valorem taxes.
• This “double taxation” of Pensacola Beach leaseholders is unfair, and the only remedy is to eliminate the lease fees.
• The County has introduced legislation to Congress to allow transfer of fee simple ownership of land to Pensacola Beach leaseholders. But this legislation could take four years, or may never be enacted at all. The citizens and businesses on Pensacola Beach cannot wait for the U.S. Congress to act to resolve the double taxation issue.

Issues that need to be addressed:

• Lease fees are pledged as collateral on certain bond issues. How can these guarantees be released?
• The development agreement for Portofino provides for an Island Beautification Fund that currently reserves $490,000 per year of Portofino lease fees for island improvements.  What happens to these funds, now and in the future? The agreement also provides for up to $4.7 million in infrastructure improvements for the future development of the 12 acres of land east of Portofino. How will the County assume this commitment?
• If the County decides to disband the SRIA, what state legislation will be needed to dissolve the SRIA, or can the Board of County Commissioners do that without state legislation? What will the successor entity to the SRIA look like? What will its functions be? How will it be funded?
• There are 13 master leases that are in the names of corporations or LLC’s. There are 849 subleases to these master leases. In some cases (which ones yet to be determined) the rent paid by the sub-lessees is greater than the amount paid by the master lessee, yielding the master lessee a net profit.  How are such situations to be handled when the master lease fees go away? How will the sub-lessees derive any relief from double taxation?
• It will take time to resolve these issues.  In the meantime, residential lessees are paying $2.7 million per year in lease fees in addition to ad-valorem taxes.  How can the County protect them in the meantime?  Should they drop lease fees for leaseholders paying taxes as was done in Santa Rosa County? Should they escrow tax dollars to later refund the lease fees if the courts rule in the Property Appraiser’s favor?
• Currently the commercial leaseholders pay about $3.5 million per year in lease fees to the SRIA which are collected in the form of a 2 to 5% “SRIA fee” on commercial sales and rental income. Should some form of tax or fee on sales and rental income remain after the lease agreements are gone?