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Highlands Today

Sun 'N Lake Of Sebring Landowners Election Set

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By JOE SEELIG

Highlands Today

Published: November 6, 2008

SEBRING - Like a game of musical chairs, there is only one supervisor's seat available and two people would like to have it, when the Sun 'n Lake of Sebring Improvement District holds its next landowner election.

The landowners will decide starting at 9 a.m., on Friday, Jan. 23, at the district's Community Center, located at 3500 Edgewater Drive, Sebring, at the next landowner's meeting, said Ann Mitchell, board secretary.

Incumbent Board of Supervisors member Frank Guglielmi will seek to keep the landowner's seat he was nominated to when John Negley resigned from the board prior to the district's January 2008 landowner's meeting.

There wasn't time to hold a landowner election then because Negley resigned just a few days prior to the landowner meeting, said Mitchell.

District resident Richard "Dick" E. Miller, who has previously run for the board, has lined up as the first challenger.

"Nobody else has thrown their hat in the ring that I know of," said Mitchell.

Unlike democratically-held elections in the country, in this election each landowner gets one vote for each building lot or one-acre property that they own, as long as their assessments are paid up-to-date.

Which means large developers or property holders can swing an election in favor of a candidate by voting their proxy votes in large blocks.

Each landowner was mailed a proxy in their 2008 assessment bill, whether they were up to date or not with their 2007 assessments. The proxy is also available on the district's Web site.

In the past few landowner elections, National Recreational Properties Inc. (NRPI), with about 4,000 properties, was a major factor in carrying the vote as were other large landowners such as Florida Hospital Heartland Division - about 100-plus votes, Tanglewood - 310 acres and Maronda Homes - 209 lots.

However, NRPI has a lot less clout this year, as it did not pay its 2007 assessments. But it still is in control of 558 contract for deed lots.

Those are lots NRPI sold, and even though the buyers paid the taxes and assessments, NRPI still retained ownership of the lots until the final payments are made.

Plus NRPI has an additional 2,009 lots it appears it can vote, that were offered by the Highlands County Tax Collector's Office as tax certificates. A lot of those lots are still current, Mitchell said.

The district requires two things; that the assessments are current on the lots, which they are, because someone else paid them and second, they must own the lots, which NRPI still does.

"That's the threshold," Mitchell said.

The holders of those certificates pay the taxes and assessments on them and may in two years demand repayment or make a claim on the lots.

Technically up until then (NRPI) can vote them, Mitchell said.

Landowner elections in Sun 'n Lake are a strange mix of the seemingly fair and seemingly unfair, depending upon which side of the fence you're on.

On the seemingly fair side, it gives anyone who owns property one chance per lot to have a say, whether they live in the United States or not; whether they are citizens or not.

On the seemingly unfair side, sometimes more than one person, a husband and wife for example, own the property but have only one vote. If they disagree on a candidate in a landowner election, how they decide who votes is for them to work out.

On the seemingly fair side, 601 snowbird lot owners can vote in the landowner elections no matter what country they are from, as decisions made by the board can affect their properties.

However, snowbirds cannot vote for the popularly held seats unless they move here, are domiciled here and are registered to vote here, Mitchell said.

There is no qualifying time or cut-off date prior to this election. Candidates may announce right up to the day of the meeting.

Candidates can be nominated from the floor of the meeting, Mitchell said.

Once a candidate announces his or her intention to run by notifying the public with private phone calls and mailings, and not through the district office, that candidate then seeks to convince landowners why it is in their interest to vote their proxy in the candidate's name.

On the date of the election, workers verify if property owners are delinquent with their assessments. They must pay those 2007 assessments by the day before the election.

The 2008 assessments are due on March 30, she said.

"We will have a printout of who owns what," said Mitchell. "We write that on their ballot when they come to vote. We verify if they're current and how many lots they have and we give them a ballot."

The district does not place any lot information on the ballot, she said. That way the vote remains anonymous.

Also the district does not vote anyone's proxy for them.

"If it comes in the door and is not designated to a candidate or an authorized person in the district to vote for them, then it is a dead vote," Mitchell said.

Joe Seelig can be reached at (863) 386-5834 or jseelig@highlandstoday.com .

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