The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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How Avon Park’s charter was amended, 1939 to 1963: the election moves to September

Avon Park’s charter of 1927, Chapter 12514, fixed the city’s general election on the first Tuesday in December, biennially, with the new officers taking office on 1 January. Yet the disputed election of 1951 was held on Tuesday 11 September, and the one before it in September 1949. This document records the two acts that account for the gap.

1939: the election, the fiscal year, and the assessor’s independence

Chapter 19691 (No. 696), House Bill No. 1877, became a law without the Governor’s approval and was filed with the Secretary of State on 12 June 1939. Its title: “An Act To Amend Chapter 12514 Acts of 1927, Laws of Florida, Being the Charter of the City of Avon Park, So as to Provide For Biennial Election of Officers of Said City of Avon Park; To Prescribe Their Terms of Office; To Fix the Fiscal Year For Said City of Avon Park, and to Provide the Method of Determination of Values of Property For Taxation.”[lof-1939-19691]

Section 1 rewrites section 60 of the charter:

A general city election for the election of a Mayor and five councilmen shall be held in said City on the Second Tuesday in September, 1939 and biennially on the second Tuesday in September thereafter. The officers elected in said City election shall take their respective offices on the first day of October following such election.[lof-1939-19691]

So from 1939 the city voted in September of odd years — 1939, 1941, … 1949, 1951 — and the second Tuesday of September 1951 was the 11th. That is the date the Supreme Court recorded, and the charter provision under which it was held.[gough-1951]

Section 2 moves the city’s year. In sections 13 to 18 of the charter — the sections creating the appointed officers — “wherever … the word ‘January’ appears therein that such word be … stricken, and … the word ‘October’ be substituted.” The fiscal and official year now began on 1 October, the day the new council took office.[lof-1939-19691]

Section 3 is the Depression speaking. It adds to section 30 of the charter, on the tax roll, that the City Assessor “shall fix said valuations in accordance with their fair market values, and without regard to any valuations fixed by any State or County Tax Assessors, or any general laws or statutes of the State of Florida,” for property inside the city limits.[lof-1939-19691] A city that had defaulted on its bonds and was, in 1939, a year away from the Supreme Court of the United States, was reserving to itself the power to value its own tax base.

Two companion acts were filed the same day. Chapter 19692 let the council permit the payment of current or delinquent city taxes by installments over up to a year, the property reverting to its old status on any default.[lof-1939-19692] Chapter 19693 amended section 34 of the charter to create a certified delinquent roll and let the council refer any property on it to the City Attorney “for collection or foreclosure.”[lof-1939-19693] Read together, the three acts of 12 June 1939 are a small portrait of a town trying to collect what it was owed from people who could not pay.

1957: annual elections and staggered terms

Chapter 57-1128, House Bill No. 1862, became a law without the Governor’s approval and was filed on 29 June 1957. It amends the charter “as amended by Section 1 of Chapter 19691, Acts of 1939” — the Legislature’s own cross-reference, which is how the 1939 act was found.[lof-1957-1128]

Section 1 rewrites section 7. The mayor and the five councilmen are now elected by staggered elections:

in the general city election to be held on the Second Tuesday in September of 1957, the mayor and the two candidates receiving the greatest number of votes for the city council shall be elected for a term of two years, and the three candidates receiving the next greatest number of votes for city council shall be elected for a one (1) year term and thereafter all such candidates shall be elected for a period of two (2) years each.[lof-1957-1128]

The council is still “elected from the city at large until such time as the city shall be divided into wards by a vote of the electorate” — the 1927 ward provision, still unused thirty years on.[lof-1957-1128]

Section 2 rewrites section 60 again: a general election “on the second Tuesday in September, 1957, and annually on the second Tuesday in September thereafter,” officers taking office on 1 October.[lof-1957-1128] From 1957 Avon Park voted every September, for the mayor and two councilmen in one year and three councilmen the next.

