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COLLEEN JENKINSSusan Boyer of Crystal River wants the paper that allows a couple to live within a proposed annexation area.
LECANTO - County employees had a surprise visitor Friday afternoon: A Crystal River Police officer.
The officer showed up at the Lecanto Government Building bearing not handcuffs or a search warrant, but a written public records request for all county documents related to the Crystal River couple whose recent change of address might cramp the city's annexation plan.
City Manager Susan Boyer dispatched the officer with the request, which she signed. In the request, she specifically asked for a copy of the certificate of occupancy that Rodger and Renee McPheeters received for their property at 940 N Suncoast Blvd. (U.S. 19).
Boyer said she sent the city's permitting clerk to verbally request the same documents the day before. The clerk came back with some documents but not the certificate of occupancy.
The police officer didn't do much better. Though Gary Maidhof, director of the Department of Development Services, personally copied the entire McPheeters file, Boyer said she still didn't have the certificate of occupancy as of Monday afternoon.
City officials want that document to help them determine whether the McPheeterses took appropriate steps to legally establish the U.S. 19 property, which is a unit in a strip shopping center they own, as their residence.
The strip mall lies within the more than 500 acres slated to be annexed into Crystal River. If the McPheeterses' new home is legitimate, the city either will have to cut out their property from the proposed annexation zone or hold a referendum of voters in the affected area.
The McPheeterses would be the only residents in the proposed annexation area, and thus the only people who would vote in such a referendum. They already have said they would vote against the proposal, effectively killing it unless other pro-annexation residents are added.
City officials still aren't saying what they plan to do about the latest wrinkle in the annexation plan. The City Council is supposed to hold its final vote on the matter next week.
"We've made no decisions," Boyer said Monday. "We're still investigating all the options."
Their investigative approach became public thanks to an e-mail Maidhof sent Friday afternoon to inform assistant county attorney Michele Slingerland of the visit from the Crystal River officer. The Times obtained a copy of the e-mail Monday during a routine review of county records.
"Being the diligent public servant I am, I personally pulled the file for the officer, copied everything in it right in front of him and sent him on his merry way with (the) mission completed," Maidhof wrote. "... Let it not be said that we in county government don't provide prompt service to our governmental neighbors."
But Monday, Boyer said the stack of papers she received still didn't include the requested certificate of occupancy, which the county issued March 5 to the McPheeterses. The document allows them to live as on-site managers at their strip mall.
City officials believe the county may have issued the certificate before the McPheeterses had properly retrofitted their empty storefront for a personal residence.
Maidhof said his department typically puts a copy of the certificate of occupancy in the applicant's file and sends another to the property appraiser. When he copied the file for the Crystal River officer, he thought that document was included.
After learning that Boyer hadn't gotten the document, Maidhof said he would make sure the original was added to the McPheeterses' file and have a copy sent to Boyer.
Leaving it out "certainly wasn't intentional," he said.
Boyer would not explain why she sent a police officer to obtain the McPheeterses' file, or whether the law enforcement agency is conducting a criminal investigation. The McPheeterses changed their voter registrations to reflect their new home address on Feb. 20, two weeks before county government issued the certificate of occupancy.
City attorney David LaCroix said last week that an active criminal investigation was under way. He would not say about what or by whom. On Thursday, interim police Chief Gordon Rowland said his department was not conducting the investigation. He did not return a call Monday.
LaCroix had no comment Monday.
The city manager said she hoped to have recommendations for how to proceed with the annexation by Monday night's council meeting.
- Colleen Jenkins can be reached at 860-7303 or cjenkins@sptimes.com