The quaint Weeki Wachee relationship is mired in an ugly debate over ethics and taxation.
By ROBERT KING
Published October 5, 2003
WEEKI WACHEE - Weeki Wachee, with its nine residents and identity as the "City of Mermaids," has always been something of a cute curiosity.
With each census, there are always wisecracks about its baby booms or its withering numbers when the population fluctuates by one or two souls.
The fact that it was created as a way for Weeki Wachee Springs to get its name on road signs and maps frequently draws chuckles.
And, in all the publicity this summer, no visiting member of the national news media who came to write about Weeki Wachee's trials has failed to mention that the mayor is a former mermaid.
Despite all those endearing characteristics, a growing number of locals are tired of Weeki Wachee's act - even questioning whether the city should continue to exist.
Cries of "taxation without representation" are being heard around the city thanks to a plan to triple property taxes - a proposal made by a City Commission whose members pay no property taxes themselves because they live in homes owned by the tourist attraction.
Meanwhile, the Florida Commission on Ethics is about to be snowed under by complaints from taxpayers and others who say the mermaid mayor, Robyn Anderson, is not so much serving the city's interests as she is her own.
The revolutionary spirit is prompting some, like Nellie's Restaurant owner Marty Ogden, to suggest that the city known as Weeki Wachee has outlived its usefulness. That it should be dissolved and allowed to return to being an unincorporated part of Hernando County.
"I absolutely think that something needs to be done," Ogden said. "How should nine people be able to run a city and be able to collect taxes on 77 property owners?"
Weeki Wachee was created in 1965 by an act of the state Legislature and opened for business on New Year's Day 1966.
Unless city residents want it dissolved, it would take a similar act of the Legislature to put the city out of business, said Ken Small, an officer with the Florida League of Cities.
Local legislators - Rep. Dave Russell of Brooksville and state Sen. Mike Fasano of New Port Richey - said they've heard no outcry for such a drastic action. Both say the tax increase should be examined. "That disappoints me," Fasano said.
To disband the city would not mean the end of the tourist attraction. But it would eliminate the concern that business owners like Ogden have about the city's efforts to fix the park's problems through taxation.
"When I mismanage my funds I should ask everybody to pay taxes to bail me out of my mess," said Ogden, who has run Nellie's for 15 years. "I don't want the park to go under. But obviously the park needs new management."
Such dissent was unimaginable even two weeks ago, when a long line of Weeki Wachee Springs supporters went to the park's landlord - the Southwest Florida Water Management District - begging that the city get a chance to rescue the ailing attraction.
But when the city published its public notice about the tax increase - raising the rate from $1.15 per $1,000 of taxable property to $3.95 per $1,000 - a firestorm erupted.
Immediately, people began calling attention to something that had long been just one of those quaint curiosities - the cozy relationship between city leaders and park management.
Mayor Anderson is the park's general manager. The other two city commissioners are her mother, Angela Weiss, and one her employees, animal trainer Julie Rivers.
All nine city residents live in park-owned housing. But Anderson and her family live rent free in an arrangement that she describes as part of her compensation package.
On Aug. 1, Anderson and the other commissioners voted unanimously to accept the donation of Weeki Wachee Springs LLC, the company that owns the troubled attraction.
That vote prompted Janey Baldwin, a community activist and former County Commission candidate, to file ethics complaints against Anderson and Rivers on Sept. 25.
Baldwin says Anderson and Rivers obviously benefit from their vote because the city now controls the company that sets their pay and provides their housing.
"I was an alderman in St. Louis County and never observed any conflict as obvious as this," Baldwin said. "They are getting away with it because we are tolerating it."
Baldwin says she wants the park to be saved, but under the right circumstances. "Let's do it the right way and not break the law to do it," she said.
A second complaint filed Wednesday by Weeki Wachee Canoe Rental owner Dave Lowerre makes a similar point. Others, including one filed Friday by Ogden, point out Anderson's dual role.
