Among the biggest dollar boosts if the agreement is approved would be $1.3-million for Brooksville's sewer project.
By WILL VAN SANT
Published April 29, 2004
Tucked into the $58-billion state budget that the Legislature will vote on Friday are several goodies for local governments and service providers.
Tax money will go to upgrade Brooksville sewers, get started on a recreation trail project, provide crisis beds for kids and secure Hernando County's coastline, among other things.
By far the biggest chunk of the approximately $2.1-million coming to the area is $1.3-million to line Brooksville's aged clay sewer pipes with plastic.
Emory Pierce, Brooksville's public works director, said studies indicate that $20-million is needed to improve all the clay pipe, some of which is 70 years old. To date, the state Department of Environmental Protection has provided $1.75-million for the project, but none of that was provided last year, Pierce said.
The city is now doing work between East Avenue and Ponce De Leon Boulevard, running cameras into pipes to "make sure there is no major collapse or that Jimmy Hoffa is not tucked up in the line," Pierce said, then inserting a plastic liner that expands and coats the interior. The DEP's money will help continue the work in the same area, where some of the worst pipe can be found, he said.
"It's a very generous and reasonable amount," Pierce said.
Brooksville will also be getting $130,000 from the Florida Recreational Development Assistance Program to spruce up the area around the historic Brooksville train depot on Russell Street.
It is hoped the depot will one day connect to the Withlacoochee State Forest by means of a 10-mile paved recreational trail, called the Good Neighbors Trail. Around the depot, the city owns 10 acres through which runs Parson's Brook, a creek named for the family that owned the land in the 19th century.
The grant will help build a 4,000-foot walking trail with footbridges across the creek. City matching money will pay for a parking lot, restrooms and lighting.
Raymond Hess, Brooksville's redevelopment coordinator, said the city had tried and failed to get a grant that would have launched construction of the Good Neighbors Trail. But he was happy with the money for improvements around the train depot.
"We are excited if we get any funding," Hess said. "And we will just keep trying in future years to get funding for the trail to be built."
The proposed budget also provides $200,000 for crisis care of children at the Harbor Behavioral Healthcare Institute. The funding will be split evenly between the Harbor's facilities in Brooksville, which opens next month with four children's beds, and New Port Richey, which has 15 children's beds, according to a Harbor spokesperson.
Hernando County Social Services director Jean Rags said that in the past, kids undergoing psychiatric episodes had to be taken to the Harbor in New Port Richey, increasing the burden on law enforcement officers and the children's family members.
Now, for the first time, Hernando will have its own crisis beds for such children.
"This is a big thing," Rags said. "It is a tremendous benefit to us."
The city of Weeki Wachee, home of the Weeki Wachee Springs park attraction, gets $100,000 for wastewater system upgrades. Concern that an archaic sewer plant would foul the Weeki Wachee River was a source of recent tensions between the park attraction and the Southwest Florida Water Management District, which owns the lands where the park sits.
According to Joe Mason, Weeki Wachee's attorney, the city shut down the plant and connected to the county system about a month ago. To get the job done, Mason said, the city had to pay for the work with credit, which will be largely repaid with the state dollars.
"That will be a welcome stipend," the attorney said. "We have struggled to get that project done and that will be some relief."
Also included in the proposed spending plan is $250,000 that the county Sheriff's Office can use to buy boats for patrolling the coast, and $250,000 for water-related "community infrastructure improvements" in Spring Hill.
Neither County Utilities Department director Kay Adams, who oversees water and sewer service in Spring Hill, nor county Engineering Department director Charles Mixson, who manages stormwater projects there, claimed the $250,000 allocation. They had never heard of the money, so just what "community infrastructure improvements" are to be funded could not be determined.
The Legislature is expected to vote on the budget Friday night.
- Will Van Sant can be reached at 754-6127. Send e-mail to vansant@sptimes.com Staff writers Jennifer Liberto and Bridget Hall-Grumet contributed to this report.
