In this week's Urban Explorer, I profiled local crabber Gus Muench and his proposal to turn Cockroach Bay into a sanctuary.
This isn't the first time Muench has worked with county leaders to protect Cockroach Bay. In 1986, the editorial boards of both daily papers wrote about the local crabber and his mission to preserve Cockroach Bay. It caught the attention of several county leaders, including then-Hillsborough County Commissioner Jan Platt, who was working on a program that would pool a small fraction of county property taxes into a fund allowing the county to buy undeveloped land to preserve. It was called the Environmental Lands Acquisition and Preservation Program (ELAPP).
This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2008.