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Residents want Blush removed from office
By KATHY SAUNDERS TREASURE ISLAND -- Commissioner Barbara Blush so angered her constituents during the battle over big buildings on the beach that they now are attempting to remove her from office. Sunset Beach resident Donna Boren, acting as chair of the Committee to Recall Barbara Blush, began circulating a petition this week. Ultimately, the decision to remove Blush would have to be made at the polls by voters from District 4. "The people of Sunset Beach have just really lost confidence in their commissioner as far as representing District 4," said Ray Green, one of two residents who sued the city over its land use decisions. Dissatisfaction with a commissioner alone is not grounds for recall, Green allowed, but he and the other recall campaigners are taking their cues from a district judge who issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the city from enacting its newest land use regulations. Blush was among the commissioners who voted in October to pass the new laws that would allow high-rise buildings on the beachfront. "Technically, she is in violation of all the articles that were in the lawsuit that was filed by Mike Daughtry and I," Green said. "Continuing to go forward in the face of knowing this would be in violation of state and city charters." According to Florida statute, the grounds for recalling an elected official are limited to: malfeasance; misfeasance; neglect of duty; drunkenness; incompetence; permanent inability to perform official duties; and conviction of a felony involving moral turpitude. Blush, a commissioner for the Sunset Beach neighborhoods, is skiing in Colorado this week and unavailable for comment. She and commissioners rushed to adopt new land regulations before residents went to the polls Nov. 5 to vote to stop future development. In an unprecedented turnout, Treasure Island residents voted in favor of a citizen-initiated ordinance requiring all future height or density changes in the city's land development regulations to be approved by a majority of the city's registered voters. Saying that threshold of more than half the city's voters was too high, commissioners put their own law in place to preempt the vote. But a judge later said the city could not enforce that ordinance.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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