FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

STATE OF FLORIDA

_____________________________

No. 1D17-2279

_____________________________

KEVIN PETTWAY, JENNIFER 

WOLFE, NANCY MURREY-SETTLE,

and FRED POPE,

Petitioners,

v.

CITY OF JACKSONVILLE, a 

Municipal Corporation, and

SALEEBAS-2216 OAK STREET,

LLC,

Respondents.

_____________________________

Petition for Writ of Mandamus—Original Jurisdiction.

August 10, 2018

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING AND CLARIFICATION*

PER CURIAM.

“Rendition” of an order, in legal parlance, is the triggering 

final event that starts the jurisdictional stopwatch for seeking 

appellate relief. In this case, at issue is whether the City Council 

of the Consolidated City of Jacksonville has the authority to 

determine the finality of the City’s process for ordinances arising 

 * We deny rehearing but grant clarification, substituting this 

opinion for our original opinion.
2

from its formal quasi-judicial proceedings, which in this case is a 

rezoning matter.

Kevin Pettway and others residing in his Riverside 

neighborhood (“Pettway”) opposed the rezoning of nearby property 

to allow for a new restaurant, to be known as “The Roost.” The 

property owner, “Saleebas-2216 Oak Street LLC” (“Saleebas”),

filed rezoning applications that were reviewed first by the 

Jacksonville Planning and Development Department, which 

thereafter issued a report with conditions that was sent to the 

Jacksonville Planning Commission for review. A lengthy public 

hearing was held, after which the Commission issued its 

recommendation of approval. 

Pursuant to the City’s municipal code, Pettway requested a 

formal quasi-judicial hearing in front of the Land Use and Zoning 

Committee of the Jacksonville City Council, resulting in another 

lengthy hearing and ultimately the Committee’s recommendation 

to approve the application. The final step was for the full nineteenmember City Council to consider the Committee’s recommendation 

and to approve an ordinance allowing the rezoning, which it 

ultimately did on May 24, 2016.

That did not end the City’s legislative process for this quasijudicial matter. The City’s rules on the topic—entitled “Final 

Order”—say that the type of ordinance at issue, involving “Formal 

Quasi-Judicial Procedures,” must be executed by the Council 

President and Council Secretary and thereafter sent by certified 

mail to the “applicant and affected parties.” JACKSONVILLE, FLA.,

PROCEDURES GOVERNING QUASI-JUDICIAL ACTIONS Ch. 6, Rule 

6.310. According to Dr. Cheryl Brown, the City Council’s 

Secretary, the ordinance was signed by the Council President and 

herself, after which it was provided to the Office of Legislative 

Services and made available for public review on May 25, 2016 

(and posted online that day). The signed ordinance was then filed 

in the “Jacksonville ordinance book” by “Legislative Staff” on June 

14, 2016. Finally, as City rules require, the “Legislative Staff 

mailed a certified copy of the enacted ordinance with a cover letter 

to all property owners within 350 feet” of the rezoned property on 

June 20, 2016. 
3

Under City Rule 6.310, the “date of rendition of the order shall 

be the date of mailing” of the ordinance to the applicant and 

affected parties, thereby establishing the finality of the order on 

that date. For that reason, Pettway sought review of the ordinance

by filing a petition for certiorari with the circuit court on July 20, 

2016, the last day within the thirty-day jurisdictional window 

under Florida appellate rules. Fla. R. App. P. 9.100(c)(2). They 

were advised by the City Council’s Secretary that June 20, 2016,

was the date of rendition of the ordinance, and an attorney with 

the general counsel noted that, due to a delay in the certified 

mailings being sent, the timing of an appeal would be affected due 

to the City’s rendition rule.

