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Talk of the bay

Retired Palm Beach official: Send Scripps to Tampa

By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published January 17, 2005

After 30 years as an elected official in Palm Beach County, Dorothy Wilken retired Jan. 3. And at a thank-you ceremony last week, she didn't hesitate to tell folks how she really feels about Scripps Research Institute's plan to come to her county.

Send it to Tampa.

"Do you want it?" Wilken, 69, laughed as she asked a Times reporter Thursday. "I was trying to think of places where it might bring a benefit which it isn't bringing here."

Wilken, who lives in Delray Beach, said she's witnessed unbridled development in Broward and Dade counties. "It's not a pretty sight," she said. "We've tried very hard not to become Miami and Fort Lauderdale, but it looks like we're doomed to repeat the same mistakes."

Wilken said putting Scripps at the Mecca site in undeveloped western Palm Beach County violates the county's land-use plan and will open previously protected areas to development. Alternate sites are only marginally better, said Wilken, who said a growing number of Palm Beach County residents are coming around to her way of thinking.

"There's a distinct ground swell for telling them (Scripps) to go away," said Wilken, who was most recently clerk of the Circuit Court. "People don't perceive any great benefit for them to come here. So if Tampa wants it, let them have it."

[Last modified January 15, 2005, 00:10:05]