Audio | Debbie Cenziper on the county's audit
Document | South Florida Water Management District's fact sheet
January 2005: This column focused on owners of 1,584 acres who were
trying to trick at least two public boards into unwittingly jacking up
the price of the land so taxpayers would make them rich when the
property was purchased for conservation.
We're here to report that they succeeded admirably, and you'll be paying
the tab.
Owners of the tract called Neighborhood Lakes in Sorrento paid about $7
million for the land in 2001. They knew it topped conservation lists and
that the state had negotiated briefly for its purchase.
Today, a consortium of governments is poised to buy it back -- for $74
million taxpayer dollars. Your dollars.
That was no typo.
Owners Bill Cole of Sorrento and Nancy Rossman of Orlando have boosted
greed to an obscene level. It is revolting.
Equally disgusting was the spectacle of public officials blissfully
giving away the farm. Your farm. This is, after all, OPM -- Other
People's Money -- and spending it is easy. Merry Christmas, Bill and
Nancy.
At the heart of this travesty is a series of decisions by governments
that were anxious to affix their lips to developer fannies over the
years. Toward the end, Eustis, the St. Johns River Water Management
District and the Lake County Commission tried to curb the blatant
price-gouging.
More than two years ago, Cole and Rossman asked the water district to
let them suck 1.3 million gallons of water a day out of the underground
aquifer for 1,500 homes they wanted to build on the property. (Vacant
land is worth a lot more when it has a water permit.)
The district delayed long enough that the partners got tired of waiting
and trotted to Eustis to try to get utilities for the property -- even
while they were sweetly agreeing that it should be preserved and
pledging to reach an agreement to sell. Eustis wisely said forget it.
At the time, I noted in a column that if the city had agreed,
"they'd have been paving a one-way street for taxpayer cash to roll
directly into the pockets of developers." Silly me. At my advanced
age, you'd think I'd have known that the festivities had only just
begun.
Cole and Rossman in February 2005 unsuccessfully asked county
commissioners to increase density on the land.
Since then, the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority decided that
the Wekiva Parkway would go through Neighborhood Lakes. Roll out that
Brinks truck full of quarters!
Any chance of getting the property for a sane price was gone. Throw in
the fervor of environmentalists who know how desperately this particular
land was needed and who passionately advocated for its purchase. (They
are right -- it IS a critical link for wildlife.) Sit back and watch the
price skyrocket.
The land value was set at $52 million by one appraiser and at $60.2
million by a second. Of course, the governments -- the expressway
authority, the water district, Orange and Lake counties and the state --
took the high price.
Then the expressway authority threw in an extra $13.8 million to buy out
what are called "transferable development rights" belonging to
Cole and Rossman. The short explanation is that years ago, Lake County
allowed developers who had high-density zoning in the Wekiva Basin to
move their right to build to a less fragile area. Cole and Rossman had
712 of those credits and chose to use them at Neighborhood Lakes.
Anybody care to argue that development is good for Lake County, that it
pays its way? After this mess -- a fiasco on multiple levels -- don't
even whisper it to me.
Most of the Neighborhood Lakes property is zoned for one house per acre
-- that's the brilliant decision that set this in motion. Rather than
being held hostage by these greedmongers, I'm afraid I would have done
something that might have been viewed as ornery by polite society.
Lake County is nearing the end of a two-year process to decide what
areas should be allowed to develop and which should remain rural. If
this property is so very precious, why not reduce the intensity of the
zoning to that in most of the Green Swamp? Surely that is justified,
given the critical nature of the wildlife corridor connecting southerly
properties to the Ocala National Forest. OK, Bill and Nancy, knock
yourselves out at one house for every 20 acres.
I believe I'd have let Cole and Rossman stew and spend a whole lot of
money in what inevitably would have been a long, complicated court case
with a stunning number of appeals. It would have been a lot cheaper than
$74 million.
Then, the public might have gotten that property for a fair and
reasonable amount.
Extortion, you say? Really?
So what did these two developers just do to us?
Lauren Ritchie can be reached at Lritchie@orlandosentinel.com or
352-742-5918.
Stuart may sell conservation land for parkway
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
STUART — City conservation land soon might be paved to provide an alternative to traffic-clogged U.S. 1.
City commissioners voted 4-0 Monday to sell Martin County about 8.34 acres along Baker Road to allow room for the southern extension of the Green River Parkway, a two-lane road that would stretch from Jensen Beach Boulevard to Dixie Highway in Stuart.
Commissioner Michael Mortell was absent Monday.
The city land is part of the Haney Creek watershed, where the city recently wrapped up a seven-year restoration effort, which pumped close to $4 million into about 70 acres around Baker Road.
The $567,000 land sale approved by the city Monday still requires state approval, since the city land was purchased with money from the Florida Communities Trust, a state land-acquisition program.
Should program officials approve the sale, the trust would take about $538,000 of the money, leaving the city with about $28,000, which City Manager Dan Hudson said the city would try to use to acquire more conservation land.
City and county officials have said they could find no other route for the proposed Green River Parkway, and that the road was on maps before the city acquired the conservation land for the Haney Creek project.
City and county officials initially wanted to make room for the roadway by swapping land, but state officials quashed that plan in October, since it would have resulted in a net loss of conservation land.
Vice Mayor Jeffrey Krauskopf, who often has been a vocal opponent of selling city land, said he reluctantly supported this sale, saying the conservation land never should have been purchased where a long-planned roadway was slated to go.
"It's a shame we have to do it," Krauskopf said of the sale. "But if we don't do it, what are you going to do with all the traffic? We get complaints about everything on U.S. 1."
Krauskopf asked that Hudson make sure the county puts in a fence or culvert along the road to minimize roadkill in the area.
The northern section of the Green River Parkway, which stretches between Walton Road in Port St. Lucie to Jensen Beach Boulevard, opened last year and already has 5,000 cars traveling on it daily.
The $20 million section of the parkway between Jensen Beach Boulevard and Dixie Highway is scheduled to be built by 2008.
Postponement on Cherry Lake Tree Farm is victory for new mayor
Roxanne Brown
Staff Writer
GROVELAND - A final decision on whether to annex Cherry Lake Tree Farm into Groveland has been postponed. It will be heard again after the new year by Groveland's new council.
After the approval at its first reading Dec. 4, the second and final reading for the property, where more than 3,300 homes are proposed, was set for Monday's agenda.
But tree farm owners IMG Enterprises requested more time to negotiate some of the terms of the annexation agreement with the city.
This was good news for Mayor-elect Matthew Baumann and his newly elected fellow councilman and controlled growth advocate Paul Keller, who have both said they want a say in the decision.
"I'll be happy to have the chance to speak on it myself and vote on it. I'm looking forward to that," said Baumann on Monday. "I do have some questions for the owner."
When IMG applied for annexation into the city in September, the company also submitted applications for a Future Land Use Amendment, rezoning to Planned Unit Development and to be classified as a Development of Regional Impact.
According to city records, if the project at the northeast corner of State Road 19 and Cherry Lake Road is approved, the 1,083 acres could house more than 3,300 homes, as well as commercial and office space, a school and municipal and recreation facilities.
Baumann said he attended the Dec. 4 meeting and talked with the tree farm's owner afterwards.
According to Baumann, the owner said he was willing to meet with Baumann to show him around the site and go over the plan.
However, Baumann said, that meeting hasn't happened yet.
Baumann, who ran on a controlled growth platform, said he will take his time to review the plans.
The project could bring approximately 7,848 new residents to Groveland - more than doubling its population.
"That's quite a chunk to do in one step, especially when they have no infrastructure to handle any of it," said Baumann. "It would instantly double the size of the city or more, and they have a hard time handling what they have now."
Outgoing mayor James Smith said he just wants to see the project done right, no matter who actually has the vote.
"It's not a vote issue, it's a matter of ensuring that some preliminary things that need to be done are done properly … that all the i's are dotted and the t's all crossed," said Smith. "Even with the vote to annex it, the whole thing has got a lot of other processes to go through before it ever even becomes a reality. It's a DRI. It's not going to happen quickly."
Annexation talk set for Inverness
By Dave PieklikMembers of the public will get their first chance to discuss a proposed annexation of 165 acres in Inverness, among other items at this afternoon’s city council meeting.
The council will conduct its second reading of an ordinance allowing the Roscow family to seek voluntary annexation into the city. The family owns land east of East Turner Camp Road, along Little Lake Henderson.
The family intends eventually to seek a Comprehensive Land Use amendment to the land use designation, which currently is low intensity coastal lakes. The family has not announced its plans for the land.
The council agreed in a 4-1 vote Dec. 5 to pass an ordinance allowing the family to seek voluntary annexation, which state law allows as long as no enclaves are formed and the land is reasonably compact. The ordinance will be read a second time during today’s meeting before a public hearing is opened. If the consensus is to move ahead with annexation, the council will vote to adopt the ordinance.
The council also will review preliminary plans for the Parsley Lake Villages and the Loewy subdivision. The developments will be located off U.S. 41 north of downtown.
The council will review a proposal previously reviewed and accepted by the Planning and Zoning Commission. Some conditions of the proposal include having the developer pay for any upgrades to water and sewer systems and limiting tree removal to rights of way or drainage retention areas.
Plans submitted by Beeline Development Inc. of Ocala say infrastructure improvements to the Loewy subdivision will begin by July 2007, with development and selling of 54 lots to start by that December.
By January 2008, the construction of 93 single-family homes in Parsley Lake Villages should begin, according to plans, with construction of 150 condo units to begin by July 2008.
The entire project should be finished, plans state, by 2010.
Winter Park mayor wants to buy out developers
David Strong's proposal calls for millions to halt the Carlisle condo project.
Christopher ShermanSentinel Staff Writer
December 19, 2006
WINTER PARK -- Mayor David Strong unveiled an $18 million proposal Monday that would kill plans for the city's most controversial building, expand its downtown park and build new city facilities.
Strong, who has been meeting secretly with developers of The Carlisle, told commissioners that he isn't sure where all the money will come from but pledged $100,000 out of his own pocket as part of a drive to raise nearly a third of the cash.
For the first time, Strong shared his plans to buy out the developers of The Carlisle, a four-story condominium, post office and retail project that has polarized the city because of its size. The project, which had received all but its final approval from the city, was to be built where the current post office sits on Central Park.
"This will put the controversy that has existed in this city regarding The Carlisle behind us," Strong said.
City commissioners thanked Strong for his initiative but expressed concern about the interlocking pieces and the short time to make decisions. Strong's agreement with Central Park Station Partners extends to Jan. 16, when the City Commission will have a public hearing on the issue.
"If all these things happen, I think the city will be better for it," said City Commissioner Doug Metcalf, though he was skeptical about gathering enough public input before the decision.
Strong's proposal is complicated and costly because The Carlisle project includes an agreement with the federal government to build a post office at the site. By buying out the contract for $5.5 million, Winter Park would be obligated to build a post office in another location. Central Park would be expanded to include the area where the current post office sits.
Under Strong's plan, the post office would be built a few blocks to the west, near Winter Park Village. The 5-acre site is home to the former state office building. Strong said the Postal Service has verbally agreed to that move.
To pay for the new post office, Strong also would move the Winter Park Public Library from its location near Rollins College to where the new post office would be built. Strong hopes the library's 3-acre site could be sold for about $13 million to finance the new post office and library.
Under Strong's proposal, the city would have until February 2010 to build a post office.
But the city would need to put $1 million in escrow by mid-January, then pay the remaining $4.3 million ($200,000 more would come later for the post office's moving expenses) to the developers within six months.
The agreement, if approved by commissioners next month, would avert litigation. The city maintains that the project is one step short of approval, but the developers argue that they have completed the approval process.
Mediation meetings during the summer failed to resolve that disagreement. If commissioners vote down the proposal, the developer will make its request for final approval of its Carlisle plans as a precursor to a lawsuit.
"We have all of our approvals to build The Carlisle as it is presently designed," said Steve Walsh, who negotiated with Strong and is a principal partner of the project. If the city doesn't want The Carlisle built, "it is only reasonable that we recover our costs associated with it." The project was in the works for more than three years.
Resident Beth Dillaha said buying out the developers is a bitter pill, but "it's better than the alternative" of having The Carlisle on Central Park. She is optimistic residents will open their checkbooks. "It's the opportunity to expand Central Park."
Resident Vicki Krueger, who lives across the street from The Carlisle site, said she made up her mind to do just that. She has been saving "forever" for a big-screen television but will instead contribute that money to the mayor's plan.
Winter Park Chamber of Commerce President Sam Stark, who supported The Carlisle as a way to get more residents living closer to Park Avenue, was impressed by the plan.
"I think it's a very ambitious and strategic plan that encompasses a lot of the dreams that Winter Park has," Stark said.
Christopher Sherman can be reached at csherman@orlandosentinel.com or 407-650-6361.
Water plant delays run patience dry
After a dry winter, the delay alarms Tampa Bay Water's board, including Pam Iorio.
By CRAIG PITTMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published December 19, 2006
CLEARWATER - The opening of Tampa Bay Water's troubled desalination plant, already three years overdue, will be delayed again until March.
That's six months after it was supposed to be producing water. And if the Apollo Beach plant misses that deadline, it may threaten the utility's ability to meet increasing water demands. Dry winter months already have forced the utility to tap its reservoir earlier than usual even as the spring dry season looms.
The announcement of the delay, made at Monday's utility board meeting by the latest company to work on the plant, sparked some sharp comments from irritated board members, particularly Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio.
"You can't help but be alarmed by this latest delay," she said, noting that disputes over the plant's previous failures have led to legal costs for the utility that have already topped $6-million.
St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker focused on the potential penalties facing the contractor, a German-Spanish consortium called American Water Pridesa, for missing its deadline. The answer: $10,000 a day, although the final amount is subject to negotiation.
When American Water regional vice president Daniel Warnock, told board members that "at the end of March we hope we can toast with a glass of something," Baker asked how sure he was about the date this time.
"I don't want to give you a date unless I'm 99.9 percent sure that we're going to meet it," Warnock replied. But he stopped short of saying 100 percent for one simple reason, he said: "Can I tell you there won't be something that goes wrong? I can't do that."
Tampa Bay Water will need its desalination plant more than ever this spring. Even as demand for water is increasing, rainfall is far below average. That means the flow of the rivers where the utility gets millions of gallons of water is too low to draw much water from them.
As a result the utility has tapped its reservoir early. In December 2005 it stood at 15-billion gallons, full to the brim and ready for the dry season. It's now down to 11.5-billion gallons.
So if the desalination plant isn't working by the start of the dry season in April, the utility and its 2-million customers are likely to pay the price in restrictions on water use. And it will likely deal the desalination industry as a whole a big setback.
"We're going to hold you accountable," board chairman Ted Schrader, a Pasco County commissioner, warned Warnock. "The whole country is looking at this."
Construction of the Apollo Beach plant, the largest in the United States, was launched in 1999. It was supposed to begin operating by 2003, aiding the utility with an alternative source of drinking water in times of drought.
The plant was designed to take 40-million gallons of seawater from Tampa Bay, filter out the salt and turn it into 25-million gallons of drinking water a day, lessening the environmental impact of pumping groundwater.
The plant has been plagued by problems from the start, ranging from contractors going bankrupt and Asian green mussels clogging its water intakes to the discovery that many of the plant's water pumps had rusted.
Then, when Tampa Bay Water tried to hire someone to fix the plant two years ago, the bids came in well above the $14-million estimate. American Water Pridesa, which won the contract, bid $29-million.
The repairs were supposed to be finished by October, but the company pushed the date back to just before Christmas. Last month, company officials informed Tampa Bay Water executive director Jerry Maxwell that they would not be done until sometime after Jan. 1. Then came Monday's announcement that the new goal is the end of March.
Warnock, in a Powerpoint presentation to the board, quickly flashed past the slide explaining why the project has been delayed again, which was titled "Challenges." Among the list: a seawater pump that failed due to corrosion, a repaired pump that was delivered from France weeks after it was needed, and a seawater pipeline that leaked.
Not mentioned were some changes in the plans that the contractor came up with. For instance, the company originally was going to squeeze a new chemical process into the plant's existing building, but then discovered there was no room. So instead the company built a new chemical building.
About 50 people are now working long hours trying to get the plant done, said Warnock and project manager Eric Sabolsice - to the point that Warnock said he was concerned that they might start cutting corners or risking the safety of the employees. So the company decided to push the deadline back instead, he said.
Iorio, who joined the utility board in 2003, said her opinion of the $140-million project "changed dramatically" after hearing a complete history of its many failures during a closed-door session last month with the attorneys handling the litigation.
"It always seems very difficult to point your finger at anyone willing to take responsibility," she said.
After the meeting, she told reporters that she fears this contractor will miss so many deadlines it, too, will wind up in court with the utility.
Iorio noted that Maxwell's contract, which expires in November, says that if the plant is not operational by then, he will be let go with no severance pay.
"At some point," she said, "the staff needs to step up and take responsibility."
Seven years of desalination delays: a time line
Selected major developments:
1999: Tampa Bay Water hires Stone & Webster to a build desalination plant.
2000: Stone & Webster goes bankrupt. Covanta Energy is hired to replace it.
2002: Covanta files for bankruptcy and creates subsidiary to continue building the plant.
2003: The desalination plant flunks tests and is deemed incomplete. The Covanta subsidiary goes bankrupt.
2004: Tampa Bay Water pays the Covanta subsidiary $4.4-million to walk away and hires American Water Pridesa to fix the plant for $29-million.
October: American Water
Pridesa misses the deadline to fix the desalination plant and says it will be ready for testing by December.
November: American Water Pridesa says the fix won't be done until after Jan. 1.
Monday: American Water Pridesa says the fix will be complete by March 30.
Desalination Plant Misses Second Repair Deadline
Published: Dec 19, 2006
CLEARWATER - Repairs to the troubled desalination plant won't be finished until March or April, putting the project about 150 days behind the original schedule.
Dan Warnock, regional president for American Water, one of the companies doing the work, told the Tampa Bay Water board on Monday about the latest delay.
This marks the second missed deadline for repair work that was originally set to end in October, and then late this month.
Warnock said a number of problems caused the latest delay. Some occurred because the plant sat idle for more than 17 months during additions and modifications to the desalination process.
As workers began testing portions of the operation, pumps failed and pipes sprang leaks. A crucial pump was delivered several weeks late.
"When these things happen, a week here and a week there, before long it pushes everything back," Warnock said after the utility board meeting.
The plant was shut down June 1, 2005, and has not produced a drop of drinking water since.
In November 2004, Tampa Bay Water hired a partnership between American Water and Pridesa of Spain to fix the plant at a total cost of $48 million.
The latest delay caused Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio to question who was responsible for the plant's troubled history.
"I have a tremendous concern the date has slipped six months," she said.
Iorio said the highly technical nature of the plant's performance problems makes it difficult to point to whom they should hold responsible.
Later, she said Jerry Maxwell, general manager of Tampa Bay Water, was the likely person on the utility staff to hold accountable.
She also said she feared the utility and American Water-Pridesa may be heading to litigation over contract penalties for the delayed work.
Tampa Bay Water is already in litigation over the plant's original failures.
The utility has sued the company that manufactured delicate membranes used to filter salt from sea water, as well as companies that issued performance bonds for the plant.
"I fear we might be heading down a similar road," Iorio said.
After the meeting, Maxwell said American Water-Pridesa is responsible for many of the delays though the company and utility will settle on blame when work is finished.
The contract calls for Tampa Bay Water to assess daily penalties for missing deadlines if delays are the fault of American Water-Pridesa.
The company is not responsible for delays beyond its control, such as permit delays or the weather.
He also said not everyone on the utility's nine-member board shares Iorio's view of whom to hold accountable.
"That may be the opinion of some members of the board," he said.
While final repairs of the plant aren't expected until March or April, it may begin producing drinking water for the Tampa Bay region weeks earlier.
Under the contract, American Water-Pridesa must run the plant for 16 days to uncover any problems. That would be followed by a 14-day performance test.
Any water it produces during those tests, and while Tampa Bay Water reviews results of the testing, would go to homes in Pinellas, Hillsborough or Pasco.
Meanwhile, the lack of rainfall has throttled rivers as a water supply, forcing Tampa Bay Water to take about 1 billion gallons a month from its reservoir.
If the plant passes all the tests in March, it would be four years after it originally opened. But the original plant failed several performance tests and never operated as designed.
The expensive membranes clogged too quickly, driving up energy costs, shortening their lifespan and requiring the plant to shut down for cleaning.
Reporter Neil Johnson can be reached at (352) 544-5214 or njohnson@tampatrib.com.
Ichetucknee protection tops public
concerns
By TONY
BRITT tbritt@lakecityreporter.com
The Ichetucknee River and its springs have long been
considered as the crown jewel of the Columbia County area.
On Monday, the jewel's radiance and importance were emphasized during
the annual legislative delegation hearing where nearly half of the 12
guest speakers emphasized protecting the treasured natural resource.
With State Sen. Nancy Argenziano serving as chairman, Columbia County
Legislative Delegation members State Rep. Will Kendrick, and newly
elected officials State Sen. Steve Oelrich and State Rep. Debbie Boyd,
listened to two hours of concerns from local residents and officials
regarding the upcoming legislative session.
“We're here today to hear your concerns,” Argenziano said as she
opened the meeting.
Loye Barnard, vice president of Save Our Suwannee began the meeting by
imploring delegation officials to try to protect water resources in the
Ichetucknee Basin.
Barnard's lead was followed throughout the meeting as Scott Reynolds,
general manager of the Greater Lake City Regional Utility Authority;
Dale Williams, county manager; Dewey Weaver, county commissioner; and
David Still of the Suwannee River Water Management District, all eluded
to protecting the Ichetucknee Basin.
While other topics such as Amendment 10 (increased homestead
exemptions), the privatization of the Department of Children and Family
services, an update on programs at Lake City Community College, funding
for local schools and the taxation reform committee were discussed, it
was clear that the Ichetucknee was the primary focus of many speakers.
Williams' comments to legislative delegation officials began with a
funding request for the Ellisville Utility project and was later
followed by comments from Weaver who also spoke about the springs'
influence on the area.
Weaver noted people from all over the world visit Ichetucknee Springs
and the river, and noted it has grown into a national and
international resource.
Wakulla to drop its
spray-field challenge
CRAWFORDVILLE - Wakulla County agreed Monday to drop its legal challenge to Tallahassee's wastewater spray field in exchange for the city agreeing to upgrade its two wastewater-treatment plants.
The city sprays up to 20 million gallons of treated wastewater daily on crops at its Southeast Farm on Tram Road. Scientists say the wastewater is a likely source of nitrogen in groundwater that's causing Wakulla Springs to become choked with weeds and algae.
Wakulla County, the Florida Wildlife Federation and Wakulla County resident Joe Glisson filed legal challenges earlier this year to a proposed new state permit. On Monday, the Wakulla County Commission voted 5-0 for an agreement requiring the city to reduce nitrogen by 75 percent. "This agreement will go far to restore and better protect the quality of water resources that we rely on for drinking, fishing and just cooling off," Commission Chairman Brian Langston said.
Mayor John Marks said the agreement will require about $160 million to upgrade the city's two wastewater treatment plants - about $60 million more than the city had planned to spend.
"This is something the citizens of this community and other communities have wanted us to do," Marks told the Democrat.
Representatives of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Florida Wildlife Federation, Friends of Wakulla Springs State Park and Attorney General Charlie Crist urged the Wakulla County Commission to support the agreement.
The agreement, which is scheduled to be signed at 2 p.m. today, was reached after the parties in the case agreed in August to confidential mediation.
Developers Win; Community Loses
Tampa Tribune Letters to the Editor Published: Dec 17, 2006
Not What Citizens Want
Regarding "County OKs 1,100-Acre Lake Hutto Community" (Brandon, Dec. 9):
Once again our stellar county commission has demonstrated that it is not about what we people want. It is all about what the commissioners want. It doesn't matter how residents feel. They want to feed at the developers' trough and nothing is going to stop them.
What a great government; it has changed a wonderful place to live into a gridlocked, overcrowded nightmare. Thanks a lot.
They can take their 30 pieces of silver and have a party.
J.F. KLINE
Valrico
Vote Was A Farce
The vote on the Lake Hutto development of regional impact was a farce: a sham, mockery, circus, charade, disgrace, travesty and embarrassment.
The newly elected Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners used a combination of silence, ignorance and oversimplification. Brian Blair was unsure whether the public could be called upon to voice their comments. Jim Norman blabbed about how public comment would risk opening up the whole ordeal to a legal challenge. Mark Sharpe claimed that for a thousand extra homes, we get $71 million.
The board made a mockery of its citizenry and approved an extreme DRI, despite its timing and its location at the crossroads of a failed and neglected infrastructure system.
The sham all started with disgraceful analyses by virtually every agency responsible for projecting the effects of the DRI. The Pulte/Lake Hutto circus, run by the 15-year veteran charade master, Jim Norman, was yet another travesty that should embarrass his colleagues, his constituency and any rational resident in Hillsborough County.
JIM MANNING
Lithia
Another Day Of Infamy
Dec. 7, 1941, has been called a day of infamy for what happened in Hawaii.
Dec. 7, 2006, could be called a day of infamy for Florida, Hillsborough County and the city of Tampa.
One article that day says that the county cuts lawn watering to one day a week in the face of a near-drought. The aquifer is down more than 2 feet from this time last year. That is where most of our drinking water comes from. The only way it can be refilled is by heavy rain that has a place to seep down into the ground. We have paved over thousands of acres of such open land. The paving is for more people who need more water to drink. So we have increased the need by huge amounts and decreased the area for the percolation. This is all over the state and not just here.
