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Adjusted attitudes tops permitting fix

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By TOM JACKSON tjackson Tom Jackson

@tampatrib.com tjackson@tampatrib.com

Published: July 5, 2009

Criticize Mary Jane Stanley all you want for speaking out of school. In retrospect, publicly nipping the hand that feeds her former employer was probably not the shrewdest strategy, assuming she wanted to retain her position in a difficult job climate.

But let no one dare suggest that she was wrong. Anyone? Anyone? (Sound of crickets chirping.)

Well, then. The down and dirty suggests - like Sheriff Bob White and schools Superintendent Heather Fiorentino - the private hands funneling money into the Pasco Economic Development Council sought a "new/different direction" for the foundation. Those who serve at the pleasure of higher-ups understand the risks.

Pleasure is quirky and transient. Saying Stanley did herself in for remarks quoted in a business journal is likely a smokescreen for a perfectly pedestrian business decision: Council board seeks new leadership.

Overwrought nonsense

That said, extraordinary handwringing has been attached to the official story. County Commissioner Ted Schrader took his concerns to County Administrator John Gallagher, who signs the checks that account for 40 percent of PEDC's budget. Schrader's alarm? Stanley's remarks were "counterproductive."

Countless candidates for the board of county commissioners have boldly proclaimed disgust for Pasco's rabbit warren of a building department, and have vowed to make the county's permitting practices more streamlined, predictable and builder-friendly.

You would think, given the progress on that front, none of those reform-minded candidates won. You would be wrong. Every member of the current board has, with frustration, acknowledged that securing timely approval of building plans in Pasco County is about as easy as extracting hot fudge from a bushel of kumquats.

Excuse meets opportunity

Yes, last year the county and PEDC members split the cost of an independent survey that - surprise! - arrived at the same conclusion. Booting Stanley for making a similar observation amounts to an excuse looking for an opportunity.

So Stanley, who was on point when Pasco hooked and landed investment heavyweight T. Rowe Price, is gone, and the county is studying ways to improve its permitting process.

The most obvious place to begin is the county administrator's office, the headwaters of the adversarial attitude that flows like a river through the permitting process. An instructive example among many: The administrator's hostility for a done (and done, and done) deal killed the tennis stadium.

Now Pasco arrives at the threshold of another, potentially county-altering era: Having closed on 94 acres on State Road 54 east of the Suncoast Parkway with plans to erect an elaborate campus for 1,600 well-paid employees, T. Rowe Price is about to plunge into Gallagher's Wonderland.

If form follows an unaltered attitude, the company will be in for the ride of its life. If commissioners lived up to their campaign promises, they could fix this - Resolved: Pasco County administrators will assume an attitude of cooperation with new and expanding business operators - sooner rather than later.

Keyword: The Jax Files for Tom Jackson's bonus insights.

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