The Political Whore

That RED R over your house does NOT stand for Republican!

Welcome to Chapter 4 of the Lithia Pinecrest Chronicles. If you want some history you can see Chapter 1 here, Chapter 2 here and Chapter 3 here. If you weren’t a NIMBY (Not in my back yard) before………….. seeing your house on an aerial map of a road widening study with a big-ass red R on top of it that stands for RELOCATION just might do it!

[To backtrack, Lithia Pinecrest Road is a two-lane highway through a rural stretch of eastern Hillsborough County. It has been targeted for widening to accommodate an increasing number of new subdivisions and their traffic. Activists have questioned the need to six-lane the road at its most rural point, receiving conflicting answers from county transportation planners.]

There are some homeowners in section B (an urban residential area) who have lived there more than 30 years only to see that R is now over their home. What could be worse than living in your home for more than three decades only to have the county decide it might need to take your land to accommodate its ill-begotten sprawl? Well, finding out that some of the numbers planners used in their study to generate their projections for future traffice came from a subdivision more than 14 miles away…………that might be worse. Learning that the same firm responsible for designing the cracking reservoir is running the WHOLE freakin’ study ……….that could be worse. Learning that this was all started by ex-Commissioner Ronda Storms, whose past victims include gays, the separation of Church and State, The Dewey Decimal System, Nudie Bars, past, current, and future County Commission Boards ……..and now your house?……………….that could be worse.

Well, it isn’t a done deal yet right so you still have time to fight it, after all it is your current Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) that will make the final decision on this, so chin up. But learning that your current district County Commissioner Al ‘you all should meet with the developers’ Higginbotham seems to be the biggest cheerleader of the project………now that could be the worst! We have several Commissioners who are not only good but a few who even qualify as exceptional. Don’t get excited………….. I said a few. We have seven altogether. The majority have deplorable records promoting sprawl as well as other questionable dealings. Many of them tried to kill our local wetlands regulations. One misspent campaign contributions, has a business that is a possible conflict of interest, is accused of sexual harassment from a former aide and accused by a convict who claimed the commissioner promised votes for campaign contributions. One was a lobbyist or at least he was registered as one but then later seemed to deny it during a conflict of interest investigation (that would be your own district Commissioner Higginbotham, you kids with the big ass R over your house). One appears to be very good buddies with Buddy Johnson.……..still talking about your Commissioner District 4 Red Rs! Remember that at the next elections, would ya? One tried to spend $40 million of your money on a soccer park and wanted to put it out in BFE where it would create a negative impact on roads and services and of course promote sprawl. That same one enjoys a luxury suite at your considerable expense to watch the Bucs play. Five of them recently voted to rename the Moral Courage award after their shuga daddy.

Are these the BOZOs that you want to decide whether your house gets flattened by eminent domain or not? Me neither so please pay attention before you vote………it could be your house under the big ass R next time! Not that you could find your house if it was under the R! To find this you have to go to the study’s website and click on the What’s New button (we are taking your house that is what’s new!) and then you have to click on the segment of the map you are concerned with. Next scroll down to aerial views and you still won’t see it because it is way too small. Click on an aerial view and then download it. After you download it you will have to increase the resolution to 100 percent (mine initially came up at 27 percent). Nice game of hide and seek. Don’t forget you paid $2.5 million for this study.

Many residents along the path of potential construction destruction feel just sick about this. I had that same feeling upon seeing my whole property covered up by the Green Swath of Death so I know it well. It can make NIMBYs (or even citizen bloggers) out of the most unlikely of characters.

The more we dig into this thing the worse it smells. The good news is people are starting to pay attention and not just the ones living under an R. R-LAND is being contacted by residents well outside our little community asking for information. The Trib did a recent editorial on this subject and its interpretations of the federal guidelines were not in line with the crap the county and highly paid consultants were spewing. Wish I would have thought of the line they used describing the county possibly putting it’s largest road through one of it’s smallest communities but I am glad someone thought of it. Road to nowhere also comes to mind, since out past 39, Lithia Pinecrest goes through the phosphate mines and if I recall correctly mining zoning is usually 1 per 20 acres (yeah, they need 6 lanes dumping into 2 lanes of that zoning). I was gonna say good try boys but not even close.

Urgent Call to Action sent out from Brandon Chamber

Looks like we have the Brandon Chamber leaders scrambling as well. They sent out an e-mail recently to their members with the title URGENT CALL TO ACTION on it describing how just a few rural types have put the whole Lithia Pinecrest Study in jeopardy and asked them to contact their commissioners, contact the project manager and encouraged them to attend a recent Saturday morning coffee in Brandon with Commissioner Kevin Beckner. While I was unable to attend the coffee, I did hear from several attendees all with the similar comments disgusted at what a Mr. George May, who evidently is the past Chair of the Brandon Chamber, had to say on the subject. I heard he was worried about a few “vocal crackpots” that might hurt the study. We so apologize for trying to save our community and even some people’s homes. How very rude of us, Mr. May. Of course it should be fine to waste taxpayer dollars, possibly cook numbers to show an inflated need and then lie to citizens…………that is just good Hillsborough government right? If you can’t understand that the people living under the path of the widening do not want to lose their homes and us rural types don’t want Lithia to end up looking like Brandon then you might want to reconsider who gets the title of Vocal Crackpot!

What can you do? Stay tuned……this ain’t over till the fat girl reads all the emails and gets the rest of the facts. It is looking worse by the day for this spending spree of tax dollars they call a study. You can write your BOCC about the project here. Be sure to thank Commissioner Sharpe for taking an interest in this. He asked to meet with some of us after we voiced our concerns on the record at the Jan MPO meeting. I don’t always agree with Commissioner Sharpe but the guy never fails to greet me with a smile and is always open to hearing our concerns. He appeared very concerned on how this situation was handled and expressed his willingness to continue investigating the situation. Thank You Commissioner Sharpe! You can contact the highly paid consultants here.

Message to Elected Officials and Staff

I would also just like to mention for any elected officials or staff reading this that none of this information would have been uncovered regarding this whole project if citizens hadn’t been lied to about segment D of the project in the first place. If you hadn’t tried to plow through the rural area and then lied to us about it none of the rest of this would have been uncovered. Just keep that in mind.

Kelly Cornelius is an activist with R-Land and a regular contributor to PoHo blog.

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