Weeki Wachee officials say they lost papers essential to move on plans to create a place for students to learn about the environment.
By WILL VAN SANT
Published January 14, 2004
WEEKI WACHEE - By the end of last summer, the Springs Coast Environmental Center was to have been built on the north side of the Weeki Wachee River, just west of the famous springs where mermaids entertain.
The Hernando County school district and the Southwest Florida Water Management District, commonly called Swiftmud, envisioned the center as a living classroom where students would be able to explore the area's rich mix of plant and animal life.
Early on, the $750,000 project, paid for by Swiftmud, faced some routine delays. But with a building design, contractor and permits in place, the project has stalled in the last three to four months because of the city of Weeki Wachee says it is unable to rezone the environmental center's 3-acre site.
Both School Board and Swiftmud officials say they have tried repeatedly to get the city to take action on the rezoning, but have made no progress. Weeki Wachee officials say they have been unable to act because documents needed to make the rezoning valid have been lost and the city has been tied up with more pressing matters.
"We are just getting to the point where enough is enough," said Mark Weaver, a former Central High School science teacher hired to manage the environmental center's programs for the school district. "We have to get this thing taken care of."
Swiftmud spokesman Michael Molligan said his agency is frustrated. Letters have been sent to Weeki Wachee, he said, asking that some decision be made, even a denial of the rezoning so that an appeal can be formally made.
"We haven't been getting any response," Molligan said. "We are just not getting any action taken."
For the past year, Weeki Wachee has feuded with the county over ownership of the water utility that serves Spring Hill, has struggled to fend off a possible Swiftmud shutdown of its mermaid attraction and now confronts lawmakers who plan to lobby the state Legislature to vastly limit the tiny city's power.
Contacted Monday about the rezoning delay, attraction manager and city Mayor Robyn Anderson, as well as city attorney Joe Mason, said these battles have been time-consuming. Both said they are enthusiastic about the environmental center and plan to resolve the matter as quickly as possible, hopefully within 30 days.
Late Tuesday, in an interview with the Times, Anderson said she had given approval for construction to begin without the zoning change.
Mason said the city has not been able to move quickly with the rezoning because a needed document has been lost.
In about 1990, he said, Weeki Wachee adopted the Hernando County zoning ordinance, then discovered the land classifications and land uses in the city were not compatible. So about a month later, Mason said, an amendment was passed that changed land classifications and land-use definitions in Weeki Wachee to make the ordinance workable.
One of two exhibits attached to that amendment is lost, Mason said, and despite tracking down law firms in Tallahassee, Jacksonville and elsewhere whose lawyers were at the time involved in the ordinance revision, the document has not turned up.
"We have scoured the state for this thing," Mason said. "What we need to do is reconstruct it and readopt it."
The lack of the document did not stop the city from rezoning 2 acres during a July annexation. Mason said that the July rezoning was done before he became aware of the missing exhibit. And he pointed out that the 30-day period during which the July rezoning could be contested had passed.
At a County Commission meeting Tuesday, some commissioners and residents lashed out at Weeki Wachee. Some said the missing document story was preposterous and that the city was using the environmental center rezoning as a bargaining chip in its ongoing legal battles.
Mason denied the allegation.
School district attorney Karen Gaffney said the city had first been contacted about the rezoning in April. Had the city got to work on the matter then, discovered the missing document and taken action, she said, construction of the environmental center could have begun four months ago.
The delays now threaten to increase project costs, Gaffney said, because the agreement with the center's builder expired Jan. 1. If the contractor does not agree to an extension, a new agreement will have to be reached, perhaps at an increased price.
"That's a huge concern for us," Gaffney said.
Weaver said the center, a single-story structure with four laboratory classrooms and a larger meeting room, could be finished six months after construction begins. If the rezoning is taken care of promptly, the center could be done by the start of the 2004-05 school year, he said.
"They have assured us this would be taken care of by the end of January," Weaver said of Weeki Wachee. "But they also assured us this would be taken care of by the end of December."
- Will Van Sant can be reached at 754-6127. Send e-mail to vansant@sptimes.com
