Town hall meeting attracts a crowd in Sun City Center

About 450 retirees join an assortment of attentive commissioners, county staffers and candidates.

By DAVID KARP

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 12, 2000

SUN CITY CENTER -- The candidates were staking out the entrance to the Sun City Center community hall.

Just inside the double doors, in an auditorium with a disco ball and hardwood dancing floor, was the kind of audience any politician would love.

About 450 retirees had been lured inside for a town hall meeting with the Hillsborough County Commission on Thursday. These were people with time to watch government access television, write letters to the editor, and go to County Commission meetings in the middle of the day.

So it wasn't surprising to see county government fully mobilized to be in touch with Sun City Center's concerns.

Almost every director of county government departments came to this community in south Hillsborough to help commissioners answer questions. There were three county attorneys, a staff of public relations personnel, and an army of high-tech video camera operators (wearing embroidered Hillsborough County government shirts) to make sure the meeting went off smoothly.

There were giveaways: maps, coffee mugs, low-flow shower heads.

"I just want you to know that I love you," Commissioner Ronda Storms said at one point. Her comment captured the mood.

Storms told the residents that no other neighborhood in Hillsborough calls her office as much as they do.

"When you come up here with problems, you come up here with solutions," she said.

Most of the problems brought up Thursday centered on the smaller annoyances of life in Sun City Center. Residents said retention ponds need to be cleaned more often, a new shopping plaza needs a separate entrance for golf carts, and the county needs to build a new fire station cheaper and faster.

In a community lush with St. Augustine lawns and golf courses, residents also bemoaned the county's new water restrictions -- which limit sprinkling to one day a week.

"Since you do not have water for those people living in Hillsborough, why do you let all these apartments come in?" Lorell Naypaver, 77, asked commissioners.

Apartments attract families with children, Mrs. Naypaver said. "And you know how many baths children take and for how long!"

Commissioner Pat Frank, a longtime proponent of strict growth management laws, smiled.

"That's an excellent question," Frank said and then looked toward county staffers. "Let's get someone from the planning and growth management staff to answer that."

The audience roared.

Robert Feller, 68, asked why he could not get access to reclaimed water when houses across the street were on the system.

Water department official Keith Templeman promised to look into the issue. He told Feller to give him a call.

Storms didn't like the response.

"Why don't you call him?" she asked Templeman.

Outside the hall, candidates seeking office in this fall's elections were just as solicitous.

"I'm Bill Jennings," the Republican candidate for state attorney said, as he shook George Voitovich's hand.

"Are you honest?" the 78-year-old retiree asked him.

"Absolutely," Jennings said.

Voitovich looked Jennings up and down as his wife, Alice, 73, hung on his arm.

"You have to look hard at the man," Voitovich said later. "Some people are good; some people are out for a buck."

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