City Attorney Marian Rush claims she wasn’t consulted before the city commission scheduled a vote for the first stage of the Tara Forest West development near Mill Creek Sink and its cave system in Alachua.
Rush made the statement in Alachua’s City Commission meeting on Monday. She claimed quasi-judicial hearings, which require specific legal proceedings, “are continually being scheduled with absolutely no consultation or discussion with the city attorney.”
That opens a risk for lawsuits, she said, particularly when the proposed developments are in environmentally sensitive areas.
Alachua County has twice filed lawsuits against the city for development near the cave system, most recently in 2015.
Hearings, litigation and mediation regarding a proposed Walmart Supercenter lasted seven months, at which point the county, the National Speleological Society and four landowners agreed to a settlement.
Since the City of Alachua didn’t agree to the settlement, it is not protected from future lawsuits.
Developers never built the store.
Tara Forest West is one of five “Tara” developments planned for about a 580 acre area adjacent to the formerly planned Walmart.
Rush worried that, given their number and their scale, the developments could again open the city to legal battles over Mill Creek Sink.
“We may have a minimum of eight different hearings that may all get appealed that could all go into litigation,” Rush warned.
Alachua County appeared to ready itself for a potential challenge last October. County Commissioners unanimously passed a 12-part motion including ensuring financial reserves were available in the case of a lawsuit, but emphasized they’d prefer staff settle the dispute through meetings, not litigation.
The city postponed a hearing on the next stage of the development, stormwater project Tara April, as its staff met with county and developer representatives to discuss geological concerns.
An independent engineer recommended additional investigations into the area, according to an open letter released by former planner Justin Tabor earlier this month.
In January, six months after the city commision approved the first stage of Tara Forest West, City Manager Mike DaRoza alerted planners and the city attorney that he planned to reschedule the planning and zoning board’s hearing of the stormwater infrastructure for Feb. 11.
“I almost fell over,” Rush said. “We could not possibly be ready to have a contested quasi-judicial hearing, a full-blown trial, on that date.”
DaRoza defended his move to schedule the hearing, saying that he had twice explained to the city attorney his “heartburn with holding something up for six months.”
The city hadn’t yet done additional geological studies, but DaRoza said the storm water project wasn’t a source of environmental worry.
“It's actually going to address the concerns,” from the county and other affected parties, he said, noting retention ponds would, “be treating water that is currently not being treated.”
DaRoza called allegations, made in Tabor’s letter, of outside influence on his decision to schedule the hearing, “completely false and unfounded.”
“Accusations that I, as a city manager, am, or have been improperly influenced by anyone is not only appalling to me, but it's a direct attack on my integrity and my character,” he said. “You're only as good as that. I'll stand on mine every single minute of every single day.”
Commissioner Dayna Williams criticized City Attorney Rush’s public critique of DaRoza, saying, “for her to sit here and air this out without telling us, without confronting the city manager in a one-on-one meeting is despicable.”
Vice Mayor Ed Potts interrupted Rush’s criticism, but encouraged clearer communication between the city manager, city attorney and commissioners.
“If we're pushing forward an item that potentially has us being sued by multiple parties, we need to be talking about that with our city attorney,” Potts said. “I mean, that is her job, right? Her job is to protect us. And to protect the city against potential liability.”
The Tara April proposal and 30 others are under various stages of review by the city’s only remaining planner, Carson Crockett.