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County offers site for sports
By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer LAND O'LAKES -- A few weeks after youth soccer teams surrendered their old practice fields at Pine View Middle School, Pasco County is offering replacement fields down the street near a water plant. County Administrator John Gallagher suggests giving sports teams a 10-year lease of 15 acres at the utility site at 6003 Parkway Blvd. About 700 players with Central Pasco United Soccer Association used the Pine View fields until the school district announced it was reclaiming the land to build a new elementary school. Desperate for new practice fields in time for the season to begin in October, the soccer league is entertaining all offers, including Gallagher's. "At this point it is an option. But there are reservations," said Amye Cox, chairwoman of the Central Pasco Sports Coalition, which represents 3,000 children in Land O'Lakes' sports leagues. Chief among the coalition's concerns about the water plant site: Volunteers would have to clear the land of trees and brush, plant turf, level bumps and raise light poles. All with the knowledge that the land is theirs for only 10 years. "A short-term Band-Aid: The 15 acres kind of looks like that," Cox said. "All the effort we put into it, and 10 years down the road we don't have any place to practice again." County parks director Jim Slaughter said the utilities site could accommodate both soccer and football leagues, whose seasons differ. But the elbow grease would have to come from parent volunteers: The county has dispensed with building practice fields, focusing instead on building a 140-acre megapark in rural Wesley Chapel. Slaughter and the sports coalition have butted heads over $800,000 the county wanted to spend on land to expand the Land O'Lakes Recreation Complex on Collier Parkway. Landowners didn't accept the county's offer, so Slaughter has suggested releasing the money toward the Wesley Chapel park. Pasco has offered to buy 143 acres in Wesley Chapel from former county Property Appraiser Ted Williams and his business partners. But Williams turned down the $1.3-million offer for his orange grove northeast of Interstate 75 and State Road 54. Negotiations continue. "Land O'Lakes doesn't have a claim to that money anymore than people in Dade City have a claim," Slaughter said.
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From today's Pasco Times Accusation of abandonment is just not true If Finn wants respect, he should show some |
