Economy may not be favorable to the area becoming a city now.
Originally posted by: http://www.theledger.com
Reported by: MIKE GROGAN

POINCIANA | The board that hired a University of Central Florida team to study whether Poinciana can become a city is wondering if it can put the brakes on the project.

“Can the board stop this or do we have to let it go on?” John Corners, a member of the board of directors for the Association of Poinciana Villages, asked during a workshop meeting Tuesday night.

His question came after three members of the team that was contracted to conduct the study briefed the board on its findings.

Corners said he wasn’t against the idea of incorporation for Poinciana but feared that, under the current economic climate, municipal revenues projected in the study would not be realized because of plummeting property values, the number of foreclosures in Poinciana and the community’s high unemployment rate.

Corners wanted to know if the feasibility study could be shelved or if it had to be passed on to Poinciana’s legislative delegation, the next step in the process.

That delegation would determine if the study was done according to state requirements and could be turned over to the full Legislature to decide whether the incorporation issue could be placed on the local ballot for Poinciana voters to decide.

Fellow board member Dennis Getman, a lawyer who had worked on the successful incorporation effort by Palm Coast in 1999 and 2000, said the board could not stop the process. But Getman said he was also worried about the timing of the effort.

“One of the worst things that could occur for us is to go down this path and have (the new city) fail because of the current state of the economy,” he said.

The board contracted for the study earlier this year at a cost of more than $70,000. It was officially completed and released Aug. 28 with the conclusion that incorporation for the community of more than 75,000 residents that spreads over two counties – Polk and Osceola – is feasible because it meets state requirements for population density, physical size and potential revenues.

Marilyn Crotty, of UCF’s Florida Institute of Government and the leader of the team that conducted the feasibility study, told the board that it was not up to the team to lobby one way or the other for incorporation. Its only job was to conduct the study and lay out the facts and figures for voters.

More than 50 Poinciana residents attended the meeting but were not allowed to question Crotty’s team or to present their views since it was a workshop meeting to give the board a chance to hear from the study team and to ask questions about its findings.

But at least one resident was handing out flyers calling for voters to turn down incorporation if it becomes a ballot issue which, Crotty said, would likely happen late in 2010 if the Legislature approves.