Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Fire officials balk at annexation settlement offer

lealman Pinellas Park wants to dissolve the fire district.

By ANNE LINDBERG, Times Staff Writer
Published September 19, 2007

Fire commissioners emphatically and unanimously turned down a proposal that would have settled the annexation battle with Pinellas Park.

Moments later, they deferred a vote on a proposed annexation settlement with Seminole, which had provided a choice of two possible ways to put an end to the dispute between the city and the Lealman Fire District.

Lealman resident and former fire commissioner John Frank had questioned one of the proposals because it had no provision for reimbursing Lealman for running first-response service into the area on the west of Park Street. Seminole annexed that land in 2000.

The Pinellas Park proposal had several parts, including ways to reimburse Lealman for providing first-response fire service for properties the city would annex from that unincorporated area. While that caused angst among fire board and community members, the most controversial issue provided for the dissolution of the fire district.

Pinellas Park wanted fire commissioners to agree to dissolve the district in five to 10 years. At that point, Pinellas Park wanted to take over fire service for the eastern part of the Lealman area and give St. Petersburg the western part.

Pinellas Park introduced its proposal earlier this month during a meeting of a task force appointed by the Legislature to come up with a solution to the annexation strife that has plagued mid Pinellas for almost a decade.

Lealman provided reasons that the proposal would not work. But that made no impression, said Maggie Mooney, the fire board's attorney. At a meeting Friday of the attorneys for the task force members, Mooney said that Pinellas Parks' legal counsel Jim Denhardt refused to budge. He told her that it was Pinellas Park's agreement or nothing, Mooney said.

That outraged board members and Lealman residents who were listening to Mooney's report at Monday's fire board meeting.

"I got so angry at the task force meeting," Lealman resident Sasha Friedman said. "They had us sliced and diced."

Kathleen Litton moved to reject Pinellas Park's proposal. Julie Adams seconded the motion. All five voted yes.

The annexation task force is scheduled to meet again at 2 p.m. Sept. 28 in Room 202, Park Station, 5851 Park Blvd., Pinellas Park. The meeting is open to the public.

[Last modified September 18, 2007, 22:56:58]