CRYSTAL RIVER - Look, up in the sky. It's a bird, it's a crane. It's the whoopers!
"You're here to see something that is so absolutely incredible that it will burn itself into your memory," John Christian, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official who helped launch the effort to repopulate the eastern United States with migrating whooping cranes, said to a crowd of about 500 Monday outside Crystal River Mall.
Minutes later, the first ultralight aircraft appeared, with one whooping crane following closely.
Then a second ultralight appeared over the trees, with a string of 15 cranes stretched out behind in one leg of a V formation.
Then the cranes disappeared in the southeastern sky, headed to their winter home at the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge.
"Ladies and gentlemen," a Fish and Wildlife official announced over the loudspeaker, "the Class of 2003."
Monday's 70-mile flight was a graduation of sorts for the 16 young whoopers, hatched earlier this year as part of an experiment to create a new population of the endangered cranes.
So far, three years into the project, 36 cranes have learned the flight pattern.
Minor-leaguers will take the field as Threshers
CLEARWATER - With a state-of-the-art baseball complex and a high-profile manager already in place, Clearwater's Class-A minor league baseball team completed its off-season of sweeping changes Monday by unveiling a new nickname and logo.
The Clearwater Phillies are now the Clearwater Threshers.
The announcement was made in right field of the $28-million, 7,000-seat stadium scheduled for completion Feb. 6. The first game there is scheduled for March 4.
Philadelphia Phillies Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt made his first public appearance as the manager of the minor league team and modeled a sand-colored home jersey with the Treshers name in indigo, navy, peach and scarlet across the front.
For two years, the team has considered shedding the Phillies moniker in favor of a nickname that would distinguish it from its parent club in Philadelphia, said John Timberlake, the Phillies' director of Florida operations.
"This will be our 20th year playing in the Florida State League, and everybody knows who the Phillies are," Timberlake said. "We get a lot of confusion, believe it or not, that the Clearwater Phillies name is really spring training. We wanted something of our own."
Pasco residents put up a fight over fixing U.S. 19
PORT RICHEY - Pasco County commissioners "caved" to pressures from builders and developers, angry Beacon Woods residents say, by failing to pass a measure to require them to pay for road improvements to handle the extra traffic they would create on the Pasco stretch of U.S. 19.
The residents put their complaint in a strongly worded letter to state and federal elected officials, asking for help in fixing U.S. 19.
Builders and developers complained Dec. 2 that they hadn't had enough time to look over the proposed ordinance. They asked for a delay so they could review it and offer their ideas, said Joel Tew, attorney for the Pasco Building Association.
But the Beacon Woods residents smell a deal in the delay.
"It appears to us that the board of county commissioners has caved into the commercial interest by postponing and watering down the ordinance," Beacon Woods Civic Association president Ray Watson said in the letter.
Earlier alcohol sales survive a change of heart
TAMPA - The tide of governments changing their alcohol laws almost took a turn.
Hillsborough County Commissioner Jan Platt got cold feet about allowing alcohol sales at 11 a.m. instead of 1 p.m. after Sgt. Steven Wallace of the Sheriff's Office appeared before the board.
Wallace presented commissioners with statistics showing a 21 percent increase in alcohol-related deaths in the county from 2000 to 2002, asking commissioners why they would want to do something that could make it worse.
Faced with those statistics, Platt flopped, tipping the majority of the board back to the later start time.
The deputy said he was not representing his boss, Sheriff Cal Henderson, but rather groups that fight drunken driving and alcohol abuse.
On Tuesday, Henderson told the board that he had no problem with earlier alcohol sales.
"I just think those two hours are not going to make a difference," Henderson said after he addressed commissioners. "It doesn't make sense to punish the retailers in unincorporated Hillsborough County unless you're accomplishing something."
With Henderson's presentation, Platt moved to cancel a proposed public hearing to consider a repeal of the earlier start time.
Backing down from a possible veto, mall site gets more time
LAND O'LAKES - Developers behind Cypress Creek Town Center have agreed to restart negotiations with government agencies worried about the mall's potential to pollute water and jam highways.
The land owners are trying to get the approval needed to pave the way for a huge regional mall at Interstate 75 and State Road 56.
But regulators were questioning whether building the mall and adjoining businesses is worth destroying about 76 acres of wetlands.
Many of the wetlands feed Cypress Creek, which feeds the Hillsborough River and supplies millions of gallons of Tampa's drinking water.
The creek is classified as Outstanding Florida Water. That means development can't degrade its water quality.
The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, the agency that coordinates governmental review of giant projects such as the mall, was poised Monday to reject the mall proposal.
Instead, John "Hi" Sierra Jr., who owns the 511-acre mall site, requested the project be yanked from the agenda and agreed to further negotiations.
In short ...
BROOKSVILLE - The Hernando County Humane Society announced it will go out of business within six months unless it can generate some financial support. The pet shelter is suffering from growing pains and has seen its expenses grow.
TAMPA - One of the nation's largest conservative public interest law firms has come to the defense of a Hillsborough County limousine company owner accused of charging too little for fares. The Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit based in California, says the county agency that regulates cars for hire is trampling on Daniel Steiner's constitutional rights by imposing unfair regulations. Steiner has been on six months' probation since Oct. 8, when the county Public Transportation Commission ruled he was charging too little for limousine rides. The agency ordered him to stop charging his customers less than the required minimum $40 per ride because his business threatened the taxi industry by undercutting the mileage-based fares they must charge.
OLDSMAR - Pet owners have won a small victory in their quest to keep dogs on a leash on a stretch of beach in the Mobbly Bayou Wilderness Preserve, but they must overcome more hurdles before Fido can play in the surf. Pet owners said it was a good first step in their quest to give their dogs a beach of their own.
Coming up this week
In what might be the defining moment in the Pasco County Commission's stance on U.S. 19, it will be asked Tuesday to adopt stricter traffic capacity standards for the road. Residents complained that the county "caved" last week to builders and developers when it delayed a vote to set standards for the road.
The board of Florida High Speed Rail Authority will meet Wednesday to ask Fluor-Bombardier to make changes in its contract, adding $300-million to the cost to double-track the lines to prepare for electric trains. Although the governor's office has been skeptical, the contractor has insisted that the bullet train will turn a profit.
- Compiled by Times staff writer Sharon Kennedy Wynne.
