Even when we win, we lose: A vote against a Hillsborough project
March 21, 2009 at 5:03 am by Kelly CorneliusBy Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist
Two Comprehensive Plan amendments that would have breached the Hillsborough County Urban Service Boundary, violated the Comprehensive and Community Plans as well as pushed us further down the slippery slope of sprawl were shot down 7-0 Thursday night by the County Commission. Don’t get too excited, because as often the case, even when we win we lose (mainly because the unsavory characters on the Commission are still in office the next day).
The applicant, Tom Shannon, was was asking for a Rural Commercial category, which would have increased the current regulations of 20,000 sq ft to 110,000 sq ft (yeah, that is rural in scale) and he showed up with several supporters, the majority of whom identified themselves as developers or real estate people and even one ex-football player, Vinnie Testaverde.The one-time Bucs QB spoke in support of of the amendments, citing concerns with the current dangerous traffic situation (by all means add two 110,000 sq ft buildings and according to their representative 500 jobs at that corner) that ought to solve your traffic concerns Mr. Testaverde. (If Shelton Quarles ever needs any help on TBARTA maybe Vinnie would volunteer?) While the amendment was directed at Keystone, if approved it could have done damage county-wide. It was really just another poorly disguised attempt at expanding the Urban Service Boundary. Not to be outdone, the rural crowd had their own celebrity show up and fight for Keystone.
Commissioner Al ” the New Blair” Higginbotham started out in what sounded like support for the applicant but in true Blair fashion stopped short of giving his actual position and asked Commissioner Jim Norman what he thought. We told you he was the New Blair.
Commissioner Rose Ferlita made the motion to go with staff’s recommendation to deny the application but not before she threw applicant’s representative, Vin Marchetti, under the bus for his last minute horse-trading tactics, which is often the case with bad amendments he is hawking. This brought cheers from the large crowd from Keystone and other parts of the county that attended in opposition. Commissioner Kevin Beckner also indicated he wasn’t going to support it, and one by one the rest of them got on board (not without first subjecting the crowd to lengthy discussions sucking up to both sides by most of them). At this point I realized if residents got four votes we were going to get all seven because what politician wants to be crucified for voting poorly when they know it won’t pass anyway? (Even Team Sprawl was smart enough to do this math.)
So why did we did we still lose? Well, with influential people like these showing up, it seemed to me the gang of 4-5 had to throw them some kind of bone. I say five because Commissioner Mark Sharpe just seems to love compromise. Sometimes that is a good thing, but in the case of the environment or rural areas, compromise almost always means DEMISE, and watching his lengthy struggle with this was not only frustrating it was time consuming.
The Team Sprawl member with the most seniority, Norman, crafted a way to get around the inconsistencies with the Comp Plan with help from Paula Harvey from Planning and Growth Management, and they directed staff to work on a land development code (LDC) change to address this issue. That vote? 4-3 (Ferlita, Beckner, and Sharpe (finally) voting NO!) Team Sprawl pulled a fast one……..and Al “the New Blair” Higginbotham, Kevin“I am supposed to be a Dem? White, Jim “a soccer park will solve everything” Norman and Ken“I never actually say a word” Hagan blew one past us at the request of Vin Marchetti. Did I mention that he is the same Marchetti that fellow TSA board members are accusing of being in cahoots with Norman where it looks like they just engineered the forced resignation of the director? Yep, that Marchetti and that Norman. Welcome to Collusionville I mean Hillsborough. This is what we are fighting.
So who knows when that LDC will rear its ugly head or if we will even catch it. I thought that any action items taken by the board had to be publicly noticed and that the public should have the opportunity to speak on any items before a vote. That NEVER occurred with Commissioner Jim “Anything for you, Vin” Norman’s motion. I sent my question asking for legal clarification to County Attorney Renee Lee regarding that action. I will let you know of her response. Sure seemed like Higginbotham was looking to Norman for guidance and Norman and Vin seemed to have the play working beautifully (looks like they might hold practice over at Sports Authority meetings). Was this thing pre-cooked? I will let you be the judge of that.
Round two is April 2, when our favorite developer Stephen Dibbs will be the applicant. Should be interesting watching the five recipients of Mr. Dibbs’ campaign contributions (White, Norman, Sharpe, Higginbotham and Hagan) painfully deliberate on that decision, which should be a no-brainer. Sadly, the majority of that County Commission actually redefine the phrase NO-Brainer!
