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Seminole County Board chair urges protection of local land-use control and funding for water, broadband and housing
Summary
Seminole County Board Chair Jay Zimbower urged state lawmakers to preserve local land-use authority and to fund broadband, septic-to-sewer conversions and water-quality work for Lake Jessup.
Jay Zimbower, chair of the Seminole County Board of County Commissioners, told the county's legislative delegation on Jan. 8 that Seminole County's top legislative priorities include protecting local control over land-use decisions, funding water-quality and septic-to-sewer conversion projects, expanding broadband in underserved areas and restoring full dock-stamp allocations to the Sadowski Housing Trust Fund.
"Our first and foremost, the ongoing critical priority is to protect Seminole County's rule boundary and our board's ability to control our own destiny with land use decisions," Zimbower said. He said Seminole County opposes legislation that limits local input on land use and urged reconsideration of "the legislature's 2021 decision to ban anonymous code enforcement complaints." He also listed water-quality work for Lake Jessup, support for the FDEP water quality grant program and statewide drinking-water standards as priorities.
Zimbower asked legislators to support both public and private funding for broadband construction in rural and underserved areas and said Seminole supports drawing full dock-stamp revenues to the Sadowski Housing Trust Fund to help ongoing attainable housing projects.
He also raised concerns about a law change that expanded capital murder prosecutions for some drug-dealing cases, telling the delegation that additional prosecution requirements have increased demands on medical examiners and other county resources. "To this county alone, since that law has passed, it has cost us almost $2,500,000 in additional cost to be able to prosecute those," he said, noting options such as legislative revisions or allocation of due-process funds to cover medical-examiner testimony.
Why it matters: Zimbower's priorities reflect a local push for funding and policy changes that would affect infrastructure, environmental protection, affordable housing financing and local government authority. Several items the chair requested would require state appropriations or statutory change.
