Milton becomes latest city to ask Gov. DeSantis to veto Local Business Protection Act

Milton is the latest governmental body requesting Gov. Ron DeSantis veto the Local Business Protection Act, which made its way through the state Legislature this past session and onto the governor’s desk earlier this month.

The bill SB 620 would allow businesses to sue local governments if regulations are passed that cost the business at least 15% of profits.

The Milton City Council unanimously approved asking Mayor Heather Lindsay to send a letter asking for the veto.

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“I think that piece of legislation would do harm to the government like us. We try to ensure that each and everything we do each and every day does not harm our businesses. We do everything we can to support them,” said Milton City Manager Randy Jorgenson.

There are several caveats to the bill including that the business must have been operating for at least three years, it does not apply to emergency ordinances such as those used during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it would not apply to eminent domain.

The bill’s original sponsor is Sen. Travis Hutson, R-St. Augustine. The Florida Legislature approved the bill in March mainly along party lines.

Councilman Vernon Compton thanked Lindsay for drafting the letter before it was approved.

In April, Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson sent a letter to DeSantis asking to veto the bill, and a week prior to that the commissioners in Escambia County voted 4-1 to ask for the governor's veto.

Several other bodies across Florida have done the same.

In February, city council members in Marco Island, which is south of Naples in Southwest Florida, voiced concerns that the state was stepping on local power. In late March, the Palm Beach County Commissioners agreed to request a veto and Walton County moved to do the same thing around the same time.

In Lindsay’s letter, she asserts that the legislation “encourages neighbors to sue neighbors for the benefit primarily of lawyers and expert witnesses, the only people who will win as a result of this legislation.”

“The cost to pay for that litigation would be borne by the taxpayer, regardless of who won that suit,” Jorgenson said in his address to the council Thursday night.

The letter goes on to explain why the council believes local government works best for the constituency.

“In local government, we are close to the people who have elected us. We are all neighbors. This bill pits neighbors against neighbors by encouraging litigation and discouraging the problem-solving that government is supposed to be doing,” Lindsay’s letter reads, before ultimately wrapping up on the point that those in the Milton city government do not appreciate “big government” in Tallahassee passing the legislation.

Staff with state Senate's Appropriations Committee conducted an analysis of the bill.

“The bill may have an indeterminate negative fiscal impact on local governments. The bill does not appear to have a fiscal impact on state government,” the analysis reads.