The city of Tampa is going through a building boom that is just about insane. They are placing multifamily buildings on the lots that used to be empty or have a small house on them. You know about Bayshore Boulevard and all the high rises. The county just approved a new development in Lithia for 3,000 more homes, paving more of our seepage land and increasing the need for drinking water. The south end of West Shore Boulevard will have probably more than a thousand new homes and a large yacht basin for about 150 large boats. Boats require a large amount of fresh water to wash them down - much more than to water a lawn.
Jim Norman says he is repeating his request for a $40 million sports complex in east Hillsborough County - the same one that was killed last year. More paving and more need for water.
It was just announced that the state's population will double by 2060 unless some serious growth management is undertaken.
I do not know what you can do except tell the people what is happening.
Tell them to tell the elected people to change their ways or else.
HANK PHILLIPS
Tampa
Board Is Ruining County
Developers, with the consent of the county commission, are ruining this entire county.
Where is the infrastructure to provide water, sewage, schools, roads, flood prevention and other scarce facilities? In Hillsborough County, developers get whatever they want.
You will see what their recklessness has done in just a few short years.
TESS SILVERMAN
Sun City Center
Letters To The Editor
Tribune letters published: Dec 19, 2006
Vision Looks Bleak
Regarding "Frightening Vision Of Florida Should Shock Leaders Into Action" (Our Opinion, Dec. 13) and "County OKs Development Along Little Manatee River" (Metro, Dec. 13):
The Trib's editorial painting a foreboding portrait of what Florida will look like makes sensible recommendations that must be applied and adhered to - and soon.
The second article is about yet another development being shoved into one of the smallest and most fragile pieces of land along the Little Manatee, once a place of unique isolated beauty. Soon it, like so many other spots, will lose its wildlife and uniqueness for a housing tract. And thanks so much to those six Hillsborough County commissioners who readily rolled over for developers. As long as we have the likes of these commissioners, Florida's wild places don't stand a chance.
What a disgrace our commissioners are to "representative" government. It's quite clear who they represent.
RON THUEMLER
Tampa
'The Future' Is Now
This is not a worst-case scenario that will happen 50 years from now.
For anyone who drives from Tampa to Orlando on Interstate 4, the nightmare is already here.
FRANK CAMPBELL
Tampa
Doom-And-Gloom Group
The most frightening and shocking aspect of "Frightening Vision Of Florida Should Shock Leaders Into Action" (Our Opinion, Dec. 13) was the Tribune getting so thoroughly and completely duped by an activist group with an agenda. Doom-and-gloom scare scenarios regarding suburban growth predicted by 1,000 Friends of Florida are about as believable and newsworthy as doom-and-gloom scare scenarios regarding pens would be from the American Pencilmakers Association or doom-and-gloom scare scenarios regarding margarine would be from the American Buttermakers' Society. That the Tribune would report as credible news such biased and far-fetched predictions by 1,000 Friends of Florida is surprising and disappointing, given the Tribune's long history of being a credible news source.
JAMES M. TAYLOR
Parrish
A Call To Action
These growth projections are frightening indeed, and I pray that they will be a call to action. We must steer the development away from the remaining natural ecosystems, wetlands and agricultural lands if there is any hope of sustaining even our existing population. We must cluster new developments to maintain corridors of connectivity between existing rural and natural areas. If nature becomes fragmented, it cannot survive.
I am an eighth-generation Floridian and there is something I would like every other Floridian to know. Beyond the view of our urban centers, the heart of Florida, the ranchlands at greatest risk in these projections, which currently occupy one-fifth of the state, are among the most remarkable landscapes on earth. Florida has the longest history of cattle ranching in America, as well as the top producing ranch. Five out of the leading 10 are here, and these ranches are home to panthers, black bears and bald eagles and in some cases provide better wildlife habitat than our parks. The new Rural Land Stewardship Program provides an innovative tool to help. Learn more at www.LINC.us
CARLTON WARD JR.
Tampa
DAVID MCCLISTER
Temple Terrace
Part Of The Problem
I was amused that the Tribune thought that the 50-year projections for the development of Florida was scary and then asked, editorially, for Florida's planners to get serious about saving what is important in our state. You don't have to look very far; part of the problem is sitting in the chambers of the board of county commissioners in Hillsborough County.
If anyone wants to check the records - and the records have been checked time and time again with this commission and the last - the "perception" is that all a developer has to do is contribute to a commissioner's campaign fund to get projects approved. Though the commissioners say they have no way of tracking who contributes and besides, it doesn't obligate them, let me just say this: Perception is everything.
Our beautiful state is going away piece by piece, parcel by parcel, acre by acre, and no one seems to care or think that saving our environment is more important than making money. BECKI STAFFORD
Ruskin
Mayor: 'Hard to be optimistic' on Ormond height cap appeal
ORMOND BEACH -- It appears the city's
legal battle over building heights is going to come to a screeching
halt tonight.
After a closed-door discussion Monday night with a Tallahassee
attorney helping the city with building height limit matters, most or
all commissioners are ready to drop their court appeal that could have
overturned the newly adopted city charter amendment that imposed a
strict 75-foot cap.
That's according to Mayor Fred Costello and Commissioner Bill
Partington, who said they expect a vote taken at tonight's commission
meeting will kill the appeal, which questions the constitutionality of
the charter amendment.
The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at City Hall and the appeal vote is
supposed to be early.
The attorney hired to help the city, Tom Pelham, told commissioners
Monday "it's hard to be optimistic about the city's chance to
prevail," Costello said.
The mayor said there also didn't seem much point in pursuing an
appeal, which has already cost the city about $40,000, when Pelham
told them the appeal wasn't likely to protect the city against future
property rights lawsuits.
The lawsuit and appeal stem from the Nov. 7 vote that locked the
seven-story limit into the charter. The height limit question has
created passionate arguments for months.
20 boat-related
manatee deaths renew debate
New
slow-speed-zone signs aim to clear up confusion
BY JIM WAYMER
FLORIDA TODAY
A small sport boat cast a hefty wake as it passed underneath Bennett Causeway through a "slow speed, minimum wake" manatee zone.
The rough conditions justified the boater's pace. He must go fast enough to maintain control as he goes under the bridge.
"He's alright," Lenny Salberg, a state wildlife patrol officer said. "You've got to give him a little leeway."
Neither Salberg nor any other state official knows for sure whether zones that slow boaters save manatees.
But five years after controversial zones went in countywide, Brevard saw its worst year on record for boat-related manatee deaths -- 20 so far. And state wildlife officials say they don't know why.
The zones, they say, haven't been in place or clearly marked long enough to tell whether they're working. They hope 65 new signs going up in the Indian River Lagoon this winter will make a difference.
Boaters -- some who curse the longer, slower rides -- say this year's record number proves such zones don't work. Manatee advocates say they would work, if boaters stopped speeding through them, and zones were more strictly enforced and clearly marked.
State officials aren't sure which side is right, only that confusing signs no longer will be an excuse for boaters to speed on through.
"There's been a longstanding problem, and I think it's finally being addressed," said Pat Rose, executive director of Save the Manatee Club, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Maitland. "The zones are on paper, but they're not protecting manatees."
Frequent violations
While tickets are up to officer discretion, for most small boats, "slow speed, minimum wake" means about 5 mph, depending on conditions and the boat.
State wildlife officials gave boaters a grace period of several months after widespread zones were established about five years ago in Brevard. Some never were marked with signs.
Then hurricanes damaged signs in 2004, easing enforcement again.
In the past two years, fewer than two in 10 boaters that wildlife officers stopped for going too fast through Brevard manatee zones got a ticket, or 753 out of 4,194. The other 3,441, or 82 percent, got written or verbal warnings.
This year, officers issued 198 tickets in Brevard and 831 warnings.
Confusing signs, such as those near Bennett Causeway that alternately tell boats to resume normal speed or go slow, made officers reluctant to write tickets.
To clear up the confusion, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission took over managing manatee signs last year from the Florida Inland Navigation District.
While the navigation district used as few signs as possible to keep the waters free of obstruction, the wildlife commission wanted more signs to mark the zones. Now they'll get them.
A $250,000 project will add the 65 new signs and fix damaged ones by this coming spring. The project adds to about 500 postings the navigation district already installed to mark controversial manatee zones approved in 2001.
Eleven signs will replace buoys that warn boaters away from the power plant discharges where manatees congregate during winter.
Some will go in Satellite Beach canals, to change unofficial signs that say, "Idle speed," to the official state-approved sign, "slow speed, minimum wake."
Numbers game
Boat strikes account for about a quarter of overall manatee deaths. The same held true for Brevard this year, despite this year's record of 20, or about 24 percent of the 84 total deaths. State wildlife officials said the relatively steady rate over the past decade might be evidence the zones are working, given the rising number of boats on the water.
But boaters say the manatee population -- estimated at 3,000 to 4,000 -- also is rising, and the state lacks scientific evidence that slow zones reduce manatee deaths. They point to the previous record of 17 boat strike deaths in 2002, the first year most of the zones went in.
"I think it's proof that they have no idea if they're working," said Steven Webster, president of Citizens for Florida's Waterways, a boating advocacy group. "Boats never did, they do not, and they will not ever be an extinction threat for manatees."
Brevard averaged 10.6 manatees a year killed by boat in the five years before the new zones took effect. In the five years since they've been in, that average has risen to 12.4 killed by boat.
Too soon to tell
Most zones have only been in full swing about 2.5 years, though, given the initial grace period, hurricanes and signage problems. So it's too soon to know how effective they'll be, state wildlife officials said.
But to boaters, the higher numbers lend weight to what they've been saying for years: that larger vessels such as the tugs that haul oil barges to and from the power plants, do most of the harm, not the average sport boat.
One recent study seems to bolster their case. State researchers found that twice as many of the dead manatees found with propeller cuts had been hit by boats longer than 40 feet.
Boaters against the zones also point to research that shows manatees can't hear the low frequencies slow-moving boats create underwater. Sea cows could better hear faster-moving boats.
But manatee advocates warn that the research is in its infancy.
Save the Manatee Club's Rose doesn't buy the barge theory.
"It's just not true," he said. "A very small fraction end up being caused by barge traffic, and those are pretty darn evident. The manatees are nearly cut in half."
State wildlife officials say the onus should be on boaters to avoid manatees, not the other way around.
Mark Haworth is the kind of boater Salberg worries about most, an out-of-towner, therefore less familiar with local zones. But Haworth said he watches carefully and doesn't mind slowing for the sea cows.
"I don't have a problem with the manatee zones," the Orlando resident said as he fished with friends from his boat in the Banana River Lagoon. "You've got to do what you've got to do."
Developer sues city of Dunnellon
By Jim HunterThe owner of the land scheduled to be developed as Rainbow River Ranch filed suit against the city of Dunnellon Monday in circuit court for suspending a tree and brush cutting permit it had issued him in August.
The suit by Rainbow River Ranch LLC owner Gerald Dodd attacks the council’s suspension on a number of levels, saying it was illegal and asking for legal costs and damages. Neither Ted Schatt, the city attorney, nor Nikki Connors, the city’s vice-mayor, had seen the suit Monday, and so had no comment on it.
In its first meeting after the city council elections in November, the new council had suspended the permit and called for an investigation. There had been numerous protests by individuals and the group Rainbow River Conservation Inc. alleging that the tree removal on the property along the east bank of the Rainbow River was illegal.
Complaints went to numerous agencies, though none found the owner in violation of environmental regulations, and the state’s secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection even eventually toured the land with a staffer, but found no violation.
The city’s own inspections did not find the work on the land illegal either. The city attorney suggested the council not revoke the permit, said Connors, who is the acting mayor, but she said there were so many complaints the council felt it was in the best interests of the citizens to suspend it while it was investigated.
Former Mayor John Taylor had said he would not be party to an action that would bring legal action on the city, and he walked out of the meeting over it, resigning the next day. He could not be reached for comment Monday. His replacement has not been appointed yet, and Connors is currently serving as the acting mayor.
Dodd states in his suit that though there had been eight inspections of his property between Sept. 28 and Nov. 9 by state, city and water district officials, no violations were found.
Despite that, he charged, on Nov. 13 the council voted to suspend the permit without notice or an opportunity to be heard, based on what he said was an undocumented belief of violation of the city permit.
The suit said more inspections were conducted, but no citation of violations were made, though on Nov. 17 the city posted a cease-and-desist notice on his property for violation of the permit’s suspension.
The suit said the city took photos of the tree clearing on the property on Nov. 20, but to date no violation has been issued, though the contractor for the owner has received a notice for working under the suspended permit.
Dodd’s suit claims that issuance of the permit is a quasi-judicial process that carries the requirement of due process and that is subject to an appeal process of 30 days.
The suit said that the council has no legal authority or factual basis to suspend the permit, and its action represents an ad hoc amendment to its codes. In fact, the suit says, the city’s code says the city manager or his designee shall administer the provisions of the code pertinent to trees, and so the council’s suspension of the permit was in direct conflict with its own code.
Further, the suit alleged, suspension of the permit without notice or an opportunity to be heard denied due process of law.
In addition, the plaintiff’s property had been an active farm operation and had enjoyed agricultural tax status and as such was engaged in bona fide silvacultural activities, which were exempt from permitting, the suit says.
The suit also charges that the suspension of the permit resulted in a denial of equal protection under both the state and federal constitutions. It asks the court to determine the suspension was invalid and to award unspecified costs and damages.
Schatt said when the city is served with the suit, it will take appropriate action. He said the lawsuit will have no impact on the independent investigation the council called for, which is going forward.
Couple sues Sky for title
By Dave PieklikA Broward County couple is asking a judge to order Sky Development Group to transfer the title to a Citrus Springs lot to them, after they say they bought land from the developer, but it wasn’t recorded.
Robert and Mona Alley of Hollywood claimed they bought the land through a wire transfer sometime between May and October 2006. Papers filed by Hollywood attorney Eric Salpeter show several checks and a wire transfer receipt totaling $190,000 the couple paid Sky for the land and financing for a new home.
A wire transfer receipt included in a court file shows on Oct. 2, Mona Alley used Wells Fargo Bank to wire $110,000 to Sky Development through All Title & Trust LLC. Copies of two checks totaling $80,000 also are included in the file, which were written out to Sky by Mona Alley.
“Despite the agreement between the defendant and the payment for the property, the title to the property still reflects the name of the defendant rather than the rightful owner …” Salpeter says in the Dec. 12 quiet title filing.
Salpeter continues that Sky Development has “no legal or equitable right, claim or interest in the property” and demands reimbursement of attorney fees and other costs.
The legal action is the latest to be filed against the developer, which is embroiled in an investigation accusing it of defrauding investors and others. In many cases, Sky representatives are accused of forging deeds and other documents to acquire land in Citrus Springs that belonged to someone else.
In other cases, the Miami-based developer is accused of taking down payments for homes, but never building them. Company representatives have apparently vacated offices in Miami, Palm Coast and Citrus Springs since the probe began, and authorities have been unable to locate them.
To date, more than 400 deeds involving Sky have been questioned, with total property valued at more than $25 million. After the investigation into Sky Development began in October, the FBI announced it was getting involved in the case.
Council rezones tracts for
builders
By TODD
WILSON twilson@lakecityreporter.com
More property was cleared for commercial development
in Lake City as the City Council approved land-use changes for a total
of six tracts formerly zoned for residential use.
Councilmen voted unanimously to change four tracts totaling more than
5.5 acres from various residential status to commercially zoned
property during a regular meeting Monday night.
A public hearing designated for the land-use change closed without
comment and the City Council voted 5-0 for the change.
The tracts, owned by Hunter Creek Investment, LLLP, include two
parcels of 1.86 acres each, and two one-acre lots along Southwest
Bascom Norris Road. Hunter Creek Investment, LLLP, lists Charles
Sparks as the registered agent and Westfield Realty Group, LLLP, as a
general partner, according to city records.
In other zoning changes, the City Council also gave unanimous approval
to zoning changes that will allow commercial developments on two
tracts of land located at the northwest corner of Bascom Norris Road
and Sisters Welcome Road. The land previously was zoned as residential
medium density and residential single family.
Brian Crawford and Chad Williams are listed as the agents of the
property, according to information provided by the city.
No one from either development group spoke about the land-use changes
during the meeting.
In other business, City Council addressed the following:
n Heard first reading of a proposed ordinance to rezone a tract less
than 10 contiguous acres at the corner of Southwest Knox Street and
Southwest Davison Way. The property is owned by Philip and Shannon
Jossi. The proposed rezoning would be from residential multi family to
residential office.
n Agreed to begin offering health insurance benefits to new City
Manager David Kraus on Feb. 1, a month after he begins working for the
city. City officials said Kraus informed him he had insurance coverage
with his former employer through the end of January. Council agreed to
waive the customary 90-day waiting period for city insurance benefits.
n Authorized the city to enter into a contract with GTC Design Group,
LLC, for engineering and consulting services in regard to the Greater
Lake City Regional Utility Authority. The RUA recently approved the
use of the group, as well.
n Agreed to a fourth lease extension between the city and Homes of
Merit, Inc., for its use of Lot 9 of the Lake City Municipal Airport
Industrial Park property. The lease fee is $664 per month, plus sales
tax. The lease will terminate on Dec. 31, 2007.
n Agreed to send a letter to the Florida Department of Transportation
urging those officials to expedite the consideration of a four-lane
expansion project of U.S. Highway 90 West from Lake City Avenue west
to Turner Road at the city limits.
“I think we urge them to move it up in their five-year work plan,”
said Councilman Mike Lee.
n Denied a request to change the city employees' general retirement
fund's current three-year drop plan to a five-year drop plan. The
change was approved by the fund's board of trustees in January, but
denied by the City Council by a 3-2 vote. Councilman Eugene Jefferson
and Mayor Stephen Witt voted in favor of the change.
Bush Helps Launch Ethanol Initiative
Published: Dec 19, 2006
CORAL GABLES - In one of his final initiatives as governor, Jeb Bush on Monday announced the creation of the Interamerican Ethanol Commission to promote the use of the alternative fuel throughout the Americas and slowly wean the region off gasoline.
Bush said his support for ethanol was shaped by watching the suffering of Floridians through eight hurricanes in the past two years, and the resulting damage caused by a temporary loss of fuel supply.
"Wouldn't it be nice to have alternative sources of fuel as we prepare for hurricanes?" he said.
Also launching the commission was Luis Alberto Moreno, head of the Interamerican Development Bank, and former Brazilian agriculture minister Roberto Rodrigues, who now heads the country's agribusiness council.
"For the last 35 years, I have been thinking how stupid has been humankind to build a whole civilization over oil, which is something that is going to finish one day," an emotional Rodrigues told a crowd of more than 100 mostly business leaders at the Biltmore Hotel.
Rodrigues said in the coming months the group will begin presenting "road shows" on ethanol throughout Latin America.
Bush leaves office in January. He said increased ethanol consumption will reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil, help improve the environment and provide a catalyst for poor nations to "grow their own energy."
But some experts have questioned whether a sufficient amount of ethanol could be produced to make a significant dent in oil consumption.
Brazil meets nearly half its fuel demand for passenger motor vehicles with ethanol, almost all of it made from sugar cane. It is also Florida's top trading partner, with $10.9 billion in trade last year.
Bush acknowledged that broadening an international ethanol push in other parts of the United States is a tough sell, especially in the Midwest, which receives billions of dollars in federal subsidies for corn production, a major source of ethanol.
Earlier this year his brother, President Bush, opposed an extension of the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol, but Congress passed the measure Dec. 8.
"You can see how agriculture producers in our country worry about ideas that take away some of their protection," he said, joking that the unpopularity of his stance in the Midwest was "living proof that I'm not running [for president]."
But he added that expanding the worldwide consumption of ethanol will create plenty of opportunities for U.S. producers.
"There's no possible way that Brazil by itself or the United States by itself could expand capacity that quick. So a level of cooperation, I don't think, is threatening for American agriculture," he said. "In fact I think it will yield lowering of cost and expansion of markets."
Ranch Plan Back On Agenda
Published: Dec 19, 2006
WESLEY CHAPEL - County Commissioner Jack Mariano hopes to persuade his fellow board members today to reconsider their approval of a major development at the Grantham Ranch, off Old Pasco Road.
A study of flood conditions in the area was released Dec. 8, three days after commissioners voted 3-2 to change the land-use designation to allow 474 homes on 611 acres, Mariano said. He and Commissioner Pat Mulieri were opposed to the land-use change because of flooding concerns.
"The data we had [before the vote] was 30 years old," Mariano said. "This data is brand new. As a commission, we need to make a decision on what is the best information available. For us not to have that information is critical. It's poor decision-making. Think about how much construction has gone on in the last 30 years."
Because they voted against the land-use change, neither Mariano nor Mulieri may make a formal motion to reconsider it. They may, however, try to persuade other commissioners to do so at a meeting today in New Port Richey.
Builder D.R. Horton agreed to abide by stricter drainage regulations at the development to satisfy the flooding concerns. Namely, engineers designed the drainage system to hold water upstream even in rare rain events - abiding by restrictions for "basins of special concern" even though the ranch is not officially in one.
Mariano and Mulieri said two weeks ago they wanted to hear testimony about the drainage plans from county Engineering Services Director Jim Widman, who was not at the hearing. Widman has testified at previous hearings that the drainage plan is sound.
The ranch comprises a mobile home, farm buildings and pasture. It is surrounded by pasture, mobile homes and single-family houses.
Reporter Julia Ferrante can be reached at (813) 948-4220 or jferrante@tampatrib.com.
Environmental Protection Can Please the Senses |
The marriage of environmental protection and outdoor recreation is
becoming a happy one.
I am referring to the growing number of storm water-retention areas that
provide useful green space for the public.
Perhaps the most popular such facility around here is the South Lake
Howard Nature Park in Winter Haven, which opened in 2001. It includes a
walking trail, fishing pier, boardwalk and picnic facilities.
Across town is the new Lake Hartridge Nature Park, which opened in
August with a walking trail and is being expanded to include a
playground and improvements to the existing boat ramp. It is beginning
to attract users, too.
One storm water-treatment area that's not quite as heavily used because
it's tucked away in a residential area is the Lake Mariana storm
water-treatment area and park near Auburndale. It has only a small
parking lot and a short boardwalk, but the design kept a majestic live
oak tree and the vista across the lake is quite lovely.
Lakeland has built a storm water-treatment area, complete with a
boardwalk, on the north shore of Lake Hollingsworth on land owned by
Florida Southern College.
Lakeland commissioners on Monday approved a change in their development
regulations to require storm water-retention areas to look as natural as
possible, complete with landscaping along the edges, so that they will
be more of an amenity than an eyesore.
This will certainly be an improvement from what we've seen in the past,
which is usually a rectangular depression surrounded by chain-link
fencing with beer bottles floating in the water.
But not all of the storm water projects are small, urban affairs.
If you haven't visited Polk County Environmental Land's Circle B Bar
Reserve lately, you may not have seen the results of a major project
intended to reduce the amount of pollution flowing from the Eaton Park
area into the Peace River via Lake Hancock.
The natural marshes have been restored and water is flowing through them
- when there is water - and it is a much healthier system. The water
flowing downstream is a little bit cleaner.
Southwest Florida Water Management District officials have some plans
for creating a water treatment area on the former Old Florida Plantation
property on Lake Hancock's southeastern shore.
That promises to include recreational amenities as well, though so far
the details remain unknown.
If Swiftmud officials add no other public facilities there, the
construction of a decent boat ramp on Lake Hancock could top the list
because the lake - Polk's fourth largest - doesn't have any decent
public access at the moment.
But regardless of the aesthetics and recreational amenities contained in
the storm water-retention areas, we should never lose sight of their
purpose, which is to divert tons of pollutants from flowing directly
into lakes and rivers.
Up until about 25 years ago, all of the runoff went unfiltered from
Florida's developed landscape into the nearest natural water body.
Gradually that practice began causing the lake water to become green
instead of clear. The influx of nutrients also created conditions that
encouraged the further explosion of hydrilla and other noxious aquatic
vegetation.
The next step in storm water retention will probably include higher
standards on how much storm water has to be retained in ponds rather
being allowed to overflow into lakes and rivers. That will involve
increasing the size of the ponds to hold more water.
If the ponds are useful for recreation, aesthetics and wildlife habitat,
all the better.
HOLLINGSWORTH CLEARING
Speaking of lakes, it's hard to miss the clearing that occurred recently
along the north shore of Lake Hollingsworth by workers hired by Florida
Southern College.
You can see the lake more easily now from the college's parking lot,
though you'll probably see less wildlife because the cleared vegetation
along the shore was an ideal place for these creatures to forage for
food or dive for cover when predators approached
I guess the most offensive part of the work isn't what the college's
work crew removed, but what it left behind.
The workers cut down or lopped off pines, willows and oaks, but left
standing were 20 Chinese tallow trees, which federal wildlife officials
consider the worst invasive tree species in the Southeast. One Brazilian
pepper, another troublesome invader, also remained untouched.
The brush-clearing project has given both invaders ideal conditions to
further infest the shoreline.
A better-thought-out plan would have been welcome.
NEW YEAR'S HIKE
County Commissioner Bob English will host a hike on New Year's Day at
the Circle B Bar Preserve, a county environmental preserve on Lake
Hancock. The hike will begin at 9 a.m. Janice Anderson from the Florida
Trail Association will lead hikers.
English said he came up with the idea because he thinks a healthy hike
in the outdoors is a good way to start the new year.
Circle B Bar Reserve is on State Road 540 east of U.S. 98 between
Lakeland and Winter Haven.
Tom Palmer can be reached at tom.palmer@theledger.com
or 863-802-7535
Homeowners Boo Insurer's Solution
Published: Dec 19, 2006
NEW PORT RICHEY - Citizens Property Insurance Corp. presented a case before state insurance regulators Monday night for what the state insurer of last resort describes as significant homeowners rate reductions in Pasco County.
