Week in review

By Times staff writer

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 19, 2001

HIGHLAND PARK APPROVED: Developer Bill Bishop, at the center of a controversial land deal with Hillsborough County, won approval Tuesday for his 520-home community off Race Track and S Mobley roads. The County Commission voted 5-2 in favor of Highland Park, which includes public buildings and 50,000 square feet of commercial space. But a contentious discussion mirrored tension the land swap has generated the past two years. Commissioner Jan Platt, who joined Commissioner Jim Norman in voting against the deal, raised ethical questions about last-minute discussions with neighboring residents who had opposed the project.

Deputy County Administrator Pat Bean and Assistant County Attorney Susan Fernandez managed to hash out an agreement that increases the visual buffering and cuts 30 homes from the subdivision's north end at Keystone, a rural enclave. Norman and Commissioner Tom Scott had problems with the timing of the vote. The land swap is scheduled to close Aug. 31. Bishop's attorney, Rhea Law, said to obtain project funding he needs to show the lender he has the necessary zoning. Norman questioned whether the commission felt pressured to approve the application to keep the land swap alive.

In exchange for 120 acres of county-owned land, Bishop agreed to build an equestrian center for the disabled. Bishop, who has not yet turned the center over to the county, has spent more than $1-million on it, Law said.

Norman proposed sending the application back to zoning hearing master Mark Smith, who recommended in June that the project be rejected. That motion failed, and Platt accused Bean of circumventing the zoning review process through her earlier conference with the residents. "If she can interject herself on this zoning what's going to prevent her from interjecting on another zoning?" Platt said.

Smith recommended the board reject the rezoning application in June because the buffering was insufficient, the amount of commercial space was too high, and the density of homes proposed near Keystone was too high. But county planners said the buffering along Race Track surpassed that of the Waterchase subdivision across the street and the commercial district will serve not only Highland Park but the surrounding, fast-growing area.

BUS DROPS KINDERGARTEN CHILD AT WRONG SITE: A mother is livid that her 5-year-old son was dropped off at the family's apartment complex last week in pouring rain instead of being taken to his day care center. Donna Lewis said her son, Sean, a kindergartener at Essrig Elementary, was to have been taken to Best Kids child care center on Casey Road Thursday, the second day of school. Instead, she said Sean was let out at the gates of the Arbors of Carrollwood and left to wander in the rain for an hour before getting help.

Lewis said she thought she had covered all the bases to ensure that Sean would be taken care of. "I filled out all the paperwork that says he needed to go to Best Kids after school and gave it to his teacher, and I told Best Kids that I was putting him on the bus," Lewis said. "And I told the bus driver that morning that he was to go to Best Kids that afternoon." Instead of going to Best Kids, school bus driver Patricia Damico dropped off Sean at the bus stop at the apartment complex.

A neighbor tried to help him, but Sean had been told not to go with strangers, Lewis said. After making his way to the family's apartment, another neighbor persuaded him to go with her to the leasing office.

About 3:30 p.m., an hour after school had let out, staffers at the complex contacted Lewis.

Best Kids owner Mimoza Noll said the first few days of school are hectic, with both county and child care buses delivering children from at least three elementary schools in the area. "I would be as upset as she was," Noll said. "I felt awful about it, but we made no mistake. She's got the right to be mad. I just didn't think she had the right to be mad at us."

Lewis is angry at school officials. District spokesman Mark Hart said they are investigating the incident and "if we find the driver was careless in leaving that student there, the driver could be looking at a minimum of a one-day suspension." He said Damico has been driving for the district since 1998 and has had satisfactory performance evaluations.

"The responsibility of getting kids to and from school every day is a shared one," Hart said, adding that the driver must use good judgment about leaving a child at a stop when a parent is not there. Earlier in the week, a 9-year-old Temple Terrace boy was dropped off at a wrong bus stop. School officials are investigating that incident as well.

In 1999, 10-year-old Eric Martin, a sixth-grader at Walker Middle School, was dropped off at a bus stop 4 miles from his home and later was hit and killed by a car on Lutz-Lake Fern Road. District officials exonerated the driver, who tried to get the boy back onto the bus.

Any parent who encounters a transportation problem can call the district's information hotline at (813) 272-4974.

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