Latest Cone Ranch threat: County Admin Pat Bean implies it must be sold to keep bond ratings up
July 20, 2009 at 2:32 pm by Kelly Cornelius
By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist
Remember when the whole idea behind the Cone Ranch possible sale was because Commissioner Ken “Half-Truth” Hagan wanted to “preserve it” after being asked by big-time Republican donors to subdivide and sell off Cone Ranch [more than 12,000 acres of publicly owned land in Northeast Hillsborough County]?
The county now has an advisory board pondering this deal. You can read my take on their first meeting here. This second meeting started with County Administrator Pat Bean addressing the panel lobbing threats about the state of the county water utility which owns the land. Wasn’t this panel supposed to be objective? Yet here we have the County Administrator throwing in her 2 cents. She did admit that the land was already preserved though, glad we got that cleared up. Recall the earlier threats that the Florida Environmental and Conservation Group (FCEG) (the group pushing the sale) made implying that the alternative could be commercial or residential development.
Bean said that the water utilities director Mr. Vanderploog was very concerned over the utlilities bond rating and did not want it to fall. Hmmmm, I thought he cleared that concern up when he asked Commissioners to approve a rate hike recently in water fees, which they did! Now Bean implies the sale of Cone Ranch could be necessary to save the bond rating? Unbelievable.
Recall the referendum on ballot regarding preserving land last year passed overwhelmingly even though Ms. Bean didn’t want to put it on the ballot. Hillsborough County Voters want land to be preserved Ms. Bean. Come early get a program.
During Monday’s meeting the panel also got a history lesson on Cone Ranch, a wetlands update and water quality concerns. There was also a briefing on the procedure of disposing of county property describing some interesting loopholes where a competitive bidding process can be avoided (like to non for profit groups….like what FCEG is proposing) uh-huh, or other governmental agencies (like ELAPP!)
Then the meeting took an unexpected twist with Rosanne Clementi making a motion to recommend to Commissioners that they do not dispose of the property. Hugh Gramling seconded it which raised both my eyebrows considering his recent involvement against wetlands. On the surface this motion sounded OK but as Clementi (with the help of Gramling) clarified their her motion they made it clear that while they did not want the land to officially change hands they still wanted to make recommendations as to the future use of the land and hinted about other ways it could make money (call me jaded but this made me think they might be toying with the idea of letting private companies come in and use the land for profit … maybe a lucrative wetland mitigation bank?) In other words, what came to my mind was the county pimping out publicly owned land to turn a private profit (throwing the county a few bones along the way of course) and shutting up those pesky residents by not actually selling the land. I know, I know, jaded. This motion would effectively appear take ELAPP (the county’s own land-buying program) out of the picture too.
Dee Layne, Pamela Jo Hatley and Chairwoman Heidi McCree voiced concerns over the prematurity of Clementi’s motion and the fact that FCEG had not even given their official proposal yet (do they even have one?) and that they didn’t know all the facts regarding conservation easements. Clementi and Gramling pushed hard for their motion and I couldn’t help but wonder about the speed at which he seconded it and the hard lobbying he did for it. Hmmmm.
Clementi’s motion failed (a count was not given). The panel will continue to meet and they will hear a detailed (hopefully) proposal from FCEG as well as other options. You can follow their meeting schedule as well as find information about this issue here.
Does this land really need to be “restored” or does it function fine as is? Maybe we could have our EPC do an updated and indepth study? Oh yeah, Ms. Bean’s budget cuts threaten to cripple them. If restoration rather than preservation is now the goal then maybe panelists can suggest a restoration plan to County Commissioners in whatever form keeps the land in public hands.
