Our Planning Commission recently proposed a Visioning project to our Hillsborough County Commission. In a nutshell, this would consist of coordinating land use with transportation planning. Historically, transportation drives land use; just drive along any toll road plopped down in an area that was previously rural in this state and you can see the Monopolyesque houses stacked up on either side of it — we call this sprawl.
Planning land use with transportation seems to make good sense. What doesn't make good sense is handing over a project like this to a public-private partnership like One Bay, whose private business supporters could certainly benefit from its planning outcome. Yet this is what our County Commission was ultimately proposing. I got on One Bay's website and clicked on to the Smart Growth button and, not so ironically, the first two articles listed that day were about toll roads.
Our County Commission has been accused of being blind to having a balanced vision for Hillsborough's future, and sadly, they have proven this again and again. They denied the Planning Commission $100,000 it sought for its Visioning project. (which, by the way, had been allocated to it last year and lost on a technicality). Commissioner Mark Sharpe's recent commentary suggested that One Bay be a part of the of this Visioning project along with the Planning Commission. To his credit, he tried to give it to the Planning Commission alone on two other occasions, but the rest of the boys on the board weren't buying. I suspect that is because the Planning Commission is the only objective agency we have in this county that promotes smart growth and discourages sprawl.
In an effort to compromise, Sharpe suggested the Planning Commission work with One Bay since One Bay already had a vision. Why were we NIMBY's, informed citizens, and activists so opposed to this? Because we know how developers can hijack a project and felt what little voice we do have would certainly be overshadowed by special interests. If I recall correctly, One Bay's big claim to fame, Reality Check, was an exercise with Legos that people had to be invited to. Does this seem conducive to public input? Evidently that is what they are assembling their Vision from. Sorry, I just can't see it.
I am not opposed to everybody having a voice, but I and many others feel that the Planning Commission should take the lead in the project. Its staff serves this community with pride, ethics and integrity. They provide an objective, balanced approach, taking into consideration all views. They have proven to me that their recommendations are in the best interest of the community and not driven by any political bias or hidden agendas.
As we watched what we thought was the beginning of the end of citizen's voices on March 6 as Commissioner Al Higginbotham made a motion to have the County Commission participate in One Bay's technical advisory meetings (and he mentioned they had already paid One Bay a consulting fee!) and come back in 30 days. Mark Sharpe made a substitute motion (even though I attended the actual meeting and read the transcripts, I could not find a clear statement of the motion because it was never clearly made in my opinion. Here is the best summary I could assemble of Sharpe's motion:) Have the county as the lead facilitator and bring the rest of the interested parties into the mix keeping the Planning Commission involved but not solely giving the lead to the Partnership. So as the activists, NIMBYS, and informed citizens sat like deer in headlights I wondered…………are we just gonna get screwed by Sharpe's motion or are we gonna get REALLY screwed by Higginbotham's motion? The vote was 5-2 the outcome? REALLY SCREWED. Rose Ferlita voted with Sharpe and the rest of the board with Higginbotham. Another 5-2 vote; we all could have guessed that. George Neiman, a UCAN director, was not given permission to speak in the morning session due to time constraints and had to wait all day to voice his opinion but only after the actual vote occurred. In true George fashion, he made the wait worthwhile as he presented our County Commission with pretty wrapping paper and a bow so that the county would look nice as they gave it away to the Tampa Bay Partnership.
Well, the beginning of April rolled around and since it was nearing the 30-day mark, many of us looked at the agenda to see if the BOCC would again address this issue. It was not on the agenda but then in the late afternoon on April 1 we were informed that indeed it was a part of the next day's meeting. This was at the very last minute and many of us myself included cried foul because we did not make the arrangements to attend and there are rules about how things are added to the agenda and it certainly seemed as if they had been violated. After a lengthy discussion on the subject they finally voted to hold off another 2 weeks before voting on their plan of action. As luck would have it, before the next vote a lot of information would finally surface about One Bay.
Some digging revealed that One Bay was created by the Partnership and is listed as consortium of business and governmental interests. Hmmm. TBARTA was also spawned from The Partnership, and it has been charged with coming up with a transportation plan (that scares us). So if One Bay is given the VISION and TBARTA has been given the Transportation Planning, it seems the Partnership will be dictating growth in Hillsborough. I don't recall the Partnership being on the ballot, do you? How will local voices be heard on a regional level and will they be heard at all since not all of the officials on TBARTA are elected some are appointed and One Bay was being marketed by Amy Maguire, a lobbyist with ties to developers. She is associated with former House Speaker John Thrasher, who was part of the campaign to kill Florida Hometown Democracy.
