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Panel cuts $36,000 from illegal parking bill
By JAMES THORNER
© St. Petersburg Times, DADE CITY -- Barbara Guravich arrived at a Tuesday meeting of the Pasco County Commission owing the county $37,000 for keeping an illegally parked truck at her house. After gaining the sympathetic ears of commissioners, at least one of whom recounted her own family's financial struggles, the Holiday resident left the meeting owing only $970. Guravich said the welding truck parked for several years at her house on Jackson Drive in Holiday belonged to her estranged husband, Michael. Despite the certified letters sent to her houseand the accumulated fines of nearly $37,000 since 1999, Guravich told commissioners she was unaware of the troubles until earlier this year. Guravich cried poverty. The $37,000 lien on her house prevented her from either selling or refinancing it, she said. So the county's Code Enforcement Office, which cited the family for storing a commercial vehicle in a residential area, suggested reducing the fines to $8,700. But even that was too high for commissioners. Raising her voice in exasperation, Commissioner Pat Mulieri said she remembered years ago when her family had little money. Mulieri moved to cancel the fine entirely, seeing a reflection of herself in Guravich's plight. "Unless she's lying to us, this woman says she has a few hundred dollars in savings," she said. But the other commissioners balked, supporting instead a reduction of the fine to $870, plus an extra $100 in administrative fees. Commission Chairman Steve Simon called the $970 payment "negligible." At least one commissioner, Ted Schrader, suggested he didn't believe Guravich when she claimed ignorance of the truck violation. But commissioners pointed out that the truck belonged to Michael Guravich, who by moving out of the house had dropped the fines in the lap of his wife. "I have two daughters," Simon told Guravich. "I wouldn't hurt you. It's not my nature."
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