CLEARWATER – When they feel that they are being treated unfairly, Americans have a long history of breaking away from the entity that governs them and establishing a new entity. After all, that’s how our country was founded.
Now, several residents of Island Estates, Clearwater Beach and Sand Key feel that they are being treated as second-class citizens of Clearwater and want to break away and start their own city. They have formed an organization, called Islands Independence Initiative Inc., to investigate the feasibility of doing that.
“There has been considerable interest in this,” JoEllen Farnham, the organization’s spokeswoman, said in a recent telephone interview. “We’re investigating the legal, economic and factual aspects of this and we’re hoping, within 90 days, to know what the process will be.”
Farnham explained that it is not any one particular grievance that has led her organization’s members to conclude that they would be better off on their own than they would by staying part of Clearwater. Instead, she blamed “a philosophical difference in priorities” and cited several examples.
She said that Island Estates has not received any Penny for Pinellas sales tax revenue to underground its utilities even though, based on its population as a percentage of Clearwater’s population, it is entitled to $3 million over 10 years as a pro-rata share of the Penny funds going to Clearwater.
She added that Clearwater had been so lax in enforcing the ban on rentals of less than 30 days on Clearwater Beach that it eventually became virtually impossible to enforce them.
Farnham claims that the city had failed to take the initiative on having the Shoppes on Sand Key zoned “commercial” to the point that a court accused the city of having “dropped the ball” on the matter. Because of that, she said, Sand Key may lose its only shopping center.
And then there’s the perpetual parking shortage on Clearwater Beach.
“What is perplexing to us is that they (Clearwater officials) have been working on this (parking problem) for more than 10 years and have not resolved it,” Farnham said. “But they can earmark $10 million for a downtown marina and have done so.”
She added, however, that these items are merely symptoms of a deeper philosophical schism between the city and its island residents.
“We are collectively disappointed as a community,” Farnham said. “We want to explore the possibility of self-governance. That’s what is important to us.”
The proposed new municipality might be called the city of Clearwater Beach. Farnham said it is too early to tell whether it would have its own police and fire departments or would contract with outside providers for police and fire protection.
“Our investigation is in the very early stages so we do not have any answers, and we do not even know what all the questions are,” she said.
