- November 18, 2024
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The city of Palm Coast will no longer retain a federal lobbyist, but will keep the services of state lobbyist Pennington P.A.
The city’s federal lobbyist in recent years has been Marlowe and Associates, but federal lobbying hasn’t given the city any significant in securing grants over the past several years, said city planner Beau Falgout, because the dynamic in Washington has changed.
“Things have changed so much over the past five, six years in regards to how we engage our federal legislators,” he said. “Earmarks are banned. Earmarks are a bad word right now in Congress, so you’re not able to really push those local projects. Really, you’re dealing with the Congress approves line items in the budgets and you go and apply to the federal agency.”
The city has allocated about $25,000 per year in recent budgets for federal lobbying, Falgout said.
The city tried to find a firm that would provide an hourly rate, but none of them did, he said. “They all want a retainer, and really the cost-benefit right now at this time, in the way Congress is working, where all the power is pretty much vested in the executive branch, the funding decisions for local projects, we just don’t think at this time it’s worthwhile to continue,” he said.
City Manager Jim Landon said it would be nice to have a lobbyist in Washington to call for specific projects, “but we weren’t going to pay an annual fee for one or two phone calls a year.”
Councilman Bill McGuire said it seemed like the elected state officials should “fight the battles for us” when it comes to the federal government.
Mayor Jon Netts replied, “It’s very, very difficult to go to a member of Congress and say, ‘I want something,’ because they simply don’t have the discretionary dollars. They may sit on a committee that funds an agency, but in those cases you’ve got the National League of Cities, you’ve got all of these other national organizations that are already lobbying, and if the agency is funded, we’ll get our piece.”
At the state level, though, city staff recommended that Palm Coast retain the services of Tallahassee–based Pennington P.A.
The firm has a $45,000 annual retainer fee. Another Tallahassee firm, Southern Strategy Group, also submitted a bid, but has a $60,000 annual retainer fee.
Pennington P.A., Falgout said, has “been very successful in past years they’ve been representing the city,” recently saving a $375,000 line-item appropriation for a city water treatment project from being vetoed by Gov. Scott, and securing state funding for highway projects in Palm Coast.
Staff didn’t see a reason to go with a more expensive firm.
McGuire asked if the city could form a lobbying coalition with Flagler County.
“Is there anything to be said for forming some sort of a lobby coalition so that the municipalities in Flagler County and Flagler County are all singing out of the same hymnal and contributing to the expense?” he asked.
Falgout said that the Florida League of cities, which has a lobbyist, “in some sense” serves that function, but that cities and counties aren’t always on the same side of an issue.
“I don’t understand why that is,” McGuire replied, “because you would think that what’s good for Flagler county is also good for Palm Coast, an vice versa. There’s so much to be gained by joining forces, and it seems to me that since the time I’ve sat on the city council we don’t always act like adults when we deal with one another.”
The city, he said, “ought to be able to sit down with Flagler Beach and Bunnell and Beverly Beach and Marineland and the county and say, ‘Ok, here are projects that a lobbyist would normally address that we as a group should be able to get behind and rank according to what we want.’”
Netts said that in cases where the city and county were on the same side, it would be better to have two lobbying firms working on an issue than one.
“If we were talking about saving hundreds of thousands of dollars, then I might say alright, lets have a joint effort,” he said. “But I think for those instances where city and county would both agree this is the right way to go, two different lobbyists, two different sets of connections, two different sets of influences, probably increase your likelihood of success.”
Another benefit of having separate firms, Landon said, is that they “stay focused on the needs of your community.”
And, he said, “Lots of times it’s numbers, and the more people you have in agreement so you do have common issues, common ground — now you’re getting two firms working the state legislature — that’s a lot more powerful than just the one firm.
And he said, the city has received a return on its investment well over the $40,000 or so a year it puts in.
“Having somebody located in Tallahassee that’s sitting in the room making sure that, ok, they didn’t strike that one because nobody was there to object, is very valuable to us,” he said. “We think we’re getting a good return on this investment. We think it’s critical at the state level.”
