A Tale of Three Cities: Wellington: City by a Neck

Wellington is renowned as the “Winter Equestrian Capital of the World,” but the West Palm Beach County city is more than that as an example for Lakewood Ranch residents to consider.

Wellington presents a completely different incorporation model as compared to the city of Weston, with Bonita Springs falling somewhere between the two. But it also offers some close comparisons to Lakewood Ranch in its quest to become a city.

Wellington’s municipal setup is more of a traditional city. The city, incorporated in 1996 (the year after Weston), contracts out only for police through the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and firefighting through the county. Wellington has 265 employees and a $74.5 million budget — although that is down from the peak a few years ago.

City Manager Paul Schofield said Wellington took a long look in 2001 at the Weston model of contracting out everything and having only nine city employees. But in the end, the city “discarded” that operational method for one reason.

“It was responsiveness for us,” Schofield said. “Customer service was more important.”

Wellington leaders believed the city could provide better customer service on everything from utilities to planning approvals to code enforcement by having it done by city employees, rather than contracted out to private companies.

It is a somewhat counterintuitive line of thinking for those who believe the private sector generally does things better than the government, as Weston city leaders believe they have shown.

Strawberries and horses
Wellington’s well-known equestrian industry is actually pre-dated by the land known as the largest strawberry farm in Florida at the time.

The Acme Drainage District had been created by the Florida Legislature in the early 1950s to drain the land and protect it from flooding for agriculture. More than 2,000 acres turned it into the largest strawberry patch in the world at the time and set the stage for the later horse events. The district was uniquely quasi-governmental, with municipal powers except law enforcement, including zoning and code enforcement.
The developers, who eventually went through two bankruptcies and multiple sales to other companies, won approval in 1973 for the first Planned Unit Development in Palm Beach County.

A joint venture between the Investment Corporation of Florida and Alcoa Aluminum was formed to begin building houses after the PUD was approved. ICOF later bought out Alcoa and then sold its properties to Gould Florida, a division of Gould Electronics, which built the Palm Beach Polo and Country Club, thus establishing the equestrian culture that has come to identify Wellington.

The area grew rapidly. What had been 100 boondocks residents in the 1960s grew to about 20,000 by 1995, when members of the community began the move for incorporation. It was an affluent community with high property values.

“(Backers) felt they weren’t getting good services from Palm Beach County, that they were an afterthought,” Schofield said. “It was true.”

So it came down to the same reason as for so many others.

“The most important issue was home rule: You control your destiny with incorporation,” said Dr. Carmine Priore, a longtime Wellington resident, proponent of incorporation and a city commissioner during most of the city’s life.

Intense battle
Francine Ramaglia is a native of Wellington, growing up in one of the first houses built in 1976. She moved away for jobs in government but returned home when the city was birthed.

“I came back to do incorporation. I came back to make history,” said Ramaglia, now the assistant city manager.

Like Priore, she is intimately familiar with the dynamics driving incorporation, and the split within the community. The reasoning for incorporating was the same as in Weston and Bonita Springs and the argument that backers make for Lakewood Ranch: Keep tax money within the affluent community and provide for home rule.

“We didn’t keep any money; it all went downtown,” she said, as developers were building roads and putting in infrastructure. The Wellington community was a nearly 100% donor community, because newer structures rarely burned down and crime was almost non-existent.

“We wanted home rule, self-determination and the money to do what we wanted to do,” said Priore, as passionate a promoter of the city as anyone.

But maintaining lifestyle as a city was a key element of the opposition. This was particularly true for those involved in Wellington’s equestrian culture, who worried that their way of life would be endangered, that the large acreage would be divided up for more parcels and that taxes would soar.

“We had a very well orchestrated group who did not want to incorporate,” Priore said. “Some individuals made it their life’s work to stop us from incorporating. They were vehemently opposed.”

Similar to some of Lakewood Ranch’s opposition, those opposed to the Wellington incorporation were from New York and New Jersey and had seen corruption and powerful unions running Northern cities and did not want to see that happen to Wellington. They extrapolated their experiences up North onto Wellington and they were ardent.

Proponents changed some charter elements to placate opponents, such as setting a 5-mill property tax cap and instituting term limits.

Both sides hired top lobbyists in Tallahassee to stop the incorporation bill from passing the Legislature — a fairly unusual event — and then both mounted regular campaigns to win over a majority of residents.
It was tenuous and in the end, the pro-incorporation people won narrowly by 400 votes.

“We overcame by proving the fact that we would benefit more from being a city than part of the county,” Priore said. “We focused on the principle of self-determination.”

Working through division
That difficult fight to incorporate meant the city’s first leaders were faced with governing a divided population. In the first election, 30 people ran for the five city commission seats, making for a chaotic start.
The city charter required a runoff if no one reached a majority of votes, and that happened every election until the charter was changed to allow a plurality if the winner received more than 35%.

The result was a fractious beginning. But those elected, entirely backers, were committed to fulfilling their promises. Over the years, most of the opponents moved from Wellington. Those who ran never won.
City leaders have maintained the important equestrian culture. Driving from the north part of Wellington, where the subdivisions and golf courses are located, to the south end is a dramatic change. The large lots, the narrower roads, the polo facilities. On the lifestyle point, the opponents were wrong.

“We have indeed preserved the diversity of lifestyles,” Ramaglia said.

But it is also true that taxes are higher. Just not much. A resident of Wellington pays about 25 mills total on their property tax bill, with one mill equal to $1 per $1,000 of assessed property value. Of that, 2.5 mills is collected by the city. The rest is assessed by the county, school district and special taxing districts at the county level. And if the community were still unincorporated, residents would be paying a Municipal Services Taxing Unit not far from the city tax.

Wellington has reaped some normal dividends of being a city, mostly in controlling growth, identity and facilities. The city has created a medical arts district for future growth around the existing Wellington Regional Medical Center. Plus, the city has built a public amphitheater, children’s park, an aquatics park, 16-court tennis facility and most recently finished a 9-11 memorial. City leaders claim that much of this has been done with money that would have been going to the county to be spent elsewhere.

The debate periodically comes up about Wellington having its own police force. But Schofield thinks it is unwise. He said the city has 54 patrol officers, plus sergeants, a lieutenant and a district commander — who is referred to as police chief. They all act as Wellington police, staying within the city limits.

“If they are assigned to Wellington, that is where they work,” Schofield said.

If Money magazine is any guide, Wellington has done all right with its decision, taking the 72nd spot on the magazine’s top 100 Best Places to Live.