'Right to clean water' legal battle seen as accountability issue for Titusville

Well over a year ago, citizens in Titusville mounted a ballot initiative to put the "right to clean water" in their city's charter.

Although the measure passed overwhelmingly in a referendum, the charter amendment remains in a legal limbo, with city leaders saying the charter language left the city overly vulnerable to lawsuits.

To some residents, though, the city's leaders are just ignoring the will of the people.

Since the charter amendment passed in 2022 with 82.57% voting in favor and only 17.43% against, the City Council has resisted certifying the election and adding the language to the City Charter, despite two different judges ruling that the "right to clean water" amendment was not illegal under the state constitution.

Recently activists with Speak Up Titusville, the group behind the ballot measure, and others have been present at small rallies held outside Titusville City Hall and the Brevard County government complex to put pressure on local officials to heed the will of the voters

Tom Perez, who led the effort to put the "right to clean water" on the ballot with his group Speak Up Titusville, say the city's leadership is being unresponsive to voters to protect itself from the consequences of allowing its aging infrastructure to lead to sewage spills into the cities body's of water.

What is the 'right to clean water'?

For years, Titusville has grappled with a seemingly intractable problem: Sewage spills fouling the Indian River Lagoon due to aging infrastructure.

The repeated discharge of untreated waste into the estuary has compounded the lagoon's environmental woes. But the spills haven't just degraded the area's ecological jewel; they've also raised serious public health concerns.

In a particularly alarming incident, raw sewage contaminated retention ponds at public parks after a major spill. One family has filed a lawsuit, claiming their child suffered paralysis and other grave illnesses after exposure to sewage spewed from a pond fountain while paddle boarding at Sand Point Park.

City officials have vowed to upgrade the long-neglected sewer system, but progress has been slow. Environmental advocates insist more urgent action is needed to stanch the flow of pollution into the Indian River Lagoon before further damage occurs.

After the passage of the right to clean water in the 2022 election, environmental advocates hoped the charter amendment would be quickly certified and put more power in the hands of residents to press local government for solution. It would empower residents to sue the city or any other responsible parties when bodies of water are polluted due to sewage spills and other environmental hazards, adding another layer of accountability beyond Florida Department of Environmental Protection fines.

Outside attorneys for the city like Leonard Collins have compared the charter amendment language to a "legal Russian nesting doll" that could violate other state statutes and potentially cost the city big in legal expenses later. In every iteration of the legal fight between the city of Titusville and Speak Up Titusville, the city has cited an example of a similar dilemma in Orange County, where a right to clean water charter amendment was struck down by a circuit judge, who sided with builders and ruled the state Clean Waterways Act trumped the charter amendment. That amendment, which won 90% of the the vote when it was put on the ballot in 2020, was later overturned by the judge.

Where does the 'right to clean water' stand

The issue is now heading to a panel of three judges who will review it again.

"At this point, it's moving at a typical Florida pace, so it's going to take a while," Tom Perez said.

"We filed a required statement last week, and the city now has 30 days from that filing to submit their own statement. This panel of judges will take over the case from there," he added.

Accountability seen as an issue

Those like Toni Shifalo with Speak Up Titusville see the Council's refusal to certify the election results nearly two years after the referendum as a major issue of accountability for her north Brevard community.

"I don't see how that's practicing democracy," she said. Shifalo said it sets a bad precedent that voter referendums, which are guaranteed in the state's constitution, won't be honored in the future if the city continues to fight this one. Cities can end up using public money to delay certifying the results of inconvenient elections indefinitely while groups like Speak Up Titusville use their own funds and pro bono lawyers to fight them in court, which isn't always a sustainable option.

"We're being stonewalled with a lot of bogus concerns. That's what's frustrating to me. The mayor and vice mayor have changed course. The only duty the City Council has is to carry out the will of the citizens, not worry about all these other things," Shifalo said.

"As citizens, we already have a right to sue them for malfeasance. This would just put teeth in the mouth of laws we already have," she added.

Kristin Lortie, a Brevard County government transparency activists, says she sees the right to clean water as "part of the problem."

"I see accountability an even bigger issue. I see there's a breakdown in citizen engagement. Because they're not listening to reasonable requests being made by citizens, it contributes to a feeling that citizens are not being listened to by their own government," she said.

Titusville recently cancelled cancelling a community conversation meeting seeking community input, chose not to live stream Titusville Environmental Commission meetings and other special City Council meetings and at a recent workshop on the city's strategic plan, the public was unable to speak at the beginning of the workshop, meaning that "we can't even talk until it's too late," Lortie said.

"If they're not going to solve easy to remedy concerns, then how do we solve anything difficult," Lortie added.

Tyler Vazquez is the North Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Vazquez at 321-480-0854 or tvazquez@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @tyler_vazquez

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: 'Right to clean water' legal battle seen as accountability issue for Titusville