North Springs Improvement District Governing Board of Supervisors: Anthony Avello, Grace Solomon and Vincent J. Moretti. {NSID}
An election will be held this week for all three Board of Supervisors seats governing the North Springs Improvement District, a public agency that has faced allegations of rampant cronyism and nepotism.
According to an agenda document posted on the NSID’s website, the election will be held on a Wednesday, June 5, at the the 2:30 p.m. meeting at the district’s office at 9700 Northwest 52nd St.
The document states that candidate nominations will be made – and ballots cast and tabulated – at the same meeting.
The elected supervisors are scheduled to be sworn in at 3 p.m., ahead of their vote on awarding three engineering contracts and approving the district’s financials and travel policy, among other items.
According to the NSID’s website, the incumbent board members are Anthony Avello, Grace Solomon, and Board of Supervisors President Vincent J. Moretti. The district is managed by District Manager Rod Colon, who did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Thursday.
The district is a public community water agency that provides tap water to over 40,000 commercial and residential customers in Coral Springs and Parkland.
The quasi-governmental NSID is one of several local water districts providing water to residents, including the Coral Springs Improvement District, Pine Tree Water Control District, and Sunshine Drainage District.
Like its counterpart district agencies across Florida, the NSID can levy taxes, fees, and special assessments.
District supervisors are elected solely by landowners in their coverage area, with larger landowners given outsized influence.
The election system, an exception to “one person, one vote,” is sometimes called “one acre, one vote.”
The June 5 election will be the last one in which only district landowners vote. Board members in the future will be elected by a majority vote of all qualified electors in the district, with staggering elections every two years beginning in November 2024.
State Rep. Dan Daley (D-Coral Springs) has previously said his office received questions and complaints about the NSID’s operations and actions, including reports of threats, nepotism, cronyism, potentially illegal activities, and unethical practices by the district.
Allegations of potential illegalities in the district were first reported by Florida Bulldog.
Daley previously acccused NSID officials of paying public funds to their friends, relatives, and sitting NSID board members for work on the district’s behalf.
A Florida Auditor General preliminary report requested by Daley and issued last year found seven areas of district practices and procedures that either raised questions or did not comply with state law, according to Florida Politics.
In an interview Thursday, Avello told Coral Springs Talk the auditor general’s findings were all addressed by NSID policy changes within two weeks of the report’s issuance.
Avello, who was appointed to the board in March 2023, said he “brought forth policy changes in order to correct seven issues that the auditor general mention in their findings.”
“They have all been corrected,” he said.
Avello also said he met with the auditor general’s office and was told “unequivocally” that their audit found neither fraud nor theft.
In a news release last year, Avello said the policy changes would be “tougher than state mandates and laws.”
“As a board supervisor, NSID should always strive to do better, and we will.”
Proxy forms may be obtained upon request at the office of the District Clerk, 9700 NW 52nd Street, Coral Springs Florida 33076. Notice-of-Landowner-Meeting_v2
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