Seniors agency gets the heave-ho

A longer airport runway is planned, so Neighborly Senior Services has to move. Do it by April 15, the county says. The agency says that's too soon.

By LISA GREENE, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 27, 2003

Pinellas County wants to extend its main runway southward at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport.

And Neighborly Senior Services, a nonprofit group that provides Meals on Wheels, adult day care and other services, wants to keep helping seniors from its headquarters just south of the airport.

The problem: Neighborly's 16,000-square-foot headquarters is in the way of the runway extension. The land has to be cleared to make way for navigation equipment.

The county filed suit this month to take Neighborly's property. Officials want the agency off the land by April 15.

But agency leaders say they have no place to go. They are trying to get the case dismissed.

"This is a major surprise," said Debra Shade, president and chief executive of the group.

Agency officials knew they would have to move, but the county told them they had several months, said the agency's lawyers, Prineet Sharma and Mark Bentley.

The county has valued the agency's land at $2.2-million and would pay the group that amount if the courts grant the petition.

The agency is buying other land and plans to build a new building. But that hasn't happened yet, and so the agency will have to go to a temporary location if a judge grants the county's petition. Money for such a move could otherwise be used for services, the lawyers said.

The county lawyer handling the case, Gerald Meaders, said county officials have told the group repeatedly that "time was growing quite short."

"Although they claim surprise . . . a look at the history of the negotiations shows a somewhat different picture," he said.

Neighborly Senior Services has about 200 employees in Pinellas County, about 60 of whom work at the group's headquarters on Stoneybrook Drive, just south of the airport. It offers adult day care and group dining at community centers and churches around the county, but those locations don't have space for the group's headquarters, Shade said.

The center also is home to the group's computer network, she said. Shade said she was "scrambling" to find a temporary location but had not been able to do so.

But Shade insisted that no matter what, the group's services won't be affected.

"I pledge not to disrupt services," she said. "If it means we have to work out of our homes, we will not disrupt services."

Last year, the agency served about 700,000 meals to seniors, either with Meals on Wheels or in its group dining facilities. It also has helped individual seniors arrange in-home care. But Shade has said the agency will stop providing the individual counseling and focus on providing direct services.

The agency's board fired president Fred Buchholtz and another top official last year after complaints the agency did not use more than $400,000 of state and federal money it had been awarded.

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