The amendment chain, so far as it is known

Act Date What it changed in Chapter 12514
Chapter 16316 1933 Repealed and re-enacted section 5, the city boundary
Chapter 19691 12 June 1939 Section 60: election to the second Tuesday in September, biennially; officers take office 1 October. Sections 13-18: fiscal year to October. Section 30: assessor values at fair market value regardless of state or county
Chapter 19692 12 June 1939 Installment payment of taxes (a free-standing grant of power, not an amendment)
Chapter 19693 12 June 1939 Section 34: delinquent roll and foreclosure
Chapter 28886 1953 Civil service for firemen; amends the charter and repeals conflicting provisions
Chapter 57-1128 29 June 1957 Section 7: staggered two-year terms. Section 60: election annual, second Tuesday in September
Chapter 59-1060 12 June 1959 New section 5A: any extension of the city limits “may be accomplished pursuant to the provisions of section 171.04, Florida Statutes” — the general annexation law[lof-1959-1060]
Chapter 61-1868 1961 Abolishes the city’s police officers’ retirement fund, the city as depository to distribute it under section 185.30, Florida Statutes[lof-1961-1868]
Chapter 63-1107 14 May 1963, effective 1 October 1963 Section 24 rewritten in full: a council vacancy by “death, resignation, failure to qualify or physical or mental disability” is filled “by a majority vote of the qualified electors voting at a special election to be called and held within thirty (30) days,” unless it falls within ninety days of the end of the term[lof-1963-1107]

Section 24 of the 1927 charter was the long omnibus powers section in which, between the drays and the appointments, sat the clause the city council invoked in September 1951 — “Said City Council shall judge the election and return of its own members” — together with the rule that “all vacancies in terms occurring in City Council shall be filled by the vote of a majority of the remaining members.” Chapter 63-1107 amends section 24 “to read” as a single new provision about vacancies, filled by the voters at a special election within thirty days. On its face that replaces the whole section, and with it the council’s power to fill its own seats and its claim to judge its own members’ elections — twelve years after the Supreme Court had cut the latter down to the returns alone. Whether the Legislature meant to sweep away the rest of the old section 24, or only its first paragraph, is not settled by the act’s own wording.[lof-1963-1107]

The 1959 act gave the city, whose charter had once taken in a whole township and which had been cut back to something smaller by 1943, a lawful way to grow again, one parcel at a time under the general statute rather than by special act.[lof-1959-1060]

References

Where this comes from

Evidence
single-source — One source. Treat as reported, not established.
Review
unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
Rights
society

Sources

  1. Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 19691 (No. 696), Laws of Florida 1939, Special Acts (House Bill No. 1877): An Act to Amend Chapter 12514 Acts of 1927 ... So as to Provide For Biennial Election of Officers of Said City of Avon Park; To Prescribe Their Terms of Office; To Fix the Fiscal Year (1939)
  2. Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 19692 (No. 697), Laws of Florida 1939 (House Bill No. 1836): An Act Granting to the City Council of the City of Avon Park the Authority by Ordinance to Permit the Payment of Taxes Due Said City in Installments (1939)
  3. Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 19693 (No. 698), Laws of Florida 1939 (House Bill No. 1837): An Act to Amend Chapter 12514 ... Relating to the Collection or Foreclosure of Delinquent Taxes (1939)
  4. Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 57-1128, Laws of Florida 1957 (House Bill No. 1862): An Act to amend Chapter 12514, Acts of 1927 ... so as to provide for a two year staggered election for the mayor and city council of the City of Avon Park; and to provide for annual election of officers (1957)
  5. Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 59-1060, Laws of Florida 1959 (House Bill No. 1611): An Act relating to the city of Avon Park; amending Chapter 12514 ... by adding a new Section 5A thereto providing for the adoption by said city of Section 171.04, Florida Statutes, relating to the extension of territorial limits (1959)
  6. Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 61-1868, Laws of Florida 1961: An Act abolishing the city of Avon Park police officers' retirement fund and providing for the distribution of such fund (1961)
  7. Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 63-1107, Laws of Florida 1963 (House Bill No. 1171): An Act relating to the charter of the City of Avon Park; amending Section 24 of Chapter 12514, Laws of Florida, 1927; providing all vacancies in terms occurring in city council shall be filled by a special election (1963)
  8. Supreme Court of Florida, Special Division B (Chapman, J.), Gough et al. v. State ex rel. Sauls et al., 55 So. 2d 111 (Fla. 1951) (1951)

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