Jesse Scheckner
A bill to end a dispute over hefty water service surcharges between a pair of Miami-Dade cities is headed to a likely final vote in the Legislature after Senate members amended and passed it by an overwhelming majority.
Senators voted 36-2 for the measure (HB 11), which is meant to bring parity to the way North Miami Beach delivers water to Miami Gardens.
It’s a complicated situation. Miami Gardens receives water from the Norwood Water Treatment Plant, which is owned by the adjacent city of North Miami Beach but stands within Miami Gardens’ bounds.
A study Miami Gardens conducted found that North Miami Beach has been adding a 25% surcharge to water it provides outside its limits. While the typical quarterly household water bill in Miami Gardens from the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department was $91.68 two years ago, the same amount of water cost $160.50 from the North Miami Beach-owned plant.
Miami Gardens sued its neighbor over the issue in 2018.
Last year, the parties settled. North Miami Beach agreed to pay $9 million to close out the case after the Florida Supreme Court declined to hear it.
But the door to future surcharges needs to be firmly shut, said the bill’s Senate sponsor, Miami Gardens Democratic Sen. Shevrin Jones, who is carrying legislation to do that for the second consecutive year.
“Simply put, it’s taxation without representation,” he said.
HB 11, which Jones amended so that it contains language from his companion bill (SB 202) specifying that it only applies to Miami Gardens and North Miami Beach, would update Florida Statutes.
The new language would specify that a municipality operating a water and/or sewer utility plant can still levy an up to 25% surcharge to cover the extra cost of providing its services to another municipality — unless the facility rendering the services is in the recipient municipality. In such a case, the service-providing municipality must charge the recipient municipality no more than it charges its own residents.
“It is time that we do right by these people,” Jones said. “Because this has been going on for too long.”
Senate Democratic Leader Jason Pizzo of Hollywood and Pensacola Republican Sen. Don Gaetz voted “no” on HB 11, which Miami Gardens Democratic Rep. Felicia Robinson filed in early December.
Gaetz previously voted “yes” on SB 202.
Pizzo, a former prosecutor who voted against the bill at all three of its committee stops, said he’d been called a racist for opposing it because it conflicts with the Florida Constitution. Miami Gardens is Florida’s largest Black city by population. North Miami Beach is 41% Hispanic or Latino, 38% Black, 23% mixed race and 16% non-Hispanic White, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Pizzo did not say who called him a racist.
He said Article VII, Section 18 of the Florida Constitution requires any legislation that causes a local government a significant financial loss — calculated by multiplying 10 cents by Florida’s population, presently about $2.34 million — to include a statement of fiscal impact.
“This doesn’t have it, and the posture of this situation is that a group of people got together and went ahead and formed a city (Miami Gardens) and incorporated around a structure, around a plant,” he said. “So, here’s the deal. I follow the law. I read the plain reading of the law, and if anybody’s feelings are hurt and think I’m a racist for my position, suck it.”
Article VII, Section 18 of the Florida Constitution generally provides that the Legislature can’t just pass a law that makes counties or cities pay for something unless it is determined that the law is important to the whole state. The legislation must also either apply equally to everyone, provide enough money to cover the cost, enable the local government to create a new funding source to raise the money or pass with a two-thirds majority in the Senate and House.
Proposals that won’t cost a locality much are exempt. Jones said that’s the case with HB 11, according to attorneys involved in the lawsuit and information Pizzo brought him.
Miami Republican Sen. Ileana Garcia and Tamarac Democratic Sen. Rosalind Osgood urged their Senate colleagues to be respectful of each other and refrain from name-calling.
Osgood said she was “deeply sorrowful” for how Pizzo was treated over a “difference of votes, a difference of opinion.”
‘We have to move forward and love and understand that democracy is something we’re going to have a difference of opinion” about, she said. “But what we’re not going to do is hate each other and call each other names that are inappropriate.”
Garcia agreed and apologized for laughing after Pizzo said, “suck it.”
“We are so mindful and respectful of each other, usually, a majority of the time,” she said. “So, I apologize, Sen. Jones, for having (laughed). It caught me off-guard. You were very funny, Sen. Pizzo, in that moment.”