Many of the estimated 200 residents and local leaders who attended weren't buying the explanation. They said the proposed rates, which make sinkhole coverage optional, are not low enough.
Citizens wants to increase deductibles and make coverage elective for minor sinkholes and to settle claims as a way of lowering premiums. Policyholders would have to get coverage for catastrophic events, defined as a 5-foot-deep sinkhole forming within seven days and making a house uninhabitable.
Susanne Murphy, Citizens' executive vice president, said the changes would reduce rates by 47 percent in coastal Pasco and 58 percent inland.
Citizens' soaring rates in Pasco in recent years have been blamed on an inordinate number of sinkhole claims. From January through October, Citizens customers statewide filed 613 sinkhole claims, including nearly 400 in Pasco, company spokeswoman Christine Turner said.
In comparison, in 2002 there were four sinkhole claims in Pasco totaling $160,000.
Paul Ericksen, a consultant for Citizens, said eliminating mandatory sinkhole coverage would put Pasco's rates more in line with those in other counties.
Two local lawmakers who sponsored legislation to make sinkhole coverage optional, along with a lawyer hired by Pasco to investigate rising rates, disagreed with that assessment.
Attorney Timothy Volpe noted that the average sinkhole claim in the Bay area has risen from about $32,000 in 2002 to about $109,000 last year. "This is probably reflective of an attitude for the people of Citizens to pay for claims when perhaps they should not," he said.
Volpe argued Citizens was raising rates when its own research showed that decreases were warranted.
Allan Schwartz, who is working for Pasco with Volpe, said his calculations show that rates should be 20 percent to 40 percent lower than what Citizens proposes, based on risks and costs.
During the three-hour hearing, several residents shared stories of how their rates have doubled and tripled. Wil Nickerson, of the grass-roots group Homeowners Against Citizens, urged state leaders to continue the fight.
The crowd frequently heckled Citizens officials, yelling, "Get a life!" and "This is ridiculous!" A group walked out of Spartan Manor 45 minutes into the meeting as one man yelled, "You guys created this problem, and now you want us to correct it."
State Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty, who will review Citizens' plan, frequently had to remind speakers from the crowd to stay on point. Citizens hopes he makes his decision this month so the new rules can take effect by March.
Little Light Is Shed On Legal Counsel Issue
Published: Dec 19, 2006
TAMPA - The Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority's final response to the state Auditor General, unanimously approved Monday by the authority's board, is a mixture of concession and defiance.
Crafted by the authority's staff and its interim general counsel, Rhea Law, the 11-page response will be sent to the state so a final report can be prepared.
The response, however, barely touches upon the issue that prompted scrutiny by Gov. Jeb Bush and later, the Auditor General.
That issue - how the board dealt with a competitive bid process in August for its outside legal counsel - received two paragraphs in the response.
The authority has been criticized for the board's re-ranking of four law firms that applied for the contract. Its former executive director and its paid lobbyist both acknowledged meeting with the law firm that ultimately won the contract, despite being ranked in second place. The bids were later disqualified.
Then-outside legal counsel Steve Anderson said the re-ranking was retaliation for his conflict with a board member.
The Auditor General, in its preliminary findings, questioned the lack of discussion by the board prior to changing the rankings. The authority's response says that no justification is required.
"Nevertheless, we recognize that engaging in some discussion of the reasons for a re-ranking benefits the public by providing greater insight into the decision-making process," the response states, "and thereby promotes the goals of the Sunshine Law."
In all, the authority agreed with five of 13 findings by the state and partially agreed with three others. It disagreed directly with two findings. The authority's response says it is evaluating the cost-benefit on three other state findings that dealt with hiring outside lawyers, lobbyists and public relations professionals.
"The authority is analyzing its current needs for legal services," the response states, "and is performing a cost-benefit analysis to determine the proper combination of in-house general counsel and outside counsel services."
The authority also acknowledged the need for change with the outsourcing of communication consultants for marketing and public relations. The agency will evaluate individual assignments prior to hiring an outside firm if it looks like the work can be done cheaper by staff.
And it is looking at its lobbying contract with Beck Consulting Group, despite its response about John Beck's work for the authority. The Auditor General's findings said Beck's contract should be terminated immediately.
The authority, however, in its response, said Beck does more than lobby for the agency.
He and his associates "have vast experience and insight regarding the transportation industry," according to the response.
Beck and Ralph Mervine, the authority's former executive director, both met with partners from the Gray Robinson law firm prior to bids for the authority's outside legal counsel contract being finalized.
Beck did so at the direction of board member Robert Clark Jr., who had twice been cautioned by Anderson about ethical issues. Anderson said Clark didn't like being questioned.
Mervine, who sat on the bid selection committee, had dinner with a Gray Robinson partner two days before helping rank the bids. He resigned last month after The Tampa Tribune reported he owned a gay pornographic production company.
Bush called for an investigation in late August because of the bid controversy. He later asked for an Auditor General review.
The FBI also is investigating the expressway authority.
Reporter John W. Allman can be reached at (813) 259-7915 or jallman@tampatrib.com.
Plan for new concrete plant in city of Alachua advances ALACHUA — City commissioners on Monday cast a final vote of approval for a land-use change to allow a concrete batch plant to be built just off of U.S. 441.Commissioners were still discussing a companion zoning change from Alachua County agriculture to city of Alachua industrial late Monday night.
But the land-use change they voted to approve represents the first step in allowing Alachua Partners LLC to build a concrete batch plant on 10 acres just north of U.S. 441 in the eastern part of Alachua, which has a population of roughly 7,121 and is located northwest of Gainesville.
The vote was 4-1, with Commissioner Bonnie Burgess dissenting.
The company still must seek site plan approval and a special exception in order to build a concrete batch plant on the property.
Alachua Partners' proposal is the second concrete batch plant proposed to be built in Alachua this year. In February, Trinity Materials LLC proposed building a concrete batch plant in a different location on U.S. 441, but the Planning and Zoning Board recommended rejecting that project, which is not related to the Alachua Partners proposal.
Neighbors have voiced fierce opposition to both proposals, expressing concerns about a concrete batch plant's impact on the area's environment and on traffic. City planners have said the plant proposed by Alachua Partners LLC will add roughly 327 trips a day to U.S. 441.
"I can't believe this is not going to have some effect on our water," said Margaret Stack, who lives near the site of the Alachua Partners proposed plant and was one of 17 people to speak against it Monday night. "And the idea of 327 truck trips on 441 is absolutely incredible. We've already got enough traffic on 441. It's only going to get worse. We don't need 327 more truck trips."
Gerry Dedenbach of Causseaux and Ellington, which represented Alachua Partners, said the plant will provide much-needed concrete to local construction projects, and it could actually decrease the number of trucks making trips to deliver concrete through Alachua from Columbia County or Gainesville.
Other neighbors, especially those in the nearby Woodland Oaks subdivision, said the plant would harm the character of the whole city, not just their neighborhood.
"I want to have a positive attitude toward the growth, but I am devastated to think that a cement batch plant is being given the opportunity to build in our area," resident Gloria Durkee said. "Alachua is too beautiful to have to look at a cement batch plant."
Residents also said they were worried the plant would create noise, light and air pollution.
Dedenbach said an existing buffer of trees along with new buffers should keep noise and other impacts to a minimum.
Commissioners Gib Coerper and Burgess said they worried about the plant's impact on the sinkhole-prone site, which was described as "highly permeable" in a staff report.
Dedenbach said sophisticated water-retention systems on the site will handle stormwater runoff and other wastewater to ensure that the city's groundwater is protected.
Proposed Wal-Mart on Barclay draws heat
By MICHAEL D. BATESmbates@hernandotoday.com
SPRING HILL — Representatives of four local homeowners’ associations have banded together to fight a new Wal-Mart Supercenter proposed for Barclay Avenue.
The groups have asked County Planning Director Ron Pianta to pull the retailer’s request from next month’s planning agenda because they think it will devastate the environment and clog Barclay Avenue with traffic.
If the store is approved, it would be contrary to the county’s code of ordinances, according to a letter to Pianta, signed by 13 homeowners’ representatives.
“A 24-hour Wal-Mart at this particular location will cause 24-hour light and noise disturbance for our neighborhoods as well as increase the crime rate in our community,” wrote representatives of Pristine Place, Silverthorn, The Oaks and Plantation Estates homeowners associations.
Also opposing the store are members of the United Communities of Hernando County, an umbrella organization representing several county homeowners and property associations.
The new supercenter would “overwhelm” Barclay Avenue with traffic and endanger students at nearby Powell Middle School, the letter said.
Wal-Mart is proposing building its newest supercenter on the east side of Barclay Avenue, between Suncoast Villa Apartments at the Publix-anchored Barclay Square.
The property, part of the large Holland Springs development, has the necessary zoning for a Wal-Mart, but requires a master plan revision.
When built, the combination retail-grocery store would have full access on Barclay Avenue and an entrance road that aligns with Minnie Drive to the west.
The homeowners’ groups believe planning and zoning commissioners cannot legally consider revising the plan submitted by Wal-Mart because it doesn’t take into consideration the surrounding land uses, the wetlands, and recommended improvements to roads and other infrastructure.
The homeowners’ groups have asked the planning department to set up a meeting to air their concerns to the responsible parties.
Pianta said it is Wal-Mart’s decision whether to hold a public meeting and has forwarded the request to the retailer’s representative.
Pianta said the item is still scheduled to be discussed at the Jan. 8 planning meeting. He said his department is reviewing the store’s submitted application and will take into consideration neighbors’ concerns.
Kristen Tolbert, a representative with Bricklemyer, Smolker & Bolves, representing Wal-Mart, declined to comment. However, she said that they would try to schedule an upcoming community meeting to discuss the project.
Brad Undestad, a board member with the Pristine Place Homeowners Association, said the communities have chosen to look outside the area for advice on how to proceed against the store’s plans.
He said Wal-Mart needs to find a better location.
“This area just won’t accommodate that kind of traffic,” he said. “The county needs to look 10 years down the road and position these large retail centers in areas where they better fit and not have urban sprawl.”
If built, this would be Hernando County’s fourth Wal-Mart Supercenter. A typical store contains 187,000 square feet.
Opposition to a new Wal-Mart is nothing new. Last week, the retail giant got preliminary site plan approval from the Pasco County planning department for a new Holiday store.
But that approval came after several months and much dissension from citizens, who are voicing many of the same concerns as the Spring Hill homeowners’ associations.
Wal-Mart has also faced an outpouring of citizen dissent in Hudson, where the retailer is planning to build a supercenter on U.S. 19 in Hudson, near Beacon Woods. The county and retailer continue to hash out a road realignment plan there.
Closer to home, it took the retailer months to get final approval for its supercenter at U.S 19 and Osowaw Boulevard in Spring Hill. Environmentalists protested the loss of animal habitat and environmentally sensitive land.
Reporter Michael D. Bates can be contacted at 352-544-5290.
'A deal's a deal,' developer testifies
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
WEST PALM BEACH — Developer Mark Bellissimo testified Monday that he's an honest guy who trusted agreements, until the producers of the National Horse Show and Winter Equestrian Festival told the media - before telling him - that they were leaving his show grounds, and his multimillion dollar development project, behind.
"From my perspective, a deal's a deal," he said.
Bellissimo was in court Monday to try to stop producers of the National Horse Show and Winter Equestrian Festival from looking for a new site to host its world class equestrian competitions.
Stadium Jumping Inc. threatened in November to move its horse shows to another location, saying the show grounds at the Palm Beach Polo Equestrian Club in Wellington were too small. Bellissimo, meanwhile, said Stadium Jumping President Eugene R. Mische had signed a contract in August 2005 promising to stay on the show grounds for the next three decades.
Stadium Jumping leases the show grounds from Palm Beach Polo owner Glenn Straub. The lease expires in 2008. Bellissimo is in the middle of buying the show grounds from Straub.
If the horse show moves, Bellissimo's 466-acre development, billed as the largest equestrian center in the world, dies.
"The only reason I did this deal was because of horse shows there at that time," Bellissimo said. "It's the heart that pumps the blood."
Bellissimo testified in front of Palm Beach County Circuit Judge David Crow for roughly 212 hours on Monday. More witnesses were expected to testify, but time ran out. A second hearing was not immediately scheduled.
Bellissimo said the August 2005 agreement meant he and Mische were "jumping in the pool."
Bellissimo said he met Mische while buying property from Stadium Jumping in Grand Prix Village. The two started talking, Bellissimo said, and the developer learned Stadium Jumping needed money to keep running its shows here.
Bellissimo - whose wife and two daughters ride in horse shows - said he and Mische worked together on the development deal. Bellissimo promised to share some of the profits from the sale of land in the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center. In exchange, Mische would give Bellissimo a seat on the Stadium Jumping board.
Bellissimo said the deal was 14 months old when he got a call from Mische saying Stadium Jumping investor Jeremy Jacobs didn't like the plan. "(Mische) said 'You and Dennis (Dammerman) are off the board, Jerry doesn't like the deal as it exists,'" Bellissimo testified.
Dennis Dammerman is an investor with Bellissimo's group called the Wellington Equestrian Partners. Jacobs is owner of the Boston Bruins hockey team. He also owns a 300-acre estate on Pierson Road in Wellington. He's taken the village to court twice, and gotten his way both times.
Mische has said, in previous interviews, that his partnership with Bellissimo ended because he is about running a world-class horse show and Bellissimo is about development.
But as recently as August, Mische and Bellissimo publicly touted the development as a way to keep the horse shows in Wellington.
"Stadium Jumping intends to own the show grounds and keep the horse shows here for many, many years to come," Mische said at a Wellington Planning and Zoning meeting.
Bellissimo hopes to close on the show grounds within 90 days. When asked if he had a closing date with famously tough negotiator Glenn Straub, Bellissimo said he was still working on it.
"I have an agreement with Glenn Straub, and I assume Glenn Straub will honor that agreement," Bellissimo said. "I had an agreement with Stadium Jumping, and I assumed Stadium Jumping was going to honor that agreement."
On the stand, Bellissimo painted himself as a respectable deal-maker now caught up in a tide of lawyers and broken promises.
"In 20 years of doing business, this is the first time I've been in litigation," he said.
When asked why he hadn't responded to letters from Stadium Jumping's lawyers, Bellissimo said he has been calling to request meetings.
"We're trying to work with you," he told James McCann, an attorney for Stadium Jumping who also represents Jeremy Jacobs. "And the response has been 'no.' "
Sponsored Links
Brevard towns hope merger sends big anti-growth signal
Laurin SellersSentinel Staff Writer
December 18, 2006
GRANT -- Every February, more than 50,000 people stream into the tiny fishing villages of Grant and Valkaria for a two-day fried-seafood feast.
But when the tartar sauce runs out, so does the welcome.
The only thing the locals like better than holding the famous Grant Seafood Festival is living quietly among the pine trees and cabbage palms in southern Brevard County the rest of the year. So they're using an unusual strategy to try to preserve their rural lifestyle: The two communities have merged into one town.
The goal of the united town of 3,900 folks is simple: Keep out growth and stay small.
"We want to keep that 'old Florida' feel," said Robert Knoblauch, owner of the historic Grant Grocery Store and Deli, a two-story pine building built in 1894 that still has the original post office and safe in the back.
While nearly two dozen hamlets have incorporated in Florida since 1990, state officials can't recall any that have joined forces this way.
"I'm not aware of any other side-by-side communities that have done that," said Ken Small, spokesman for the Florida League of Cities in Tallahassee. "I've been here 22 years, and I would have to say it is pretty unique."
Residents of Grant-Valkaria, the state's 411th incorporated town, now have their own charter to restrict growth and limit the number of homes per acre. They have Town Council members, instead of the County Commission, to vote on zoning requests. They see the merger, approved by 67 percent of the voters in a referendum July 25, as a chance to decide their destiny.
Today, the town on the southern border of Brevard County has big homes on large lots and rustic roads shaded by old oak trees.
They can see the stars
There's room to ride horses and watch the deer and other wildlife that wander into backyards. Townsfolk still have an open view of the Indian River Lagoon along historic U.S. Highway 1 instead of the wall of condominiums, homes and businesses that now blocks most of the waterway in the rest of Brevard.
And residents still look up and see the stars at night, not the backside of a shopping center in the glare of 24-hour security lights, said newly elected Mayor Del Yonts, who bought his 5-acre spread in Valkaria 20 years ago.
The sleepy town is drastically different from neighboring Palm Bay, where the population of more than 105,000 soared by 15 percent during the past five years, making it Brevard's largest city. It's a city where busy highways are lined with fast-food restaurants, shopping centers and chain stores.
One of the main reasons the two little communities joined forces was to keep from being gobbled up by Palm Bay, which already had begun gnawing on Valkaria by annexing nearly 3,000 acres of rural land around Interstate 95.
"The surrounding property owners had no say in it," Yonts said.
Zoning changes were being made by county commissioners -- "people who don't know our town," said Joe Hackford, the assistant mayor.
"We know you can't stop growth, but we believe it can be compatible with what we have now," said Hackford, who has lived in Grant for more than 15 years. "If we can monitor growth, we can keep it beautiful."
Specific guidelines have been written into the town charter to preserve the rural character and protect mom-and-pop businesses, wildlife habitat, riverfront and large residential lots. Any proposed development affecting building heights, density or traffic must be approved by six or more members of the seven-member council, which includes the mayor.
Town officials, who are not paid, said they aren't worried about lawsuits from landowners wanting to sell to developers. In fact, experts say the biggest threat to the new town has more to do with politics than property rights.
"It depends on the community commitment and whether they continue to elect people who really oppose development," said Ruth Steiner, associate professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Florida.
Other Florida communities, such as Windermere in Orange County, have managed to keep their small-town charm despite rampant growth swirling outside their borders, she said.
Windermere, population 2,300, incorporated in 1925. It's known for its old oaks, dirt roads and lakeside estates. There's a small business district, but strip malls, liquor stores, gas stations and drive-throughs are only some of the operations that are prohibited, said Dorothy Burkhalter, town clerk.
However, traffic has been difficult to control. The town recently built two roundabouts to ease congestion caused by commuters from surrounding suburban areas and motorists heading to the tourist attractions.
More clout
Residents of Grant-Valkaria said they realize traffic and growth in neighboring cities will be harder to handle. But at least incorporation gives them more clout, Small said.
"They will have a greater voice before the County Commission, a much higher standing even on properties outside their borders," he said.
Still, some worry that power comes at a price -- in the form of higher taxes to pay for city services.
"I want it to stay a small town, but I was against incorporating," said William Boscovich, 72, who moved to Grant nearly half a century ago when his father was a commercial crabber. "Right now everybody is working for no salary, but how long is that going to last?"
For now, "town hall" is an answering machine inside the home of a former interim council member. The town "clerk" is a group of volunteers who check for messages every one to two days. There's no town manager.
Small said any increase in taxes likely would be minimal. But Boscovich remains leery.
"We'll have to have a town hall, hire a clerk and a manager and an attorney," he said. "They say it isn't going to cost us, but we'll see."
Steiner, the UF professor, said folks in other small communities could be watching -- and learning from Grant-Valkaria.
"Two different settlements recognized they were too small to fight the forces around them," she said. "So they came together in an interesting and unique way. I don't know of any others like them, but I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing more."
Laurin Sellers can be reached at lsellers@orlandosentinel.com or 321-795-3251.
Fast-Growing Wesley Chapel Requires Rigorous Attention
Published: Dec 18, 2006
The bulldozing of large parts of Florida, the subject of a recent report by the University of Florida's GeoPlan Center, is plainly visible in the Wesley Chapel area of southeast Pasco County.
County commissioners are considering the proposed Wiregrass Ranch development. They should ensure that regional impacts, especially traffic, produce no unpleasant surprises when they vote in the spring.
Developers want to turn a 5,100-acre ranch into 13,500 homes, more than 5 million square feet of retail and offices, a hospital and four public schools. At build-out, residents could number about 35,000, a population larger than Plant City.
The effects on public infrastructure and services would be staggering. The new community would need about 3.2 million gallons of drinking water a day by 2016, and about 3,660 tons of garbage would be generated daily by 2020. Size and impacts alone should be enough to make commissioners take a deep breath.
To their credit, Wiregrass developers have proposed an attractive project that should entice many people to work and live in the community. They project creating 13,500 jobs, which certainly is appealing, considering most of the workforce in Pasco heads across the county line to earn paychecks. And Wiregrass pledges to set aside about $2.9 million for affordable housing.
But in evaluating the plans, commissioners need to take a look at the big picture in the Wesley Chapel area. It's alarming.
Excluding Wiregrass, six other developments of regional impact either have been constructed or are being built within just a few miles of each other. These projects consist of more than 20,600 homes and more than 7 million square feet of retail and offices, including a 1.5-million-square-foot regional mall still being reviewed by regulators.
With Wiregrass, the totals would be in excess of 34,000 homes and 12 million square feet of commercial and offices.
Stretches of State Road 54 remain two lanes, and the result now is daily gridlock. Construction on planned improvements to Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, State Road 56 and Interstate 75 hasn't even begun. These are the four major roads that will bear the traffic from such intense development, and all are currently operating at the lowest level of service, planners say.
Hillsborough officials in particular have expressed legitimate concerns about the traffic that will be dumped onto Bruce B. Downs and into their county. They have a reasonable request: Require Wiregrass developers also to widen the road from just south of Pebble Creek Drive in New Tampa to County Line Road. Pasco commissioners should oblige. They have a responsibility to minimize the project's impacts on such a major Hillsborough road.
Indeed, it's imperative that Wiregrass and other developers be on the hook for major transportation improvements in the area and that the state's new concurrency law be strictly followed to ensure infrastructure is in place. But in reviewing Wiregrass, Pasco officials also should question whether they have saturated the Wesley Chapel area with so much development that quality of life will suffer and whether the market can sustain it. Congested roads and empty storefronts make for ugly communities.
These are fair questions in the context of the GeoPlan Center report backed by 1,000 Friends of Florida. It predicts the state's population will double to 36 million in 50 years with essentially wall-to-wall urbanization. This major change demands attention and creative planning.
City Clerk Excels At Selling Its Shops
Published: Dec 18, 2006
SAN ANTONIO - As a youngster, Barbara Sessa didn't understand why her busy father would pause while doing errands around town to speak with the other small-business owners in San Antonio and offer words of encouragement.
When Sessa and her eight siblings grew up, she saw how hard several of her brothers worked to establish their own businesses. She understood why their dad, the late Joe Herrmann, stressed that it was important for other local enterprises to succeed, as well as their own.
She followed his example: Shop locally. Tell newcomers about the other businesses in town, what they sell and what services they provide. Help out other small business owners, if you can. Tell them you appreciate their work.
The big difference between Sessa and her parents, who ran a propane gas supply company, appliance dealership, rooming house, filling station and other businesses, is that Barbara Sessa is not, by common definition, a businesswoman. She has served as city clerk of this municipality of about 900 residents since 1992.
Nevertheless, the Rotary Club of San Antonio chose Sessa to receive its first Community Business Person of the Year award, citing her enthusiastic support of small businesses in her hometown.
Sessa said she's not really comfortable receiving such an award.
She is plenty comfortable, though, talking about the importance of local businesses in the lives of small towns - especially in the era of chain discount stores and big-box retailers.
"We just have a nice, diverse business community," said Sessa, 58. "I want people to realize that's good for the community. But if they don't get customers, they'll close up, and that's bad for everybody."
Empty stores and buildings can lead to declining property values, and a local business equals at least one local job, she said.
Sessa understands why families want to shop for low prices and that doing so sometimes means going to the big chain stores. She and her husband, Sam, have raised six children.
"I came from a big family, and I have a lot of children myself, but I make it a point to make some purchases at local businesses so that they know I care," she said.
Sessa stresses the local alternatives to the national retailers people may automatically go to because of name recognition. San Antonio boasts two fine pizzerias, for example, and the San Antonio Lumber Company stocks lots of home improvement materials, she said.
It helps that Sessa has an exhaustive memory of what the local stores carry.
The San Ann Market sells deli items and quick meals - good for busy commuters.
Park Place Antiques & Gifts, owned by Sessa's longtime family friend, Betty Burke, offers surprising finds: furniture, greeting cards, older pieces of jewelry and an extensive selection of cotton hankies, which make for nice, personal gifts.
"My mother-in-law loves it when I pick out one for her."
When a resident comes into city hall to open an account for water service, Sessa is apt to share her insights about local shopping.
Sessa also is the go-to woman for people who are opening businesses and need to know the ins-and-outs of obtaining occupational licenses, permits or zoning variances. The mayor and city commissioners serve part-time, and there isn't a city manager. So Sessa and two other staff members handle all administrative matters at city hall.
"She's very knowledgeable - not just about the city, but the county and state regulations and getting all the things you need when you start a business," Burke said.
Roy Pierce, San Antonio's mayor, said Sessa also deserves credit for the financial and problem-solving skills she employs in keeping the city's water running, the streets maintained and the books balanced. Running the city is, in fact, much like running a business, Pierce said.
"She has to stay on top of all the same shifting, convoluted regulations the city of Tampa does. The same things apply to us."
Reporter Jo-Ann Johnston can be reached at (352) 521-3062 or jfjohnston@tampatrib.com.
The 'bad apple' of wetlands banking
CRAIG PITTMAN AND MATTHEW WAITEHeld up to Congress as a shining example of the promise of wetland mitigation banking, their business went bellyup.
Published December 18, 2006
Second of two parts
On a broiling August morning, two would-be developers, D. Miller McCarthy and Alan Fickett, turned themselves in at the Polk County Jail. Deputies took their fingerprints and snapped their mug shots.
