This article was first published on Yulee News and was written by resident Patrick Keogh on August 14, 2025.
The problem with the City of Fernandina Beach is somewhat different and we think much more serious. We have reported in these pages for some time now on what we believe are the unlawful fees being charged by the City.
We believe those fees do not comply with state and federal law because they are used to supplement City tax revenue. Fees by state and federal law are intended to recover the cost of various City-provided services. It is unlawful for fees to be used as a source of general revenue. The Wall Street Journal in an editorial on the most recent case condemning the misuse of fees by local government wrote it lets elected officials “extort property owners while avoiding unpopular broad based tax increases”.
That’s what’s going on here in the City of Fernandina Beach and it has been happening for years.
Several years ago local businesses brought a class action against the City for unlawful water and sewer impact fees.
The City had paid a regulated utility an exorbitant price for the system and planned to recover the cost from unlawful impact fees.
After two trials taking three years of litigation the courts found the impact fees to be a violation of state and federal law. What did the City do then? They hired another consultant and changed the name of the unlawful fees to “capacity fees” and today they are still charging those equally unlawful fees.
Why not sue them again? Because the City has no reservation about using taxpayer funds to engage private attorneys to financially exhaust their opponents. That’s what they did in the class action suits where the City spent over $1 million in defense of their unlawful fees. The opposing side had to incur substantial cost in successfully prosecuting their case.
Pat Keogh who was a developer in the City and active in the earlier class action law suits says “Prospective litigants have learned that Shakedown City may not have a valid defense but they have access to the public purse in defending their unlawful taking of citizens funds. Law firms have learned that Shakedown City will spare no expense to their citizens to teach firms that whatever they recover will not be enough to cover their litigation costs”.
Glen Stettler who wrote a critical newspaper column of the City’s unlawful impact fee practices appeared before the City commission demanding they request a state audit of their fees. When Mr. Stettler mentioned the earlier successful class action suits Tammy Bach, then the City Attorney, alleged that the reason the City lost the suits was because the engineer who originally designed the fees did his work “on a napkin”.
Mr Stettler noted “No commissioner asked any questions but did vote unanimously to request a state audit and then never followed up”.
The Yulee News documented the City’s abuse of Ms. Colleen Angel, the single mother and owner of Amelia’s Best Barber Shop. Colleen also operates a downtown tour service in the evenings.
When she attempted to open yet a third business, Hillbilly Hot Dogs, in the City they insisted on the payment of the unlawful impact fees before she could operate. The imposition of those fees drove Colleen out of business losing her entire investment of about $90,000. Colleen told us “I expected the operation of my hot dog business would quickly return my investment which was the money I had saved for a down payment on a home for my family but in the end I lost it all”.
In a recent presentation by yet another impact fee consultant hired by the City it was clear the City has significant excess capacity in its water and sewer systems. Because impact fees may only be used to expand capacity to meet the requirements of new development there is no lawful justification for the imposition of such fees on City property owners.
Such fees are simply an unlawful supplement to tax revenues. In effect, absent proper authority, City officials are stealing their fellow citizens money.
It does not seem that the abuse is limited to impact fees. Building fees for permits, inspections and the like are also required to be reasonably limited to the cost of providing the service.
literally across the street in Nassau County. Those fees are required by law to reasonably reflect the cost of providing the services and may not be used as a surrogate for taxes.
City officials know no bounds in their financial abuses. Barb Kent was the treasurer of the local American Legion post. In that job she attempted to better manage the various costs incurred by the Legion in serving the local veterans community. Treasurer Kent found she could provide trash services to the Legion post at a cost of $80 less per month than the City collection service.
The added City cost apparently includes a “franchise fee” charged by the City to all residents whose trash is collected by the City contractor. The cost and value basis of that fee should be audited to insure it is in compliance with state and Federal law and not just another City unlawful supplemental tax.
Local developer, Ron Flick, notes that “City commissioners, City attorneys and managers have come and gone over the years and the City’s misuse of state-mandated fees to supplement local tax revenues continues unabated. I think we need a state audit”.
It is not our job to enforce state and Federal law in the City of Fernandina Beach. It is the job of the responsible media like The Yule News to shine a light on those places and practices requiring the attention of higher public authorities.
The City of Fernandina Beach is the county seat of Nassau County and as such should be the model for all our local governments. We need a state audit of the City’s fee practices to insure the City administration is charging and administering its fees in conformance with all state and federal laws.A review of building fees in the City shows that those fees are routinely as much as five times higher in the City than fees for similar services.