Lynn Leverty, a political science professor at the University of Florida who specializes in ethics, said that public officials should recuse themselves from anything that stands to benefit them personally or in which they have a financial interest.
Voting as mayor to take over the company that she runs as general manager would seem to qualify as a personal benefit that raises strong ethical concerns, Leverty said.
"My advice would have been that she should not have voted on whether or not the city should accept the donation because she has a personal financial interest," Leverty said.
Leverty said similar ethical problems can be found when city commissioners live in housing owned by the company they are voting to take over. "It's almost a quasi-public entity. It sounds like a company town," Leverty said.
"This is an ethical quagmire."
Ron Kitchen, the mayor of Crystal River and chief executive at a private company that builds golf courses, said he probably would not vote if his city ever tried to strike a deal with his company, Barbaron Inc.
And Crystal River's rules prevent elected officials from working for the city during the first year after they leave office, much less while they are still serving.
Kitchen said it seems to him that if he would have a direct interest in the city acquiring his company that he would have to abstain from voting. "My first inclination would be that I would have a conflict," Kitchen said.
Swiftmud, as the water district is known, owns the property on which the city and the attraction sit. Its staff raised questions about the conflicts when it considered closing the park this summer because of its poor condition.
Its analysis concluded that "there appears to be a built-in conflict of interest in that the personal interests of the city residents, and as a consequence the administrative officers of the city, are inextricably entwined."
Swiftmud's governing board eventually decided it could live with the conflicts. But their attorney, Bill Bilenky, pointed out some pitfalls of doing so. He said the city's vote to accept the donation from the former private owners could be voided if an ethics claim were raised by city residents.
He acknowledged that was unlikely due to the entwined relationships of the residents. And he said it was unclear what would happen if nonresidents - such as the business owners - were to raise the conflict issue.
Rep. Russell said it is important that the ethics commission be heard on those complaints. But he doesn't favor dissolving the city. He says its incorporation qualifies it for state grant money and tax breaks that can help the park.
"At this point in time, I believe there are advantages that the city of Weeki Wachee has . . . because they are a city," he said.
For most of its life, Weeki Wachee merely existed in the shadow of the tourist attraction.
It has competed with Marineland, another tourist attraction town near St. Augustine, for the title of the smallest Florida city, said Small, with the League of Cities. Right now, they appear to share the distinction. Marineland has nine residents, too.
Last fall, Anderson and her fellow commissioners were elected to new four-year terms. This summer Weeki Wachee has taken control of its namesake tourist attraction, initiated a hostile takeover of Florida Water Services' utilities in Spring Hill and proposed tripling its taxes to pay legal bills associated with both efforts.
The takeover of Florida Water, if successful, would give Anderson and the other two commissioners unregulated control of the water and sewer rates and service that affect 33,000 customers.
Joe Mason, whose appointment as Weeki Wachee city attorney predates the activism by only a few months, said the motives of Anderson and the commissioners are pure: They want to save the attraction and preserve the health of the natural Weeki Wachee spring.
He insists that Anderson's interests as mayor and employee of the city-owned attraction can be kept separate. And, like Anderson, he contends that those filing ethics complaints have axes to grind.
For Anderson and Mason, the marriage of the city to the attraction makes perfect sense because, they ask, who could care more about the mermaid attraction than a former mermaid.
Still, the city's newfound activism comes as a surprise to Suzanne Vance Hartman, who was Weeki Wachee mayor and the attraction's general manager from 1981 to 1989.
She was there when the city welcomed the opening of the Weeki Wachee Village shopping center and when the attraction added the Buccaneer Bay water park. Now living in Homosassa, Hartman remembers her tenure mostly as a quiet time. Looking at what has gone on this summer, she is amazed.
"They are braver than I would have been," she said.
- Robert King covers Spring Hill and can be reached at 848-1432. Send e-mail to rking@sptimes.com
