Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
CANDACE RONDEAUXLake Tarpon neighbors say personal watercraft users are getting out of control. City officials say police will be on patrol this weekend.
TARPON SPRINGS - Heading out to Richard Ervin Park to cruise Lake Tarpon on your Jet Ski this weekend? Better bring your ID. There's a good chance you'll be showing it to police.
After several neighbors complained that personal watercraft users at the park are out of control, city officials say they plan to take a tougher stance on law enforcement there.
"I can assure that this weekend - at least from the park standpoint - that we'll get this under control," Tarpon Springs police Capt. Ronnie Holt told City Commissioners Tuesday night.
Police officers have made 48 patrol stops at the park since January, and Holt expects that number to increase in coming months.
The impending crackdown on parking and safety violations at the city park was just one of the remedies suggested during a half-hour discussion. Though many neighbors own personal watercraft themselves, they worry that congestion on the waterway and lack of safety enforcement could have deadly results.
"Sooner or later, someone is going to get killed," said park neighbor Greg Elam. "We don't want Lake Tarpon not to be (personal watercraft) friendly; we want it to be safe."
Elam and other residents called city officials about their concerns after a 17-year-old Tampa girl lost control of a water scooter and collided with two other people riding a personal watercraft Saturday.
The bloodied and battered teenager was flown to Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg that day and was discharged from the hospital Wednesday.
City Commissioner Peter Nehr and several others at the meeting said the accident should serve as a warning to the city. He and other city officials suggested cutting back the park's hours, ticketing drivers who park outside one of the park's eight parking spaces and closing the narrow boat launch there.
Commissioner David Archie agreed, adding that increased police patrols at the park should be a priority.
"We need to do some things as far as just enforcing the laws that exist," Archie said. "I think people do things like that because they know they can get away with it."
Residents say 40 to 50 enthusiasts regularly flock to Lake Tarpon's northernmost public shore on the weekends to race through an impromptu obstacle course they set up there. Few maintain enough distance from the shore and each other, and almost none wears the life jackets required by the state, Elam said.
The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office is responsible for enforcing the law on Lake Tarpon's 2,500 acres. The department has a total of 11 marine deputies who monitor roughly 600 miles of the county's coastal waterways. But only one boat regularly patrols Lake Tarpon, and deputies assigned to that boat must also patrol Lake Seminole and the waterways near the Courtney Campbell Parkway.
Sheriff's spokesman Detective Tim Goodman said the sheriff's marine patrol division plans to change its schedule so that deputies will be on Lake Tarpon during peak hours on the weekends.
Holt said he was encouraged by the news of increased county patrols on the water. But he said the city could do more about the problem if only the Sheriff's Office agreed to let it.
"The fact is the cities have more manpower on the street at one time than the sheriff has at any time in any of the cities," Holt said.
He complained that the Sheriff's Office had dragged its feet on entering into a mutual aid agreement that could help solve law enforcement problems in areas of the county, like Richard Ervin Park, where jurisdictional lines are sometimes fuzzy.
Dan Wiggins, director of support services for the Sheriff's Office, said the department was considering adopting a mutual aid agreement suggested by several municipal police chiefs at recent meetings of law enforcement officials, but details of such an agreement still need to be ironed out.
"It's under discussion right now about what exactly that means," Wiggins said. "There's a host of issues that need to be talked about, not the least of which is the liability that comes with this if the sheriff does this."
That issue aside, park neighbor Beth Chamberlin, 52, said she was pleased with the city's response.
"I think they understood that we mean business," she said.
- Candace Rondeaux can be reached at 727 445-4182 or rondeaux@sptimes.com