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Ugly generator to be banished

After hearing neighbors blast the "Bayshore bunker," the City Council says the emergency power source needs to be relocated.

By RICK GERSHMAN
Published August 18, 2006

TAMPA - An emergency generator the city planned to install along Bayshore Boulevard would produce power to pump away water and sewage.

So far, it's only generated calls from Bayshore residents angry about its location. On Thursday, City Council members echoed their opposition.

Residents told the council an 8-foot-tall concrete enclosure erected in the median of Bayshore to house the generator is an eyesore and a safety hazard, unacceptable on Tampa's signature road.

All council members at the meeting agreed, urging the administration to find the $300,000 to $500,000 needed to move the generator and enclosure to a safer and less glaring location. Council member Linda Saul-Sena was absent.

At $300,000, Council member John Dingfelder said, "that's about a dollar per person for every person in this city. For one year, I think that's reasonable."

Earlier in the meeting, Dingfelder had suggested waiting a year for landscaping planted around the enclosure to grow and help obscure the so-called "Bayshore bunker."

However, after numerous people spoke in opposition to the generator's location, Dingfelder called on the city to find the funds to move it away from the corner of Stovall Street near the Monte Carlo condominiums.

The council unanimously passed two motions. One was to ask the city's budgeting staff to investigate how relocating the generator would affect other projects and report back Sept. 14 at the first 2006-07 budget hearing.

The second was to urge the administration to hold off on installing the generator, which is still on order, until after that hearing.

Though the council originally authorized the generator, the administration had not specified the location, Dingfelder said.

"I think we messed up on this pretty big, because people need to be at the table, especially when something affects them," Council member Rose Ferlita said.

Bernice Ross of the Bayshore Greenway Group said the organization had collected petitions representing more than 600 people who wanted the generator moved. She said she had spoken with people from as far as St. Petersburg who felt the same.

Helen Chavez, a former City Council member, said this wasn't an issue for Bayshore residents, but for everyone in Tampa.

"You can't tell me in a city this large, we can't find an alternative place to put that," she said. "There's no excuse for that."

Other speakers suggested it made little sense to locate a generator in an area that could flood during a hurricane or storm surge.

City public works administrator Steve Daignault told council members the Bayshore location was carefully considered, but they were not swayed.

"That needs to be moved now," Ferlita said. "I see this as a health, safety and welfare issue."

Said Dingfelder: "I would say definitively it was a bad idea to put the bunker there in the first place."

Rick Gershman can be reached at rgershman@sptimes.com or 226-3431.

[Last modified August 18, 2006, 05:53:26]