The state of Florida had charged the pair and their corporation with seven felonies and nine misdemeanors for allegedly building unauthorized roads that destroyed wetlands at the edge of the Green Swamp, the headwaters of most of the major rivers in Central Florida.
Their arrest made news across the state in 1993: It marked the first time a corporation had been charged with a felony for illegally destroying wetlands. But a judge ruled officers had bungled a search of the company's offices and excluded the evidence. Prosecutors dropped all charges.
McCarthy and Fickett reinvented themselves. They launched a company called Ecobank and became the kings of a fledgling industry called wetland mitigation banking, which makes it easier for developers to wipe out swamps and marshes.
Their biggest customer? You, the taxpayer.
* * *
McCarthy is a 6-foot-6 mountain of a man with an outsized personality to match. Even his friends describe him as abrasive and difficult to deal with.
He made money in the early cell phone boom, dabbled in real estate and ran a sand mine and logging operation. His main asset was his imagination.
He was in the land development business with Fickett, a smooth talker with a doctorate in finance and a strong interest in politics. For years, Fickett had put his folksy charm to work as a lobbyist for the University of Central Florida.
During the investigation of the Polk County wetlands destruction, Fickett blamed everything on a backhoe operator who just got carried away. But investigators found records showing he and McCarthy told their Swedish investors that the new roads were built to enhance the property's development potential.
McCarthy's reports to Sweden also talked of starting a wetland mitigation bank on the Green Swamp property to quiet environmentalists' complaints about the road construction.
"This 'bank' of wetlands would compensate for all the planned improvement activities," McCarthy wrote.
Their arrests spelled the end of their development plans on the Polk County site. The next year, with two other investors, they formed Ecosystems Land Mitigation Bank, Ecobank for short.
Mitigation banking was a relatively new concept back then. It works like this: The banker buys a former wetland and restores it. Regulators grant "credits" that the banker can sell to developers, who are required to make up for destroying wetlands elsewhere.
In the mid 1990s, most mitigation banks were shoestring operations, like Florida Wetlandsbank, whose staff consisted of two partners sharing one desk.
But McCarthy had a grander design. By early 1996. Ecobank had hired 16 employees. One was Denver Stutler, a young engineer from St. Petersburg whom McCarthy and Fickett had met six years before when he was student body president at UCF. Another employee was Kaye Henderson, who had been DOT secretary under former Gov. Bob Martinez. Stutler said Ecobank hired Henderson to help the company sell credits to the DOT.
McCarthy and Fickett believed in boosting their business through political connections. In 1996, Ecobank donated at least $5,000 to the Foundation for Florida's Future, a think tank Jeb Bush created after losing his first bid for the governor's office.
Bush's foundation published a quarterly policy journal, Outside the Lines. In March 1996 it published a lengthy essay by Stutler about mitigation banking that repeatedly mentioned Ecobank and touted its plans for establishing "megabanks" of tens of thousands of acres.
Stutler flew to Washington, D.C., to testify before a Senate committee about the bright future of mitigation banking. Then-Sen. Bob Graham introduced him and called Ecobank "one of the older of those programs and, therefore, we will have the benefit of his extensive experience."
"Ecobank is currently permitting more than 16,000 acres in four separate banks in Florida," Stutler told the senators. "We've invested significant amounts of capital and have dedicated 100 percent of our resources because we think it can work."
At that point, Ecobank had not sold a single credit.
* * *
A month after Stutler told senators that Ecobank had four banks operating in Florida, he wrote U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum asking for his help getting the company its first permit.
The land that McCarthy and Fickett picked to become their first wetland mitigation bank was an odd choice: Most of it wasn't wet.
The Lake Louisa Mitigation Bank mostly consisted of sandy hills covered with orange groves. The land is good habitat for sand skinks, not frogs or fish.
More than 90 percent of the wetland credits that the state granted for the bank are for improving the dry land, not for anything that helps wetlands.
"It really had very little to do with wetland restoration," said Dennis Benbow, a rival banker whose company now markets the credits for Lake Louisa.
Fickett said state regulators steered them toward the Lake Louisa site because it was land the state had been trying in vain to buy. To get it done, the state was willing to make a deal with onetime wetland violators.
"Basically they asked us to work as, in essence, their partner on a private basis, to see if we couldn't acquire those lands that they wanted and put them in conservation," Fickett said.
The company's second bank, the East Central Florida Mitigation Bank in Volusia County, had a similar problem: Nearly half the state credits are for saving dry land.
Getting its state and federal permits for both banks, Ecobank argued that the number of credits should be boosted because it would be a vital link among other conservation lands, including what was to become their third Florida bank.
Ecobank was granted its extra credit - but the bank never happened.
For its third bank, Ecobank promised to convert the Lee Ranch by tearing down levees along the St. Johns River and flooding the property. The only problem: Inundated land belongs to the state, which would mean Ecobank couldn't claim it for selling credits.
In 1997, Fickett and Henry Dean, a friend of McCarthy's and the head of the St. John's River Water Management District, stood before Gov. Lawton Chiles and the Cabinet to try to cut a deal: Let Ecobank make Lee Ranch a mitigation bank, and the state would share in the credit-sale profits. Of course, Ecobank intended to sell most of the credits on the state-owned land to a state agency, the DOT.
Fickett told Chiles and the Cabinet that he was tired of negotiating: "I have to tell you, Governor, this is the gol-darnedest, most frustrating process I have ever been through.
"We're trying to help you. ... You've got a program like this, it doesn't take anybody with an IQ much above room temperature to understand how good it is."
"You're right, maybe, on your argument of the temperature of the brain capacity of most of us up here," said Chiles. "It's pretty cold today, and I'm a little frozen up myself."
Chiles and the Cabinet refused to go along with Ecobank's proposal on Lee Ranch. McCarthy tried for years to revive it. But it remained the deal that got away. Meanwhile the company's overhead costs piled up.
"They hired the best and the brightest team," Benbow said. "The payroll was $100,000 a month. They dug this giant freaking hole."
When it came to filling the hole, Benbow said, "They had a sort of a Ken Lay idea about what you do."
* * *
In an odd twist, Ecobank didn't own the Lake Louisa property. It belonged to a trust fund set up to benefit McCarthy's children.
Looking for an infusion of cash, McCarthy had his children's trust sell it to a New York investment fund called Da Capo al Fine Inc. for nearly $2-million. Da Capo became Ecobank's joint venture partner - a move Da Capo's attorney, Howard Seitz, said the fund came to regret.
"Nothing in this whole transaction is not a mess," Seitz said.
Because mitigation banks are supposed to be preserved as undeveloped forever, Florida law requires bank owners to set up a fund for their long-term maintenance. Ecobank had been putting aside thousands of dollars from each credit sale to build its maintenance fund.
But once Da Capo came on board, McCarthy persuaded Seitz to put up a letter of credit for the full amount, more than $600,000. All the money that Ecobank had set aside was plowed back into paying the bills, McCarthy said, including his annual salary of more than $300,000.
Competing with other banks to make sales, Ecobank sometimes slashed its prices below what would bring a profit.
"Miller and Fickett sold credits for $12,000 when the market was $22,000," Seitz said. "They combined arrogance and," Seitz paused, "it was just mind-boggling."
* * *
Ecobank's original business plan, according to Seitz, made sense: "You pursue small deals to cover the overhead while you were hunting elephants."
But Seitz said McCarthy quit pursuing the small deals and became obsessed with trying to land monster deals with state and local government agencies.
The state became Ecobank's best customer, mostly to make up for road-building projects. Dean's agency spent more than $2-million buying credits from Lake Louisa to make up for the wetlands destroyed to build a new expressway.
But the East Central Florida bank needed help. So Ecobank hired locals with clout: the chairman of the Seminole County Commission, Randy Morris, and the head of the local GOP, Jim Stelling.
Sure enough, four days after signing the contract, Morris and Stelling persuaded the chairman of the Sanford Airport Authority to renege on a deal with a competitor and steer the airport's business to the East Central Florida bank. After that deal, the airport authority chairman, Ken Wright, became a paid salesman as well.
Seitz said McCarthy was "a big target" for all the politicians who had their hands out to collect commissions from Ecobank. McCarthy said he did feel a little victimized, "but no more than I do for all those who sell Girl Scout cookies."
Meanwhile, Morris and Stelling hunted elephants for Ecobank. To aid Ecobank, Stelling testified, "we traveled to Tallahassee. ...We met with the assistant secretary of transportation. We met with the chairman in Tallahassee of the Transportation Committee. We met with the chairman - no, the counsel - of the (Orange-Orlando) Expressway Authority. ...We met with a lot of people and a lot of developers, which we both came in contact with on a daily basis."
In two years, Ecobank paid Morris and Stelling more than $48,000 for helping its East Central Florida sales - but it wasn't enough. Thanks to a tip from Wright, the two politicos discovered they had not been paid for some sales they believed they helped land.
Furious, they sued. Five years later, they settled. The payout: $92,000.
* * *
The company's one big success was a bank started in North Carolina by George Howard, a former U.S. Senate aide. Its one deep-pocketed customer: the North Carolina DOT.
But Howard soon quit because he could see Ecobank was going into the red. "I could see the beginning of the end."
By 2003, credit sales in Florida had slowed to the point that Ecobank stopped sending Da Capo its share of the take. The checks would be signed but not mailed.
Meanwhile, McCarthy had a disagreement with the people who owned the land under the East Central Florida bank, and they sued. He and Da Capo, which owned Lake Louisa, got into a legal wrangle. Ecobank was now feuding with both of its landowners.
The last straw came when McCarthy failed to pass on to Da Capo a $175,000 check from the North Carolina DOT.
"He took that dough and he paid 50 grand to his bankruptcy counsel," Seitz said. "The rest, I guess they used it for operations, paid the rent and so forth. And then he filed for bankruptcy."
On June 25, 2004, Ecobank filed for Chapter 11. McCarthy followed suit in October, listing among his assets a $2.8-million home, a $200,000 villa, a 20-foot Regal Destiny boat, a 2001 Chevrolet Tahoe and a Jet Ski. McCarthy reported loaning Ecobank $956,000 and said he was owed $116,000 in back salary.
Though Ecobank's Chapter 11 filing jeopardized the operation of both mitigation banks, no one notified state and federal regulators. The state figured it out after two months, but federal regulators failed to notice anything amiss for more than a year.
The Chapter 11 proceedings were heated. Da Capo lawyers called Ecobank's plans to get out of debt a "fantasy" that only a child at Disney World might buy. During McCarthy's deposition, he swore at an attorney and threatened to walk out.
When the case settled last January, Da Capo took possession of everything Ecobank once owned, including the two Florida mitigation banks and the name of the company.
East Central Florida Mitigation Bank has since been sold to the state for preservation. Lake Louisa still hasn't been completely restored after 10 years. Da Capo hired Ecobank's archrival, Benbow, to help sell its credits.
These days other mitigation bankers are reluctant to talk about Ecobank. Its failure shows everything that can go wrong with mitigation banks, including financial mismanagement, lax regulatory oversight and relying on political influence rather than providing environmental benefits.
"They are the real bad apple of the bunch," said Sheri Lewin of the National Mitigation Banking Association.
To Stutler, who now heads the Florida DOT, Ecobank was simply ahead of its time. "When you're really changing the way people view mitigation and you're shifting the paradigm, you have to give it time to shift."
McCarthy says Ecobank was the best mitigation banker ever in Florida, with environmental results he called "unequaled." Now he and Fickett are mulling their next big project.
"We're still looking at other mitigation options here in the state of Florida," Fickett said. Asked if that included starting another mitigation bank, he replied, "You never can tell."
Wildlife refuge staff is reduced
By BARBARA BEHRENDT, Times Staff Writer
Published December 18, 2006
CRYSTAL RIVER - Jim Kraus knows about trying to do more with less.
As manager of the sprawling Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge Complex, Kraus and his staff are responsible for managing five wildlife refuges spread over 31,000 acres stretching from Pinellas County up through Crystal River.
In that wide-ranging job, he must protect two of the highest profile endangered species around: the manatee and the whooping crane.
On any given day, that might mean his sole law enforcement officer might be enforcing manatee sanctuaries in Kings Bay, or he could be building the pen that holds the whooping cranes during their winter at Chassahowitzka.
Running the refuge complex means staffing the office on Kings Bay Drive, providing public education about the refuges and their diverse wildlife, talking to dive shops about their important role protecting manatees, and keeping a handle on all aspects of the habitats the refuge complex protects.
The job is soon going to get even harder.
As part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Southeast Region's effort to tighten its belt, Kraus will lose a staff member.
In this case it will be Sarah Palmisano, who has been a jack-of-all-trades at the refuge office for the past several years.
She has most recently been the acting assistant refuge manager. But she has done most of the other office jobs, and her co-workers see her as their technical go-to person, as well as the one staff member who can get all things with a deadline done in time.
The cut brings the full-time staff to just nine.
Across Florida, the fish and wildlife service plan includes 21 cuts in staff including biologists, rangers, ecologists and administration employees.
"There are going to be a lot of empty chairs" around the refuge system, Kraus said.
While Kraus does not know yet specifically what services might evaporate because of the staffing cut, he said that everyone left will just have to do more.
"It's only going to get worse," Kraus said. "It all translates into what is not going to get done."
Refuge meets reality
The Chassahowitzka complex operates on a budget that has fluctuated from about $800,000 to $1.4-million, Kraus said.
The refuge has been criticized for failing to protect manatees by not enforcing existing rules. But Kraus has just the one law enforcement officer.
Others have argued that new manatee protections aren't needed in the area; rather, education will fix any problems with manatee harassment.
But education programs might be on the chopping block, as well.
"Things have been fairly lean to begin with," Kraus lamented. "Now we're going to have to adjust to the harsh reality."
While Kraus takes the deep breath and tries to sort out how all the work will get done, those in his support organization, the Friends of the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge are itching to find a way to make it better.
They recently contacted U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville, seeking her help.
Last week that help came - in the form of a letter signed by Brown-Waite and seven other members of Florida's congressional delegation.
They urged Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne to up the funding for Florida's wildlife refuges.
The letter details what will be lost in several refuges across the state, noting harm to both the manatee protection in Crystal River and the whooping crane project in Chassahowitzka.
The letter also explains that cutting the budgets of refuges hurts the community. A recent study showed that every dollar spent on Chassahowitzka, generated $7 in recreational expenditures in the local economy.
"Because of major funding shortfalls for staff, our refuges are no longer able to support their most basic mission," the letter states. "Without adequate funding for our refuges, the wildlife that depend on these important habitats and the public that values these treasures for recreation and education will suffer."
More discussion urged
With the same kinds of cuts planned in other regions of the country, other support organizations also have jumped into action.
When groups in New Jersey asked for help from their congressional delegation, the letter that request generated was not as diplomatic as the one signed in Florida.
There, the congressmen said, "we believe that the Department of the Interior is perilously close to abrogating its responsibility under the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act of 1966 and National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997.
"By law, the Department of the Interior is charged with administering the National Wildlife Refuge System. But the lack of staff and resources for our refuges will make this duty impossible to fulfill."
That strongly worded letter has generated considerable discussion about the funding crisis in New Jersey and local refuge supporters hope Brown-Waite's letter can do the same for Florida.
This area, in particular, cannot afford a smaller refuge staff, according to Jim Green, past president of the Friends of Chassahowitzka.
The refuge system has never provided special funding necessary to pay for important pieces of both manatee protection and crane projects, according to Kraus.
"The problem is very real. This will likely affect manatee protection in Kings Bay with one less employee," Green said. "And the whooping crane project, this has been the jewel of man's attempt to save an almost extinct species."
Funding for flights
John Peterlin, secretary of the Friends, said that Kraus is so short-staffed that he cannot even allow the organization's members to help out with projects because there is no one to provide required limited supervision.
"It ties our hands," Peterlin said.
One area where Kraus is especially strapped is in funding for aerial surveys that are conducted every other week to count manatees and identify where they congregate.
"It boggles my mind that the refuge system can't afford aerial flights," Green said.
The agency told Kraus he had to continue the flights but they wouldn't pay for them, Peterlin said.
"So he robs Peter to pay Paul and Peter is broke," he said.
In the past the Save the Manatee Club helped with those expenses but that was before the club sued the fish and wildlife service for failing to adequately protect the endangered marine mammals.
Green said the Friends have vowed to begin a fund to help pay for the flights.
During a meeting Kraus conducted last week with both Manatee Watch volunteers and dive shop operators, some in the business community talked about possibly finding ways to help with those survey costs, according to Mary Craven, the county's tourism development manager who attended the session.
"There was a lot of interest there," she said.
Green said he would be following up on that interest and "shaking all the trees" to see what other individuals, grants or businesses might be able to help.
Peterlin said he knows that others in the community want to help too.
He said the Friends encourage them to contact their congressional representative and urge a strong push to give refuges the resources they need.
Barbara Behrendt can be reached at 564-3621 or behrendt@sptimes.com.
Suncoast Parkway 2 Web site to get overhaul
By Terry WittThe never-completed Suncoast Parkway 2 federal environmental study has died, and its former Web site will soon meet the same fate.
Florida Turnpike Enterprise officials announced in their December Suncoast 2 newsletter that the Web site will be discontinued Dec. 31, along with the toll-free information line.
The closing of the Web site is related to FTE’s decision to halt its federal Project Development and Engineering (PD&E) study. The study was stopped at the conclusion of a lawsuit that delayed it for two years.
The agency instead has dusted the cobwebs off an approved 1998 PD&E study that was never used, but the change of studies has made some of the information on the old Web site outdated.
There is no longer an Environmental Resource and Regulatory (ERRAG) group or a Suncoast Parkway Advisory Group (SPAG), and the old project schedule and alternative alignments map are no longer relevant.
Messages posted on the home page of the Suncoast 2 Web site say project activity is to resume soon, that the federal aid study was discontinued and the 1998 state-funded PD&E study is to be re-evaluated.
A new version of the Web site will be developed as the next stage of the project begins, according to FTE.
Much of the uncertainty about Suncoast 2 surrounds the potential route through western Citrus County. The four-lane toll road will pass through two conservation areas — the Lecanto Sandhills and Annutteligia Hammock — and may impact a number of subdivisions.
The old corridor map produced by FTE shows the 10 possible routes for the 26-mile toll road. The map is posted in the Lecanto Government Center and shows the subdivisions that would have been impacted.
In the latest Suncoast 2 newsletter, the old corridor map has been replaced with a color map showing the approved route for Suncoast 2 from the 1998 study, but it lacks enough detail to see subdivision plat lines or individual properties.
Hurley said that is no accident. She said the entire route must be re-evaluated to determine what has changed since 1998. She said some portions of the route may have to be tweaked. She said engineering teams will be hired to evaluate the entire route. Residents will begin to seeing those teams in the field.
“There’s no point in putting out a map like the one you see in the Lecanto Government Center until we know exactly where the road is going,” she said. “We may have to tweak it a little to the left or the right.”
The tentative schedule for the 1998 project re-evaluation indicates the beginning of “design re-evaluation” will begin in the summer of 2007 and a public information meeting will be scheduled for the winter of 2007.
In the spring of 2008, the schedule indicates 30 percent of the design will be complete along with the re-evaluation. A public hearing is will take place in the winter of 2008, and the final feasibility analysis in the spring of 2010.
FTE indicated it probably won’t return with answers to the questions posed by Citrus County commissioners until mid-to-late 2008, when the design is expected to be 60 percent complete.
Couple split over sinkhole risk
DAVID DeCAMPPublished December 18, 2006
BAYONET POINT - If Tom and Lois Beaudrie still lived in Michigan, fixing the 31/2-inch depression near his orange tree would be easy.
Fill it in with dirt and move on.
But this being Pasco County, they had to fix it with at least $60,000 in repairs because of sinkhole activity cited by engineers this year.
Fortunately for the Beaudries, their Citizens Property Insurance Corp. policy covers the costs for repairs going on at their Beacon Woods home.
But a proposal by Citizens would eliminate sinkhole coverage in base policies starting in March. Citizens officials will argue for the change during a 5 p.m. hearing today in New Port Richey.
Customers would have to pay more for sinkhole coverage, or accept that only a catastrophic collapse of at least 5 feet within seven days would be covered.
Less serious sinkhole damage, like the kind the Beaudries have, would be covered only if homeowners paid for the additional insurance.
And that risk leaves the Beaudries divided.
Lois Beaudrie, 62, said she favors dropping coverage as long as the house is repaired right.
After all, their $2,000 annual premium could be halved next year if their home qualifies. But her husband questioned going without coverage.
"Under those guidelines, no, I would not drop it, even if it would save 50 percent," said Tom Beaudrie, 65. "I'm a gambler, but I'm not that big of a gambler."
For Pasco, the state capital of sinkhole claims, the change could save money - a 56 percent lower bill for most homeowners.
Hernando County, which also has many claims, could see a 43 percent drop. Other areas of the Tampa Bay region and the state would see smaller savings.
Pasco officials have embraced the proposal, saying it's much-needed rate relief.
State Rep. John Legg, R-Port Richey, wants to change state law to allow private insurers to follow Citizens' lead.
Reform advocates with Homeowners Against Citizens say it merely shifts the risk to homeowners, benefiting the insurers.
"If they make sure that people understand they're not going to have the coverage, it's okay," Tom Beaudrie said. "But some of the older people, they're going to see the lower rates and take it."
Five years ago, the Beaudries moved from Michigan to be close to Tom's brother and to seek sunshine and salve for Tom's ill health. After a bad experience in a rental house, they said, they bought their home for $71,000 in December 2001 from Rent to Own Pasco Inc.
The company had acquired the home five months earlier, according to property records.
A home inspector gave them no reason to worry, they said. And even if other signs were there?
"We were so green, we didn't even know what a sinkhole was five years ago," Lois Beaudrie said.
But in February, they found the depression.
In June, Rimkus Consulting Group - hired by Citizens - inspected the home. Engineers bored into the soil. They used ground penetrating radar.
According to the Rimkus report, filed with the county property appraiser as required by law, many of the cracks in the walls and around the windows were because of age.
Some structural damage and settlement were attributed to a foundation that wasn't deep enough. But the boring showed that sinkhole activity underground was a "contributing cause."
The report recommended at least 24 injections totaling 200 cubic yards of grouting under the house, costing about $52,000.
Contractors ended up injecting 270 cubic yards in October, Tom Beaudrie said, costing as much as $88,000.
An additional $11,000 worth of interior and exterior repairs are needed, too, he said. And the couple said they have no guarantee against future sinkholes.
But by and large, the Beaudries said, they are happy with the 10-month process.
And with how their sinkhole coverage works today.
David DeCamp can be reached at 727 869-6232 or ddecamp@sptimes.com.
If you goWhat: A hearing on making sinkhole coverage optional for homeowners insurance policies with Citizens Property Insurance Corp. Experts and the public will speak.
Where: Spartan Manor, 6121 Massachusetts Ave., New Port Richey.
When: 5 p.m. today.
Motion Of The Ocean
Published: Dec 18, 2006
TAMPA - A perpetual motion machine is the stuff of fantasy, but clean, renewable energy sources are within the grasp of societies that marry science, industry and economics.
Inventors have dreamed and schemed for decades of tapping power from the ocean, yet nobody has come through with a practical plan. That's the hope of a Florida project that will test the waters on a way to generate electricity from Gulf Stream currents.
Researchers at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton are developing an underwater energy farm that employs a network of turbines secured to the ocean floor. As strong currents turn the turbine props, spinning magnets create electricity and send it to a power plant along the shore.
"The concept is you have turbine blades in the flow of the ocean, much like turbines that harness the wind," says engineer Rick Driscoll, director of the Florida Center for Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology, a research arm of the university.
"Ocean currents are much slower than the wind, but water is 700 to 800 times denser than air."
The turbines will be anywhere from five to 40 miles off the Southeast coast, where ocean currents are robust and reliable. Anchored to the bottom and suspended about 300 feet below the surface, each corrosion-resistant turbine will include a rotor 120 feet in diameter.
"Everything will be underwater except a few surface buoys," Driscoll says. "There will be inherent challenges in putting something that big in the ocean because you want it to be a long-duration thing."
The system won't produce carbon dioxide emissions, create surface noise or be seen from shore. Because the high-torque, low-rpm rotors spin slowly, they aren't expected to hurt fish or other marine life.
If the prototype works - and clears an environmental impact assessment - the immediate aim is to produce electricity for Florida's power grid, at the same time creating a revenue stream. In the larger picture, Driscoll says, the turbines could create electricity to make a fuel for the future - hydrogen - pumped back to an offshore loading station for ship transport to other markets.
"Right now, hydrogen is produced from coal or oil, so there's a net gain in pollution," Driscoll says. "We want this to have a positive environmental impact."
Florida Atlantic will use $5 million toward getting the project off the ground and in the water. Incentive comes from Florida's rapid growth - and a possible energy crisis. In-state energy production currently is less than 1 percent of consumption, forcing residents to rely heavily on imported sources.
Experts estimate a 30 percent increase in energy use in the next 10 years, with demand growing to 76 percent by 2030.
Florida Atlantic's plan isn't the only new energy proposal in the works: Last week, Progress Energy Florida selected a site for a potential new nuclear plant in Levy County.
Reporter Kurt Loft can be reached at (813) 259-7570.
An Acceptable Drilling Bill
Published: Dec 18, 2006
Some environmental groups are riled up by congressional approval of expanded offshore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The measure poses some risk. But it also provides strong safeguards for Florida's coast and overall represents reasonable balance of the nation's energy and conservation needs.
It's revealing that industry lobbyists are unenthusiastic about it. They favored the House's indulgent plan, which would have allowed drilling as close as 50 miles from Florida.
In contrast, the Senate plan, developed by Sens. Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez, established a minimum 125-mile buffer for Florida. Off the west coast, the buffer will be 235 miles because military flight training is conducted there.
