SEAY OUTDOOR ADVERTISING, INC., PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT,

v.

CITY OF MARY ESTHER, FLORIDA, JOHN LULUE, AS AN INDIVIDUAL AND IN HIS CAPACITY AS CITY MANAGER, ET AL., DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES

Having found that Mary Esther has no intention of reenacting the Repealed Sign Ordinance and that Seay possesses no vested right in a sign permit, the case may still be justiciable if the New Sign Ordinance contains the same constitutional defects as its predecessor. “[A] superseding statute or regulation moots a case only to the extent that it removes the challenged features of the prior law. To the extent that those features remain in place, and changes in the law have not so fundamentally altered the statutory framework as to render the original controversy a mere abstraction, the case is not moot.” City of Sunrise, 371 F. 3d at 1342-43 (quoting Naturist Soc’y, Inc. v. Fillyaw, 958 F. 2d 1515, 1520 (11th Cir.1992)). Upon review of the New Sign Ordinance, we believe that Seay’s challenges to the Repealed Sign Ordinance are moot because they seem to have been remedied by the New Sign Ordinance.

However, if the challenged provisions of the New Sign Ordinance are severable from those portions of the Repealed Sign Ordinance that actually caused the denial of the permit application, there is no point in evaluating Seay’s arguments as to those provisions. City of Sunrise, 371 F. 3d at 1347. “Severability of a local ordinance is a question of state law.” Id. (citing City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Pub. Co., 486 U.S. 750, 772, 108 S.Ct. 2138, 2152, 100 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988)). Under Florida law, the test for severability is as follows: When part of a statute is declared unconstitutional the remainder of the act will be permitted to stand provided: (1) the unconstitutional provisions can be separated from the remaining valid provisions, (2) the legislative purpose expressed in the valid provisions can be accomplished independently of those which are void, (3) the good and the bad features are not so inseparable in substance that it can be said that the Legislature would have passed the one without the other and, (4) an act complete in itself remains after the invalid provisions are stricken. Id. at 1348 (citing Smith v. Department of Insurance, 507 So. 2d 1080 (Fla.1987)). “According to Florida law, then, the unconstitutional part of a challenged statute should be excised, leaving the rest intact and in force, when doing so does not defeat the purpose of the statute and leaves in place a law that is complete.” Id. Further bolstering the severability of the New'Sign Ordinance is Mary Esther’s express, codified legislative desire to keep as much of its Sign Ordinance as possible: Severability: If any section, subsection, paragraph, subparagraph, division, subdivision, clause, sentence, word, or provision of this ordinance shall be adjudged by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unconstitutional, such portion shall be deemed a separate, distant, and independent provision and such judgment shall not affect, impair, invalidate, or nullify the remainder of this ordinance. New Sign Ordinance, Section Two.

Moreover, Florida law states that “[a]lbeit not binding, a legislatively expressed preference for the severability of voided provisions is persuasive.” City of Sunrise, 371 F. 3d at 1349 (citing Moreau v. Lewis, 648 So. 2d 124, 127 (Fla.1995) (citation omitted)). To rule that the challenged provisions were not severable from the remainder of the New Sign Ordinance “would seriously infringe on the notion of legislative autonomy and ignore Florida’s doctrine of severability.” Id. The denial of Seay’s permit applications was based solely on the provision of the Repealed Sign Ordinance prohibiting billboards. To the extent that any purportedly unconstitutional provisions of the Repealed Sign Ordinance were retained in the New Sign Ordinance, we find that the ban on billboards, which is never challenged by Seay, continues to further the purpose of the New Sign Ordinance in the absence of the challenged provisions. The regulatory purpose of the undisputed sections of the Repealed Sign Ordinance— avoiding eyesores and traffic disruption— would not be destroyed by the elimination of the suspect content regulations.

Therefore, we find that any portions of the Repealed Sign Ordinance retained by the New Sign Ordinance that arguably may be unconstitutional are fully severable from the rest of the law, particularly the ban on billboards, which was the provision that lead to the rejection of Seay’s permit applications.

Therefore, we need not— and do not — evaluate whether other portions of the New Sign Ordinance may be unconstitutional because any decision on the merits can have no bearing on the case before us. See id. “Indeed, if we were to evaluate the validity of certain provisions of the [New Sign Ordinance], knowing that the result of this inquiry could have no effect on the result in this case, our pronouncements would be essentially advisory in nature.” Id.

Accordingly, we hold that the challenge to the Repealed Sign Ordinance is moot, and this Court, therefore lacks subject matter jurisdiction. REVERSED and REMANDED, with instructions to DISMISS for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. EDMONDSON, Chief Judge, concurs in the result. . See, e.g., City of Mesquite v. Aladdin’s Castle, 455 U.S. 283, 102 S.Ct. 1070, 71 L.Ed.2d 152 (1982) (declining to find moot when the City expressly announced an intention to reenact the old language of a challenged law if the appellate court vacated the district court’s holding that the language of the statute was unconstitutionally vague); Northeastern Florida Chapter of Associated General Contractors of America v. City of Jacksonville, 508 U.S. 656, 113 S.Ct. 2297, 124 L.Ed.2d 586 (1993) (declining to find moot when law that replaced repealed law still potentially disadvantaged the plaintiff). . See, e.g., Christian Coalition of Alabama v. Cole, 355 F. 3d 1288 (11th Cir.2004) (finding case moot where defendants submitted to the court a representation that the wrongful conduct would not be repeated); Jews for Jesus v. Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, 162 F. 3d 627 (11th Cir.1998) (finding case moot where the changed policy was the result of "substantial and conscientious deliberation,” and had been "consistently applied” since its enactment). . In City of Sunrise, the Court contemplated that "if the City of Sunrise did nurture the intention of reinstating the old, purportedly unconstitutional Sign Code, and actually adopted the Amended Sign Code as a tempo-raiy measure whenever another lawsuit appeared on the horizon, [the Court] would plainly forbid it from doing so.” 371 F. 3d at 1320. We adopt this warning and caution, here, against such "flip-flopping.” . Ordinance 2001-12 repealed the original Sign Ordinance in its entirety and enacted a completely revised Sign Ordinance, which seemingly removed all of the language objected to by Seay and cured any other challenged defects. . For example, City Ordinance 2001-12, enacting the New Sign Ordinance, states that "the City Council of the City of Mary Esther finds and determines that the regulation of billboards as set forth herein will improve the beauty of the City of Mary Esther, foster overall improvement to the aesthetic and visual . appearance of the city, preserve and open up areas for beautification on public property adjoining the public roadways, increase the visibility, readability and/or effectiveness of on-site signs by reducing and/or diminishing the visual clutter of off-site signs, enhance the City of Mary Esther as an attractive place to live and work, reduce blighting influences, and improve traffic safety by reducing driver distractions.”