FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. — This week, a community group in Fernandina Beach has started gathering signatures for its petition to demand a citywide recall election, in the hopes of removing two city commissioners from their seats who supported implementing paid parking downtown.
This is the flyer the community group has been sharing online this week, which lays out multiple planned opportunities for voters to sign their petition. The petition is demanding a recall election to be held for the seats of commissioner Genece Minshew and commissioner Tim Poynter. Both commissioners were among the agreeing votes in approving the city’s paid parking program last month, which officially begins on February 16th.
Minshew and Poynter have both argued that the paid parking program is a good decision for the city, partly because of the opportunities they believe it creates for raising more money toward local improvement, renovation, and repair projects.
Some voters signing the petition, however, believe it will push people away from downtown, like Rachel Mitchell. We spoke with her this afternoon after she signed the petition, and she told us she’s worried that paid public parking would cause some people to be unable to afford attending services at her church, which is located downtown.
“I feel like this will just ruin our town completely,” Mitchell said, “we have a lot of elderly people at our church, and they can’t park blocks and blocks away to walk over.”
Some business owners along Centre Street in Fernandina Beach, like Kimberly Aspinwall, believe paid parking will hurt the shops downtown by driving away business and forcing employees to pay to go to work.
“It breaks my heart. I mean, this is like my life. This store is my life. I mean, it’s my whole heart,” Aspinwall said, “we completely depend on [local residents] to get by.”
Action News Jax reached out to the city’s commissioners, its mayor, and vice mayor for a response to the recall effort. Commissioner Minshew, who is at risk of being recalled, sent us a statement, saying in part:
“We are all elected to make complex, sometimes unpopular choices. Clearly, paid parking is an unpopular decision primarily due to the constant misinformation and vitriol displayed across social media over the last several months. The citizens have voiced their concerns with a citizen-led petition that will be on the August ballot, which is exactly what the petition process calls for… A recall triggered by this policy disagreement sends a chilling message: make the “wrong” decision and risk removal before your term is complete. That is not good government, and it is not in the best long-term interest of the citizens of Fernandina Beach.”
Florida law says a petition for a recall needs either, at minimum, between 50-1,000 signatures, based on the city or town’s population size, unless that number is smaller than a certain percentage of the local voters. Based on the population of Fernandina Beach, Florida, law says around 1,300 signatures would be required to start the process of forcing a recall election.
Those signatures, legally, have to be collected within 30 days, but the law says it could still take more than six months after that point before a recall happens.
Whether or not there does end up being a recall, Fernandina Beach voters will have the chance to make a vote on the city’s paid parking program during the primary election this August.
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