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Property Rights At Center Of Lawsuit Over Troublesome Ditch

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By TODD LESKANIC

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 30, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY - A battle taking place in a Pasco County courtroom this week boils down to a struggle between fundamental American principals: individual property rights versus governmental responsibility.

On one side of the debate are Virginia and Harlan Farmer, who purchased the 1.7 acres at U.S. 19 and Springer Drive in 1958. Their land also contains a large man-made ditch dug that same year to control mosquitoes.
Pasco County is the opponent. County officials say something is clogging the ditch, blocking a natural drainage path leading to the Gulf of Mexico. The blockage has resulted in the flooding of neighborhoods to the south. County workers want to remove the blockage or have the Farmers remove it.

The Farmers have said no. They say the county has redirected draining water over their property, causing massive erosion and devaluing the parcel. The family sued the county in December, asking the county to either buy the ditch or move it. That suit, known legally as an inverse condemnation lawsuit, is pending.

The Farmers, who live part of the year in Kentucky, have been trying to sell the parcel for years. They say they have lost buyers because of the ditch.

Two weeks ago, Assistant County Attorney Nicki Spirtos filed a motion asking a judge to order the Farmers to unclog the ditch or to allow county workers onto their property to do it.

The courtroom battle over the injunction started Monday afternoon and went on for hours without resolution. It is scheduled to continue Friday.

Clearwater attorney Jim Helinger, who is representing the Farmers, told Circuit Judge Stanley Mills he'd "fight till the death" for his clients and their rights.

"There is no legal basis pled, nor can there be, that says the county has a right to trespass on private property or alter someone's private property," Helinger said. "They very simply have no right to come on our property and to touch it. We are trying to protect our property until we can have an adjudication on the inverse condemnation trial."
Helinger said the blockage is the only thing keeping the Farmers' property from increased damage. But Spirtos disagreed, saying the Farmers are "flooding themselves" by refusing to clear it.

"It is the Farmers' responsibility to clear their property and their ditch of obstructions," she said.

Spirtos filed for the injunction two weeks ago after heavy rains and the blockage combined to cause massive flooding to neighborhoods south of the property.

Deborah Parker, who owns a doublewide mobile home on Afton Lane, testified Monday that the flooding left her without potable water for about 10 days.

"My yard flooded," she said. "The back 25 to 40 percent of it was underwater. I could see the retention ponds that border the subdivision, and those were absolutely brimming."

Flooding was also reported in the Suncoast Gateway Mobile Home Village, which is just west of Afton Lane, and on Congress Street, just south of Ridge Road.
Helinger told Mills he sympathized with the property owners to the south. He also said taking one person's plight and putting it on another is not justice.

"This is America," he said. "This is my clients' private property, and government has no right to come on it, take it and alter it and to appropriate it."

Reporter Todd Leskanic can be reached at (727) 815-1084 or tleskanic@tampatrib.com.

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