A week after county and Macclenny city officials sat down to begin discussing a plan to rely more on special assessments and less on property taxes for government services in the future, city officials folded on the issue.

The city commission unanimously decided to reject the idea on the evening of November 8 after expressing concerns about possible adverse impacts on city residents, who already pay county taxes as well as municipal taxes, and other unanswered questions.

“I’m not for giving anyone a blank check,” said Commissioner Phil Rhoden. “If we endorse the assessment fee tonight we would be handing them a blank check.”

For one thing Mr. Rhoden and other commissioners said, they would want to know specifically how much county property taxes would be reduced for city residents if an assessment fee were levied. Secondly, they said, they would want assurances that the city would be part of any decision-making process to consider future assessment increases.

But even more troubling to city officials was the question of legality. Currently, the only special assessment under consideration is for emergency medical services and City Attorney Frank Maloney said that, in his opinion, such a fee would not be legal.

See next week's edition for full coverage of the meeting, including why the attorney believes EMS assessments could run afoul of the law.