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© St. Petersburg Times, published October 5, 2001
Civic leader will run for County Commission
LUTZ -- Denise Layne, president of the Lutz Civic Association and a leader in the Sierra Club, filed Monday to run for the Hillsborough County Commission next year, calling herself "a champion of well-planned communities."
A paralegal and a Republican, Ms. Layne is a founder of Hillsborough County Conference of Communities and of Tomorrow Matters!, groups promoting communitywide dialogue among business, civic and government leaders.
She becomes the fourth candidate running in District 2, which contains most of northern Hillsborough County. Others are independent Rod Gaudin and Republican Denise Lasher, both of Lutz, and Democrat Michelle Henry of Temple Terrace. Republican Marc Makholm, a Lutz lawyer who had filed for the seat, withdrew last week, citing family responsibilities.
The District 2 seat is held by Jim Norman, who has filed to run next year for an at-large seat.
LUTZ -- Volunteers picked up more tonnage of trash in Lutz than any other group in Hillsborough County during the Florida Coastal Cleanup last month.
Hillsborough County Sheriff's Deputy Gordon Brown, one of the organizers of the Sept. 15 effort in Lutz, said the haul filled three garbage bins. "We had one had one freezer, one dishwasher, two dryers, one old regular household water tank and three couches," he said.
Chris Cook, executive director of Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful, said the Lutz group picked up 13,460 pounds of trash, leading the county. The closest rival was 5,820 pounds collected at Camp Bayou Preserve in Ruskin, she said.
"When it gets to the more rural areas, you find more of the bigger items out at the ends of roads," she said.
TAMPA PALMS -- Bob Doran, a former Tampa Palms taxing authority supervisor turned community activist, has scored a victory of sorts. Doran convinced Hillsborough County election officials that write-in candidates should be eligible for future community development district elections.
Elections supervisor Pam Iorio said county attorneys determined write-in candidates would be allowed along with those who submit petitions or qualify by paying a fee. The decision represents their interpretation of Chapter 190, the Florida law that governs CDDs. "In our elections we will hold in 2002, we will offer all three methods, based on this interpretation," Iorio said.
The matter came up after Doran inquired about running as a regular candidate on the last qualifying day during the 2000 election. Doran did not submit the necessary paperwork, but began e-mailing Iorio a week later. "He asked why write-in candidates were not allowed," she said. "He would have had to fill out the same paperwork."
Nonetheless, Iorio asked Mary Helen Campbell, a county attorney, to pose the question to state officials. Neither the division of elections nor the attorney general would interpret Chapter 190. So Iorio gave Campbell the go-ahead to interpret that law. "Mary Helen is qualified to interpret it," Iorio said. "So I asked her to write me an opinion."
CITRUS PARK -- Anyone who wants to take a look at the nearly complete Citrus Park Master Plan can do so by contacting Lisa Kramer or Wanda Sloan at (813) 272-5920 for a copy. Or it can be viewed on the Internet at www.citrusparkvillage.com. A meeting to go over the final plan will be scheduled for later this fall. County planners, consultants and residents have spent the past two years crafting a plan for Citrus Park that strives to guide growth toward traditional neighborhoods and away from urban sprawl.
- Compiled by Times staff writers Bill Coats, Jackie Ripley and Mike Sandler.