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Council is foundering in a leadership void
© St. Petersburg Times, There is something about swimming pools that sends New Port Richey's City Council off the deep end. In May, council member Tom Finn left a public meeting and announced his since-retracted resignation after his inability to get the rest of the council to buy into his idea of expanding the city's swimming pool. Tuesday evening, Mayor Wendy Brenner returned the favor, proclaiming, "This time, it's my turn to walk out," as she left the council chambers. Brenner's beef? Finn's suggestion to spend $700,000 to turn the city swimming pool into a youth-oriented splash park made its way back onto the agenda for a council work session on the upcoming budget. "I'm upset this was on here in the first place," Brenner barked. "How many times do we have to vote it down?" Maybe the mayor should ponder the council's own track record for vacillating before asking such a question. The council finally approved a street repaving plan for the Tanglewood Terrace neighborhood last week, 10 months after the often-contentious debate began. Along the way, the project was redrawn, rebid, and refinanced. The total cost dropped $200,000 and a council majority moved from having individual homeowners pay 100 percent of the expense to just 38 percent. Who wouldn't keep bugging the council if the potential for such favorable deals is looming? Finn's long-held notion is for the city to trim its annual $101,000 operating deficit at the swimming pool by renovating and expanding it into a water park. The city staff estimates a $700,000 refurbishing could generate a yearly net revenue increase of $65,000. It means reducing the pool's drain on the general fund by nearly two-thirds, but only if the capital costs are absorbed by the Community Redevelopment Trust Fund. Brenner maintains the city has more pressing matters and shouldn't consider the water park, though she and the rest of the council agreed Tuesday to devise a master plan for the city's recreation center where the pool is located. Brenner adjourned the meeting and walked out as Finn showed a 3-minute video on a splash park. Too bad. Her words and action, as Finn's did previously, demonstrate a council treading water because of a leadership void. Somebody needs to throw these people a life line. That might be best accomplished through some goal-setting sessions run by an outside facilitator. The city used that same strategy in the past to set long-term goals and to establish consensus on acquisition of 80 acres of land. Brenner is the only current council member who went through those sessions in the mid 1990s that were run, believe it or not, by a licensed family therapist. Such meetings should not become the government-training program that Finn envisioned in a separate idea that also rankled Brenner Tuesday. More appropriately, visioning sessions might improve personal relations on the council and boost productivity for the city's professional staff which receives often-conflicting direction from the council. If Brenner wants to reassert some mayoral leadership, she should acknowledge and confront the shortcomings of the status quo, not walk out on it.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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