Florida A&M Marching 100 perform in Leon County’s commission chambers
After a proclamation recognizing the Marching 100 winning HBCU Band of the Year by ESPN, the band performs in commission chambers, Feb. 11, 2025.
The Leon County Commission wants to hear from voters about the prospect of combining city and county governments – even though the topic has a history of failing to gain support during past referendums.
After a nearly 6-hour meeting, with many of those being taken up by a lengthy conversation on the comp plan, county commissioners voted 5-2, with Commissioners Nick Maddox and David O’Keefe in dissent, to create a non-binding straw poll on the 2026 ballot to take the temperature of voters on the topic of government consolidation.
The conversation is sure to be the first of many, with the item being initially brought up at the group’s November meeting by Commissioner Christian Caban, who raised the idea of outright consolidation after Commissioner Bill Proctor made a motion for staff to study the possibility of the county taking over fire services countywide.
The Leon County Citizens Charter Review Committee, which reviews the government’s founding documents every eight years, has also determined the issue is worth further study.
While nothing has been set in stone, almost all the commissioners ended up with plenty of questions on what the cost or savings of consolidation would be, the specific details to get there and if residents favor the idea.
Commissioners looking for more answers
In their analysis, staff said the potential advantages of consolidation include operational efficiency and streamlined decision-making that could improve coordination and government services to citizens under a single government umbrella. Disadvantages include uncertainty around possible savings, a loss of local control and administrative challenges in fusing overlapping departments.
Commissioner Brian Welch stood in the middle on the issue, thanking staff for their work but noticing some missing details in the agenda item.
“A good synopsis of the history of this issue in Leon County, but not a lot of details on how it would work, and I think the problem with it is that you need those details… I feel like most people, without any details, are probably gonna say no,” he said.
While not for or against consolidation, Welch did note that as the current government structures stand, there are many in his district and other portions of the unincorporated county who pay for city utilities and other services without any representation. He said reasons like this beg the question for consolidation, but he wasn’t sure how local government would effectively “land the plane” on the idea.
“The people in my district, and this is probably just specific to my district, feel pretty strongly underrepresented and I’ve said this many times but none of the city commissioners live north of I-10,” Welch said. “My whole district has no city commissioner that live in it, and so when they appeal to the city commissioners they often feel disenfranchised.”
Caban, who brought up the idea, reminded the commission that they weren’t voting to start the process but rather poll residents to see how the idea sits with those who would be governed by a proposed consolidated government.
Many commissioners, in hashing out what consolidation looked like, brought up the fact that the state government would need to be involved in the process, which adds another variable to the equation on how much state involvement residents would tolerate.
“We are constantly fighting home rule from the state on all levels, and generally, the values and policies of the state conflict and oppose our local community values… So anytime we risk bringing the state more into something about our structure, especially now, I get very nervous,” said O’Keefe.
Arianna Otero is the trending and breaking news reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat. Contact her via email at AOtero@tallahassee.com and follow her on X: @ari_v_otero.
