CopyCited 6 times | Published | District Court, S.D. Florida | 24 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20667, 1994 A.M.C. 2503, 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15998, 1993 WL 462234
...These statutes, however, explicitly acknowledge that the State's ownership extends only to the submerged land and that its control over the water column is simply a necessary adjunct incident to its ownership (in the public trust) of the submerged land. Section 253.68, for example, grants the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund the authority to "lease submerged lands to which it has title ... and [to] grant exclusive use of the bottom and the water column to the extent required by such activities." Fla. Stat. § 253.68 (1991)....
...otherwise fully informed in the premises, it is ORDERED, ADJUDGED, and DECREED that Defendants' Motion to Dismiss be, and the same is hereby, GRANTED. This declaratory judgment action is hereby DISMISSED. DONE and ORDERED. NOTES [1] Florida Statutes § 253.68 provides, in part: To the extent that it is not contrary to the public interest, and subject to limitations contained in ss....
CopyCited 1 times | Published | Florida 1st District Court of Appeal | 1995 WL 307159
...bjection or in the event a court determined Franklin County's objection not to be a legal impediment. The County has not withdrawn its objection. In entering the summary judgment now under review, the circuit court *1283 rejected the contention that section 253.68, Florida Statutes, is unconstitutional to the extent it gives counties "veto power" over submerged land leases....
...rged bottom of Apalachicola Bay for oyster aquaculture. The County's objection applies to all applications. At one time oyster leases were flatly prohibited in Franklin County. § 370.16(9), Fla. Stat. (1987). The lifting of the ban took place after section 253.68 was already in place....
...We therefore reach appellants' constitutional claims. Current law authorizes the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund to lease submerged lands for aquaculture on stated conditions, in accordance with criteria unchallenged here except for that portion of section 253.68, Florida Statutes (1993), which provides: However, no lease shall be granted by the board when there is filed with it a resolution of objection adopted by a majority of the county commission......
...Accord, Santa Rosa County v. Gulf Power Co.,
635 So.2d 96, 99-100 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994) ("The only limitation on a county's implied power to act occurs if there is a general or special law clearly inconsistent with the powers delegated.") In the present case, of course, section
253.68, Florida Statutes, specifically authorizes each county to make a local (essentially legislative) decision with reference to a local natural resource....
...rs of the local circumstances evidencing the need of the several counties from time to time for the services of a county probation officer in such counties as may seek the appointment of such officer at the hands of the chief executive of the state. Section 253.68, Florida Statutes (1993) similarly authorizes action by the executive branch of state government "in such counties as may seek" it....
...y commissioners, because the declaration of the policy of a closed season is found in the terms of the statute itself.
101 Fla. at 632,
135 So. at 151. See also Stewart v. Stone,
130 So.2d 577, 579 (Fla. 1961). Appellants point out that, in enacting section
253.68, Florida Statutes (1993), the Legislature has left important policy questions to the county commissioners of the respective counties....
...Town of Daytona Beach Shores is inapposite because the ordinance at issue there, in providing that beach concessionaires' licenses could be issued only with the approval of certain property owners, was held to be an impermissible delegation of the town's legislative authority to private individuals.
181 So.2d at 724. Section
253.68 makes no delegation either to a local executive agency or to private persons. As a legislative body in its own right, the county commission is free to exercise legislative power the Legislature has delegated to it. No Invidious Discrimination Appellants also contend that section
253.68, Florida Statutes (1993), is unconstitutional because it fails to prohibit county commissions' discriminating unlawfully against individual applicants....
...Appellants' challenge, which is principally to the facial validity of the statute, entails neither allegation nor proof of unequal treatment, however. The amended petition for declaratory and injunctive relief makes no allegation that the County discriminated among individual applicants in lodging its objection under section 253.68, Florida Statutes (1991)....
...subject to the strictures imposed by the Florida and federal constitutions. We do not hold, however, that a county's particular geography may not dictate distinctions that the county commission should be free to explicate in a resolution filed under section 253.68, Florida Statutes (1993)....
