- April 25, 2024
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The Flagler County Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved a request to expand the mosquito control district in Flagler County.
The East Flagler Mosquito Control District is looking to expand its service coverage south and west in Flagler County. While the expansion will add a property tax onto the new areas, the expansion will allow the EFMCD to monitor and treat mosquito populations regularly, not just on demand, meeting documents said.
“This is something I'm very glad to see coming on here because we have needed this in the county with our unserved areas,” Commissioner Chair Joe Mullins said.
According to the Flagler County Florida Health website, some mosquito-borne illnesses — also called arboviruses — are Malaria, Dengue Fever and West Nile Virus. Agencies like EFMCD act to monitor for illnesses and control population sizes.
The new coverage areas will be in two sections, according to county commission meeting documents. In the south, the area east of U.S. Highway 1, from north of Korona to the Volusia County line. In the west, it will move from U.S. 1 to include the Florida East Coast Railway, from County Road 13, north to the St. Johns County line, the documents said.
Emergency Management Director Jonathan Lord has been working his counterparts at the EFMCD for over a year to make this project happen. He said the project is a multiphase project, and the first phase began in Dec. 2021 to survey potential expansion areas.
Over the last year, Lord’s team and the EFMCD surveyed the areas in Plantation Bay and the northwest of Palm Coast that has been or is being developed since the last service agreement went in place in 2003. These surveys helped to establish the new borders for the EFMCD.
Lord said services and revenue — meaning the tax residents in the expansion will pay — would not start until October 2023. However, the expansion needed to be approved before Jan. 1 of 2023, Lord said, because of a law regarding the railroad tracks that are present in the expansion.
The law essentially requires new taxes involving railroad land to be approved and in place before the Jan. 1 date of the year they are set to start, even though the tax and services from that tax won’t begin until later on in the year, Lord said.
“There's a separate timeline because of how the railroad does its taxing,” Lord said.
The next phase of the project, further down the line, is to fully enroll Espanola and Rima Ridge into the expansion as well, Lord said. The two areas already began receiving year-round monitoring in March.
