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County officials have only themselves to blame for the growing combativeness of the group known as Friends of Brooker Creek Preserve.
The group was created to be a friend of the preserve, providing volunteers and helping raise funds to support the operation and preservation of the more than 8,000 undeveloped acres in northeastern Pinellas.
For a long time, the group focused on doing just that and passively cooperated with the county and the preserve staff. But now the Friends perceive that the preserve they love is being threatened by the county government. In meetings, blogs and e-mails, they are shedding their passivity and sticking up for the preserve.
That's what Friends are for, right?
The group certainly has justification for its concern that there is a threat to the preserve. The county's proposal to reactivate long-capped wells inside the preserve, the clearing of acreage for athletic fields and inadequately vetted water utility projects, the idea the county floated to build an equestrian center in the preserve, the county plan to place 60-foot-tall water storage tanks in the preserve, the discovery that the county is studying removing hundreds of acres from the preserve to use for other purposes. ...
Well, any friend of the preserve would think it was time to stand up and speak up, so the Friends of Brooker Creek Preserve are getting organized to oppose any further development or dividing of this land that Pinellas County said years ago would be preserved for future generations.
The group has created its own plan for the preserve. That plan would remove from the preserve boundaries only those few parcels that already are developed, and it would assign a new land use designation of "preservation" to everything else. Some areas now are designated "preservation/resource management," which the group says permits the county to build on the property.
The group also has posted a "Declaration of Support for the Preserve" on its Web site (www.friendsof brookercreekpreserve.org/) that calls for the perpetual preservation of the Brooker Creek Preserve. The group wants people to sign the declaration and send it to county commissioners.
County officials may find this kind of activism by the Friends discombobulating, but perhaps it, along with other public input, already has had some impact.
One example: The county suddenly changed its mind about a variance it had requested from the Board of Adjustment so that it could put buildings taller than 45 feet at a water blending plant it is constructing inside the preserve. Neighbors and environmental advocates, already irritated about the plant project, probably would have shown up to object to the variance.
If the Brooker Creek Preserve is to be saved, it will take determined activism by the Friends and all of those in Pinellas who believe in preservation of the county's remaining green lands.