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Want the vote to go your way? Bring a crowd

By JEFF WEBB
Published April 19, 2006

Forget about buying that winning ticket to tonight's Lotto drawing. I have an idea for a startup business that, although not as sexy and lucrative as an $82-million jackpot, is a guaranteed moneymaker.

We'll call it Rent-A-Crowd, the Responsibility Avoidance Corporation.

That's RACRAC, for short, and it will thrive in Hernando County.

Here's how it will work:

If you want to influence the outcome of a proposal before the County Commission, hire RACRAC. For a very reasonable, per-head fee, you will be provided professional protesters/supporters to pressure the commissioners into voting your way. (Additional charges apply if you want the contracted crowd to exercise special powers of persuasion, such as booing, clapping or laughing on cue.)

You pay nothing until the commissioners grant your wish.

If things don't go your way, though, your money will be cheerfully refunded.

Of course, that will very rarely happen because, when it comes to crowds, RACRAC talks and the commission walks.

Case in point: For more than three months, county government's professional land use and transportation planning staff has recommended the commission approve a proposal for a shopping center on State Road 50 just east of the Brookridge subdivision. As required by county law, the developer, Diversified Property Group LLC, needed to build a frontage road that ran parallel to SR 50 and connected to the main entrance to the community, Brookridge Central Boulevard.

Each time the proposal was brought to the commission, Brookridge residents packed the meeting chambers in Brooksville to strongly voice their opposition to the frontage road. Shriveling under the pressure, the commission twice postponed the decision and instructed its staff to negotiate a compromise between the developer and residents.

Last week the staff brought back a proposal that did not connect the frontage road to Brookridge Central or to any of the commercial properties west of that street. That watered-down proposal missed the whole point of a frontage road, which is to allow people to travel from their homes to commercial areas without getting on highways, in this case busy SR 50.

So rather than resurrecting the original recommendation of their staff - and complying with the law that requires a frontage road - the commissioners opted to be crowd pleasers and voted to deny the project altogether. To be fair, two of the commissioners, Robert Schenck and Jeff Stabins, took the path of most resistance and supported the shopping center and a scaled-back frontage road.

Commissioners Chris Kingsley, Nancy Robinson and Diane Rowden came through for the crowd.

Some, including County Attorney Garth Coller, have speculated that Diversified Property Group may sue the county for not following its own rules, or for not applying them fairly. If that happens, and the developer is successful in court, the price will be paid by all taxpayers, not just the ones in Brookridge.

When I wrote about this issue in January, I accused the commission of catering to the crowd by postponing a decision. In doing so, I made a point not to blame Brookridge residents for pleading their case with passion and reason. I happen to disagree with their position, but I certainly would not attempt to silence or belittle them.

No, I'll reserve my disdain for the three commissioners who know full well that approving the project with a full-fledged frontage road was the right thing to do for the majority of their constituents who drive SR 50. They also know that developing a dependable frontage road system is crucial to this county's long-term transportation network and that their inaction, until another board of commissioners or a court reverses it, creates an essential missing link in that system.

If Brookridge residents had not packed the meeting room each time this development proposal came up, the commissioners would have approved it - the stores and the frontage road - with comparatively little discussion. As a matter of fact, they did just that for another SR 50 shopping center development at the very same meeting last week.

The people in this county should be losing patience with commissioners who don't understand, or refuse to accept, their obligation to stay focused on the big picture, even when it is going to cost them a few votes.

Maybe someone should hire RACRAC to drive home that point.

[Last modified April 19, 2006, 02:10:32]