Brown Schools await zoning review

By JIM ROSS

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 17, 2000

Here's an update on some stories that have made headlines in recent months.

BROWN SCHOOLS: Gary Maidhof, the county's director of development services, said late last week that he soon will issue a document that clarifies Citrus government's position concerning the Brown Schools' zoning woes.

Brown plans to operate a treatment facility for emotionally disturbed adolescents inside the building that once housed the Heritage Hospital adult psychiatric program. That building is off County Road 491 just north of County Road 486.

Attorneys representing the nearby Black Diamond development and its residents have argued that the school can't operate until county government completes a formal zoning review. That review, which would include public hearings, is necessary because Brown's program will be substantially different than Heritage's program.

Brown officials believe they received zoning approval in May.

On a related front, Black Diamond has filed a claim against the state Department of Children and Families. The residents argue that the department issued Brown a license in error, since the zoning approval for the building site was incomplete.

Brown officials have maintained that they are operating appropriately and within the law.

DUI APPEAL: In October, the Citrus Times published a story about Dennis Youngblood, a Crystal River man who had stood accused of driving under the influence of alcohol. Prosecutors dropped the charge after County Judge Mark Yerman ruled that results from a blood test of the defendant would be inadmissible as evidence.

The state appealed the judge's evidentiary ruling. In March, a panel of three circuit judges upheld the ruling. Crystal River police officers investigated an accident on Feb. 2, 1999 in which the vehicle that Youngblood was driving struck a pedestrian at U.S. 19 and Fort Island Gulf Trail, records showed.

Officers ordered a blood test of Youngblood, which later showed the driver's blood-alcohol level was 0.14, above the 0.08 level at which Florida law presumes a driver to be impaired. Prosecutors filed charges.

Later, during a court hearing, officers conceded that they did not have probable cause to arrest Youngblood that night, and that he did not display obvious signs of impairment, the court records showed. They also repeated that Youngblood never took a breath test or any other test to show the degree of his impairment.

The defense said that state law on this point was clear: Absent probable cause, the officers had no legal right to force Youngblood to take the blood test. He did not submit to it voluntarily, and he was not given the chance to refuse taking the test, the defense argued.

Prosecutors said that, to order a test, authorities had to have probable cause to believe Youngblood was the driver, that there was serious bodily harm to the victim and that Youngblood was under the influence of alcohol. The officers met that burden, prosecutors said.

Yerman sided with the defense, saying the officers didn't have sufficient cause to order the test. And the three-judge appellate panel, with Circuit Judge Hale Stancil writing the opinion, sided with Yerman.

The panel said that the law, and its interpretation by appellate courts, supported the defense position.

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