Northpinellas: Clearwater's repute crumbles at stadium

A Times Editorial

Clearwater's repute crumbles at stadium

Can we all agree on this: If you frequently invite large numbers of people to sit in a structure high off the ground, it is a good idea to check the structure regularly to make sure it won't fall down under their weight.

Agreed?

That is the logical premise that should have been followed by Clearwater at Jack Russell Stadium. But it wasn't. The city is fortunate that it was a city commissioner who fell through the stadium grandstand and broke something. Hapless Hoyt Hamilton, the city commissioner with the broken foot, isn't likely to sue the city for endangering the public.

Hamilton, who has been a commissioner for only three months, was at the stadium on May 30 when he spotted yellow caution tape wrapped around a section of the lower grandstand. He stepped inside the tape to see what was the problem, and the slab of concrete beneath his feet gave way, dumping him to the ground 9 feet below the stands. There were reportedly some frightening moments when it appeared that more heavy concrete slabs might crash down on him before he could scramble out of the way.

Hamilton has shown a sense of humor about the accident. He admits that it was foolish to step inside the caution tape to try to get a better look at cracks in the concrete.

But what Hamilton did wasn't nearly so irresponsible as what the city did. As Times staff writer Christina Headrick reported Sunday, the city took $50,000 that had been budgeted in 1999 for an engineer's inspection of the structure and spent it on something else, then didn't put it back in the budget later. The $50,000 was spent to renovate the Philadelphia Phillies' stadium offices because the offices had sprung leaks.

That, we believe, should have been a clue to city officials that the whole 55-year-old stadium needed a going-over.

There were other clues, too, that the stadium needed regular checks and repairs to remain safe. In 1993, 1994 and 1998, a structural engineer who inspected Jack Russell Stadium found problems, including deteriorated steel supports holding the upper grandstand, chipped concrete and rusted catwalks. Some repairs, including a $30,000 emergency project, were done because of the engineer's findings.

Then in 1999, the city Parks and Recreation Department, which is responsible for the stadium, asked the City Commission for the $50,000 to hire an engineer to go over the entire stadium, and up to $300,000 the following budget year for any necessary repairs.

But the department says now that the $50,000 was not requested because of safety concerns, but to help the city plan for stadium improvements the Phillies wanted!

In fact, the department had no ongoing inspection program at Jack Russell. So when the $50,000 was spent on something else and was not restored to the budget, there was no regular inspection process to catch the problems eating away at the stadium structure. The city just continued opening the gates to the stadium, one of the oldest spring-training facilities in Florida, and inviting people inside to watch baseball. It wasn't an inspector, but a man who cleans the stadium after games who spotted the cracks in the section where Hamilton later fell and warned the Phillies, who put up the caution tape.

The record of problems at Jack Russell during the '90s is proof that the old stadium had reached the end of its life span. The city and Phillies plan to have a new stadium built in east Clearwater by 2003.

But until the new stadium opens, the city has an obligation to make sure the old stadium was safe. Protecting the public's health, safety and welfare is the highest duty of government, and it is a duty at which Clearwater failed.