The Senate plan also called for increased royalty payments to coastal states to help fund the restoration of Louisiana's coastal wetlands.
The pro-industry House demanded concessions, but Nelson and Martinez held firm and the House finally adopted the Senate version.
Perhaps a new Congress would have adopted an energy bill that did more to encourage conservation. But increased drilling in the Gulf, supported by many Democrats, is inevitable. And with the right precautions, it is no tragedy.
The country cannot abruptly eliminate its dependence on oil. The adopted bill opens 8.3 million acres far offshore that should boost the nation's energy supply while maintaining coastal safeguards. That seems a reasonable compromise
Annual bird count keeps track of all things winged
TOM MARSHALLPublished December 18, 2006
BROOKSVILLE - If you want to see birds, you've got to find water.
And as development leaves its mark on Hernando County, more and more of those water sources are crafted by human hands.
So it was that some of the county Audubon Society's keenest birders found themselves traipsing behind Brooksville Regional Hospital on Saturday for the 107th annual Christmas Bird Count, a national effort to keep track of all things winged.
Retention ponds built behind the hospital were stocked with native plants, and have proven to be a magnet for birds, said team leader Mary Dowdell.
"It's a tough time right now because it's been a dry spell, so a lot of our wetlands have dried up," she added, without making eye contact.
On this day, all eyes were skyward.
"There's a whole bunch of warblers," called out longtime birder Mike Wollam, scanning the tree line across a brambly field.
"Any other warblers besides the palm warbler?" asked his wife, Sheila, the group's scribe.
"Not yet," he replied, quickly adding three goldfinches and a bluebird to her list. "Whoa, a downy woodpecker just flew in!"
In years past, the national bird count has helped the federal government to gauge the impact of West Nile virus and other maladies upon bird populations. The Hernando teams routinely spot more than 100 species during the single-day inventory.
Dowdell started her day at 6:45 a.m. looking for owls. Before the day was done, she and the group would crisscross their zone in south central Hernando, from State Road 50 down to Powell Road.
They would see sandhill cranes by the squadron, plus cormorants, grebes, killdeer, kingfishers, a bald eagle and many other species - don't call them countless, not today - on a pristine lake off Griffin Road.
Fourteen lounging anhingas observed their observers, lazily draping their black wings across the branches of a single tree.
But the group would also spot avian friends in much closer proximity to human neighbors, like the Louisiana or tricolor heron observed picking its way past a new housing development.
"Do you guys want to meet us at Wal-Mart and you can check out that retention pond?" Dowdell asked, as the group hurried to its next rendezvous.
The watchers, like the birds, adapted to their changing environment.
Tom Marshall can be reached at tmarshall@sptimes.com or 352 848-1431
Python hunters try to reclaim Everglades
EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK - ''SNAKE!''
Hearing this shout, Skip Snow slammed on the brakes. When the off-roader plowed to a halt, he and his partner, Lori Oberhofer, leaped out and took off running toward two snakes, actually - a pair of 10-foot Burmese pythons lying on a levee, sunning themselves.
Snow, a wildlife biologist, grabbed one of the creatures by the tail. ''It made a sound like Darth Vader breathing,'' Oberhofer says, ''and then its head swung around and I saw this white mouth flying through the air.''
Snow saw the mouth, too - the jaws open 180 degrees, the gums an obscene white, the needle-sharp teeth bared in an almost devilish grin. He let out a shriek, then blinked, and when his eyes opened the python's head was hanging in mid-air, less than a foot from his own.
Oberhofer, with a Ninja-like thrust, had snared the python in mid-strike.
''I snagged it right behind its head, on its neck,'' the 43-year-old wildlife technician recalls. ''It was pure reflex - a defensive move. I don't know if I could ever do it again.'' The python hadn't succumbed yet, however. ''They defecate on you, on purpose, hoping to make you reconsider what you're doing,'' Oberhofer says. ''It's not pleasant.''
In the end, the humans were victorious, if not sweet-smelling: Both snakes were bagged, trucked off to the Everglades Research Center, euthanized and necropsied - meaning their innards were dissected, then meticulously inspected, for the benefit of science.
So goes python control in the Everglades, a painstaking, around-the-clock slog against a voracious, foreign snake species that has established a stronghold in this watery wilderness and put native wildlife at risk.
Critters that pythons find most delectable - raccoons, possums, muskrats and native cotton rats - are already under attack, as are birds such as the house wren, pied-billed grebe, white ibis and limpkin. Scientists also worry that these slithery giants - which have been known to grow as long as 26 feet - may soon start to feast on native species whose survival is in doubt.
''The Everglades doesn't work by itself anymore,'' says park ranger Leon Howell, 58. ''This whole landscape has to be managed today: water, fire, exotics - you name it.''
Which explains the evolution of Snow and Oberhofer into a human firewall against non-native exotics. Without them, Howell figures, ''there'd be pythons all over the place.''
A decade ago, Snow and Oberhofer spent their days reintroducing rare, native birds to the pinelands and monitoring ''indicator'' species, such as wading birds, alligators, bald eagles, panthers. Then, in the late '90s, pythons began turning up.
Pet owners were releasing their giant, unwanted snakes in and around the park. But convincing the public that pythons are a danger to this otherworldly mosaic of marshes, sloughs, marl prairies and shadowy hammocks was, and still is, a tough sell. Perhaps that is because of the Everglades' primeval nature. Truly: Where else in North America can the visitor find crocodiles, manatees and rainbow-colored tree snails, roseate spoonbills and ghost orchids, towering royal palms and gumbo limbos? Here, biblical clouds of mosquitoes can turn a white off-road vehicle black within seconds. Waterlilies can perfume the air for miles.
At night, the beam of a lamp through a marsh often catches the eerie, ruby shine of a lurking alligator's eyes.
Yet, as vast and threatening as these wetlands may appear, they have been so drained and abused by humans in the last century that a population of pythons, if left unchallenged, could take down this fragile web of life within a generation.
''It's a now-or-never thing,'' Oberhofer says. ''We still have a chance, with the python's numbers being so limited, to do something. But if we let this go, we don't know how far the pythons will migrate, how much they will reproduce.''
One thing is certain, Snow says. ''They'll eat just about everything that's warm-blooded.''
Three years ago, a party of bird-watchers walking along the eastern Everglades' Anhinga Trail stumbled upon a death match of super predators - python versus alligator. The gator, it appeared, had the upper hand: Its jaws, capable of a bite pressure of more than 3,000 pounds per square inch, were clenched on the snake, and for hours the gator carried its prey about, waiting for the python to go limp.
But it didn't; after nearly 30 hours the python wriggled free of the alligator's jaws and swam off into the high grass. ''We looked for buzzards feeding on a snake carcass,'' Snow recalls, ''but we never found any.''
That a python could survive a gator attack was a red flag, and it was soon followed by others.
In February 2004, tourists at the Pa-hay-okee Overlook watched, stunned, as a python wrapped itself around an alligator, which countered by rolling over and grabbing the snake in its mouth and swimming off. And then, last fall, the carcasses of a 13-foot python and a 6-foot gator that had squared off were found later floating in a marsh, the gator's tail and hind legs protruding from the split-open gut of the python.
''Sometimes,'' says Snow, ''pythons swallow things they shouldn't.''
The Burmese python, one of the six biggest snakes, does not possess fangs and is not venomous. Rather, it is a sit-and-wait ambush hunter of the first order. Typically, it bites prey with six rows of needle-sharp, back-curving teeth, which dig deeper when its target tries to pull away.
It then coils itself around its victim, squeezes the life out of it, and swallows it whole. Its stomach acids quickly dissolve even bone, Snow says.
In the wild, pythons often reach 20 feet in length, weigh more than 200 pounds, and grow strong enough to overpower a grown man. Hinged jaws, in fact, enable the snake to open its mouth wide enough to accommodate humans. ''Once they reach 8 to 9 feet in size,'' Snow says, ''you don't want to be alone with a python.''
Native to Southeast Asia, the Burmese python - Python molurus bivittatus - has come to the Everglades by way of the burgeoning, global trade in exotic pets, creatures of many kinds shipped to America legally and distributed through pet shops and flea markets. Today, Americans may own 22 of the 24 python species that exist.
Since 2000, slightly more than 1 million pythons have been imported by the United States for commercial sale; nearly half are shipped to Miami, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service says. Python hatchlings, which can cost as little as $20 at a flea market, tickle armchair herpetologists. ''They're so darling when they're tiny,'' Oberhofer says. ''Later, the big attraction at home is being able to watch your python kill something - like a rat - and gobble it whole in its tank.''
Soon, however, the python gets bigger than the kids. (Pythons, fed a steady diet of mice, squirrels and rabbits, grow 6 to 8 feet, or bigger, within a year.) When this happens, owners try to sell or give away their pets but cannot find them new homes. Unwilling to euthanize their beloveds, many release pythons into the wild, unaware of the ecological havoc they may bring.
Which brings to Oberhofer's mind a story about Guam, where she once worked with other biologists.
''Two exotic species were introduced there,'' she says, ''the brown-tree snake and a little lizard that the snake liked to eat. Well, the lizards multiplied like crazy, which meant that the brown-tree snake had so much to eat it proliferated'' - and consumed many other species.
Today, Guam's forests have gone silent, she says. ''The brown-tree snakes ate the native birds and bats to extinction. Those birds are found only in zoos now.''
One recent afternoon, Snow took a visitor into a field of chest-high cane grass to check on his latest invention: a 2-by-4-foot, steel-mesh trap fashioned especially for pythons. The trap had wide, PVC tubes on both ends (entrances for the big snake) and a cage within the cage holding a rat - python bait.
But there was no python.
''It hasn't worked very well. We haven't caught any pythons with it yet - just small, native snakes.'' Snow adjusts his cap, frowns, then gazes across the field, still but for a lazy breeze rustling the high grass. The stillness doesn't fool Snow.
''I've walked right by pythons and not even known they were right next to me,'' he says. ''Most times, you can't see the enemy until you stumble across it.''
Crunching his way back to the off-roader, eyes darting this way and that, he described tactics to control pythons. One idea, recommended by snake management experts, has produced results: implanting captured pythons with radio transmitters and releasing them into the wild to track their movements, habitat use and breeding patterns - and to betray the locations of other pythons.
''It's all based on the Judas concept,'' Snow said, noting that four ''tagged'' pythons had led to the capture of 12 others through October and that three more pythons with transmitters have since been released.
Snow suspects that female pythons lay down trails of chemical scent ''cues'' for suitors. If scientists could develop synthetic cues, he says, the chemicals might be used to draw pythons into one of his traps.
By Snow's count, 154 pythons have been removed in and around the Everglades through the first 11 months of this year, up markedly from the 95 pythons caught in all of 2005, 70 in 2004, and 23 in 2003. Does it mean pythons are multiplying at a faster rate? Or is it that the python detectives are just more effective at nabbing them?
Snow won't say - and he'd rather not hazard a guess at how many pythons are living, or breeding, in the Everglades.
Most of the caught pythons are euthanized because of the threat they pose to at-risk native species such as the mangrove fox squirrel, the wood stork and the endangered Key Largo wood rat. Pythons may also be competing for space with the threatened Eastern indigo snake.
And so, the python detectives muck about limy marshes and brackish ponds by day and cruise the main park road after sundown.
On a recent nocturnal patrol, Snow is crawling along Route 9336 near Nine Mile Pond, the off-roader's headlights catching the occasional heron or white ibis, when, suddenly, he hits the brakes, grabs his 4-foot ''snake tongs'' and hops out into a gathering of flies.
On the blacktop, in a cone of light thrown by Snow's headlamp, lies a rattlesnake, a four-footer. It doesn't budge.
''Ah,'' Snow grunts, lifting the rattler with the tongs and slinging it off into the bush. ''Roadkill.''
Vehicles strike pythons sometimes, too, but bodies are rarely found. Do they survive? Do they go so deep undercover that scavengers don't find them? ''Just another thing we don't know about the enemy,'' Snow says.
He trains his gaze to the west, looking for something other than the spiked grass silhouetted against a moonlit sky. Pythons need not be seen to make this landscape creepy.
The creepiness comes with knowing they are out there, somewhere.
Rising tide of invasive, exotic species
By TODD LEWAN
AP National Writer
In the United States and around the world, invasive species are a major cause of species endangerment and extinction, second only to habitat loss.
In recent years, thousands of nonnative animals and plants have entered the United States. Roughly half of the native animals and plants on the U.S. endangered list are at least partly threatened by these invaders, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Dale Hall, the agency's director, puts invasive species as the No. 1 environmental threat to the United States today. Exotics, he says, "can push out native species, alter habitats, transmit foreign diseases and parasites, and cause food-chain disruptions."
The expanding, global trade in exotic animals as pets only feeds the problem.
In 2005, there were more than 210 million animals imported to the United States for zoos, exhibitions, food, research, game ranches and pets. The imports included 203 million fish, 5.1 million amphibians, nearly 1.3 million reptiles, 259,000 birds and 87,991 mammals.
Only wild birds, primates and some cud-chewing wild animals are required to be quarantined upon arriving in the United States. The rest slip through with no disease screening, except for occasional Agriculture Department checks for ticks.
Since 2000, slightly more than 1 million pythons of varying types have been imported by the United States for commercial sale, the Fish & Wildlife Service says. Nearly half of those imports are sent to Miami International Airport, which receives dozens of foreign shipments a day.
Once nonnative species get loose in the wilderness, it costs a lot to control them, and even more to eradicate them. According to a 1999 Cornell University study, the United States spends on average $137 billion a year trying to limit damage done by invasive species.
Published December 18, 2006
Hearing this shout, Skip Snow slammed on the brakes. When the off-roader plowed to a halt, he and his partner, Lori Oberhofer, leaped out and took off running toward two snakes, actually - a pair of 10-foot Burmese pythons lying on a levee, sunning themselves.
Snow, a wildlife biologist, grabbed one of the creatures by the tail. ''It made a sound like Darth Vader breathing,'' Oberhofer says, ''and then its head swung around and I saw this white mouth flying through the air.''
Snow saw the mouth, too - the jaws open 180 degrees, the gums an obscene white, the needle-sharp teeth bared in an almost devilish grin. He let out a shriek, then blinked, and when his eyes opened the python's head was hanging in mid-air, less than a foot from his own.
Oberhofer, with a Ninja-like thrust, had snared the python in mid-strike.
''I snagged it right behind its head, on its neck,'' the 43-year-old wildlife technician recalls. ''It was pure reflex - a defensive move. I don't know if I could ever do it again.'' The python hadn't succumbed yet, however. ''They defecate on you, on purpose, hoping to make you reconsider what you're doing,'' Oberhofer says. ''It's not pleasant.''
In the end, the humans were victorious, if not sweet-smelling: Both snakes were bagged, trucked off to the Everglades Research Center, euthanized and necropsied - meaning their innards were dissected, then meticulously inspected, for the benefit of science.
So goes python control in the Everglades, a painstaking, around-the-clock slog against a voracious, foreign snake species that has established a stronghold in this watery wilderness and put native wildlife at risk.
Critters that pythons find most delectable - raccoons, possums, muskrats and native cotton rats - are already under attack, as are birds such as the house wren, pied-billed grebe, white ibis and limpkin. Scientists also worry that these slithery giants - which have been known to grow as long as 26 feet - may soon start to feast on native species whose survival is in doubt.
''The Everglades doesn't work by itself anymore,'' says park ranger Leon Howell, 58. ''This whole landscape has to be managed today: water, fire, exotics - you name it.''
Which explains the evolution of Snow and Oberhofer into a human firewall against non-native exotics. Without them, Howell figures, ''there'd be pythons all over the place.''
A decade ago, Snow and Oberhofer spent their days reintroducing rare, native birds to the pinelands and monitoring ''indicator'' species, such as wading birds, alligators, bald eagles, panthers. Then, in the late '90s, pythons began turning up.
Pet owners were releasing their giant, unwanted snakes in and around the park. But convincing the public that pythons are a danger to this otherworldly mosaic of marshes, sloughs, marl prairies and shadowy hammocks was, and still is, a tough sell. Perhaps that is because of the Everglades' primeval nature. Truly: Where else in North America can the visitor find crocodiles, manatees and rainbow-colored tree snails, roseate spoonbills and ghost orchids, towering royal palms and gumbo limbos? Here, biblical clouds of mosquitoes can turn a white off-road vehicle black within seconds. Waterlilies can perfume the air for miles.
At night, the beam of a lamp through a marsh often catches the eerie, ruby shine of a lurking alligator's eyes.
Yet, as vast and threatening as these wetlands may appear, they have been so drained and abused by humans in the last century that a population of pythons, if left unchallenged, could take down this fragile web of life within a generation.
''It's a now-or-never thing,'' Oberhofer says. ''We still have a chance, with the python's numbers being so limited, to do something. But if we let this go, we don't know how far the pythons will migrate, how much they will reproduce.''
One thing is certain, Snow says. ''They'll eat just about everything that's warm-blooded.''
Three years ago, a party of bird-watchers walking along the eastern Everglades' Anhinga Trail stumbled upon a death match of super predators - python versus alligator. The gator, it appeared, had the upper hand: Its jaws, capable of a bite pressure of more than 3,000 pounds per square inch, were clenched on the snake, and for hours the gator carried its prey about, waiting for the python to go limp.
But it didn't; after nearly 30 hours the python wriggled free of the alligator's jaws and swam off into the high grass. ''We looked for buzzards feeding on a snake carcass,'' Snow recalls, ''but we never found any.''
That a python could survive a gator attack was a red flag, and it was soon followed by others.
In February 2004, tourists at the Pa-hay-okee Overlook watched, stunned, as a python wrapped itself around an alligator, which countered by rolling over and grabbing the snake in its mouth and swimming off. And then, last fall, the carcasses of a 13-foot python and a 6-foot gator that had squared off were found later floating in a marsh, the gator's tail and hind legs protruding from the split-open gut of the python.
''Sometimes,'' says Snow, ''pythons swallow things they shouldn't.''
The Burmese python, one of the six biggest snakes, does not possess fangs and is not venomous. Rather, it is a sit-and-wait ambush hunter of the first order. Typically, it bites prey with six rows of needle-sharp, back-curving teeth, which dig deeper when its target tries to pull away.
It then coils itself around its victim, squeezes the life out of it, and swallows it whole. Its stomach acids quickly dissolve even bone, Snow says.
In the wild, pythons often reach 20 feet in length, weigh more than 200 pounds, and grow strong enough to overpower a grown man. Hinged jaws, in fact, enable the snake to open its mouth wide enough to accommodate humans. ''Once they reach 8 to 9 feet in size,'' Snow says, ''you don't want to be alone with a python.''
Native to Southeast Asia, the Burmese python - Python molurus bivittatus - has come to the Everglades by way of the burgeoning, global trade in exotic pets, creatures of many kinds shipped to America legally and distributed through pet shops and flea markets. Today, Americans may own 22 of the 24 python species that exist.
Since 2000, slightly more than 1 million pythons have been imported by the United States for commercial sale; nearly half are shipped to Miami, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service says. Python hatchlings, which can cost as little as $20 at a flea market, tickle armchair herpetologists. ''They're so darling when they're tiny,'' Oberhofer says. ''Later, the big attraction at home is being able to watch your python kill something - like a rat - and gobble it whole in its tank.''
Soon, however, the python gets bigger than the kids. (Pythons, fed a steady diet of mice, squirrels and rabbits, grow 6 to 8 feet, or bigger, within a year.) When this happens, owners try to sell or give away their pets but cannot find them new homes. Unwilling to euthanize their beloveds, many release pythons into the wild, unaware of the ecological havoc they may bring.
Which brings to Oberhofer's mind a story about Guam, where she once worked with other biologists.
''Two exotic species were introduced there,'' she says, ''the brown-tree snake and a little lizard that the snake liked to eat. Well, the lizards multiplied like crazy, which meant that the brown-tree snake had so much to eat it proliferated'' - and consumed many other species.
Today, Guam's forests have gone silent, she says. ''The brown-tree snakes ate the native birds and bats to extinction. Those birds are found only in zoos now.''
One recent afternoon, Snow took a visitor into a field of chest-high cane grass to check on his latest invention: a 2-by-4-foot, steel-mesh trap fashioned especially for pythons. The trap had wide, PVC tubes on both ends (entrances for the big snake) and a cage within the cage holding a rat - python bait.
But there was no python.
''It hasn't worked very well. We haven't caught any pythons with it yet - just small, native snakes.'' Snow adjusts his cap, frowns, then gazes across the field, still but for a lazy breeze rustling the high grass. The stillness doesn't fool Snow.
''I've walked right by pythons and not even known they were right next to me,'' he says. ''Most times, you can't see the enemy until you stumble across it.''
Crunching his way back to the off-roader, eyes darting this way and that, he described tactics to control pythons. One idea, recommended by snake management experts, has produced results: implanting captured pythons with radio transmitters and releasing them into the wild to track their movements, habitat use and breeding patterns - and to betray the locations of other pythons.
''It's all based on the Judas concept,'' Snow said, noting that four ''tagged'' pythons had led to the capture of 12 others through October and that three more pythons with transmitters have since been released.
Snow suspects that female pythons lay down trails of chemical scent ''cues'' for suitors. If scientists could develop synthetic cues, he says, the chemicals might be used to draw pythons into one of his traps.
By Snow's count, 154 pythons have been removed in and around the Everglades through the first 11 months of this year, up markedly from the 95 pythons caught in all of 2005, 70 in 2004, and 23 in 2003. Does it mean pythons are multiplying at a faster rate? Or is it that the python detectives are just more effective at nabbing them?
Snow won't say - and he'd rather not hazard a guess at how many pythons are living, or breeding, in the Everglades.
Most of the caught pythons are euthanized because of the threat they pose to at-risk native species such as the mangrove fox squirrel, the wood stork and the endangered Key Largo wood rat. Pythons may also be competing for space with the threatened Eastern indigo snake.
And so, the python detectives muck about limy marshes and brackish ponds by day and cruise the main park road after sundown.
On a recent nocturnal patrol, Snow is crawling along Route 9336 near Nine Mile Pond, the off-roader's headlights catching the occasional heron or white ibis, when, suddenly, he hits the brakes, grabs his 4-foot ''snake tongs'' and hops out into a gathering of flies.
On the blacktop, in a cone of light thrown by Snow's headlamp, lies a rattlesnake, a four-footer. It doesn't budge.
''Ah,'' Snow grunts, lifting the rattler with the tongs and slinging it off into the bush. ''Roadkill.''
Vehicles strike pythons sometimes, too, but bodies are rarely found. Do they survive? Do they go so deep undercover that scavengers don't find them? ''Just another thing we don't know about the enemy,'' Snow says.
He trains his gaze to the west, looking for something other than the spiked grass silhouetted against a moonlit sky. Pythons need not be seen to make this landscape creepy.
The creepiness comes with knowing they are out there, somewhere.
Rising tide of invasive, exotic species
By TODD LEWAN
AP National Writer
In the United States and around the world, invasive species are a major cause of species endangerment and extinction, second only to habitat loss.
In recent years, thousands of nonnative animals and plants have entered the United States. Roughly half of the native animals and plants on the U.S. endangered list are at least partly threatened by these invaders, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Dale Hall, the agency's director, puts invasive species as the No. 1 environmental threat to the United States today. Exotics, he says, "can push out native species, alter habitats, transmit foreign diseases and parasites, and cause food-chain disruptions."
The expanding, global trade in exotic animals as pets only feeds the problem.
In 2005, there were more than 210 million animals imported to the United States for zoos, exhibitions, food, research, game ranches and pets. The imports included 203 million fish, 5.1 million amphibians, nearly 1.3 million reptiles, 259,000 birds and 87,991 mammals.
Only wild birds, primates and some cud-chewing wild animals are required to be quarantined upon arriving in the United States. The rest slip through with no disease screening, except for occasional Agriculture Department checks for ticks.
Since 2000, slightly more than 1 million pythons of varying types have been imported by the United States for commercial sale, the Fish & Wildlife Service says. Nearly half of those imports are sent to Miami International Airport, which receives dozens of foreign shipments a day.
Once nonnative species get loose in the wilderness, it costs a lot to control them, and even more to eradicate them. According to a 1999 Cornell University study, the United States spends on average $137 billion a year trying to limit damage done by invasive species.
Put food safety at the top of the menu
A Times EditorialPublished December 18, 2006
Like a plot from a horror movie, the thing that is supposed to make people healthy instead sickens and kills them. Only it's really happening in the United States in the form of foodborne illness, increasingly from fresh vegetables.
That's what killed a 2-year-old in Idaho earlier this year when his mother added spinach to his smoothie drink. The spinach was contaminated with a particularly virulent strain of E. coli bacteria that showed up again recently in ingredients (most likely lettuce) used by some Taco Bell restaurants. In all, 5,000 Americans die and 76-million are sickened each year by foodborne illnesses.
How can it happen in a society as advanced as ours? The answer seems to come down to careless farming and production practices and inadequate federal oversight.
In the recent spinach scare, which left three dead and 200 ill, the suspect produce came from a California grower whose fields were close to cattle operations where the deadly E. coli 0157:H7 strain was present. Clearly that is not good farming practice, yet such decisions are left up to individual growers.
Major food-safety regulation is split between two federal agencies, though not in a particularly sensible way. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, is responsible for inspecting meat processing plants and visits each one daily. The Food and Drug Administration oversees vegetable processing, yet it visits each facility only once every five years on average. The FDA is understaffed and underfunded to carry out its food safety role.
Neither the USDA nor the FDA has the authority to order a food recall when a threat is discovered, although the food industry usually does so voluntarily. And while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gathers valuable information about outbreaks of illnesses linked to tainted food, states are not required to report such matters to the CDC.
