A Holmes Beach commissioner is entering budget season with a wealth of public feedback.
Commission Chair Dan Diggins told The Islander July 16 about his takeaways from a town hall meeting he called at the Island Library the night prior that drew about 100 people.
Diggins said attendees July 15 had the most to say about a proposed resolution increasing stormwater assessment fees from $2.95 per 100 square feet of property to up to $9 per 100 square feet of property. While the proposed increase is meant to pay for a slate of improvements over the next five years, attendees expressed a lack of confidence in the effectiveness of those improvements.
“They said they don’t mind paying it if they felt like it was actually doing something, but they don’t think it’s actually doing anything,” Diggins said. “They just feel that whatever we’re doing for stormwater mitigation is not working.”
He said attendees pointed to St. Petersburg’s stormwater plan and improvements as examples of what could be done, and he agreed that the city could consider some of their solutions.
Diggins also said he wanted to explore changing the basis for stormwater fees from lot size to pervious lot coverage, since that would better reflect a property’s impact on stormwater absorption.
There was less fuss about the potential adoption of a rollback rate of 2.1812 mills for fiscal year 2025-26, according to Diggins.
The rollback rate would raise the same amount of ad valorem tax revenue as the city collected this year, $6,735,765, but would amount to a tax increase over the current 1.99 millage rate.
Overall, Diggins said he’s leaning toward keeping stormwater fees as they are and adopting the rollback rate, or less, as people continue to recover from last year’s hurricanes.
“There’s a lot of people really hurting still and I didn’t realize the extent,” Diggins said. “Just because I think I know what is going on doesn’t mean I do. So it’s important to have a lot of people talk to me.”
Diggins said he encouraged people to show up to the city commission’s next meeting at 9 a.m. Friday, July 25, at city hall, 5801 Marina Drive.
Votes on a maximum millage for fiscal 2025-26 and a resolution for a potential stormwater fee increase were included in the meeting agendas.
A livestream of the meeting can be viewed on the city’s website, holmesbeachfl.org.