Miami Beach faces lawsuit over decision to rescind ballot question on homeless tax
A group of Miami Beach voters filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to keep a ballot question intact after city commissioners voted Wednesday to rescind the referendum on whether to approve a 1% food and beverage tax to support homeless services and local domestic violence shelters.
The 10 plaintiffs, who had already cast their votes or plan to vote in Miami Beach, say the city’s decision is “shocking, unprecedented, and unlawful.”
“In trying to remove the measure from the ballot weeks into voting and six days before the Nov. 5 General Election, the City Commission has thwarted the voters’ opportunity to be heard, cast the election into chaos at the most sensitive time, and imposed an almost impossible burden on election officials,” the complaint says.
One of the plaintiffs is Ricky Arriola, who was a Miami Beach city commissioner from 2015 to 2023. Another is Constance Collins, executive director of the Lotus House women’s shelter in Miami.
“Even if a majority of City Commissioners are afraid of a public vote in favor of a modest tax to support services for the unhoused and victims of domestic violence, they should not be allowed to stop a lawful election that is already underway,” the complaint says.
A hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for Friday morning.
Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Christina White told the Miami Herald in a statement that the department would await the outcome of the hearing before posting notices at polling places to inform voters that the question was rescinded.
“We are awaiting a decision from the court on how to proceed and will comply with the court’s ruling,” White said.
Despite more than 20,000 residents having already cast ballots and the Nov. 5 election being less than a week away, the City Commission voted 4-3 Wednesday to declare that the results of the referendum won’t count.
Commissioner David Suarez, who proposed the move, argued that the ballot language was misleading and an attempt to “transfer wealth from Miami Beach taxpayers to an unelected county organization,” referring to the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, which would have received the majority of an estimated $10 million annually from the tax.
Thursday’s lawsuit argues the City Commission’s vote wasn’t enough to nullify the ballot question.
The commission first passed a resolution Wednesday calling for the ballot question, Referendum 8, to be rescinded. Next, the commission gave initial approval to a measure repealing a 2023 ordinance that had authorized Miami-Dade County to levy the tax in Miami Beach, pending voter approval. Repealing the ordinance would require a second vote on Nov. 20 to become final.
In a letter to Miami-Dade County Attorney Geri Bonzon-Keenan on Wednesday evening, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Jerry Greenberg, said the City Commission’s action was “procedurally defective” because it was done “only by resolution and not [by] ordinance.”
“An ordinance always has preeminence over a resolution,” the letter says.
The lawsuit also takes issue with an email that the city of Miami Beach sent to residents Thursday morning informing them that the referendum “has been ordered removed from the ballot” and that “any vote cast for this public measure will not count for approval or rejection of the public measure.”
In a letter Thursday to Miami Beach City Attorney Ricardo Dopico, Greenberg demanded that the city “cease any more communications with voters regarding this item.”
The plaintiffs are represented by Gelber Schacter & Greenberg, the law firm of former Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber.
The defendants are the city of Miami Beach and the Miami-Dade Elections Department.
A spokesperson for the city of Miami Beach did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
READ MORE: Miami Beach officials rescind ballot question on homeless tax. Votes on it won’t count
Minutes after the vote on Wednesday morning, Miami Beach officials notified the Elections Department of the decision.
While rescinding a ballot item just days before an election is unusual, the Miami-Dade Elections Department says it is permissible.
Miami-Dade Deputy Supervisor of Elections Roberto Rodriguez said later in the day Wednesday that the department was working to prepare notices of the change to post inside each voting booth at polling places in Miami Beach during the remainder of early voting, which ends Sunday, and on Election Day.
The letter from Greenberg on Wednesday evening urged the county to allow the vote to proceed and to hold off on posting the notices.
“If the vote proceeds, there will be ample opportunity to address any legal issues later,” Greenberg wrote. “If the vote is thwarted, the damage to our clients, Miami Beach’s voters, and the community would be irreparable.”
County Commissioner pushes back
The 1% tax in Miami Beach would generate an estimated $10 million annually for the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust and local domestic violence centers.
On Wednesday, in a swift response to the Miami Beach City Commission vote to rescind the ballot question, Miami-Dade County Commission Chairman Oliver Gilbert filed an agenda item that would require the Miami Beach Redevelopment Agency, a tax district controlled by the city, to budget $15 million per year for housing for the homeless.
The proposal also calls on the county to rescind its existing obligation to fund “beach renourishment activities” and instead use those funds “to provide supportive housing services for individuals and families experiencing homelessness.”
“It’s incumbent on us to find ways to provide for the people in this community,” Gilbert told the Miami Herald on Thursday. “We have to find a way to house people. We have to find a way to pay for it.”
The Miami Beach Redevelopment Agency diverts property taxes to a zone that includes the city’s convention center, the Lincoln Road pedestrian mall and other areas on the northern end of South Beach. Last year, the agency diverted $24 million from Miami-Dade County’s tax pool that would otherwise go to police, parks, transit and other countywide expenses.
Most of the money goes to fund debt on the convention center and subsidize operations there. The agency also uses tax dollars to fund local expenses, including $5 million for extra police and $4 million for sanitation and trash operations, according to the most recent budget approved by the Miami-Dade County Commission.
None of the listed expenses mention housing.
“If we’re giving them all of this money for [redevelopment agencies] ... they could at least allow people to vote on a food and beverage tax that’s going to primarily affect tourists,” Gilbert said.
While the Miami Beach City Commission controls most of the votes on the board that governs the agency, Miami-Dade County has authority over the funds too and can reject the annual budgets approved by the city.
Gilbert also told the Herald that, in 2021, county commissioners had agreed to support Miami Beach’s creation of the North Beach Community Redevelopment Agency — which is different from the Miami Beach Redevelopment Agency, despite the similar name — in exchange for the city working to put the 1% homeless tax on the ballot. Community redevelopment agencies, better known as CRAs, are taxpayer-funded organizations that pour funding into specific areas or neighborhoods that are considered blighted.
“To take it off the ballot in the middle of an election that was called as part of a deal to get another CRA, I believe is inappropriate,” Gilbert said.
The proposed tax
In a 2021 straw poll, 53% of Miami Beach voters asked the City Commission to urge the Florida Legislature to allow the city to enact the 1% sales tax for homeless and domestic violence services.
Until last year, cities that imposed their own municipal resort taxes — including Miami Beach, Bal Harbour and Surfside — were exempt from the tax. But the state law was changed in 2023.
The City Commission voted in July 2023 to place the 1% tax on the ballot.
The tax would be collected on all food and beverage sales at businesses that sell alcohol for on-premises consumption and have gross annual receipts above $400,000. Facilities in hotels and motels would be exempt.
Those restrictions are specified in the Florida statute that allows for such food and beverage taxes to be levied.
Bal Harbour voters will weigh in on the tax in the Nov. 5 election.
This story was originally published October 31, 2024 at 1:59 PM.
