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They're still Clearwater Rotarians, more or less

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published July 14, 2005

The Rotary Club of Clearwater, founded in 1924, is a veteran chapter of that international body. It was the 1,875th Rotary to be chartered, making it a grandfather among the more than 25,000 clubs worldwide today. Clearwater proudly furnished the Rotary International president of 1995-1996, Herbert G. Brown.

The Rotarians of Clearwater have performed many charitable and community services over the decades. The club's principal fundraising event is an annual kingfishing tournament. At its June meeting the club disbursed more than $43,000 to various good causes. The membership, currently just over 130, has always included prominent civic leaders and city officials.

I do not mean to extol the virtues of the Rotary Club of Clearwater in particular. Indeed, many service clubs supply their communities with charity work, scholarships and good deeds. But it is important to provide historical context here - to get the proper perspective on what has now transpired.

For, you see, the Rotary Club of Clearwater has left town.

After years of meeting downtown, the club has moved its weekly meetings to the Belleair Country Club, located, as you might surmise, in Belleair, the next municipality down the road.

The New York Giants do not play in New York. The Dallas Cowboys do not play in Dallas. And now the Rotary Club of Clearwater does not meet in Clearwater.

Indeed, the club is sharing the same meeting location as the Rotary Club of Belleair, a fine club in its own right, with the additional virtue of actually meeting in the same city as its club name.

The Clearwater club's decision should be read as a decision to "fire" as its meeting place the city-owned Harborview Center, the grand name given to the old department store that the city bought in the 1990s. Despite its fine view over Clearwater's waterfront, it is fair to say the Harborview Center has never been the roaring success that the city had hoped.

Meanwhile, the upper-level parking at the Harborview Center was putting too much strain on the place, causing the ceilings to leak. This meant the Rotarians had to park out in the surface lot and hoof it like everybody else. This also meant that on peak days, members had to park off-site.

"The convenience factor was definitely eroding," James McArthur told me. He is the current club president, and the son of a former Clearwater Rotary president.

Not every Rotarian is young and agile; some are in their 70s or even 80s. One member has a perfect attendance record of 59 years. So the members did not feel it was unreasonable to be able to park close by.

Matters were not helped when the Harborview Center arbitrarily moved the Rotarians' meeting last month (to "the dungeon," McArthur calls it). It was the worst meeting of the year to move there, given it was the charity meeting most attended by the rest of the community. On top of that, a repairman just outside the room kept up his banging through the event. When the center also proved to be late, uncooperative and unyielding in the terms of a new lease, the Rotarians bolted.

Considering that Clearwater's mayor has been a Rotarian, and City Manager Bill Horne is currently a member, this is slightly embarrassing for the city. I called Horne to tease him, suggesting perhaps that the city might consider annexing Belleair to get its Rotary back. (Just kidding, Belleair.) Horne, who was not at the meeting where the vote occurred, said he wished the city had been given a last-ditch chance to make things right.

"The Rotary Club of Clearwater," McArthur agrees, "should be in Clearwater." The club has formed a task force to find a site back in the city limits. Between the needs of parking, food and space, this is not as easy as you might think.

McArthur said he was a little surprised by the attention this has gotten. The members were not trying to make any kind of statement by leaving town. They didn't even think of themselves as "leaving town."

Yet there they are, down with the Belleair Rotarians, while Clearwater officials avert their eyes in shame. The Clearwater Rotary, not meeting in Clearwater! What might happen next - will the beach causeway fall down or something?

[Last modified July 14, 2005, 00:30:10]