Saleebas moved to dismiss Pettway’s petition, claiming it was 

untimely filed for two reasons, one of which related to a snafu in 

the circuit court clerk’s office that resulted in Pettway’s petition 

being docketed and date-stamped as filed initially on July 20, 

2016, but later changed to July 25, 2016, due to the clerk rejecting 

the petition for lack of an appendix. Pettway’s appendix was made 

a part of the petition that was filed, but the appellate rules require 

a separately filed appendix. Fla. R. App. P. 9.220(c). For this 

reason, Pettway’s petition was put in a “Pending Queue” and not 

deemed filed until July 25, 2016, when the matter was 

straightened out. The clerk, however, had a ministerial duty to 

accept and file the petition when it was received on July 20, 2016, 

thereby making that date the correct one for purposes of 

calculating the time for Pettway to file his petition. See State v. 

Johnson, 139 So. 3d 968, 969 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014) (holding that 

notice of appeal was timely filed electronically, despite clerk of 

court placing it in “e-filing portal queue” for correction by filing 

party). The trial court dismissed Pettway’s petition on other 

grounds, deeming whether it was filed on July 20th or 25th as 

moot. But, as Pettway points out, the legally correct date of filing 

was July 20th, when his petition was received by the clerk’s office. 

This matters because Pettway’s petition is untimely if deemed filed 

on the 25th, but—as discussed below—would be timely under City 

Rule 6.310.

As to the date of the ordinance’s rendition, the trial court 

turned to Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.020(i), which 

states that an “order is rendered when a signed, written order is 
4

filed with the clerk of the lower tribunal” and concluded that “[i]n 

the case of a quasi-judicial proceeding, the filing of the ordinance 

at issue with a government clerk or the person ‘. . . who most closely 

resembles a clerk in functions performed’ determines the date of 

‘rendition.’” (quoting Presidents’ Counsel of SD, Inc. v. Walton Cty., 

36 So. 3d 764 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010)). The trial court agreed with 

Saleebas that rendition of the ordinance occurred on May 25, 2016, 

because the ordinance was “filed” on that date with “the City’s 

Office of Legislative Services and available for public review on the 

City’s website.” The trial court specifically rejected the 

applicability of City Rule 6.310.

Pettway urges—and we agree—that City Rule 6.310 should be 

given effect. The City—which sides with Pettway on this 

procedural point—says that the date upon which certified mail is 

sent has always been the determinative date of finality for its 

quasi-judicial proceedings involving required notice to affected 

parties, such as those potentially impacted by a change in zoning. 

But it makes little sense for an earlier date of rendition—such as 

May 25, 2016, when the ordinance was sent to Legislative Services 

and made available on the City’s website—because the applicant 

and affected parties aren’t given actual notice at that time. 

Starting the thirty-day clock at that point would be premature; 

affected property owners could easily lose their right to contest 

final orders about which they are not notified via the certified mail 

process. In fact, an oversight in this case resulted in a delay in the 

dispatch of the certified notices until June 20th, which was almost 

a month after the ordinance had been sent to Legislative Services, 

creating a likelihood that the thirty-day jurisdictional window 

could lapse before recipients were notified. The certified letters 

should have been sent out within ten days, but either way, the date 

of the certified mailing would control. The applicant and some 

affected parties may know or become aware of an ordinance at an 

earlier time, of course, but the date of the certified mailings 

provides a termination point as well as a degree of predictability 

and regularity to the process. The City, which is a consolidated 

governmental body combining county and municipal functions 

under one roof, has uniform procedures adopted by its legislative 

branch, the City Council, designed to ensure orderly practices and 

an endpoint to the Council’s actions.
5

The remaining question is whether giving effect to the City’s 

“Final Order” rule can be harmonized with the Florida appellate 

rules. It can. Rendition requires three things: an order that is 

signed, written, and filed with the “clerk of the lower tribunal.” Fla. 