The fixes to this growing threat aren't that mysterious. A study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, called "Outbreak Alert! Closing the Gaps in Our Federal Food-Safety Net," recommends two general areas for improvement. Require all states to follow national standards for tracking and reporting disease outbreaks to the CDC. Put food safety regulation under a single, independent agency that is properly funded to carry out its duties.
That's certainly a good starting point for Congress, which in the past has been too much influenced by the food industry to take meaningful action. Too many Americans already have died after the seemingly healthy act of eating fresh vegetables for lawmakers not to feel a sense of urgency.
Ordinance Troubles Landowners
Published: Dec 17, 2006
When Todd Caroline gave Pasco County his plans for a small office complex on U.S. 41, the county gave him a list of things he would have to do to get his project approved.
That roster ranged from what kind of landscaping to plant to how many parking spaces he should have. The county also demanded Caroline give up 43 feet - about 40 percent of his property - for a potential widening of the six-lane highway.
Caroline fought back, saying the right of way requirement dramatically limited what he could do with his .29-acre property. He's still fighting the county's demand that he connect to neighboring properties.
"The government regulation on that property is overwhelming," Caroline said last week.
Caroline was one of the first developers forced to contribute to the county's year-old land bank aimed at easing road construction. The county rule that created the bank draws lines down both sides of every county- or state-owned road in Pasco, setting the boundaries for future lanes.
Critics say the county's right of way demands break the law by taking private land for public use without paying for it. County officials say the set-aside rules save the county millions of dollars on future road projects.
"Unfortunately, right-of-way acquisition is one of the biggest impediments to road construction," Commissioner Ted Schrader said. "Anything we can do to expedite that is in the best interests of the citizens of Pasco County."
Since the rules went into effect, the county has received more than a dozen requests for exemptions.
Initially, the county rejected those exemptions outright. Lately, however, the Development Review Committee has softened its stance, letting developers plant landscaping temporarily in land set aside for road expansion.
By softening its position, the county has avoided lawsuits challenging the validity of its set-aside ordinance, said Tampa attorney David Smolker, who represented Caroline during his successful yearlong fight to avoid giving the county right of way.
"It's a square peg in a round hole," Smolker said. "The ordinance is the square peg, and the Constitution is the round hole."
Offset Price Increases
At the core of the debate lies the Transportation Corridor Preservation Ordinance, passed in November 2005.
Facing skyrocketing land prices, county commissioners passed the ordinance to lock in land for road projects without having to pay budget-busting sums for it.
But here's the hitch, critics say: The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires the government to pay people when it takes their land for a public use.
Two U.S. Supreme Court rulings say the government can demand land equal to the burden a landowner puts on roads and other public systems. Beyond that, the government must pay.
The county isn't paying for the property it claims under the preservation ordinance.
"If push came to shove, as written, there are some constitutional issues in the right-of-way preservation scheme the county uses," said Ben Harrill, a former county attorney who regularly represents developers' projects under county scrutiny.
The preservation rule applies to property that comes to the county for rezoning or other changes aimed at improving the property.
The presumption is that any development will increase traffic on the county's road system, eventually requiring more lanes. When those lanes are needed - either now or in the distant future - doesn't matter, said Assistant County Attorney David Goldstein, who wrote the ordinance.
"If you're only planning for the short term, then you're going to allow things that you're eventually going to have to condemn," Goldstein said. "Believe it or not, we don't like taking people's houses."
That's consistent with the government's powers and the Constitution, said J.J. Brown, who teaches land-use law at Stetson University's College of Law.
"To seek to limit the number of expensive buildings erected in the foreseeable right of way for road widening is the most logical and sensible action by any government," Brown said after reviewing the ordinance.
State law sets no limits on how long the county can hold land for roads. That lets the county lay claim to land even in rural northeast Pasco, where the county's current long-range plan envisions nothing wider than a two-lane road through 2026.
Goldstein said the county is hedging its bets in northeast Pasco beyond the current 20-year plan.
Smolker said the county unfairly forces landowners to spend thousands of dollars to prove the county doesn't need their land for roads.
"The burden is on the government to justify it on a case-by-case basis," Smolker said. "The problem we see with the county ordinance is they have essentially turned that entire precedent on its head."
Commissioner Ann Hildebrand said she has heard from small landowners hurt by the right of way rules. She's open to tweaking the ordinance - within limits.
"If we're going to have to be paying for traffic studies and we're going to have to be paying the landowners, we're not going to be able to enforce the ordinance," Hildebrand said.
Avoiding Lawsuits
As landowners continue to seek exemptions to the preservation rule, County Administrator John Gallagher and his staff have begun offering compromises aimed at getting the land the county wants while softening the blow to developers.
Since the summer, Gallagher, who chairs the Development Review Committee, has let developers put landscaping, retention ponds and sometimes parking spaces in the county right of way until the county needs the space for a road. In some cases the committee has let builders develop undersized lots as compensation for giving part of lot as right of way.
"They avoid a lot of [takings] claims by using the variance process," Harrill said.
But Harrill also sees the county taking advantage of landowners' reluctance to fight the government when they could be developing their property.
"If it's ever litigated, it would be interesting to see what happens," Harrill said. "I expect they could defend that ordinance very vigorously because it saves them a lot of money."
Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201 or kwiatrowski@tampatrib.com.
HOUSE OF LIES | AUDIT FINDINGS
Builder misspent $3.2 million
A developer hired to build Miami-Dade County's housing agency a new headquarters diverted millions and never delivered a building, a new audit has found.
BY DEBBIE CENZIPER AND SCOTT HIAASEN
dcenziper@MiamiHerald.com
The developer who pledged to build a new headquarters for the Miami-Dade Housing Agency misspent $3.2 million in public money on excessive management fees and dozens of costs unrelated to construction -- including a $355,000 payment on a personal home loan -- according to a county audit obtained Saturday by The Miami Herald.
While the building project stalled, developer Raul Masvidal used the county's money to buy a sculpture of stacked teacups from a childhood friend for $287,000 -- almost double the going price, the audit found. The sculpture was supposed to complement the new headquarters but has been sitting in storage for two years.
No headquarters was ever built.
County Auditor Cathy Jackson laid blame squarely with the Housing Agency, citing former Director Rene Rodriguez, for ''passive'' oversight of the troubled project.
Under Rodriguez's leadership, the Housing Agency in 2003 contributed $5 million for a new headquarters in South Miami by dipping into a fund specifically established to build homes for the poor.
''We understand the former Housing Agency director unilaterally decided his department would manage the project,'' Jackson wrote in her report, released to county officials late Friday. ``. . . Housing Agency officials could provide little information to justify their actions and decisions.''
SCANDAL EXPOSED
The audit comes five months after The Miami Herald reported the project was at least 18 months behind schedule and about $8 million over budget, with costs that appeared unrelated to the new headquarters.
The project's developer is Hometown Station Ltd., whose general partners are Masvidal and developer Otis Pitts. Earlier this month, 65-year-old Masvidal -- who serves on Miami-Dade's Public Health Trust and was an advisor to former Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas -- was arrested on felony battery charges after allegedly punching the artist who created the teacups sculpture.
Artist Julio Larraz, who went to grade school with Masvidal in Havana, said the dispute was over unpaid loans he made to Masvidal, though Larraz said the sculpture was paid in full.
The development team's limited partners included Oscar Rivero and Alben Duffie, both involved in other troubled Housing Agency deals.
Last summer, when problems with the new headquarters surfaced, County Manager George Burgess announced he had struck a deal with Hometown Station to cancel the project and recoup the county's money. But no proposal was ever brought to the County Commission for approval, and so far, no money has been returned. Burgess said he wanted to wait for the results of the audit and ongoing criminal investigations.
Neither Jackson nor Burgess could be reached for comment. But in a memo to county commissioners sent Friday, Burgess promised to ``aggressively pursue recovery of the $5 million . . . by any and all legal means available.''
THE DEVELOPER'S SIDE
Hometown Station's attorney, George McArdle, said the county's money was properly spent. He said the audit created an ''arbitrary distinction'' between expenses for the Housing Agency headquarters and the overall project, which included a mixed-use office, retail, residential and parking complex adjacent to the South Miami Metrorail Station. Hometown Station won development rights in 1999.
McArdle said county officials understood that the $5 million would, in part, cover predevelopment expenses incurred before the Housing Agency decided in 2003 to put a headquarters on the site.
''The developer had worked on other prospective uses of the property, and like any other development, those expenses had to be paid,'' McArdle said.
But in the audit, Jackson said she ''unequivocally'' disputes that argument. Hometown Station signed a lease with the county that stated the $5 million was to be used only for the construction of the new headquarters, she said. The audit found Hometown Station paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for expenses that had nothing to do with the building, while funneling money to other questionable costs, including:
• Paying Masvidal's company $493,000 to manage the project, even though no building was built. Of that, $258,000 was paid for oversight before the Housing Agency had signed on to the project. In invoices, the fees were justified as ``land costs.''
• Paying Masvidal's business partner, Henry Marks, $281,513 for project management, again before the Housing Agency got involved. Hometown Station could not provide documentation for Marks' work.
• Using $355,351 to pay a second mortgage on Masvidal's $1.8 million home in Coral Gables.
• Paying $287,000 for a bronze sculpture of teacups called Space Station. The audit said Hometown Station had promised to donate one-of-a-kind artwork to the project as a ''gesture of goodwill.'' But the county paid anyway. Making matters worse: Auditors found an identical sculpture by the same artist that sold last year in Boca Raton for $150,000. Hometown Station did not submit an appraisal to substantiate the $287,000 purchase price.
• Spending $778,000 on architect, engineering and consulting services performed before the Housing Agency got involved in the project. Prior concepts included a hotel, movie theater and municipal building for the City of South Miami.
Said Jackson: ``The absence of clear leadership and oversight significantly diminished county control over [the] project.''
McArdle countered that Bank of America oversaw spending of the Housing Agency's $5 million, and that the county approved a budget outlining how the money would be spent. 'When the auditor comes in after the fact and looks back, the auditor can say, `I don't like the way this deal is negotiated' and advise the county not to do this again,'' McArdle said. ``. . . But that's the way this deal was negotiated.''
THE HOME MORTGAGE
McArdle defended the $355,000 in county money that went to pay down a second mortgage on Masvidal's home, saying Masvidal essentially was reimbursing himself money he had earlier contributed to Hometown Station expenses. ''This is not a situation where someone is reaping personal gain,'' he said.
But auditors questioned why the mortgage money went directly to Masvidal and his wife -- not to Hometown Station. McArdle said the loan was made that way because the bank needed extra collateral, so Masvidal agreed to put up his house.
McArdle said Hometown Station never promised to donate a sculpture. As for the price of the teacups, which was almost double what it went for in Boca Raton last year, he said: ``[Masvidal] felt like he got a good deal.''
Affordable-housing grant
raises eyebrows
City's use of fund isn't correct, some say
The city of Tallahassee's recent decision to join in a developer's application for a $5 million state grant isn't sitting well with some affordable-housing advocates.
Their concern: Almost half of the city's $2.69 million match, or $1.2 million, would come from the city's Affordable Housing Trust Fund. In the past, that money has gone to help a poorer population than the teachers, firefighters and other professionals targeted by K2 Urbancorp's "essential work-force housing" proposal.
"That fund was not created to be used the way the city is using it," said Dorothy Inman-Johnson, executive director of the Capital Area Community Action Agency.
But David Wamsley, K2's CEO, said the company had committed to making a $600,000 donation back to the fund, which held about $1.8 million in September. And over time, part of the new homes' appreciating values would be funneled into a new affordable-housing trust that the city could use for whatever housing projects it chooses.
Wamsley estimated that new fund would grow between $600,000 and $750,000 every five years.
In the past, the existing trust fund has been used to help people pay their down payments or for infrastructure at a multihome Habitat for Humanity project, for example.
This time, it would help K2 keep costs low enough to offer homes below market rates. But they'd still be too expensive for a lot of people.
"I think it's a legitimate philosophical discussion," said City Commissioner Mark Mustian. "There are limited resources, so what do you use them for? We don't have enough money now for the lower-income people, and this serves a slightly higher income group."
Mustian abstained from voting on the proposal because of a potential conflict of interest with his law firm. The other commissioners all agreed to the concept in November.
The city's $2.69 million share, plus $358,000 in private land donations, adds up to the 15-percent match of the $20.2 million development that the state requires.
Proponents say city/developer partnerships are the way of the future and will help working-class people afford homes close to where they work instead of having to move into outlying rural counties where land prices haven't surged yet.
"The soul of the community is lost when people can't live where they work," said Jeffrey Sharkey, a lobbyist who helped draft the legislation creating the state grant program.
Between 2002 and 2005, the state's median existing home price jumped more than 70 percent, while the median family income went up less than 2 percent, according to the Florida Association of Realtors and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The disparity isn't as wide in Tallahassee - the median price for an existing house went up 43 percent from 2001 to 2006, according to the Florida Association of Realtors - but some working people are still getting priced out of the market, Sharkey said.
To help remedy the problem, the 2006 Florida Legislature passed a housing bill that includes $50 million for an affordable-housing pilot program called the Community Workforce Housing Innovation Pilot Program, or CWHIP. The program seeks to offset developers' costs by providing money and making permitting faster and easier.
If K2 is awarded a CWHIP grant, they propose to build 92 one-, two- and three-bedroom town houses on the site of the ongoing Evening Rose development, inside Capital Circle Northeast just north of Mahan Drive. That would almost double the number of homes at Evening Rose, which is the first development built under the city's inclusionary-housing ordinance and is currently set to feature 99 units, 10 of which will be priced just under $160,000.
With the state grant, a two-bedroom/two-bath town house would sell for as low as $159,000, instead of the market rate of $260,000, according to the developer.
Who would the work-force housing be for?
If K2 gets the state grant, the 92 housing units would be reserved for people making up to 140 percent of the area median income, or $81,900 for a family of four.
On top of that requirement, at least half of the units would be for people the city identifies as "essential-services personnel" - people "employed in the education system, city or county government, medical and health services, public safety or skilled building trades" or who make less than 80 percent of the area median income ($46,800 for a family of four.)
Concrete plant in Manatee proposed
BY CHRISTOPHER O'DONNELL
But with neighbors that include a port and a jail, Schwab Ready Mix's plan for a new concrete plant in North Manatee is unlikely to meet the opposition that has delayed CEMEX's plan to build a plant in East Manatee.
The Fort Myers-based company has filed plans with the county for a 5,000-square-foot ready-mix plant on Harlee Road, close to Port Manatee. If approved it would be the company's first plant in Manatee County.
Schwab bought the eight-acre site close to the Hillsborough County line in May for $2 million from Manatee Management LLC, according to county records.
It also paid $1.4 million in November 2005 for 4.5 acres in Oneco. It has yet to submit any plans for that site.
Schwab Operations Manager Richard Hire did not return repeated calls seeking comment.
Although proposed for an industrial area, the site is heavily wooded. Schwab would be required to replace any trees destroyed by construction, said Laurie Seuss, a county planner.
CEMEX Inc.'s proposal for a new plant off Lena Road and State Road 64 has met a wall of protest from nearby residents who fear it will add noise, traffic and dust to their neighborhood.
Schwab runs six plants in Florida, including sites in Punta Gorda, Naples and Cape Coral.
Parkway tolls look
unlikely
Construction of
booths, possibility alternate routes hinder effort
BY JAMES DEAN
FLORIDA TODAY
Don't expect tolls to pay for the St. Johns Heritage Parkway.
Adding tolls would make the proposed 40-mile, north-south corridor more expensive to build and encourage too many drivers to choose alternate routes, say local transportation officials who have explored the idea.
"There are significant drawbacks to going to a toll road," said Bob Kamm, director of the Brevard Metropolitan Planning Organization.
They include:
Higher construction costs. The road, intended to relieve construction in southern Brevard County west of Interstate 95, is projected to cost more than $100 million without toll facilities and equipment.
Each interchange would run about $20 million and toll plazas cost about $8 million. Limiting road access increases the cost of acquiring right of way and could put existing agreements for land at risk.
- Operating costs. Paying toll collectors and processing tolls adds to expenses.
- Diversion. With several free roads running parallel to the
proposed route -- including Interstate 95, Minton Road and Wickham
Road -- it's doubtful if enough toll revenue could be generated to
repay bonds.
"There are other ways to get where you want to go using free roads in that part of the county," said Kamm.
Interest in tolls resurfaced this summer after the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority introduced plans to study adding or extending three connectors into Brevard.
Kamm met with those officials in September to learn more about what's needed for toll roads to succeed. He's still awaiting a formal response, but said tolls don't appear to be a good fit for the St. Johns Heritage Parkway.
Formerly known as the Palm Bay Parkway, the project has been discussed for more than 10 years but remains years from completion with funding uncertain.
Developers in Palm Bay could break ground next year on the parkway's first segment between Malabar and Emerson roads, city officials said.
The county recently committed $21 million to secure rights of way. Together with Palm Bay, it has at least tentative agreements covering about half the route.
Though enthusiasm for tolls on the parkway is waning, county commissioners haven't dismissed the concept entirely for future roads.
"It needs to be part of the discussion," said Commissioner Chuck Nelson, whose district on Merritt Island had a toll road until 1991. "Where we get to and what the ramifications are, we've got a ways to go yet."
The Legislature established a Brevard County Expressway Authority in 1972, but it never was activated. At the time, it was thought tolls might help build a South Brevard causeway to the beachside.
MPO Attorney Paul Gougelman said commissioners would need to consider several factors before implementing the authority, including who would run it (the commissioners or appointees) and how much revenue it could generate.
"If they don't, they run risk of simply creating another layer of government that might or might not be effective," he said.
Contact Dean at 242-3617 or jdean@flatoday.net.
Height issue again bubbles to surface in Ormond
ORMOND BEACH -- While most people are
turning their attention to Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, city officials
are still wrestling with the new maximum building height limit voters
chose on Nov. 7.
At a meeting last week, city commissioners discussed the possibility of
holding a referendum in the near future that would allow voters to decide
whether they want to tweak the strict new 75-foot building height limit.
Some possible ballot questions could deal with grandfathering existing
buildings taller than 75 feet, and allowing some new buildings in certain
locations to build higher than 75 feet, which is roughly seven stories.
Commissioners opted not to make any decisions about a referendum,
saying they want to wait until after Monday evening's meeting with the
attorney the city hired to help with lawsuits surrounding the height limit
battle.
That meeting will involve only legal matters, and will not be open to
the public.
For now, City Commissioner Troy Kent said he disagreed with some ideas
proposed by Mayor Fred Costello and City Commissioner Bill Partington to
allow more flexibility with the height cap, and to remedy what some
believe could be future legal problems.
Kent said some of the mayor's ideas sounded "like a re-do" of
the election.
But Kent did like some of Costello's proposals, and said a look at some
of those ideas a year ago might have prevented the contentious height war
that began earlier this year.
Jeff Boyle, a former city commissioner and head of the grassroots group
that led the push to cap maximum building heights at 75 feet, is not eager
to pursue amendments to the new limit.
"You still are not listening," Boyle told commissioners
during their meeting last week. "You are still challenging the clear
will of the people, and the people's right to exercise that will."
Boyle went on to say that "This commission should be reminded, the
state constitution, our system of laws, this chamber, these public
meetings, your seats, the votes that elected you, my right to address you,
all derive from three simple words: we the people. . . . Not we the
elected, or we who represent."
Commissioners need to listen to what voters said with their vote to
impose the non-negotiable 75-foot limit, Boyle said.
"The yes vote on Nov. 7 was a message from we the people. Stop
trying to nullify that message," he said. "Drop the appeal. Drop
the idea of a do-over special election. That is an insult to voters. And
apologize, to we the people."
Commissioners have countered that they are trying to impose the will of
the voters, but they're also trying to prevent future problems with
implementing the limit.
"We're all here to protect the citizens," Costello said.
One resident told commissioners she won't return to another city
commission meeting until the bickering stops.
"It breaks my heart to see people act like this," she told
commissioners.
Commissioner Ed Kelley said he hopes the divisive disagreements are
resolved soon.
"This one issue is not that important to drag the community
down," Kelley said. "Let's try to do what's right for the
people."
Complex: Vibrant, but imposing
EILEEN SCHULTE Times Staff WriterCritics say Harbour Pointe in downtown Safety Harbor is a poor fit for the area , but developers say those same people make use of its services.
Published December 18, 2006
SAFETY HARBOR - One city commissioner once called Harbour Pointe a monstrosity.
Neighbors have complained the three-story building obstructs their views of Tampa Bay and sometimes makes Main Street look like a cave.
Some locals even have claimed it blocks breezes off the bay.
And because of the strong feelings that Harbour Pointe has stirred up, Safety Harbor city commissioners are considering limiting heights on buildings in two parts of the downtown core.
The very character of downtown Safety Harbor is at stake, they say.
There's only one problem for detractors: The $30-million, mixed-use Harbour Pointe project appears to be a success.
"The critics are shopping here," said Edward Entreken, chief financial officer of the project's creator, Olympia Development, which also owns the Safety Harbor Resort and Spa.
And Harbour Pointe is just the start.
Conservatively, at least $10-million more in retail and residential new construction or renovation also is under way or has been approved for downtown and the waterfront.
* * *
While city officials consider how much development they want, Harbour Pointe's developers are encouraged by the acceptance that has met their project.
Almost finished, the Harbour Pointe building at Main Street and Bayshore Boulevard buzzes with activity every day. Hungry patrons eat salads at Crispers, head to Cold Stone Creamery for dessert, then to Starbucks for an eggnog latte, buy bottles of crisp Italian pinot grigio at WineStyles and get their hair cut at Great Clips.
"We're very pleased," Entreken said. "We have less than 6,000 feet left" of vacant space out of a total of 45,000 square feet.
Currently, construction is under way for a new tenant called Dinner 4 U, which cooks up prearranged takeout suppers for busy families clients order their meals ahead of time each month from a menu.
And a high-end women's clothing store called the Jean Therapy Boutique just opened.
Harbour Pointe "has a great community feel," said Rhianna Brandt, general manager of WineStyles, which she said recently opened and has seen a steadily growing clientele. "People can sit outside by candlelight at night or stroll in and have a glass of wine while they shop."
Bob McGivney of Crystal Beach visited Harbour Pointe for the first time recently and said he had a very positive experience.
"We went to lunch at Crispers, and it was pretty good," he said, as his friend ate a bowl of chocolate ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. "And there's (plenty of) parking, and that's good."
When Harbour Pointe's construction was almost done, Olympia moved its headquarters from Dunedin to the building. Its neighbor, a company called A.I.P., which stands for Advanced Investment Partners, takes up 8,500 square feet of office space.
* * *
During construction of Harbour Pointe, Olympia also was busy renovating the Safety Harbor Resort and Spa across the street.
Of the spa's 189 guest rooms, 125 have been redesigned and refurnished, with buttercream paint on the walls and Serta pillow-top beds and fine linens at a cost of $15,000 to $40,000 per room. The remaining rooms will be completed by next month, Entreken said. He declined to say how much the renovation has cost in all.
The company also revamped one of the larger banquet rooms, the Athena Room, and replaced all the spa's windows and sliding glass doors with hurricane-resistant panes.
Go ahead and pound them, Entreken urged a reporter and photographer from the Times. They were rock hard.
And the spa is rid of any mildew smell it had after sitting atop seven natural springs for its entire 60-year existence.
Entreken removed a tile from the ground floor to reveal the mineral water flowing beneath.
Years ago, visitors would bathe in the water. They swam in it in the pool hoping to benefit from its supposed curative powers. Guests still swim in it, bathe in it and drink it from plastic bottles, but now it is purified first at the spa's own water treatment plant.
More plans in works
With these two projects nearly done, people are asking: What's next for the little city by the bay?
Watch for the landscape to change dramatically.
Olympia plans to start construction on at least eight townhouses sometime in 2007.
After that, the developer plans to build two five-story condo towers next to Harbour Pointe. Presales have not yet begun, a step the developer must take before construction can start.
In a few years, luxury townhomes and condos could be constructed on 10 acres most likely on the northeast part of the grassy spa property. No design plan has yet been drawn up or construction date set, Entreken said.
Another developer, PK Properties out of Tampa, is planning to build a $7-million complex called the Parkview at Safety Harbor townhomes and business complex at the northwest corner of Main Street and Second Avenue N.
The project will include a two-story building with space for two or three tenants on the first floor and office space on the second floor in the front. In the back will be 14 three-story attached townhouses.
"We're high on Safety Harbor," said Ray Ploucher, one of the owners of PK Properties. "We like it there. It's a great town."
PK Properties hopes to demolish the vacant L-shaped building there, which once housed a Pizza Hut, in January to make way for the project.
Height prompts talk
The project's height is one of the things that makes interim Mayor Andy Steingold have mixed feelings about the way downtown Safety Harbor is changing.
"I would have preferred two stories (instead of) three," said Steingold, one of several commissioners to open the door for the discussion of a building height moratorium. "But (PK Properties' project) will add an additional dimension to downtown as have the businesses at Harbour Pointe."
Commissioner Kathleen Earle, the official who called Harbour Pointe a monstrosity, is a leading voice for limits on height and density for new downtown projects.
As a result, city commissioners will discuss a nine-month moratorium on new building heights at a meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 750 Main St.
If the reduction is adopted, house heights would drop from 35 to 25 feet in neighborhoods between Second Street N and Fourth Street N and Philippe Parkway and Ninth Avenue.
In the retail area along Main Street east of Third Avenue, allowable building heights would decrease from three stories to two.
Last week, the city's Planning and Zoning Board sided with property owners who think the moratorium would hurt the city and recommended against the height limits.
And that leaves commissioners with the job of finding the right balance.
