4 Hillsborough Commissioners Are All Wet

By STEVE OTTO

Published: Jun 29, 2007

Coming back on Interstate 75 from a too-long trip back across the country, we rolled into Pasco County. What passes for leadership in Pasco has decided it is going to be a good thing if every interstate exit has at least one megamall. They apparently have studied the traffic nightmare on State Road 54 and figured it's what we want our future to be up and down the county.

As we cruised toward Tampa there already was cleared land, much of it wetlands, and construction is under way. I figure by this time next year, state roads 52 and 56 will be matching S.R. 54 in creating a total mess.

I was still grumbling about Pasco an hour or so later after we finally made it home, unpacked a few essentials and I had settled down to wade through three weeks of Mother Trib to see what was going on.

It didn't take long to get to our own county commissioners and the news that they are about to eliminate the local Environmental Protection Commission's wetlands safeguards.

The Gang Of 4

Chairman Jim Norman and Commissioners Ken Hagan, Kevin White and Brian Blair were the ones who voted to eliminate the wetlands protection division and get rid of its 29 employees. I checked with some sources, and it actually could be as many as 38 people.

Looking at a transcript of the meeting, a couple of things were obvious. For one, the commissioners were only vaguely aware of everything they were doing. More importantly, they didn't really care.

Blair seemed miffed that EPC Executive Director Rick Garrity even wanted to make a scheduled three-minute presentation, which was all the commissioners allowed as they went about the initial steps of killing off the division.

The larger issue, unless you happen to be one of those about to be whacked, would be to eliminate a safety check in the permitting process for developers.

Will it save taxpayers money? Yes.

Will it affect our lives? Maybe you haven't been paying attention as the commissioners seem to agree on only one thing: that what this county is going to look like in 20 years doesn't mean anything to them.

Water, unless it's a lake in a commissioner's backyard, is not important.

Transportation is only important if it involves how much of a car allowance you can soak taxpayers for.

Schools probably are a necessity as long as they don't slow down the process of paving the rest of the county.

Last Chance

There still is a public hearing to come on the issue in August, if the commissioners haven't changed the rules to ban the public from speaking.

Environmental activist Mariella Smith, who has been fighting a losing battle to prevent developers from swallowing up everything from Apollo Beach to the Little Manatee River, called the move "the lowest moment in the county's history."

An editorial in Mother Trib tempered her remarks, pointing out this is the same county where they led three commissioners off in handcuffs for taking bribes.

The difference now is that this crowd is not accused of doing anything illegal. They are just too stupid to understand what they are doing to our county, or they really don't care. Either way, we come out on the short end.