Judge dismisses lawsuit against charter amendment

The case challenging the constitutionality of a proposed Alachua County charter amendment has been closed, and Amendment 3 will remain on the November ballot.

Amendment 3, if passed, would require that an amendment to the Alachua County Charter affecting the power of a municipality would have to be approved by a countywide vote as well as a majority vote within the given municipality in order for it to go into effect within that city.

Retired University of Florida physics professor and Alachua County resident Dwight E. Adams filed a lawsuit claiming that Amendment 3 would conflict with the Florida State Constitution, and should therefore be removed from the ballot.

Joe Little, a practicing attorney and professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, was representing Adams.  Little was also one of the 15 members appointed to the County Charter Review Commission to review proposed charter amendments for placement on the November ballot.

Little adamantly opposed placing Amendment 3 on the ballot, but the majority ruled in favor that it would be forwarded to voters to decide.

On Oct. 5, Circuit Judge Victor L. Hulslander dismissed the lawsuit based on Adams’ lack of standing. The motion to dismiss the case was filed by the Gainesville city attorney, who was representing several cities within the county in defending the constitutionality of Amendment 3.

The legal requirement for ‘standing,’ explained Gainesville litigation attorney Liz Waratuke, is that someone can’t sue unless they can show that they have or will suffer injuries as a direct cause of the issue at hand.

The cities argued that because Adams, as the plaintiff, did not show adequate proof that he would be personally harmed by the passage of Amendment 3, his case should not be heard.

Waratuke added that Adams never attended any of the hearings pertaining to the lawsuit.

According to Little, Adams believes the judge is wrong. Little said that Florida law clearly states that citizens and taxpayers have the right to challenge amendments.

He said that if this decision stands, it would put people in this circuit at a disadvantage to citizens in the rest of the state, because it sets a precedent that they don’t have the right to question the law.

Waratuke disagrees. She said the judge’s order didn’t set a new precedent.

Hulslander based his decision, in part, on the 2003 case Alachua County v. Scharps, wherein a judge dismissed a citizen’s suit to withhold a proposed amendment from the ballot on the same grounds.

Florida law provides that a plaintiff must show how something directly harms them in order to file suit against it, she explained.

Local governments had to spend time and money to litigate over something that, Little feels, never should have been approved for the ballot. This, he said, is one of the negative effects the amendment has already caused to citizens.

He pointed out that the independent attorney who acted as legal advisor to the Charter Review Commission, Sarah Bleakley, said she believed the amendment would be unconstitutional. But the Review Commission voted to place it on the ballot regardless.

Bleakley agreed this was what she told the Charter Review Commission, but declined further comment on the lawsuit because her involvement ended when the Review Commission finished.

Little did not say whether Adams plans to appeal at this time.