Meeting on road plan is not too neighborly

By BILL COATS

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 11, 2000

LUTZ -- Two county governments caught heat from constituents in the same meeting this week.

A session in which Hillsborough County officials sought to update residents about County Line Road construction plans was often dominated by people venting against the county governments.

Hillsborough residents complained about Pasco County's road construction, and wetland destruction. Pasco residents complained about Hillsborough's reluctance to move County Line Road away from their houses. Both groups complained about a lack of coordination across the county line.

But the most bitter complaints were rooted in two short strips of houses. Residents of one, in Hillsborough County, bemoan the effects of a Pasco County road project in front of them. Residents of the other, in Pasco County, are angrily demanding that Hillsborough County realign County Line Road away from their houses.

Hillsborough Commissioner Jim Norman, whose district includes Lutz, has endorsed a cheaper realignment that would keep the road next to the houses. He has withheld his support of the longer version until the complaints by his constituents off County Line Road South are addressed.

"Our county commissioners, just like the Pasco County commissioners, feel an obligation to protect their residents first," said Deputy County Administrator Pat Bean, who organized the meeting.

But David Varga, whose Pasco County home is one of seven facing the county line just east of Livingston Avenue, said Norman should resign for neglecting a safety issue there.

"I feel that they're holding us ransom for considerations at the other end of county line," he said.

From that end, comparable angst was expressed. Residents asked that Pasco build a buffer wall and erect a stoplight to protect them from the traffic that will use County Line Road South between U.S. 41 and Collier Parkway.

"This is going to do the same thing the Veterans was supposed to do: take pressure off Highway 54 when construction starts up there," complained Ann O'Brien, who lives just southwest of County Line and U.S. 41.

A buffer wall "would really cut the animosity level," said Sharon Keene, a Tampa resident whose in-laws live near the construction site.

She was one of several people who complained the neighborhoods are in a "no man's land," governed by one county but affected by the other.

When Keene spoke to the Pasco County Commission, "they were downright rude, because we don't vote in Pasco County," she said.

Pat Burke, who is running for a seat on the commission, quickly responded: "They're rude even when you vote in Pasco County."

- Bill Coats can be reached at (813) 226-3469 or coats@sptimes.com.

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