County Attorney Anne Bast Brown explains the nuisance abatement ordinance to county commissioners.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
An encampment of drug users in a quiet south Levy County community has prompted the Levy County Commission to dust off an almost forgotten and seldom used administrative board to do something about the problem.
Levy County Commissioners serve as the Nuisance Abatement Board, but only one member of the current county commission was a commissioner in 2003 when the abatement board was created.
County Commissioner Lilly Rooks said she doesn’t remember the abatement board or if an abatement case was ever brought to the county commission.
The county’s aim now is to use the abatement board as a legal mechanism to rid Graceland Shores in South Levy County of the unlawful activities that prompted residents to appeal directly to the county commission for help.
The 16-year-old abatement ordinance doesn’t provide clear instructions on how residents of Graceland Shores could file a nuisance complaint that could be heard by the county commission serving as the abatement board.
It doesn’t give the county commission arrest powers.
County Attorney Anne Bast Brown was instructed Tuesday to work with County Coordinator Wilbur Dean to develop the necessary administrative forms needed to file a complaint and identify who receives it.
“Who do you call first? Do you call the sheriff’s office or do you call the Development department if you want to file a complaint with the abatement board,” Rooks said Wednesday in a phone interview.
Commissioners originally received complaints at a Nov. 19 board meeting from retirees of Graceland Shores, a community on the banks of Lake Rousseau, saying methamphetamine users were harassing them and taking over their neighborhood. Residents came back to Tuesday’s meeting to find out if the commission was going to help them. They said the problem hasn’t gone away.
The commission had instructed Brown at its Nov. 19 meeting to conduct legal research on how to combat illegal drug activity in Graceland Shores. Brown discovered the Nuisance Abatement Board, was founded before she was hired. She wrote a memo describing the abatement board’s duties and the penalties that can be imposed by the board.
The Levy County Sheriff’s Office hasn’t gathered enough evidence for a case to be made against the owners of the properties at the center of the Graceland Shores issues, according to Brown’s memo.
Brown summarized the sheriff’s office position on Graceland Shores in a memo that McCallum had never seen until a Spotlight reporter showed it to him Tuesday after the county commission meeting. McCallum was shown the two paragraphs below from the memo.
“As to the specific issues in the Inglis area raised by the citizens during the November 19 public comments, Sheriff Bobby McCallum has authorized me to present to the Board that the Sheriff’s Office will contact either my office or County Administrative staff if and when sufficient evidence is gathered to support a complaint to the Levy County Nuisance Abatement board,” Brown said.
She continued, “At this time, the Sheriff’s Office is not in a position to move forward with such a complaint. In the meantime, the Board may wish to discuss the various considerations contained in this memo and make decisions regarding the administration of nuisance investigations and the County Nuisance Abatement Board, and the provision of legal services for nuisance abatement complaints.”
The same memo provides a definition of buildings that are a nuisance to the community. It says a building must have been used for a list of crimes including prostitution, unlawful activities related to illegal street drugs or violations of Florida Drug and Cosmetics Act on two occasions in six months.
There are other activities that don’t require the same frequency of two or more occurrences in a six month period for enforcement. One is criminal gang activity.
The Nuisance Abatement Board may impose fines of up to $250 per day, reasonable costs and attorney fees associated with investigations and hearings connected with the nuisance properties, and fines of up to $500 per day for recurring nuisances. Other enforcement options include the recording of orders that advise potential property purchasers of the issues related to the nuisance property, and enforcement of fines through foreclosure on properties that aren’t listed on Levy County property tax rolls as a homestead.
Pending legislation before the Florida Legislature would expand the penalties and definitions of what constitutes nuisance properties.
Brown’s memo said the 2003 ordinance establishing the Levy County Nuisance Abatement board authorizes the county commission to impose additional penalties.
“A review of other counties’ nuisance abatement ordinances reveals that other counties tend to set out more detail regarding additional authorized penalties and procedures involving the imposition of those penalties. The Board may want to consider revising the Levy County Code to provide a finite list of additional authorized penalties it wishes to be able to impose and provide procedures for imposition of those penalties similar to other counties,” Brown said. The county commission didn’t act on her suggestion to expand the penalties.
Brown’s memo said when sufficient evidence is gathered, the person filing the complaint with the Nuisance Abatement Board must notify the owner of the nuisance property three days in advance of the complaint being filed. The complaint and any order regarding the complaint would be directed at the owner.
It wasn’t clear how residents of Graceland Shores could gather evidence needed to file a nuisance complaint or whether the sheriff’s office would have to work in cooperation with the Levy County Development Department staff to gather the evidence.
Levy County Commissioner Mike Joyner said a considerable amount of evidence must be gathered before a nuisance complaint can be filed.
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Board of County Commission Meeting December 17, 2019; Posted December 18, 2019
