Jupiter Island Friends and Residents:
Just a few weeks ago, the Fourth District Florida Court of Appeals ruled in favor of David and Dena Testa in their case against the Town of Jupiter Island for not meeting notice requirements around the adoption of Town Ordinance 376. The full ruling is available here.
We have also included some excerpts from the Fourth DCA’s decision below.
Sincerely,
Jupiter Island Forever Leaders
The 4th DCA ruling said:
“Ordinances which fall within the ambit of section 166.041(3) … must be strictly enacted pursuant to the statute’s notice provisions….We conclude the Town did not strictly comply with section 166.041(3)(a)’s notice requirements in advance of the Town Commission’s adoption of Ordinance 376 on May 7, 2019.”
“A notice of proposed enactment is effective for only the meeting for which the meeting’s date, time, and place are stated in the notice. The notice of proposed enactment is not effective for another meeting date—regardless of the reason why the proposed enactment may have been postponed from the noticed meeting date to another date.”
The Court’s decision also adopted the reasoning of the First Amendment Foundation in siding with the Testas on the importance of notice requirements. They said:
[T]o allow a meeting noticed for a specific date, time and location to be rescheduled for a future date without additional notice would limit access to the future meeting to only those individuals who attended the initial meeting. Accordingly, this leaves to chance that interested members of the public who happened to be in attendance at the properly noticed meeting would receive notice of the future meeting. Leaving public participation in governmental meetings to chance due to inadequate notice is not the intent of the Sunshine Law and is incongruent with good governance.
Providing published notice of the adoption of an ordinance ensures that all interested members of the public are aware of the adoption of a municipal ordinance, rather than limiting notice to individuals who, by chance, happened to be present at the properly noticed meeting.
The Testas’ attorney, Jesse Panuccio, was quoted publicly after the ruling as stating:
“For many months, the Testas have been misled, dismissed, and attacked by town officials and a few others who seek to sweep this lawlessness under the rug. The Fourth DCA has now ruled, unanimously, that the Testas were right all along and that the town broke the law. The Testas are gratified by the ruling and hope that, going forward, the town will follow the letter and spirit of the law by providing notice and full information to residents when considering major policy changes.”