So even in a time of upcoming budget cuts we can't afford not to have objective planning. We also can't afford to give it away to private interests. The county planning staff also got tossed into the mix and are now involved as well. Sadly, I trust the county transportation staff even less than special interests considering my recent battle over the Green Swath.
Think that is the worst of it? Think again because recently a Trib editorial broke the story that not only was Maguire a lobbyist but she was involved with a land project with 20 landowners in south Hillsborough County who own about 90 percent of the undeveloped land there, and it is outside the urban service area and……. right about where that ever-famous Green Swath resides. Should she be given a lead in this VISIONING project by our county? No wonder the same Commissioners so opposed to the project when it was just the Planning Commission were happy to support the project when OneBay was asked to join.
Sadly our BOCC remains blind to a vision other than the one special interests are more than happy to create for them and they don't even appear to possess 20/20 Vision in hindsight! It remains to be seen what the final outcome of this will be. Amy Macquire has since stepped down but I wonder how our BOCC will handle this one since they haven't had a final vote on the issue yet. What can you do? Contact them and let them know how you feel about special interests creating our Vision. I did and told them I thought our Planning Commission was the only choice for the job especially in light of recent events. I also attended the morning session of the BOCC meeting on 4-16-08 because this item was on the agenda. It was a hot topic during public comment and although I signed up to speak I was not given permission due to time constraints (glad I wasted that time to attend and then proceeded to feel sick as I watched them bicker about our ELAPP land among other things). Anyway, the item in question was A-12 on the consent agenda and it read: Receive follow-up report to Proposed Conceptual Plan of Action to Begin Visioning in Hillsborough County. I would have never thought that this would include a continuation of the item so I was surprised to hear from Ms. Garsys of the county staff later explaining that to me. Someone should really inform Mr. Marchetti of this development………putting his last minute continuations on the consent agenda would really save those of us opposed to them a lot of time and energy.
I have to say that Ms. Garsys of the county staff has contacted me regarding this issue several times and is more than willing to set up a meeting about it. Not sure what more we would talk about yet other than the fact that I don't want special interest planning our future (and I already emailed my comments to their website regarding a vision and you can too. She sent me a copy of the BOCC agenda for 5/7/08 and this time the visioning issue was a time certain item and again the county staff is requesting more time. They cite lack of citizen input and do note what little input they have had list concerns about ONEBAY. Part of their recommendations include regaining public trust. I think if our BOCC truly wanted to re-establish public trust they would give the Planning Commission the lead in the project because they have never lost public trust. One way not to regain my trust is to put staff member Ned Baier on this project but the county staff suggested he be involved at the April 2nd meeting. I tuned in to the meeting on May 7th and several of the Commissioners (Higginbotham, Sharpe, and Ferlita) went on record wanting the public to be part of the process and finally Commissioner Higginbotham asks Ms. Garsys if One Bay is running this program?
Ms.Garsys: No, it is our program.
Higginbotham: That's all I wanted to hear. That's right. I just wanted to make sure they were on the same page because that has been my mantra from the very beginning, that this is being powered by the county, the county commission, and the Planning Commission.
Ms. Garsys was asking for a continuation and they asked her if she needed a motion she said yes and a motion was made by Commissioner Higginbotham and seconded by Sharpe but nowhere in the transcripts could I find any conditions on the motion (like how long this is continued and is One Bay still a candidate to help lead this effort?) I emailed our BOCC and asked them if this meant they were completely divorcing themselves from One Bay regarding Visioning but I only heard back from Commissioner Higginbotham. He sent me the link to the transcripts and then stated in his e-mail "As you will read, I was very clear on my stand regarding the visioning process.. Comparing his quotes to the March 6th transcripts, I have to say it did not sound like the same mantra to me.
So is the BOCC finally heeding citizen's requests not to give away our planning to special interests or is this more like a bad DRI rezoning with citizen opposition…………………just continue the hell out of it until finally nobody shows up and they can pass it without many people watching? I urge you to contact them and let them know you are watching.
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2008.