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Old ditch issue returns to council with spirited debate

Port Richey officials argue with property owners over who should be responsible for potential flooding.

By PHIL DAVIS
Published September 29, 2005

PORT RICHEY - With the big issue tabled, the City Council spent more than half of a 3-hour-45-minute meeting debating over a ditch.

"I think this is the longest discussion on one ditch we've had," Mayor Mark Abbott said during about two hours of Tuesday night's ditch debate.

The main accomplishment of the meeting was approval of an official protest of an upcoming grouper fishing ban. It passed 5-0.

The meeting featured the usual sparring, including council member Jim Priest's rebellion at Abbott's new council dais seating plan.

The council put off the night's main issue, a public hearing on a 700-page rewrite of the land development code. A hearing is set for Oct. 10 at 6 p.m.

The council also voted to pursue marina regulations, despite public protests, and to pay former police Chief Bill Downs $90,089.46 in back pay.

An arbitrator ruled the city was unjustified in firing Downs in 2003 and ordered it to rehire him at a lower rank. Abbott and council member Phyllis Grae opposed the regulations and the settlement.

But those issues were dwarfed by the ditch that would not die.

The ditch helps drain Davis Street, south of the Pithlachascotee River. A planned house didn't fit on the lot with the ditch. So the property owners, former Mayor Eloise Taylor and council member Bill Bennett's wife, Constance, asked the city to allow them to build the house 5 feet closer to the road than the law allows and keep the ditch intact.

Taylor said she and Constance Bennett, who are friends, bought the property in 2004 with the intention of building two houses and selling them. Bill Bennett is the contractor. He can't vote on anything related to the project, but that didn't stop him from frequently joining in the debate.

When the issue came to the council on Sept. 13, council member Fred Miller was on vacation. The variance died for lack of a second. Taylor withdrew the request. The ditch was filled.

Case closed? Hardly.

The ditch came back Tuesday night. Debate was long and bitter with lots of "I don't want to be redundant, but ..." from both sides of the issue.

Residents said they will miss the ditch.

"I'm going to have to buy hip waders to get to work," resident Sheri Sharer told the council.

Priest said the city failed the residents by not approving the variance and owed them some kind of solution. Grae countered that potential flooding was the problem of Taylor and the Bennetts, not the city. Allegations of politics and personal favoritism kept the debate heated.

"There was a political decision made by Mrs. Grae not to support the variance," Taylor said, attributing the lack of a vote to a political feud with Grae. "It will now likely cost the city more to address it because of the stupidity of the first decision."

The council ended up voting 3-2 to have City Manager Jerry Calhoun scope out a drainage solution for Davis Street. Public Works director Rocky Schmidt said a similar fix across the street cost about $30,000. Grae and Abbott opposed the motion.

"I'm not going to invest anything on the part of the city," Grae told Bill Bennett during one exchange. "It is not the city's problem. You're the one that will be causing the problem of the flooding. The city has not created this problem."

The meeting adjourned about 11:15 p.m.

[Last modified September 29, 2005, 01:19:16]