R. App. P. 9.020(i). Under the City’s “Final Order” rule, an 

ordinance arising from a quasi-judicial hearing is reduced to 

writing and then signed by the City Council President and 

Secretary. All that remains for the ordinance to be “rendered” is 

that it be filed in some way with a designated person who performs 

a clerk-like function. As counsel for Saleebas acknowledged, if the 

City’s rules required that an ordinance be “filed” with the division 

chief of the City’s Parks and Recreation Department, that choice 

governs and must be honored, even if it makes more sense for some 

other City official to play that role.

In this regard, the City’s rule is simply another way of saying 

that the date of certified mailing serves the purpose of a “filing” 

date and thereby sets finality and rendition on that date (an event 

that becomes part of the ordinance file). The purpose of the word 

“rendition” in City Rule 6.310 is the same as the word “filed” in the 

appellate rules: each serves to define the final step that produces 

finality of the order (here, an ordinance). A more artful way would 

have been for the City’s rule to say that “filing, and thereby 

rendition, shall be deemed to occur on the date of mailing,” thereby 

more closely paralleling the wording of rule 9.020(i). The City has 

chosen a somewhat atypical, but nonetheless acceptable, means of 

establishing when its final quasi-judicial orders are deemed final. 

See Kowch v. Bd. of Cty. Comm’rs, 467 So. 2d 340, 341 (Fla. 5th 

DCA 1985) (“In the instant case we hold that the letter sent to the 

parties informing them of the Commissioners’ decision constitutes 

a decision reduced to a writing as provided in Rule 9.020(g).”). 

Electronic service of orders to affected parties has become 

commonplace, and the City’s certified mailings, though involving 

ground delivery, parallel that process.

Notably, the caselaw takes a pragmatic approach in deciding 

unanswered questions like the one presented. For example, courts 

have determined who most resembles the “clerk” for purposes of 

rule 9.020 under various circumstances. As this Court held in a 

county government case:
6

Although the Department clerk’s job title did not 

expressly identify her as the clerk and she also had other 

duties, the record establishes that she was the person in 

charge of such filings and that being the records clerk was 

a major part of her job responsibilities.

Presidents’ Council of SD, Inc., 36 So. 3d at 765. Reviewing courts 

seek a reasonable resolution, one grounded in the realities of the 

record presented in each case. In that regard, the trial court here 

concluded that the Office of Legislative Services is the “clerk” for 

the purpose of the appellate rules. But the record suggests that the 

only person who closely resembles a “clerk” for the City is the 

Council Secretary whose affidavit and letter to Pettway made clear 

that City Rule 6.310 governs finality, and that June 20, 2016 was 

the operative date when the certified letters were sent to the 

applicant and nearby property owners. Under the circumstances 

presented, the important municipal goals of City Rule 6.310—

ensuring finality of its quasi-judicial ordinances and timely notice 

to affected persons—can coexist with Florida’s appellate rules.

In conclusion, we hold that the ordinance at issue was 

rendered and became final on June 20, 2016, pursuant to the City’s 

“Final Order” rule, which can be squared with the appellate rules, 

such that mandamus is proper. Griffin v. Sistuenck, 816 So. 2d 600, 

601 (Fla. 2002) (mandamus proper to reinstate case dismissed for 

lack of jurisdiction based on untimeliness). Because Pettway’s 

petition was filed with the clerk of the circuit court within thirty 

days of the rendition of the ordinance, it was timely. 

PETITION GRANTED; ORDER QUASHED.

MAKAR, OSTERHAUS, and WINOKUR, JJ., concur.

_____________________________

Not final until disposition of any timely and 

authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 

9.331.

_____________________________
7

Bryan S. Gowdy of Creed and Gowdy, P.A., Jacksonville, and Barry 

A. Bobek of Barry A. Bobek, P.A., Jacksonville, for Petitioners.

Craig D. Feiser, Assistant General Counsel of the Office of General 

Counsel, Jacksonville, for Respondent City of Jacksonville; Paul M. 

Harden, Jacksonville, for Respondent Saleebas-2216 Oak Street, 

LLC.