blair protects his wetlands, not ours
Commissioner Brian Blair wants the county to stop protecting wetlands. Unless we’re talking about the wetlands behind his house.
The tiny lake Blair lives on, called Noreast Lake, has become his own personal pork project, costing taxpayers more than it costs us to maintain the entire EPC wetlands division for a whole year.
Since February 2005, a few months after Blair was elected, county work crews have spent more hours at Noreast than any of Hillsborough’s 229 other lakes … Workers spent 218 hours maintaining, spraying and planting at Noreast under the watchful eye of Blair … In January, Blair and other commissioners approved $985,000 of county sales tax money for a project intended to divert storm drainage around the lake.
Although the plans for that project have changed,
the county still plans to spend $985,000 on lakes in Forest Hills.
Blair maintains that the stormwater and flood control projects connecting the Forest Hills lakes with his lake are the source of his lake’s problems.
The Times report details how Blair has used his influence to push his pet project to get more than most experts and residents think it deserves.
It looks to me like about a million of our tax dollars are going to be spent in Blair’s backyard. Meanwhile he’s trying to eliminate EPC’s Wetlands Division which costs less for a year’s protection of ALL our wetlands. (Its total annual budget is about 2M, but it brings in over 1M in fees and grants, so EPC’s Finance Director, Tom Koulianos, estimates the total annual cost at “about 7- or 800,000.”)
If we protect our wetlands in the first place, we won’t have to spend so much money fixing lakes and rerouting stormwater. If Brian Blair was truly the fiscal conservative he claims to be, he wouldn’t dream of gutting our EPC which saves us a great deal of money by protecting the wetlands that store floodwater and filter pollutants out of stormwater runoff, so we don’t have to pay to artificially restore natural systems and build expensive stormwater clean-up projects and flood control systems. It is much cheaper to prevent wetland damage than to fix it.
Cheaper for us taxpayers, that is. Of course, it costs developers a little extra to leave our wetlands intact. And it’s the developers’ money, not ours, that Brian Blair is concerned about.
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June 26th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Right on Mariella Smith! This is a raw deal for taxpayers and the environment. The Gang of Four (Hagan, Blair, White, and Norman) have got to get a clue, or they got to go. Surely after 100 years of growth and wetlands loss in Florida we should have learned the lesson that wetlands good, no wetlands bad. Perhaps that is to nuanced a concept for the Gang of Four, but taxpayers, fisherman, paddlers, birders, and coastal residents have figured it out. Leave our wetlands alone. Our fisheries, our water quality, our flood protection, and our quality of life are linked to healthy wetlands. Taxpayers know that this is not about saving money, its about appeasing developers. Keep up the great work Mariella Smith!
June 26th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
It’s bad enough that he orchestrates 29 people in the wetlands division losing their jobs and our wetlands not being protected, but then he want’s to make sure his little lake gets preferencial treatment. What he and the Gang of Four don’t realize is that they are defeating every thing they are stuggling to achieve.
Their primary goal is to let the builders build, build, build. And they try to hypnotize the public into thinking it’s the right thing to do by saying to us, “we have to build build build because everyone wants to enjoy this great area we have, and for every person that says they want to live here we must have at least one house built before they even ask to live here”.
Well, Homer, if you’re not going to protect the beauty that we have, who do you think is going to want all these homes that your trying to let your friends build?????
Forgive me. I got carried away and threw in some logic.
The true test is about to come. The real vote is coming. If everyone gets away from their keyboard long enough to go down to county center and “storm the Bastille”, I doubt that he and his gang will be “man enough” to vote against wetlands protection.
Do we all have the courage and conviction of Father Merrin (The Exorcist) to go down to county center and look evil straight in the eye?
June 26th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
When you put homes around a lake (man made or natural) and install a lush green St. Augustine lawn which requires artifical means to maintain it, your’re going to wind up with a polluted lake. Think of all the fertilizer and pesticide washing into the lake each time it’s watered or we have a rainstorm. Commissioner Blair and his neighbors would do better to replace most of their lawns with native landscaping and a sustainable mulch (no cypress please). There is plenty of information available at the Hillsborough Extension Service to help with creating and maintaining Florida-friendly yards that are interesting, attractive and provide habitat and food for wildlife. This would reduce the amount chemicals washing into the lake and result in saving EPC money and doing something good for our environment.
