Brock Finds He's Content On Sidelines

By TOM JACKSON The Tampa Tribune

Published: Apr 27, 2008

DADE CITY - Tuesday night, Dade City's slightly reconstituted governing board convened to probe, for the first time, municipal life in the post-Hutch world. The first hint that all has not been forgiven or forgotten - campaign rhetoric notwithstanding - emerged when commissioners selected the former mayor's successor.

Rather than endorse Curtis Beebe's idea of promoting Vice Mayor Steve Van Gorden to the big chair, Eunice Penix and her pal, Camille Hernandez - the straw that agitates the drink - coalesced to resist the new guy's plan, no doubt regarding it as an extension of Dade City as "Brockville."

Instead, they opted for a "Back to the Future" sequel. Thus was the affable, understated Scott Black, Mr. Oil on Troubled Waters, restored to the (largely ceremonial) seat he occupied from 2000 to 2004. The openly ambitious Van Gorden, the middle school principal with a million ideas for improving Dade City, was reappointed as Black's first lieutenant.

And where was the recently decommissioned mayor while all this political intrigue was unfolding? Exactly where his conscience and his upbringing told him he ought to be: bolt upright in the football stands at Pasco High, studying the easy gait of the blond, slender 14-year-old miler who bears an astonishing resemblance to his mom, the peripatetic Natalie.

Previewing this idyllic plan for the evening Tuesday afternoon, Hutchison Brock II quoted others who found themselves able to speak only after they'd lifted their chins from the floor: "You're kidding, right?"

Like Father, Like Son

No, he said. He absolutely was not kidding. Not that he had lost interest in the events and competing interests in the city board room. But just now, at 43 and fresh off eight years in the barrel of public life, the events and competing interests of his family are much more compelling.

This was, after all, how his dad - one of the great men of his era - went about the business of fathering his kids. Woody Allen, the angst-ridden New York comic philosopher, hadn't met Pete Brock when he asserted, "Ninety percent of life is just showing up." But Pete Brock was the poster dad for Allen's accuracy.

Once a captain of influence at the old Lykes Pasco processing plant during its thriving years, a go-to guy in the life of his town and an eminently draftable candidate for whatever local youth league needed a president, Pete Brock nonetheless spent hours picking up fanny splinters in the bleachers where his kids romped in organized play.

If he could, then so can the great man's only son.

The problem until just recently had been the drowning pool of city demands. Last fall, for instance, Mayor Brock was so often submerged in meetings of boards and committees that he missed his kids' - Carson and "the little guys," as the triplets are collectively known - soccer games seven times. If he didn't change the pace, "they'd all be grown," Brock says, "and I'd have missed it."

Unbowed By Hurricane Camille

This explanation is for everyone who thinks Brock's appetite for politics soured over the baseless and hysterical charges of "deceit, ulation" brought against him last summer in a letter, soon to become legendary, sent to Gov. Charlie Crist. Brock blasted to smithereens Hernandez's claims with meticulously footnoted board meeting records, even as Beebe - a Brock ally and his successor on the commission - organized an effort to get her recalled.

"What that was all about," Brock says now, unencumbered by the responsibility of the gavel, "is that no one was listening to Camille, and she didn't like it."

The episode ripped the fabric of commission relationships and pushed residents onto either side of the gash, causing unflattering comparisons to Dade City's perpetually quarrelsome cousins on Pasco's west side. The unrest festered beyond Labor Day, when Brock persuaded Beebe to shut down his recall campaign, and commissioners pledged to make nice.

Which they did, more or less, despite simmering rivalries that boiled over during the spring campaign that pitted Brock's acolytes against Hernandez's recruits. The voters' gift to the outgoing mayor was their overwhelming preference, in two of three races, for Brockville candidates Beebe and Van Gorden.

Dade City's Challenges

Now, not even the longest-serving elected official leaves with an empty to-do list, and Brock acknowledges that Dade City faces challenges that began during his eight-year (four as mayor) watch. Vacancies in the downtown's business district are an ongoing vexation, as is the failure to secure a new home for city hall.

He also argues, however, that through attention to infrastructure - a thankless task; "It's hard to get people excited about things below the sidewalks," Brock says - strict attention to border issues, a determination to hold on to its police force and a recovering youth recreation program, the town is coiled to spring on opportunities that re-emerge when the economy comes around.

Still, he is content, for the moment, with life on the sidelines, symbolically and literally, as a coach for the 11-year-old triplets Connor, Coleman and Ashton's soccer team. No, not content. Ecstatic.

"You know what we did last weekend? The little guys had a soccer tournament in New Port Richey. We were up and in the car both mornings at 6, didn't get home until after dark. We had a ball. And," he adds with just a dash of pride, "they won it. They won the whole tournament."

'Hay In The Barn'

Brock's grin, framed in a week's growth of whiskers, approaches goofiness. Life is good. While his family thrives, his law practice - a four-partner branch of the University of Florida law school mafia - bristles with new and intriguing business, not an insignificant consideration for someone with four college educations to subsidize just beyond the horizon. Says Brock, "Gotta put some hay in the barn."

At some point, however, he imagines re-entering the electoral arena. Like the courtroom or the negotiating table, the live, unscripted theater of politics whets Brock's competitive appetite.

"I would never say never," he says, "but there's nothing out there right this minute."

If he does, when he does, he'll be packing reputation, accomplishment and the estimable goodwill of his hometown. The rest is timing and opportunity.

For now, it's enough to be dad, coach and fan for the kids; husband, confidant and best friend for Natalie; and rainmaking colleague for Johnson, Auvil, Brock & Wilson, P.A.

When the hunger returns, we'll know.

Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219.