"Some people are satisfied with (Harbour Pointe); some think it's still too big," Steingold said. "But everybody I've spoken to is excited about the business now available at that location.
"I welcome redevelopment as long as it's built to scale," he said.
Eileen Schulte can be reached at (727) 445-4153 or schulte@sptimes.com.
Rezoning Allows Apartments
Published: Dec 18, 2006
BROOKSVILLE - For much of the time Wednesday, it looked like a Miami developer's plans to build 408 "work force" apartments on 40 acres near an industrial center in Brooksville might be shot down.
There were too many negatives for Hernando County planners: traffic congestion, wetlands intrusion and the proximity to a nearby cement plant.
Even Planning Director Ron Pianta said he was not happy with granting developer Jose Padilla the rezoning he needed to get the project off the ground.
But Hernando County commissioners, who said they liked the plan because it fulfilled a demand for more affordable homes in the county, seemed unwilling to reject the rezoning outright.
So they took a 15-minute break to allow county staff members, engineers and developer's representatives to get together and see whether they could come up with a workable plan.
They did.
Commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the rezoning. (The board is without a fifth commissioner while the courts work through the election lawsuit filed against commissioner-elect Rose Rocco.)
The three-story apartments will be built on the west side of Cobb Road and the north side of Fort Dade Avenue, across from Flagstone Pavers, a cement products company and near Florida Crushed Stone.
They are called work force apartments because they are designed for employees of hospitals, fire and police departments and teachers, those who change jobs frequently and are not ready to buy homes in the area.
The reworked plan came with several concessions, though. In fact, the new plan has about 20 stipulations Padilla will have to obey to make his dream a reality.
Some of the concessions: There will be a conservation easement and open spaces that will not be developed; the maximum height of each apartment building won't exceed 40 feet; the developer will have to pay for transportation improvements as needed to relieve congestion; there must be a 35-foot buffer separating the wetlands from the buildings.
Also, at least 20 percent of the apartments must be deemed "affordable." Under current state guidelines, that means monthly rental payments between $720 to $1,000, said attorney Craig Varn, representing the developer.
People who rent the units must be told there is a cement plant nearby with noisy trucks operating at all hours of the day.
Commissioner David Russell said the apartments will satisfy a need for this kind of housing in Hernando County.
"I can tell you affordable housing for the work force is paramount," Russell said.
Padilla, a partner with Miami-based Axis Realty Partners, said these apartments would be ideal for teachers, firefighters, nurses and others.
In September, planning and zoning commissioners voted 3-2 to approve the project. They agreed that apartments are probably the best option for that 40-acre parcel as it transitions away from industrial.
County Commissioner Jeff Stabins asked the developer to work with the school board to help accommodate the influx of an estimated 136 new students.
Susan Miller, a hospice nurse who lives off Fort Dade Avenue across from the proposed Padilla apartments, worried that the traffic from along Fort Dade and Cobb would be too much for the area.
She agreed that affordable housing is needed.
"It's a good idea but not at this time and not in this area," Miller said.
Flood relief coming to eastside
By MICHAEL D. BATESmbates@hernandotoday.com
RIDGE MANOR — Relief is on the way for people in Ridge Manor West, in the Stoney Brook Drive area, who are plagued with flooding problems during storm season.
The county has worked out an agreement with the owners of Sherman Hills Golf Club that would allow the county to construct and maintain a stormwater pump station in the drainage retention area at Stoney Brook.
The county will lay pipelines and pump water into the irrigation holding pond there for the golf course, which can use it for irrigation.
“It’s a mutually beneficial project in that it enables us to pump stormwater from the drainage retention pond and prevent it from overflowing and flooding neighboring streets and houses,” Assistant County Engineer Gregg Sutton said. “It also pumps it into the golf course which can use it for irrigation.”
Golf course operators must obtain a permit from the Southwest Florida Water Management District (Swiftmud), which regulates the amount of water they can use for irrigation purposes.
“So we are providing (Sherman Hills) with additional water which won’t count against their limit or permit amount,” Sutton said.
The pump station will affect about 15-20 homes along Sherman Hills Boulevard. At times, the flooding is so bad that emergency vehicles are unable to access many of those homes.
Commissioners voted unanimously Wednesday to approve the agreement. The county will now bid the project which is estimated to cost about $200,000, Sutton said.
County Commissioner Chris Kingsley said it is a project a long time in the works. He praised the golf course owners and county staff who were able to finalize an agreement.
“We’ve been working on that one now for about two years and we’re finally able to move forward,” Kingsley told his colleagues Wednesday at the monthly Land Use Hearing.
The pump station will be designed so that during the times when Sherman Hills Golf Club does not need irrigating, the treated water from nearby Stoney Brook pond will bypass the golf course and continue through the system to other areas off-site.
Reporter Michael D. Bates can be contacted at 352-544-5290.
High Springs commissioners
decide to pay entire cost of paving project
HIGH SPRINGS – After hearing residents say that
long-standing flooding issues in certain High Springs streets were caused
by the city, High Springs city commissioners decided Dec. 5 that the city,
not the residents, should pay to pave those streets.
Commissioners previously had agreed that the cost to fix the drainage
issues along northeast Seventh and Eighth avenues and First and Second
streets should be covered by the city. But the majority of the cost for
the paving side of the project, they previously had decided, would be
covered by the residents.
They initially decided in a Sept. 25 meeting that the city would pay for
all engineering costs, all costs for fixing drainage problems and
one-third of the remaining paving cost.
Residents then would pay about one-third the total cost of the project, or
$3,878 per lot.
But residents at the Dec. 5 meeting argued that the city should pay for
the entire cost of the roughly $300,000 project.
Most of the residents who spoke at the meeting said that
they didn’t want the road paved if they would have to pay for it.
Ben Buckner, a 25-year High Springs resident, said the planned
improvements “are a long time coming.” He said that the city is at
fault because property is flooding in the area but the area is not listed
as a flood zone on any FEMA map.
“It’s not fair to have a city street washing into a person’s
property,” he said.
He said the city should pay for the improvements and not charge residents.
“In my opinion, ad valorem taxes and gas tax money should pay for
this,” Buckner said.
Resident Peter Dispenza also said that Second Avenue has
been draining through his mother’s front yard for years.
Another resident, George Dickert, said water on his property is a problem,
too.
“If anybody wants a mud hole, just go here,” he said, pointing to a
map of his property.
He added that he and his wife were in shock when they got a letter saying
there were going to have to help pay for the road.
“She said, ‘Look at this – we're getting charged $4,000 for a road
we didn't ask for,’” he said.
Some residents said that other roads have been paved in the city without
residents having to pay but City Manager Jim Drumm said such assertions
are not true. He said homeowners have always been asked to pay one-third
of the cost.
He added that homeowners were not being asked to pay for the drainage
improvements but just for the road improvements. If the roughly $4,000 per
home was paid over 10 years, a resident would have to pay roughly $42 a
month, he said.
But that cost still was too high for residents to agree.
Resident Betty Dillon said she simply can't afford to help pay for the
road.
“We're on a fixed income,” she said. “Our budget is stretched to the
limit.”
Susan Latshew said she couldn’t believe the city was
asking residents to help pay for a road when residents have already spent
money trying to fix their yards after floods. She said she herself has
installed a French drain, brought in truckloads of mulch and put gravel on
her driveway – all to deal with the flooding.
“I’ve invested a lot of money and a lot of effort,” she said.
After hearing from the residents, Commissioner Larry Travis made a motion
for the city to pay for the project in its entirety.
“There were a lot of mitigating circumstances that went into my
decision,” he said. “We sort of went ahead and approved the (paving)
contract before we ever got the opportunity to go through the process.”
Since the city had decided to approve a contract months ago in order to
save the city money from rising construction costs, he said, commissioners
had not been able to hear residents’ comments on the matter until the
Dec. 5 meeting.
Travis is not personally against assessments, he said, as long as they are
done right.
Nevertheless, the discussion was a tough one for him, he said.
“Sometimes, you have to make a decision based on your gut feeling,” he
said.
Drumm said that construction started on the project before a means of
payment was approved because the commission already had decided to accept
a bid from a construction company.
If commissioners had waited to accept the bid, Drumm said, the
construction costs likely would have gone up and been even harder to fund.
Commissioner Jim Gabriel, who voted against a motion for the commission to
pay the entire cost, said he would have rather seen the commission discuss
reducing the assessment than removing it altogether.
“I was a little disappointed that we never got to the point even to
discuss whether we would lessen the cost,” he said. “I would have
discussed, considered a reduction in the overall assessment to
everyone.”
But since the cost will not be assessed, he said, it instead will be paid
through the city’s budget, which is funded by the tax dollars of all
residents and businesses.
With such a large project being entirely funded by the city, he added, the
long list of other paving projects the city would like to do will have to
wait because the budget already is stretched.
“We were hoping to take any monies we got through assessments and roll
them right in to the next project,” he said. “We can’t do that
now.”
Additionally, Gabriel said, by paying for the entire amount, the city set
a precedent that may mean paying for every future project, as well.
“I think that in the future it’s going to be extremely hard, if not
impossible, to ever extend a paving assessment,” he said.
But Commissioner Kirk Eppenstein said that he doesn’t think the case set
a precedent since each case should be judged based on its own merits.
He voted for the city to shoulder the cost of the pavement and drainage
project.
“Sometimes you have to just do what’s right,” he said. “That has
been my gut feeling all along.”
Since the roads have been city roads for decades and are just now getting
paved, he said, he felt the responsibility should lay with the city to pay
for the project.
Commissioners Gabriel and Byran Williams voted against the motion for the
city to pay for the entire paving cost.
Commissioners Travis and Eppenstein and Mayor Thomas DePeter voted to
approve the motion, making the vote 3-2 in favor of the city paying.
Drumm said that construction work on the project started toward the end of
November, and although construction crews have up to several months before
they must finish, they expect to complete the work within a few weeks.
“We understand that they’ll probably be finished by the first of the
year,” Drumm said
Lady Lake collects old debts for paving
The city borrowed money in 1989 to do the street work and is hitting up residents who still owe.
Erin CoxSentinel Staff Writer
December 18, 2006
LADY LAKE -- The town has recouped about $33,000 of the $200,000 residents owe for having their dirt streets paved 17 years ago.
The long-forgotten bills were resurrected and sent to 46 property owners in May, when the town threatened to foreclose on dozens of properties, many in the poorer Skyline Hills neighborhood.
Since then, all but 10 of the debtors have paid or contacted the town to make payments. The town will wait until January to determine what do about the outstanding money.
"It's Christmas," Town Attorney Derek Schroth said.
The town borrowed $700,000 in 1989 to pave the streets winding between mobile homes in Skyline Hills and in a few other Lady Lake neighborhoods. Each homeowner agreed to repay the debt over 20 years, but many of the bills became delinquent.
The town began aggressively pursuing the debt in May, four months before the town finished paying off the loan.
The bills, which were originally $2,500, have accrued interest at 8 percent. Some bills totaled $7,000 when the first certified letters were sent to homeowners in May. At that time Finance Director Karen Rickelman said every outstanding debtor owed more interest than principal.
Town Manager Bill Vance said he had to quash rumors that swirled around the mobile-home park. Some residents who paid their debts feared others would get out of it.
Vance assures that is not the case, but town commissioners have not decided how to handle the remaining debts.
Erin Cox can be reached at 352-742-5926 or ecox@orlandosentinel.com.
Insurance Crisis Has Many Angles
Published: Dec 17, 2006
Pasco County commissioners and local lawmakers are on the right track in their efforts to address the homeowners' insurance crisis, which is causing major heartache for many people. Working together is the biggest first step because it will take a collaborative effort to solve, or at least put a dent in, this widespread problem.
State Sen. Mike Fasano and Rep. John Legg, both of west Pasco, already have shown they're willing to go toe to toe with the insurance industry, and they pledge not to let up. They are proven advocates on the state level, especially Fasano, Pasco's senior lawmaker.
Fasano has proposed a variety of ways to help homeowners. One is to allow property owners the choice of going without sinkhole coverage, which would reduce premiums. Appropriately, it would be up to the homeowner, who would have to weigh whether that risk is worth it.
In addition, Fasano has filed a bill that is certain to be hotly contested by the insurance industry. The bill would bar insurance companies from denying Pasco residents and other Floridians lines of coverage the carriers offer in other states - a practice known as cherry picking. It's debatable whether the bill would give residents more choices because some companies could very well opt not to continue doing business in Florida. Still, these are desperate times for many homeowners, and stern measures must be considered.
Locally, Pasco County officials may have the toughest job.
In recent years, more than 1,400 Pasco homeowners in basically every part of the county except the extreme east have filed sinkhole claims, maps show. This leads to a logical question: Why were developers allowed to build in those areas to begin with? The answer isn't easy. The validity of some of the claims is disputed, and some scientists say it's difficult, impossible even, to confirm that a true sinkhole is under a home.
Still, as the authorities who allow building in unincorporated areas, county officials must take steps to help future homeowners and reduce the possibility of future sinkhole claims, which can affect all property owners through higher premiums or cancellation of policies.
The county is considering very viable proposals. These include requiring developers to conduct ground inspections before they build and compacting fill dirt beneath home sites to protect against sinkholes. Other ideas include creating a detailed local public records' trail of previous claims and sinkhole repair documents that residents would be able to check.
Indeed, developers should be required to test for sinkholes and disclose the results to county officials. They also should be required to disclose to potential homebuyers any history of sinkholes and suspected activity in their developments. No one is proposing that developers not be allowed to build when tests prove positive, but future home buyers have a right to know - even about suspicions.
Municipal officials also should take the same proactive steps as county officials are considering. That way, there won't be different standards in unincorporated and incorporated areas.
In addition, county officials have hired legal experts to challenge local premiums charged by Citizens Property, the state-run insurer of last resort. A similar effort proved successful in Monroe County. Even if the county's experts fail, it will have been money well spent. It's government's job to tackle any crisis that can devastate families and force homeowners to go without protection in such a hurricane-vulnerable state.
Many Pasco residents are hurting, but they should take comfort knowing that at home and in Tallahassee, their locally elected public officials are working to help them. This two-pronged approach is bound to pay dividends.
Council mulls Rainbow Springs protection
By Jim HunterAfter more than a year and a half of work, Marion County is ready to adopt a springs protection measure for Rainbow Springs near Dunnellon and Silver Springs in Ocala.
The protection will come in the form of an amendment to Marion’s comprehensive growth management plan, which, among other things, will create special springshed protection zones. In Florida, comp plans carry the force of law and so the changes can impose certain legal restrictions and requirements.
The changes in the Marion County comp plan will create a springs protection zone map with primary (10-year recharge zone) and secondary (100-year recharge zone) springs protections zones.
The Marion commission will take up the issue at its meeting Wednesday. The issue of contamination of the Floridan aquifer that feeds the springs has become particularly poignant for the Rainbow Springs because of relatively high levels of nitrates in it, levels that even as they were found to be the highest of the springs in the region a few years ago, have increased significantly in just the past three years.
The aquifer is recharged by rain, and since there is a time lag of up to 15 years or more between when the water falls as rain and when it comes out of a spring, scientists worry about the nitrate levels of the future. And they point out that the springs are windows to the aquifer, and so reflect what’s happening to all the ground water — which is relied upon for drinking water.
Troy Kuphal, Marion County’s water resource coordinator, has been in the middle of the springs zone protection effort, and he commended the commission for its commitment to the effort. He said, “It is probably the most progressive thing the county has ever done in taking steps to protect it water resources.”
Kuphal said the policies put into the comp plan will be implemented through land development regulations that will be developed by county planners to achieve the goals of those policies.
The goal is to protect the springs from adverse impacts from development. The idea is to enable future growth to occur while protecting the over-all water quality and specifically the springs.
While the regulations will not outright ban fast-release fertilizers, for example, they will be designed to minimize their use. That can be achieved through practices such as no fertilizer zones or non-soluble fertilizer zones in developments, design criteria for stormwater treatment for nutrients like nitrogen, best management practices and landscaping that doesn’t require fertilization, development agreements that could be implemented through deed restrictions (homeowners associations would then enforce), central water and sewer systems, waste water reuse and public education programs.
Septic tanks are a known source of contaminants like nitrates, and Kuphal said the land development code will have to address it one way or another: either by being silent or imposing requirements. That would be for areas in the zones where sewer systems can’t reach. The goal will be, for example, to reduce nitrates by 70 percent, through required maintenance or replacement with the higher level — and more expensive — new types of septic tanks.
How that plays out remains to be seen, Kuphal said, but the goal would be to stop the increase of contaminants to the aquifer and the springs.
With commissioners anxious to get the measure, the land development regulations should be written in the next year, he said. The commission has stated one of its highest priorities is water sustainability in terms of both quality and quantity.
Kuphal said the state Department of Community Affairs, which oversees comp plan amendments, had some issues with the lack of specificity in the policy statements of the comp plan amendment, saying policy goal language should be more measurable and predictable, but he felt the commission would continue to put its stress on the details in achieving policy goals into the land development code regulations, which the DCA does not oversee.
The DCA can find proposed amendments to the comp plan out of compliance with legal requirements, but this was somewhat different, Kuphal said.
Being that the springs protection measure was more stringent than the state’s own comp plan requirements and more aggressive than the rest of the comp plans in the state, Kuphal said he did not think the issues would result in DCA finding the amendment out of compliance.
Citrus County currently is working on a springs protection sub-element for its comp plan, and a draft is being finished up, according to Development Services Director Gary Maidhof.. That measure is expected to be presented to the Citrus County Commission in the first comp plan amendment cycle in February, he said.
MIAMI-DADE
County considers reusing wastewater, a pricey endeavor
With cheaper underground water off-limits, Miami-Dade turns to recycling wastewater to cover its future growth, a plan that will easily top $1 billion.
BY CURTIS MORGAN
cmorgan@MiamiHerald.com
Under pressure from the state to overhaul its water supply practices, Miami-Dade County is turning to a new source -- recycling waste water.
The plan entails reclaiming tens of millions of gallons now lost every day down sinks, sewers, tubs and toilets. After intensive treatment touted to produce something safe and clean enough to sell in a bottle, the water would recharge well fields and restore natural flows into southern Biscayne Bay.
''Reclaiming'' wastewater is the key strategy of a plan designed to keep the county from sucking up groundwater over the next 20 years to supply a swelling population. It would elevate Miami-Dade from one of the worst water-wasters in the state, ranked No. 56 out of 67 counties in percentage of water reuse, to among the biggest recyclers.
''If they do all that, we'd be thrilled,'' said Carlyn Kowalsky, director of water supply for the South Florida Water Management District. The agency has held up a long-term consumption permit for the county, whose 2004 application would have drawn primarily from the Biscayne Aquifer -- cutting into water needed to revive the Everglades and Biscayne Bay.
''It would be a definite win for the environment,'' she said.
The tentative plan, scheduled to be considered Tuesday by the Miami-Dade Commission, promises numerous benefits for the region -- among them, bolstering groundwater supplies, slowing saltwater intrusion into county well fields and speeding Everglades restoration efforts.
ENORMOUS COST
It also comes with questions. For starters, the price tag is enormous.
The centerpiece -- a state-of-the-art plant in South Miami-Dade equipped with microfiltering membranes, reverse osmosis, advanced oxidation and ultraviolet disinfection -- could top $1.1 billion.
The cost for a handful of additional projects hasn't been crunched, but easily could run hundreds of millions more.
State and federal grants may offset some expenses, but assistant county manager Roger Carlton said water rates in Miami-Dade, long among the lowest in the state, ``clearly will have to go up over the long term.''
Reuse also raises potential water quality issues -- particularly for Biscayne Bay, where reclaimed water is targeted for use in a project designed to replicate original freshwater flows from the Everglades. The project, part of the $11 billion Everglades restoration effort, would filter treated wastewater through coastal wetlands and mangroves to make the now-salty southern bay into the thriving estuary it once was.
''That would be good, provided that the water is sufficiently clean,'' said Elsa Alvear, resources manager for Biscayne National Park.
That means it needs to be cleaner than the state's drinking water standards. The sensitive coastal ecosystem can tolerate only trace levels of nutrients such as phosphorus, which can triggered algae blooms.
Doug Yoder, assistant director of Miami-Dade's Water and Sewer Department, said a pilot project is planned specifically to study how to knock nutrients down to acceptable levels, perhaps with additional treatment marshes.
''As people know, when they put water in their fish tank and it has too much chlorine or too much ammonia, the fish will died but you can drink that water and it's perfectly safe,'' said Yoder.
Another unknown are what scientists call ''emerging pollutants of concern'' or EPOC -- hormones, steroids, medicines, anti-microbial soaps and food ingredients such as caffeine typically found in household waste. Conventional treatments aren't designed to remove them, and there are no federal or state standards for such contaminants.
While their environmental effects are poorly understood, some studies have linked long-term buildups of compounds to mutations in some aquatic life. In a recent federal study, male bass in the Potomac River were found to be producing eggs like females.
''There are a lot of scary things going on,'' said Cynthia Guerra, executive director of The Tropical Audubon Society. ``There is this big question mark about what the quality of the water will be after treatment and whether it's going to be sufficient to protect human health and the environment.''
Two years ago, in a letter to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Miami-Dade's Water and Sewer Department called for more studies, raising EPOC as one concern about sending treated wastewater into the coastal wetlands.
But now county officials, along with regional water managers and state environmental regulators, downplay any threat from EPOC, which the state calls ``micro-constituents.''
Mike Sole, deputy DEP secretary, said there are ''significant'' efforts at the national level to decide whether EPOC should be regulated.
''Whether or not they actually pose a level of concern is currently a large question,'' he said. ``In most circumstance, they're demonstrated not to.''
Sole said reclaimed water has been used to recharge groundwater for years in Florida and poses no health threat.
Palm Beach County, for instance, just completed a $38 million project that slowly filters highly treated water through a huge wetland before it makes it way back into the public supply system. Eventually, it might reclaim as much as 30 million gallons a day.
LARGEST PLAN
The system Miami-Dade County is considering would quadruple that volume by 2028 and be the largest reuse plant in the state. It is modeled after a more sophisticated treatment system under construction in Orange County, Calif. County and state officials recently toured the site.
The South Miami-Dade plant, now projected to be completed by 2014, would run conventionally treated wastewater through microfilters and reverse osmosis, an oxidation process and ultraviolet light.
''That brings that water to bottled quality,'' said the district's Kowalsky -- and ``removes virtually 99.9 percent of all the micro-constituents.''
The plant also would have the added benefit of sharply reducing the wastewater injected into a bank of deep wells in South Miami-Dade. Because of past leaks, the county is spending nearly $500 million under a consent order with the state to better clean wastewater before pumping it underground.
Once the reclamation plant was on line, only about 30 percent of wastewater ''concentrate'' would be injected underground, along with any daily excesses caused by storm-water runoff.
Beyond the major South Dade plant, the county also is completing a study to broaden reuse efforts, such as golf course irrigation, and is proposing projects to tap into the Floridan Aquifer, a brackish water source deep beneath the Biscayne Aquifer.
LARGEST RECYCLER
The plan would raise the county's reuse percentage from around 5 to more than 40. The statewide reclamation average is about 52 percent, but because Miami-Dade uses so much, it would likely rank as the state's largest wastewater recycler.
Regional water managers and DEP officials want to see more details and commitments from the county, and possibly a faster timeline, before signing off on a new, 20-year consumption permit. Without it, state agencies could slow and even block future development.
The new projects are expected to produce nearly 100 million gallons a day, and would meet the demands of water managers and the state to find ''alternative sources'' to cover the county's future thirst.
''From a planning perspective, we're always trying to have a little bit of a cushion over the expected demand,'' Yoder said.
Miami Herald staff writer Charles Rabin contributed to this story.
Fear of the water authority
Charlotte is right to be cautious, but it should weigh the benefits
Charlotte County was poised to end a decade-long contentious relationship
with the Peace River/Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority, but it got
cold feet.
Last week, the county commissioners delayed a vote on an agreement that would have furthered the county's reliance on the regional water authority. Charlotte backed away from becoming an "exclusive provider customer," postponing a decision until after a study determines how much water might be available on Babcock Ranch. Some commissioners are reluctant to commit to developing potential resources on the ranch on a regional basis.
Charlotte's cautious approach toward making this commitment is understandable. The arrangement should be voluntary and entered into only when both parties clearly realize mutual benefits.
But the commission should recognize the risks in proceeding alone on Babcock. If the county gets little or none of the Babcock water -- which is entirely possible -- or if its supplies are depleted for any reason, the authority would be committed to providing Charlotte with adequate resources.
Exclusive status
Under the exclusive-customer arrangement, the water authority would be responsible for calculating and meeting the county's water needs. Charlotte would maintain ownership of existing facilities, but new sources would be developed regionally.
Of its four member counties -- including Sarasota and Manatee -- only DeSoto has chosen the exclusive-customer route. Because Charlotte already relies on the authority to provide 95 percent of its water supply, it seemed like a logical candidate.
Control of existing supplies or facilities is a long-standing sore point among the region's water haves and have-nots.
Southwest Florida Regional Water Management District funding directives encourage the development of all new sources through regional water authorities. The carrot-and-stick approach appears to be working. Swiftmud has tied funding for new projects to those determined to be regionally significant, and requests for projects must be approved by a water authority to become eligible for state funding.
Uncertain future
Arguing against the go-it-alone approach is that Charlotte faces many challenges in its quest to bank on water beneath Babcock Ranch to meet the county's future needs.
Swiftmud funding policies encourage the use of surface water, retained primarily during the summer rainy season. State policies discourage ground-water use because it requires pumping from sensitive underground aquifers.
Even if ground-water use were permitted, the county would have to broker an agreement to allow pumping from the South Florida water district (in which the ranch is located) to the Southwest Florida district (where the county's water plant is). Such agreements are unusual, but not unprecedented, in Florida. Because Charlotte lies within two districts, the state might be amenable to an interdistrict transfer.
