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Vines choke oranges that built abbey

ST. LEO - The "church that orange juice built" is getting squeezed by a nasty vine.

The 400-tree orange grove on the grounds of Saint Leo Abbey, a remaining tie to the abbey's agricultural heritage, is being smothered under runaway vines, most likely a variety of the milkweed vine.

The vines don't actually eat the infected tree, Florida Department of Agriculture pathologist Tim Schubert said.

"It's strictly using the tree as a physical support," he said. "It can completely smother the canopy and put the tree pretty rapidly in decline."

For years, Brother Felix Augustin, the caretaker of the grove, said he has kept up with the pesky vines by spraying them with a weed killer when they are young. But this year's heavy rains awakened more vines than ever.

The abbey's church was crafted in part with red stone produced by an abbey in Indiana that traded shipments of stone for orange juice, lending the building its nickname, "the church that orange juice built."

The abbey put out a call for volunteers willing to put a strong back into a tough assignment. Eight people showed up to help last week, with more lined up for this week.

INVERNESS - The mosquito-borne West Nile virus has bitten again in Citrus County.

The second week in a row, the Citrus County Health Department alerted residents of a second case of the illness this year within the county, this time a 55-year-old Citrus man.

Last week, officials reported that Frank Hanson, 67, of Crystal River spent about two weeks in the hospital with the illness before being transferred to a rehabilitation facility, where he continues to recover.

He remains weak but is slowly improving, his granddaughter Stacy Perkins said Wednesday.

Fifty-eight of Florida's 67 counties have reported some form of West Nile virus activity. Most cases have been found in sentinel chickens, horses and dead birds.

The health department continues to recommend prevention measures, which include avoiding the outdoors at dawn and dusk.

WEEKI WACHEE - With their taxes about to be tripled, angry property owners in Weeki Wachee are talking a lot these days about taxation without representation.

That's because Mayor Robyn Anderson and her fellow city commissioners live in homes owned by the Weeki Wachee Springs tourist attraction, making them exempt from the property tax increase.

Meanwhile, the burden of the bill is falling squarely on non-residents who own businesses or real estate within a city that provides them no services - not even police and fire protection.

"It's not American," said Jerry Harris, general manager of the corporate parent of Portabella Inns of America, which owns the Best Western Weeki Wachee Resort.

Weeki Wachee officials say the tax increase is needed to cover the city's mounting legal bills from two fronts - the fight to keep the tourist attraction alive and the city's attempt at a hostile takeover of Florida Water Services' utilities in Spring Hill.

And in another front in the tax war, officials with the Best Western say they will encourage employees to take up residence in the hotel's rooms and create a new voting bloc to oust the commissioners and repeal the tax increase.

TAMPA - The notion of finding a way to accommodate tobacco-addicted passengers at Tampa International Airport is about to go up in, well, you know.

Louis Miller, executive director of the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, last week asked his board to discard the idea of reopening the TIA's eight smoking rooms. They have been padlocked since the statewide ban on smoking in most work places went into effect this summer.

"The idea," he said, "was to give those anxious about flying a way to calm themselves. But it would have put TIA in a position of being the only airport out of all the airports in the four largest states, California, New York, Texas and Florida, that let people smoke indoors.

"I guess if all the anxious fliers can get along in other airports without smoking, they can get through here, too."

TAMPA - Something is making Gaither High School students sick, and now the Hillsborough County Health Department has been asked to look into it.

At least 10 students, most of them members of the school's Starettes dance team, developed breathing problems after a performance at a recent football game.

"The biggest problem in terms of the students, the parents and the community at large is wild speculation about the cause," said school spokesman Mark Hart.

On Friday, a doctor said the students have contracted a form of respiratory stridor, a breathing problem caused by an obstruction or narrowing of the airway. They still don't know the cause. The doctor said the illness is not contagious, and Hillsborough County School District officials don't think it was caused by environmental conditions at the high school, Hart said.

Mariza Cona, the mother of Starette Kayla Cona, has suspicions of her own.

"We are still very concerned about the paint where they (Starettes members) practice," Mrs. Cona said of a room that was repainted this past summer. "They were at band camp July 21 to the 25th, 8:30 to 3:30, and most of the time they were inside the building inhaling that paint."

CLEARWATER - Pinellas County's effort to eliminate illegal fireworks sales passed its first test after a Pinellas County circuit judge ruled the new ordinance measures up to state law. The Pinellas County Commission unanimously voted in June to close what many consider a loophole in the state law regulating fireworks.

TAMPA - Eight months after failing to meet its first deadline, the company building the nation's largest desalination plant has missed another one. So on Wednesday, officials at Tampa Bay Water notified Covanta that it has defaulted on its contract to build the $110-million plant in Apollo Beach. The company now has 48 days to finish it.

SPRING HILL - The Boys & Girls Clubs of Hernando County have received some $17,000 in donations, putting off a potentially fatal cash crunch. In September, a financial crisis threatened to close the Applegate Drive center, site of before- and after-school activities and recreation for about 70 children.

The tax increase that has Weeki Wachee's taxpayers, but not its nine residents, boiling mad is scheduled to come before the City Commission Monday. The city is preparing to triple its tax rate to pay for its mounting legal bills.

Unless the weather grounds them, the next batch of endangered whooping in cranes is expected to head to Florida next week. Operation Migration has set Wednesday as the departure date for this year's batch of aircraft-guided whooping cranes. The hope is that with help the birds will learn to migrate, breed and take over the duties of teaching their young the flight path.

Tampa's blue law goes before the City Council again on Thursday when it considers allowing Tampa International Airport to serve alcohol beginning at 7 a.m. The Tampa City Council loosened its law on alcohol sales Sept. 4, and Mayor Pam Iorio signed it into law the following day, just in time for the first Sunday game of the pro football season. Airport officials want to get sales times changed to 7 a.m. at the airport to benefit travelers crossing time zones.

- Compiled by Times staff writer Sharon Kennedy Wynne