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88 county employees, deputies live rent-free in Hillsborough parks

Staff photo by JAY CONNER

A park ranger, Thomas "Grizz" Kamermayer spends his day shifts managing activities on the 106-acre Morris Bridge Park.

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By RAY REYES | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 13, 2009

THONOTOSASSA - Sweet deals are hard to find but Thomas "Grizz" Kamermayer says he has one of the best in the county.

A park ranger, Kamermayer spends his day shifts managing activities on the 106-acre Morris Bridge Park. At night, he double-checks doors and gates while keeping an eye out for vandals or trespassers at the smaller Thonotosassa Recreation Center about six miles away.

Kamermayer doesn't mind the extra responsibility because it is part of the deal he struck with the Hillsborough County Parks, Recreation and Conservation Department.

In exchange for monitoring the Thonotosassa park during off-peak hours and filing monthly reports, the county lets Kamermayer and his family live on the property without paying rent or utility bills.

"It's a real good trade off," Kamermayer, 51, said. "This is just a good gig."

There are 88 people — 30 are law enforcement officers and the rest are county employees—who have agreements to live rent-free in parks and preserves.

The county pays the utility bills for all 88 park monitors, which takes about $200,000 a year from the department's budget.

The department's little-known program was pushed to the forefront recently with the case of former Hillsborough County deputy Mike Cartwright, who had an agreement to live on and patrol Saladino Park in Brandon. Cartwright was fired from the sheriff's office more than a year ago and was given several notices to vacate but has not yet left the property.

Job openings to live and provide security at parks are not posted on the Internet or in newspapers. Announcements are made in-house and interested parks employees are interviewed for the positions.

Parks officials inform the sheriff's office about openings at properties that require deputies, parks general manager Kelly Bender said. Those announcements are made at the deputies' daily roll call.

The presence of the 88 park monitors deter crimes and stop illegal hunting, poaching and dumping, parks director Mark Thornton said. Monitors like Kamermayer also identify maintenance issues and report them to the appropriate departments.

The arrangements are long-term and the relationships with county officials are usually smooth, Bender said.

Cartwright's case is an anomaly, Thornton said.

Cartwright was fired in August 2008 after internal affairs detectives said he brandished a gun at a motorist and threatened another earlier that year, court records show.

The county allowed Cartwright, who signed a license agreement with parks officials in 2007, to continue living at the park while he appealed his firing. The Hillsborough County Civil Services Board upheld the decision of the sheriff's office earlier this year.

Parks officials wanted a sworn deputy to live at the Saladino site. Cartwright was given notices his license agreement was terminated and that he had to vacate the house. He refused to leave, and county commissioners recently approved a lawsuit against the former deputy.

It is the first time the parks department is evicting one of its on-site monitors, Thornton said.

Because of the issue with the former deputy, the license agreements may get tweaked to become more legally binding, Thornton said. The contracts are more like cooperative agreements, not leases.

The home at Saladino Park is one of 17 county-owned houses that deputies are allowed to live in rent-free. In most cases, people are required to buy mobile homes and have them transported to the park, Thornton said.

"We provide them the $300 to $400 rental space and they provide us security," Bender said of the arrangement regarding privately-owned mobile homes.

Although a life without rent or electric bills is appealing, there are some trade-offs, parks officials said.
All 17 county-owned homes were built decades ago and some need major renovations to roofs, plumbing and wiring, Bender said.

"A bathtub fell through the floor in one of them," he said.

And while some residences are tucked away in corners of tranquil rural parks, others are in large, popular recreation areas like the Ed Radice Sports Complex west of Citrus Park. A deputy there lives in a trailer between sports fields, which could have 10,000 visitors during tournaments, Thornton said.

"Athletic sites are not peaceful," Thornton said. "The lights are on until 10 p.m. It's inundated with activity seven days a week."

But for Kamermayer, it is usually peaceful at the Thonotosassa Recreation Center, which is surrounded by oak trees, pastures, produce stands, ranch-style homes and a handful of churches in east Hillsborough.

In the 16 years he has lived there, Kamermayer said he has not reported any major problems. Just trespassers, dirt bike and all-terrain vehicle riders and some folks sneaking beers by the playground, he said.

One beer drinker gave Kamermayer his nickname after the bearded park ranger asked him to dump out the alcohol and leave. "Sure, Grizz," the man said.

"I liked it," Kamermayer said of the moniker. "So I kept it."

Kamermayer said he will probably live on the property until he retires, like most park monitors. He considers the entire park his backyard and his two sons, now adults, once played baseball at the diamond that is a long foul ball away from Kamermayer's double-wide.

"I'm happy here, yeah," he said. "It's a great place. It becomes a part of you."

Reporter Ray Reyes can be reached at (813) 259-7920.

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