The city wants the building site for a library. "Over my dead body," says a member playing bingo, the club's only regular activity.
By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published May 10, 2004
[Times photos: Carrie Pratt]
Monnie Cross looks up at a screen for the next number while playing bingo at the Oldsmar Civic Club last month. Cross, along with her husbandd, lives part of the year in Tampa. The Civic Club will own the building until 2044.
Jim Campoli, a trustee for the Oldsmar Civic Club, works as a caller during bingo. The city leases the building as a cultural arts center but won't get control of it until 2044.
Dolly Whyte plays using bingo dabbers. "I'm addicted to it," she says of the game she has played for more than 50 years. Oldsmar says a library on the Civic Club site would be part of a revialized downtown.
OLDSMAR - Surrounded by her birthstone angels and ceramic figurines, Betty Crawley is one of about 50 regulars at the Oldsmar Civic Club's Monday night bingo games.
Every week for the past year, the 63-year-old real estate agent has sat in the back corner of the club and hoped for wins.
Instead, she made new friends.
"This is a big family," Crawley said. "Everybody who comes through that door is your friend. If the club moves, there's a good chance the family will get torn apart."
The Civic Club has been a local institution for 50 years, but the city wants its land for a new library. That has touched off a community conflict marked by snubs, insults and ultimatums between city officials and the club's largely retired membership.
"Over my dead body will they take this away from us," said Maria Whitton, 78, jabbing her tanned fingers into the air. "Never."
"This" is the club's modest home, with its low-slung roof and strip-mall charm, since 1950. City officials say they could have condemned the building 10 years ago.
Instead, they fixed it up. Today, the 4,000-square-foot structure is serviceable, not stately.
It's still home, though.
"We have nowhere else to go," said 90-year-old Esther Cleland.
To the city, however, the spot near State Street is the start to a revitalized downtown. They talk about building the new library where the Civic Club is now, with a new cultural arts center next door someday. That would help entice new development, restaurants and one-of-kind shopping.
"The library is the start of an incredible complex for our city," said Mayor Jerry Beverland.
So officials have suggested moving the Civic Club, whose only regular activity is weekly bingo.
The first option was the Kumar mansion, a waterfront home originally built as the first floor of a resort hotel in the 1920s. The city bought it last year, planning to fix it up for public use.
Club members said the mansion looked like it was about to fall down.
It was.
After the club rejected the offer, City Council members decided to demolish the mansion rather than spend $3-million restoring it.
"What would have happened if we said yes?" said Civic Club president Cecil Short. "We would have been out of a home.
"From that day, I learned never to trust the city."
Later, the club rejected offers of space in the City Council chambers or the city's senior center. That's when city officials asked for a meeting with club directors.
One Wednesday evening last month, the five-member council, plus city staff and the city attorney, all gathered with an air of optimism. They even brought cake and punch, hoping to celebrate.
The Civic Club never showed up.
To city officials, the snub didn't seem very civic-minded.
"It's like they're holding us hostage," said council member Janice Miller.
Short said no one told him when the meeting was. And after a second meeting, the Civic Club dug in.
"The only way (the city is) going to get that building is when we die," Short said.
Frustrated, city officials are looking for leverage. Last week, they noted that the club's articles of incorporation, written in 1977, require club officers to be Oldsmar residents. Short, 78, lives in Clearwater. At least one other officer also lives outside Oldsmar. So the city plans to send the club a letter reminding it of its bylaws.
"We need to be talking to the right people," said council member Jim Ronecker. "Maybe after we get the right people in place, and show them a plan, we could work something out."
The Civic Club has always called its downtown location home, even if members aren't sure how long the club has been around. Maybe it started in 1945. Maybe in 1950.
In that time, however, it has grown and shrunk. It nearly went broke at least three times. Membership once dropped to 12.
But there's always been bingo, which typically draws a few dozen players, mostly retirees.
The club gives most of its profits, about $300 a month, to local charities such as the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast and the Haven, a shelter for victims of domestic violence.
Club members use the building five nights a month. The rest of the time, the club leases the place to the city for $1 a year to use as a cultural arts center.
In exchange for the space, the city pays the club's bills and maintains the building. City officials also have spent $75,000 on renovations, including a new roof, new air conditioning and a new stage.
The club will own the building until 2044, when the city's lease with the club provides that the building will automatically become city property.
"They're going to get the building," Short said. "When it's 2044, or when we die. Whatever comes first. People are asking me if we're going to give in. Well, we're not. We're not going to let the city walk all over us."
The city already controls 4 acres surrounding the Civic Club, thanks to a gift from club members. City Manager Bruce Haddock seems ready to build the new library next to the club building now and worry about a cultural arts center later. Council members hope to work out a deal with the club.
Back at the bingo hall, traditions rule and an agreement seems unlikely.
Esther Cleland has been a fixture on Mondays since 1981. And for the past 20 years, she's always kept a faded gold hand bell next to her cards. When "66" comes up, she takes the bell and starts ringing.
Cleland says that "66 broke the bank at Monte Carlo," a foggy reference to an 1890s song and 1930s film about a man who won big. She can't explain it after that.
"Somebody told me to to ring the bell. I don't know who, and I don't really know why," she says. "But I've been doing it ever since."
The routine has become part of the club's heritage.
