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By TIMES STAFF and TIMES WIRES
Published September 23, 2006

GOP picks Pasco native to run for Littlefield's seat

Will Weatherford, a Pasco County native and legislative aide to Florida House Speaker Allan Bense, is the Republican Party's choice to succeed state Rep. Ken Littlefield.

Littlefield, R-Wesley Chapel, holder of the District 61 seat since 1999, recently was appointed to the Florida Public Service Commission, effective in January, and decided not to seek re-election. At their quarterly meeting in Kissimmee Friday, GOP officials replaced him on the November ballot with Weatherford, whose Democratic opponent will be Donovan Brown of Zephyrhills.

Weatherford, 26, is a former Land O'Lakes football star who played for Jacksonville University and is a brother of Florida State University's quarterback, Drew Weatherford. He has been an aide to Bense for the past three years and married Bense's daughter Courtney in June. They live in Tallahassee but will move to Pasco County, Weatherford said Friday.

Also Friday, the party picked Cape Coral home builder Gary Aubuchon to replace Jeff Kottkamp in the House. Kottkamp of Cape Coral resigned this month to run for lieutenant governor on the Republican ticket with Charlie Crist.

Aubuchon, 44, will take the seat automatically because Kottkamp faced no November opponent.

Robber shoots, kills guard in Clearwater hotel lobby

CLEARWATER - A masked gunman killed an unarmed hotel security guard in a robbery early Friday morning, police said.

William T. Williams, 64, of New Port Richey died in the lobby of Fairfield Inn & Suites on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard, Clearwater police spokesman Wayne Shelor said. Williams was a security guard for Janus Security Services of Tampa.

Police were called to the hotel, just west of McMullen-Booth Road, at 5:35 a.m.

The robber entered the hotel brandishing a gun and was robbing the front desk when Williams walked into the lobby and was shot, Shelor said. The robber then ran out of the building and escaped.

He was described as a white man, age 30 to 35, 6 feet tall, weighing 200 pounds. He wore dark pants, a dark long-sleeved T-shirt and a light-colored mask similar to a hockey mask.

Mall takes step toward approval - and a lawsuit

WESLEY CHAPEL - Staff members of the Southwest Florida Water Management District recommend that the agency's governing board approve the proposed 500-acre Cypress Creek Town Center.

If the board agrees at a meeting Tuesday, it can expect a lawsuit.

Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission officials want Pasco County to give them a say in terms of the mall's development order, which governs the mall's infrastructure.

The developer, the Richard E. Jacobs Group, hopes the mall can open in spring 2008.

Environmentalists fear that the mall's removal of 58 acres of wetlands would ecologically ruin Cypress Creek and taint Hillsborough's drinking water.

"I'd like to see wetlands get protected in Florida, and if it takes filing petitions for administrative hearings, that's what those were created for," said Ralf Brookes, a lawyer representing a group of Pasco residents.

The mall also still must hurdle concerns from the Army Corps of Engineers, which is not convinced the developer has tried its best to minimize wetlands impact, said the corps' Tracy Hurst.

The regulator suggested that the developer could redraw plans for offices, homes and a hotel - components of the town center that Jacobs had told the corps are "not critical for financial viability."

The corps also is asking why the developer wants more parking spaces than any other bay area mall, according to Jacobs' own analysis, and more than Pasco requires.

Dan Rametta, a Land O'Lakes environmentalist, questioned why Swiftmud would allow the permit because the Jacobs Group repeatedly refused to use the agency's recommended federal flood mapping model.

Not everyone is taking to the courts. Hillsborough's environmental commission mulled a lawsuit, but its experts instead recommended leveraging on Pasco's development order. "We're going to say, 'Since we have a stake, would you let us be involved in the design of the development order for water quality monitoring?' " said Rick Tschantz, the commission's legal counsel.

[Last modified September 23, 2006, 01:12:47]