Commissioner Blair of all people should know this since he sits as the Chair of the EPC Board.
June 26th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
It is absolutely outrageous that Blair is sitting up there spouting fiscal “conservative” rhetoric while hogging down the pork for his own little lake. This really tears the rag off the bush! I AM a fiscal conservative Republican and he DOES NOT SPEAK FOR ME! I am ashamed that he is in the same political party I am in. He’s the kind that gives REPUBLICANS a bad name.
Now, we know that saving money is NOT the reason he wants EPC wetlands gone, (because that dept. HAS to be the biggest BARGAIN in the county, one we get the biggest bang for the buck from.) Neither is eliminating duplication of effort, streamlining the reason he wants them gone. It’s because the development industry has TOLD HIM THEY want it gone. Just my opinion, folks, but that’s what i think, based on observations and hearing little things around. And I’ve seen how Blair tries to intimidate Dr. Garrity at EPC meetings and how he puts words in his mouth! And I don’t like how he calls him “DOC” while sticking the knife in his gut. DOC has more credentials that Blair has ever dreamed of — i don’t think the ex-wrestler should sit up there spouting off about “science” and calling Garrity “DOC” — something is very wrong with that picture.
And it needs to CHANGE.
So Blair…spare us the money-saving rhetoric! We’re not buying it. SAVE US THE SPIN…we’re not buying it. Do you think we are stupid?
June 26th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
The Gang of Four (Four Horseman of the Developers perhaps) better wakeup and smell the wetlands! This is a no brainer. Brian Blair would push the County to spend $985,000.00 to clean up the lake behind his house, but would then cut 29 jobs and an entire Department that protects wetlands for the ENTIRE COUNTY to save $800,000.00?? I am not buying it and neither should anyone else. True fiscal conservatives (not these developer puppets) would realize that the money spent on protecting wetlands SAVES the County money on stormwater, water quality, flood control, and preserving shorelines. Taxpayers need more wetlands, fewer developers, and new Commissioners. That’s a platform I’ll vote for.
June 26th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Thank God for the St Pete TIMES!!.. (Tampa Trib!..get with the program!) Tampa and Hillsborough County is being raped as we sit here aghast and agog. The masses MUST get up and do something. I’m not going to only sit and write on this blog and send mailings to every official I can think of, which I’m now doing, but I’m going to try to make my opinion known by looking these carpetbaggers in the eye and showing them we’re not gonna take their crap NO MORE! I want to start showing my utter disdain to the development creeps we see every week struttin’ their stuff at 601 and on Ch. 22… the disgusting land attorneys that are ever-present with their jive rhetoric and oily principled reasoning, (think Weaver, James, Marchetti and their ilk) and just generally make ‘em uncomfortable in our presence. They’re devastating to what’s left of our Florida!
But, mainly, we have to toss those four little finger puppets they have in their pockets out of office. Instead of pink slips to those 29 employees, let’s just give them to (alphabetically)…Blair, Hagan, Norman, and White. That way the County can save on pink paper expenses.
June 27th, 2007 at 9:54 am
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/06/27/Hillsborough/County_wetlands_offic.shtml
June 27th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
This May 8th Tampa Tribune article encapsulates the current EPC vs. developer situation nicely and includes the usual suspects and arguments:
http://www.tbo.com/news/nationworld/MGBVV8HTF1F.html
June 27th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
According to the St. Pete Times article…
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/06/27/Hillsborough/County_wetlands_offic.shtml
will this hybrid approach accomplish anything? Sounds to me like SWFWMD will be permitting everything and leaving EPC out of the loop (if they will even still be in existence). How can EPC be more stringent regarding wetland protection if they can’t review the development plans? Just wondering……
June 27th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
I belive that we should try and save the whole Wetlands Dept. I mean come on, if we (the taxpayers) can afford to pay $900K for Blair’s lake then why can’t we afford to pay $800K for the whole county’s wetlands?
June 28th, 2007 at 11:08 am
The only reason Blair got elected is because of George Bush’s coattails in 2004. What a friggin embarassment.