There’s power in numbers.
A proposed bill circulating in legislative committees to prevent local governments from regulating vacation rentals prompted Holmes Beach commissioners to put up a fight for home rule.
The city hired a lobbyist to help protect its vacation-rental ordinance and the certificate program that recently saw more than 900 applicants registered.
Sen. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, who represents Florida’s 23rd District, filed a bill to roll back vacation rental ordinances adopted after 2011. A companion house bill, HB 425, also was introduced in the Legislature.
Commissioner Vice Chair Jean Peelen claimed at the Feb. 16 meeting the short-term rental company Airbnb has hired a number of lobbyists to support Steube’s bill.
“That’s scary,” Peelen said. “The firepower is frightening.”
So commissioners entered into an agreement Feb. 28 with attorney Cari Roth of Dean Mead & Dunbar in Tallahassee to provide “opposition to legislation that would further restrict local governments’ ability to regulate vacation rentals.”
Roth, who has more than 30 years of experience with state and local governments, including land use and environmental law, currently lobbies for Manatee County in Tallahassee.
“Over my 30-plus years of combining both legal and lobbying, I have become very familiar with the many legislative issues that come up that impact local governments,” Roth wrote in a Feb. 27 email to city attorney Patricia Petruff. “I am particularly familiar with the vacation rental issue.”
The agreement is effective through July 31. The fee is $15,000, to be paid in March and April installments of $7,500.
Peelen originally suggested Holmes Beach join the city of Anna Maria in its lobbying efforts but, she told commissioners Feb. 16, Anna Maria Mayor Dan Murphy encouraged the city to hire its own lobbyist “to even out the numbers.”
“They can then double-team on all the committee members they have to talk to. They can work together,” Peelen said.
Peelen said she is unsure if the lobbying effort will pay off, but the potential is that vacation rentals would not be regulated “in any way.”
The city’s vacation-rental certificate ordinance was adopted in 2016 and, if the bills become law, the certificate program would be eliminated.
“So we might as well just go home because the city as a city is going to be pretty much done,” Peelen said. “For me, it’s desperate times need desperate measures.”
Commission Chair Judy Titsworth asked Petruff how the bills would affect the city’s vacation rental certificate program, adding she did not think “it’s going to be the death of us.”
Petruff said the bill would impact “everything you’ve worked so hard for in that particular ordinance” such as the safety issues with smoke detectors and evacuation signs.
“The actual inspection program will go by the by,” Petruff said. “There’s still a lot that will remain intact. Will it hamper our efforts? Yes, absolutely. Will it completely devastate us? I don’t think so.”
Mayor Bob Johnson said showing the force of an army in Tallahassee is important and encouraged people to visit the city of Anna Maria’s website — cityofannamaria.com — for ways to voice concerns and help put some pressure on the Legislature.
“At least make them aware that there are a few people down here,” Johnson said. He said phone calls, letters and emails are important.
“Go to the site and tell your friends to go to the site,” Johnson said.