Ground-water use is also more expensive, requiring extensive treatment because it is often of poor quality and highly concentrated with minerals.
Instead of discovering a water bonanza, Charlotte could easily end up holding an empty container called Babcock Ranch.
County Commission: No new rules on
Lake Lafayette developmentLast week, the county commissioners delayed a vote on an agreement that would have furthered the county's reliance on the regional water authority. Charlotte backed away from becoming an "exclusive provider customer," postponing a decision until after a study determines how much water might be available on Babcock Ranch. Some commissioners are reluctant to commit to developing potential resources on the ranch on a regional basis.
Charlotte's cautious approach toward making this commitment is understandable. The arrangement should be voluntary and entered into only when both parties clearly realize mutual benefits.
But the commission should recognize the risks in proceeding alone on Babcock. If the county gets little or none of the Babcock water -- which is entirely possible -- or if its supplies are depleted for any reason, the authority would be committed to providing Charlotte with adequate resources.
Exclusive status
Under the exclusive-customer arrangement, the water authority would be responsible for calculating and meeting the county's water needs. Charlotte would maintain ownership of existing facilities, but new sources would be developed regionally.
Of its four member counties -- including Sarasota and Manatee -- only DeSoto has chosen the exclusive-customer route. Because Charlotte already relies on the authority to provide 95 percent of its water supply, it seemed like a logical candidate.
Control of existing supplies or facilities is a long-standing sore point among the region's water haves and have-nots.
Southwest Florida Regional Water Management District funding directives encourage the development of all new sources through regional water authorities. The carrot-and-stick approach appears to be working. Swiftmud has tied funding for new projects to those determined to be regionally significant, and requests for projects must be approved by a water authority to become eligible for state funding.
Uncertain future
Arguing against the go-it-alone approach is that Charlotte faces many challenges in its quest to bank on water beneath Babcock Ranch to meet the county's future needs.
Swiftmud funding policies encourage the use of surface water, retained primarily during the summer rainy season. State policies discourage ground-water use because it requires pumping from sensitive underground aquifers.
Even if ground-water use were permitted, the county would have to broker an agreement to allow pumping from the South Florida water district (in which the ranch is located) to the Southwest Florida district (where the county's water plant is). Such agreements are unusual, but not unprecedented, in Florida. Because Charlotte lies within two districts, the state might be amenable to an interdistrict transfer.
Ground-water use is also more expensive, requiring extensive treatment because it is often of poor quality and highly concentrated with minerals.
Instead of discovering a water bonanza, Charlotte could easily end up holding an empty container called Babcock Ranch.
Lake Lafayette, out of sight for many Leon County residents, has been beset by fish kills and algae blooms for years, according to scientists.
The Leon County Commission last week refused to consider eventually stricter rules on development in the region - rules that county officials said would help protect the lake and the region's drinking water.
County Commission Chairman Ed DePuy said the rules, including stormwater treatment requirements similar to those in Bradfordville, could halt development in eastern Leon County.
"I don't think some people realize the development moratorium that would create," DePuy told fellow commissioners before voting against the staff recommendations.
Commissioner Bob Rackleff, whose district includes Lake Lafayette, said the commission had requested the scientific study and then rejected its findings. He voted on the losing side along with Commissioner Cliff Thaell.
Leon County received a $332,500 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to study problems and solutions to Lake Lafayette's woes.
The lake is divided by berms into Alford Arm, Upper Lake Lafayette, Piney-Z Lake and Lower Lake Lafayette. Upper Lake Lafayette, which drains into a sinkhole, receives dirty stormwater runoff from Tallahassee and developing eastern Leon County.
The lake was inaccessible to residents for years. But the city and county have acquired park land around the lake in recent years and have begun providing more public access.
The study report by Environmental Research & Design of Orlando fell short of expectations, county officials said, but it still contained good recommendations.
The report said the most important concern was the quality of water flowing into the sinkhole and into the region's underground drinking water supply, according to the county's analysis of the detailed technical report.
The commission agreed to control floating vegetation, to establish planted waterways to filter stormwater and to work with the city to enlarge an existing stormwater pond at Conner Boulevard.
But the commission refused to consider a stormwater standard similar to Bradfordville's, to eliminate countywide use of stormwater filters that scientists say fail to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus, or to require undisturbed buffers of up to 125 feet along tributaries.
"The thought of going down this path with Bradfordville scares me to death," Commissioner Brian Desloge said.
Rackleff said Tuesday's vote ripped out the heart of the staff recommendations.
"It was a retreat by the majority of the commission from our brave talk about protecting lakes and our water quality," Rackleff said.
But DePuy said later he was willing to consider a stronger stormwater standard for Lake Lafayette, just not one as strict as Bradfordville's. And he said it's important that the city also establish stricter standards for protecting Lake Lafayette.
"It's about reaching a compromise and something everyone can live with," DePuy said.
John Dew, president of the Buck Lake Alliance homeowners group, said the commission "sent a clear message that it doesn't want to look at important environmental issues."
Said Buck Lake member Carlos Alvarez: "When it comes 10 years or 20 years from now to say, 'Who killed Lake Lafayette?' - (five commissioners) are going to have to step up to the plate."
Rejected recommendations
Draft ordinance for stormwater standards similar to those in Bradfordville
Draft ordinance to eliminate stormwater-filtration systems countywide
Seek funding to build a berm across a portion of Upper Lake Lafayette for wetland restoration
Establish buffers of 75 to 125 feet along tributaries for developments without stormwater facilities
Approved recommendations
Control floating vegetation near railroad berm
Establish planted waterways to filter stormwater
Control vegetation in Lower Lake Lafayette and Alford Arm to provide public access.
Work with the city to enlarge an existing stormwater pond at Conner Boulevard.
Dike project workers digging for answers
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 17, 2006
In about a month, the Army Corps of Engineers plans to begin its newest attempt to plug the leaks in the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee. But it will take at least a few months more before the corps can begin to answer the questions many people most want to know:
How long will the work take? How much will it cost? How many people will have to lose their homes to make way for the project?
The corps is trying to generate some of those answers by drilling dozens of feet through the dike into the sand, peat and limestone beneath it, looking for clues to the region's hodgepodge geology. The results will tell the engineers how deep they must build an underground concrete wall aimed at blocking leaks - and how much land they'll need to place a gravel berm around the dike.
Those answers are crucial for the Glades, especially for cities such as Pahokee, whose downtown lies near the dike's grassy flank. It's an equally big matter for South Florida's taxpayers, who might have to spend tens of millions of dollars for the land purchases.
Doing nothing also could be costly, state engineering consultants warned last spring in a report that described the dike as a "grave and imminent danger." The report prompted the corps to begin a significant - and probably costly - upgrade of its repair plans, which already carried an estimated price tag around $300 million.
More recently, the corps has said it might need a 150-foot-wide corridor around the 143-mile-long dike, which could push the land costs to as much as $50 million.
The corps says it will be March or April before it can map a precise swath of its real estate needs for the first 4.6 miles of dike it plans to fix, from Port Mayaca south to Sand Cut. In January, the corps plans to start filling a ditch along the dike, an effort that requires no more land.
"If they stick with their 150-foot perimeter around the dike, they're going to be buying the whole city of Pahokee, or a large chunk of it," said Mayor J.P. Sasser, who has called the worries about the dike's dangers overblown. "They'll be purchasing city hall and the water plant."
He added: "I get the impression they won't be doing that."
Luis Ruiz, chief of the corps' geosystems branch in Jacksonville, said the engineers will do all they can to avoid taking homes or businesses, let alone such major features as U.S. 441, railroad tracks and Pahokee's airport. In some locations, the corps can lessen the land purchases by making the underground wall deeper.
But the corps says it can't spare everybody.
People who lose their homes will receive fair market value and could get money to move, said Ruth Clements, land acquisition director at the South Florida Water Management District. The agency typically looks for willing sellers but also has condemnation power.
"This is something that's being done for the safety of everyone," she said. "It's not a 'nice to have.' It's a 'need to have.' We've got people out there, and we've got to make sure they're protected."
Under a long-standing agreement between the state and federal governments, the corps pays the dike's construction costs while the water district buys the land. Clements said both agencies will be reasonable.
One of the first homes that might have to make way is the sea foam-green house where Callie Terrell has lived for more than a half-century near Sand Cut, midway between Port Mayaca and Canal Point.
Ruiz said the corps hasn't decided whether it needs Terrell's home. But its location - nestled at the dike's base west of 441 and the railroad tracks - appears to leave little room to work around it.
Terrell, 95, said she's optimistic.
"I think they'll change the project," she said, peeking out her door in a floral dress while an earth mover rumbled atop the dike behind her house. On the other hand, she said, "if they offered me what I wanted, I might take it."
The corps' previous repair attempt - which began in December 2005 and was halted amid construction flaws last spring - required no new land. But the state consultants' criticisms prompted the corps to revive earlier plans to surround the dike with a gravel berm. The new design also follows the consultants' advice to relocate the proposed concrete wall and make it deeper.
Hence, the corps needs to drill 38 borings into the dike between Port Mayaca and Belle Glade, supplementing the hundreds it has made around the lake in recent years. The new holes will punch as deep as 110 feet below sea level - far below where the corps intends to place the wall - to try to get a complete picture of the leaky and leak-proof layers around the lake.
The corps vows to learn from the failures of New Orleans' levees after Hurricane Katrina. Its Jacksonville office has been drawing staff from Chicago, Alabama and Georgia to help with the dike.
"This is our No. 1 priority," Ruiz said. "It's a different environment for us now. It's a big mandate and we're going to make it happen."
Cowpokes Push a Herd to Honor Cowhunters of Florida's PastKENANSVILLE
The herd appeared at first as an indistinct mass of dull color
visible through a stand of distant cypress trees, so distant that the
assembled audience had to squint as if peering deep into Florida's past. The
only sounds that carried across the grassy expanse were the pops from long,
leather whips wielded by men on horseback.
Suddenly, the bovine specter became real, 1,640 hooves carrying a group of
sinewy, short-horned cattle into the sunlight and toward hundreds of waiting
spectators, who responded with the sort of ovation rarely bestowed upon mere
cows.
But these weren't just any cows. The herd of 410 Corriente cattle,
Mexican-bred relatives of Florida's original scrub cattle, doubled for the
wiry beasts that once roamed the fenceless peninsula, controlled by rugged
"cowhunters" whose percussive whips gave them the common name
Crackers. A team of modern-day Florida cowhunters pushed the cattle into a
pen near a rodeo pavilion, ending the Great Florida Cattle Drive of 2006 on
Dec. 9.
About 520 people - men, women and children - paid $200 per adult, $100 per
child and $25 per horse or mule to take part in the roughly 50-mile trek
through Osceola County, a reenactment of Florida's 1800s cattle drives. The
five-day excursion was enough to make Lakeland's Jerry Baxter long for time
travel.
"I would love it; I think I was born 100 years too late," said
Baxter, 67, one of a dozen Polk Countians who took part. (His brother,
George, a Sebring resident, joined him.) "That's the reason we came -
because of heritage, to find out a little bit about it. We've been in
Florida all our lives and don't really know that much about the old-time
cowboys."
While the gathering stirred fond musings on Florida's past, it also spawned
wistful thoughts about the future. An elegiac mood hovered over the journey,
a reprise of a first cattle drive held in 1995, and many riders said it was
likely to be the last such large-scale march held in Florida.
Lynn Yarborough, whose family has been ranching for four generations in
Seminole County, described her mood as "bittersweet, definitely
bittersweet."
"This is the end of an era, because there is very little contiguous
property left," said Yarborough, joined by her 10-year-old nephew, C.W.
Yarborough, whose mother was pregnant with him when she rode in the 1995
drive. "Eleven years ago, we did a 70-mile drive, and this year we got
30 miles (actually 50), and it was quite difficult to get that
accomplished."
Doyle Conner Jr., son of a former Florida agriculture secretary, likened the
professional cowboy to Florida's endangered species.
"What I think is important is that the memory of the Florida cowhunter
and his lifestyle and his character and his unique way of doing things not
be lost to time," said Conner, 50, a rancher in the Panhandle. "My
purpose, almost my purpose in life, is to see that the memory of that
legendary figure doesn't go quietly into the night."
living history, modern adventure
The original Great Florida Cattle Drive showcased those cowhunters, with
each of Florida's 67 counties sending one designated cattle professional.
Some 700 participants rode on horseback, and others made the trek in 100
horse-drawn wagons.
That journey started near Highway 60 and ventured north, ending at the
Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee, a path now blocked by the spread of
subdivisions. This time, the drive began about 10 miles south of St. Cloud
and headed south to Kenansville, traversing several private ranches as well
as state-owned land.
For the 2006 version, participants were divided into six regional
"circles," with riders wearing bandanas of various colors (orange
for the region including Polk County). Each circle got at least one
opportunity to join the cowhunters at the front of the pack.
The drive was strictly symbolic, an homage to Florida's cowboy history and
its modern agriculture industry, which maintains 1.7 million cattle. The
cows being driven were not beef cattle bound for market but roping cattle on
temporary assignment.
The planners sought a semblance of 1880s authenticity, banning sneakers,
ball caps or other blatantly modern attire. The riders largely complied,
with most wearing boots, flannel and cowboy hats, but anachronisms still
abounded. The neighing of horses competed with the ringing of cell phones.
Some riders carried global-positioning systems on their saddles, and
portable toilets obviated the need for more primitive options. Chuck Odom, a
Georgian, kept a dental floss pick in the band of his cowboy hat.
Much of the drive traversed established dirt roads rather than wilderness,
yet at times, amid the vast expanses of Overstreet Ranch or the palmetto
flatwoods of Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area, it was possible to
envision an earlier Florida devoid of highways, a place where cow hunters
spent weeks driving their herds to market.
"Today, driving those cows, we carried them through areas that are
pretty tough for driving cows," Lakeland's Ken Sutton said on Thursday.
"You wonder how you can make them go through the water, but if you've
got enough people driving them you can actually drive them any kind of way
you want to."
Jordan Mullany was one of many children on the drive, joining her parents,
Tom and Alison Mullany of Groveland.
"It's been like an adventure," Jordan, 8, said after Thursday's
12-mile ride. "I saw two deer today, a buck and a doe, and a rabbit.
And a snake, a black racer."
The team members came from varied backgrounds, but most had never ridden in
such a large group before - nor had their horses. Jerry Baxter's horse
bucked for the first hour before settling down. Several riders dropped out
after the first day.
"If you bring a young horse here riding in all this crowd, by the time
you get home you'll either be bonded or one of you will be dead," said
Charlene Bielling, a Marion County resident riding a gelding named Oops.
The horses' rumps were marked with orange paint slashes, and a few had
additional decoration. Joan Sutton of Lakeland tied a red ribbon on the tail
of Little Lady as a warning to others of the mare's tendency to kick.
"You see horses bucking people off, laying down in the water, getting
off in mudholes, kicking people, running into trees," said Ken Sutton,
her husband.
Mark Davis, a veterinarian from Arcadia, signed up for the drive as a
civilian, hoping simply to take photos. But shortly before the start,
planners asked him to lend his medical services.
Davis was summoned Thursday to examine a brown horse named Bobby, the steed
of Skeeter Bowers, a Seminole Indian serving as a cowhunter. Davis applied a
stethoscope to Bobby and examined his gums, finding a paleness that
indicated colic, a bowel problem. He slid a long, plastic tube through the
horse's left nostril and deep into its digestive tract, pumping in water
from a bucket, before urging Bowers to take Bobby to a veterinary hospital
for intravenous fluids.
Another horse required an infusion of electrolytes and an injection of
vitamin E and selenium to combat the buildup of lactic acid. And it wasn't
just horses feeling the effects of the long march.
"Yeah, you feel tired at the end of the day," said Ken Sutton, 67,
sitting before a campfire one evening. "But it's, I'd say, a
relaxed-type tired."
Even for those not fatigued, an early bed on Thursday evening helped prepare
for the following morning, when Alturas resident David Hunt - circle boss
for the Polk region - banged a cowbell at 5 a.m. to rouse his crew, who left
their tents to the ever-present smell of horse manure.
compadres
The drive drew a mix of ages, genders and backgrounds, including Florida
Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, who rode for one day. But there
didn't appear to be any black participants - a decided break from historical
veracity. Conner, noting that one-third of 19th-century cowboys were black,
Hispanic or American Indian, said organizers didn't exclude anyone and would
have welcomed black riders.
Pedro "Pete" Garcia, a Cuban native, came to the cattle drive
from Clewiston not knowing anyone else who would be riding and "scared
to death" he would feel isolated, but he soon found a group of fellow
Cuban-Americans and ended up camping with them each night.
"I thought it was going to be a lonely thing, and then I met all my compadres,"
Garcia, 60, said with a grin. "We're all drinking Cuban coffee and
having a good time."
The Seminole Tribe of Florida was well represented, fitting for a group that
began ranching in the 1500s after horses and cattle arrived in Florida with
Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon. Skeeter Bowers and other Seminoles wore
the lime-green bandanas of the cowhunter circle, and Billy Joe Johns drove a
horse-drawn, covered wagon that also carried his wife, Tara, and their
8-year-old son, Jobe.
Johns, a prosperous rancher who grew up on a South Florida reservation,
loaned about a third of the cattle for the drive. He drove his wagon from
camp before sunrise Friday morning to follow the herd, as Jobe remained
asleep inside. A bald eagle glided overhead and landed atop a power pole
along Joe Overstreet Road as the horses' bells tinkled.
The caravan moved along at about 4 mph, the equivalent of a human's brisk
walking pace, and planners provided portable water troughs at regular
intervals. Skeeter Bowers appeared atop Bobby, the horse treated for colic
the day before, reporting with relief that Bobby had "used the restroom
two or three times." Both horse and rider made it to the end of the
drive.
Jobe eventually emerged from the wagon, shivering in the chill. Describing
himself as "born with boots on," he told of being kicked by a
horse at age 3 in Idaho. (His father said it was more of a gentle push.) The
brown-haired, green-eyed third-grader strapped on a pair of spurs and
climbed astride his chestnut-hued horse, Cash, explaining, "You tickle
the horse, and it makes them go."
lamenting what's lost to growth
Riders camped each night in tents, their horses tied to lines strung between
trees. As night fell Thursday at Overstreet Ranch, on the shore of Lake
Kissimmee, dozens of campfires pierced the darkness and sent forth a smoky
aroma.
The Polk County contingent gathered around one such fire, resting on camp
chairs, roasting marshmallows on palmetto stalks and chatting.
"Sitting around a fire like this, talking, that's the joy of it,"
Ken Sutton said. "That's one of the natures of the cowboy life."
Sutton reminisced about learning to ride horses at age 4. He said neighbors
in Lakeland took him along as a child on two-day cattle drives from
Kissimmee to a market at Holopaw.
"They let me out of school for that; I did that for 16 years," he
said in a rich drawl. "What they'd do is four or five different ranches
would get together and get the cows they wanted to take down and maybe five
or 10 people from each one of the ranches. Today, you got trucks, and you
just load them up. I guess the real beauty of something like this is to do
it again knowing there is still some open land to be able to ride on."
The rapid disappearance of pastures in Florida was a common topic of
conversation around campfires and inside the chow tent.
"There is a plague in Florida, and it's called dirt peddlers; you might
call it real estate," said Carl Sharp, a self-proclaimed Cracker cowboy
poet and the drive's oldest participant at age 92. "It's real, real
sad."
Tyler Pella, 11, looked every bit the cowboy as he stood beside Sharp in the
campfire's orange glow. His father, Louie Pella, has a small ranch and has
worked as a cowhand in Hardee County for years, but these days he gets more
income from building fences for new subdivisions.
Tyler rode a paint horse named Shorty, one he said has "Cracker blood
in him." His family has worked cattle for four generations, but he
worried about the future of the cowboy life.
"It makes me feel bad, because this is part of a lot of people's
history, and if it ends a lot of people will be left without jobs,"
Tyler said. "Cowboys, that's all they've done for their lives. That's
all they know, riding a horse. The way things are looking, some people might
not be able to do this kind of thing."
'This is our heritage'
Symbolism abounded at the end of the cattle drive as two men rode in tandem
directly behind the herd, leading the parade of wagons and riders.
Mike Wilder, a cattleman, represented the remnant of working cowboys in
Florida, while Andrew Bowers, a member of the Seminole Tribal Council,
reflected the agricultural heritage of Florida's native people.
The drive culminated in the Florida Cow Culture Celebration, and banners
hung at Kenansville's rodeo pavilion incongruously featured a stylized
version of "Kissimmee," with the two M's forming peaks suggestive
of Walt Disney World's Space Mountain roller coaster ride. Kissimmee, 50
years ago literally a cow town, now has a main strip lined with neon-lit
shops peddling souvenirs to tourists.
Robert Burney, one of the cowhunters on the cattle drive, worried that the
shadow of the Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowland might eclipse the proud past of
Florida's cowboys.
"This is our heritage; that's what Florida was built on," Burney
said. "There's still so much more to Florida than Mickey Mouse. Half
the world doesn't even know Florida is a cattle state. It's real important
to educate people on the cattle industry and what we're all about."
With the cattle safely delivered into their pen, Wilder looked on with
satisfaction and spoke words likely to have been heard at the close of a
genuine cattle drive 120 years earlier: "OK, boys, let's go get a
drink."
Gary White can be reached at gary.white @theledger.com or at 863-802-7518.
Citrus Forecast A Bit Better
By GARY PINNELLgpinnell@highlandstoday.com
SEBRING — Rainfall and cool temperatures came just in time to improve Florida’s orange crop, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Monday.
But it likely will make little difference, the executive directors of the Highlands and Hardee county growers associations said Wednesday.
The USDA upgraded expectations for Florida oranges by 4 percent to 140 million boxes of fruit. That’s up from 135 million boxes predicted in October, which would be the worst crop since the 1989-90 season.
It’s still a rather bad crop, said Barbara Carlton, executive director of the Peace River Valley Citrus Growers Association
“I don’t think that’s enough of a chance to influence prices, and consumer and grove prices don’t correlate anyway,” Carlton said.
Most Highlands growers thought the revised estimate would go down by 3-4 million boxes, not up by 5 million boxes, said Raymond D. Royce, executive director of Highlands County Citrus Growers Association Inc.
The expected shortfall has driven up supermarket and commodity exchange prices, because the Sunshine State produces about 90 percent of the juice on U.S. shelves.
If the revised estimate has any effect, it likely will stabilize retail prices, Royce said.
By now, most growers have sold their early-to mid-crop Hamlin oranges, even though they’re still on the trees, said Carlton. It could change the prices of Valencia oranges, which will be picked from March to July.
Both Carlton and Royce felt that perfect rainfall totals won’t substantially affect the size or quality of the orange crops to be harvested in early 2006. But a freeze could damage the fruit and cause it to drop early, or June and July hurricanes could knock the fruit off the tree.
Crop estimates can change in one of two ways, Royce said. Fruit can become more full of juice, filling up a 90-pound box with fewer pieces of fruit. Trees can also produce more fruit, but that’s not likely, he said, because the number of fruit is determined when the tree blooms. That’s when rainfall is critical.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Restriction Leaves Kumquat Growers Out On Limb
Published: Dec 17, 2006
DADE CITY - Frank Gude can't understand it.
First, the United States Department of Agriculture told him he can't ship kumquat leaves and stems north of the *Suwannee River.
Then, last week, the USDA announced it will allow certain kumquat plants to be shipped out of state, just not the leaves and stems Gude ships from his St. Joseph business, Kumquat Growers.
"If they are allowing them to ship plants, why don't they allow us to ship kumquat branches?" Gude asked Friday. "They're the same thing."
In an effort to stop the spread of citrus canker, the USDA this year enacted a rule restricting Florida citrus growers from shipping to other citrus-producing states.
The restriction concerned Pasco's kumquat growers because it also prohibited the shipment of kumquat leaves and stems anywhere north of the Suwannee River. Leaves and stems account for about 40 percent of Gude's sales each year.
Last week, the USDA lifted the restriction for kumquat plants shipped with their own roots. This generally applies to potted plants grown in nurseries.
Gude's leaves and stems are clipped from trees in area groves, meaning they cannot be shipped. Stephen Poe, a plant pathologist with the USDA, said the restriction on plant material clipped from trees isn't likely to be changed for at least six months.
"They're still trying to get some help from us, but it's not clear there's going to be any way to relieve the problem for them short of going through a rule-making process," he said. "We're in the midst of that right now, but it's, like, slow."
Poe and other canker experts acknowledge kumquats have shown a great deal of resistance to the disease.
"Are branches cut from groves riskier [for spreading canker] than plants in gallon cans?" Poe said. "I don't know. It can be argued that maybe because of the condition of nursery stock and it being a more carefully controlled environment it's less of a risk. I don't know how valid that argument is."
Kumquats are small, tart-tasting ovals harvested from November to March. Gude and the area's eight other growers have made Pasco County the unofficial kumquat capital of the world.
The holiday season is pivotal for growers and sellers of the fruit. People who celebrate Chinese New Year purchase kumquats with leaves and stems to give to friends. Kumquats also are used as a garnish with many holiday dishes.
The restriction is taking a toll on Kumquat Growers, though it's not threatening the business, Gude said. Normally, the company sells about 1,200 bushels a week in December, he said. This month, they've been averaging 800.
"The thing that really concerns me is whether we'll be able to sell all of our fruit," Gude said. "At this rate, if we have as much fruit out there as I think we do, we may get to the point where we won't be able to pick it fast enough. It's only good for a length of time, and then it starts to get overripe on you."
Reporter Todd Leskanic can be reached at (352) 521-3156 or tleskanic@tampatrib.com.