Commission briefly

By CHRISTINA HEADRICK

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 16, 2000

The Clearwater City Commission took the following actions at its Thursday night meeting:

Gave final approval to raising water and sewer rates. The increase will be 6.6 percent for the rest of this year, beginning July 1. The long-term plan is to continue similar increases for the next five years. The fee increases follow other increases for stormwater and garbage bills.

Authorized spending $500,000 to expand the Countryside Recreation Center.

Gave final approval to an overhaul of the city's Community Development Code. The code was rewritten last year. The overhaul corrects some mistakes and loosens some guidelines. A new provision was added to regulate portable storage units by restricting their use to no more than 96 hours at a time, unless a property is under construction. Several representatives of city homeowners associations urged the commission to make the rules even stricter because they say storage units could become eyesores.

The commission plans to hold a meeting in July to debate a few unresolved issues, including proposals to prohibit the rental of condominiums for less than 30 days and to ban parking on grass.

Agreed to spend $454,813 for clay tennis courts. The plans are to build eight new clay courts at the McMullen Tennis Complex in northeast Clearwater by the end of August. The new courts will have higher user fees -- designed to help triple revenues from the complex -- but the city has not finalized the new fees.

Okayed payments to end lawsuits. The city will pay $150,176 to attorneys of several city employees who won a case over city workers' compensation policies that went all the way to the Florida Supreme Court. Clearwater also will pay $90,000 to settle a lawsuit resulting from a car accident involving a city recycling truck.

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