Commission asks governor to suspend two of its own

On July 21 the county commission voted 3 to 2 to ask the governor to suspend two of its own members. On August 19 those same two moved and seconded the motion that certified 615.41 acres as an agricultural enclave, and it carried 3 to 2. Twenty-nine days separate those roll calls, and the same five people cast both of them.

Nothing in between settled the question of who should be sitting there. What happened in between is permanent.

July 21

The motion sits in the Clerk’s minutes, on a public website, inside a PDF that almost nobody opens:

“Motion by [a commissioner], seconded by [a commissioner], carried 3/2, to adopt a vote of no confidence toward [two commissioners] and direct the County Attorney to immediately draft and transmit a formal letter to the Florida Governor requesting their immediate suspension from office.”

Three yea, two nay, and the two nay votes belong to the two commissioners the motion is about. A board of five asked the state to remove two of its members, and the two it wanted removed were in the room and voting.

The minutes keep the sequence, which is the useful part. Immediately before the motion, a commissioner “questioned whether [two commissioners] intended to resign.” Immediately after it, the deputy clerk set down a single line: “Discussion ensued on the difference between a censure and a vote of no confidence.”

That is the most honest sentence in the whole record. A board that has just voted to ask for two suspensions stops to work out what it did.

Note what the motion actually did, which was to direct the County Attorney to draft and transmit a letter. The minutes record that direction, and fifty-six days later the board still has five members sitting in five districts.

August 4

Fourteen days after the no confidence vote the board met again, and public comment ran three pages in the minutes. Residents addressed the board about a criminal matter involving two commissioners.

One resident, according to the record, “expressed concerns regarding the criminal charges against two commissioners, urged their removal from office, and requested that the County retain outside legal counsel regarding Senate Bill 686.” Another “spoke on the criminal charges against two commissioners, urged them to resign, and expressed opposition to Senate Bill 686.” A third “spoke in support of the suspension of the commissioners.”

Later the same morning the board voted 5 to 0:

“Motion by [a commissioner], seconded by [a commissioner], carried 5/0, to direct the County Attorney’s Office to confer with outside counsel to evaluate the legal viability of pursuing an injunction challenging Senate Bill 686, including an assessment of standing and a cost analysis, and to report findings back to the Board.”

All five, the two included, fourteen days after three of them had asked the state to take those two seats away. Earlier that morning a commissioner had moved to engage a named firm outright, and that motion, in the clerk’s phrasing, “failed for lack of a second.”

A board that cannot find a second at ten o’clock can be unanimous by noon, and the record will carry both.

August 19

A special meeting, called for the enclaves, all five present: a motion to deny Agricultural Enclave Certification Application ENCERT 2026-05 failed 2 to 3, and then a motion to approve the same application carried 3 to 2. The approval was moved and seconded by the two commissioners the board had voted no confidence in four weeks earlier.

That is roughly 615.41 acres, east of Interstate 95 and south of State Road 207, and the next item, ENCERT 2026-06, about 551 acres on the other side of the interstate, carried 3 to 2 on the same three yea votes. Then a motion to deny ENCERT 2026-01, the 4,462-acre application on North Palm Valley Road, failed 2 to 3, and the board voted 4 to 1 to continue that one to September 1.

Roughly 1,166 acres certified in an evening, and the largest of the three pushed down the calendar.

The arithmetic underneath that vote is worth doing slowly. Subtract either one of those two from the roll and the motion certifying ENCERT 2026-05 is 2 to 2, and 2 to 2 certifies nothing at all.

What does not come back

A certification is not a rezoning, and it is not a decision a later board revisits on a slow Tuesday, because it hands the land the densities of its neighbors over the top of the county’s own comprehensive plan and the statute that does it sets out no way to undo it afterward. There is no motion to uncertify, no hearing for it, no item on any agenda that takes 615.41 acres back.

The question the board raised on July 21 has no comparable clock on it, and a vote of no confidence produces nothing except the minutes that record it.

Meanwhile the applications keep arriving and the statutory deadlines keep running against a county that has to answer them, and a county does not get to pause while five people work out whether two of them belong in their seats. Every week the question stays open is a week of permanent decisions taken by a board that has told the state, in writing, that it does not have confidence in two of the people casting them.

That is the cost of leaving it open, and it is being paid in acres.

Still five

The agenda for Tuesday’s regular meeting carries five districts across the top of page one, a commissioner beside each, a chair and a vice chair noted. Item 2 is the 4,462-acre application, back again, after a motion to deny failed on September 1 and a motion to approve failed right behind it.

Nothing on the agenda asks how many of the five ought to be sitting there, or which five. Item 2 will be decided by whoever is in the chairs at nine.