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By STEVE OTTO Steve Otto

sotto@tampatrib.com sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: October 18, 2009

It has been exactly 30 years since I first ran across Cam Oberting. At the time, Hillsborough County officials were passing her off as another one of those whining bumpkins out in the fens and bogs near Seffner and Mango.

Out there some of the residents were complaining about illegal dumping in the county landfill. They went so far as to say the toxic gunk was leaching into their wells and polluting their water and land.

These same people also complained the county was allowing dirt haulers to dig in the area, creating a moonscape of borrow pits.

Oberting, a tiny, feisty daughter of cigar workers who now had a family and a piece of land in Seffner, had organized the neighborhoods. She led the charge at county meetings. She rounded up hydrologists and other experts to argue the cause. After years of fighting and countless commission meetings, she and like-minded residents won their war.

At least up to a point. The landfill was shut down but the borrow pits remain to this day.

Moral courage

Almost ironically, Oberting ultimately would be honored by the county, winning what then was called the Moral Courage Award.

Then, a little more than a year ago, county commissioners decided to change the name of the award. They named it after Ralph Hughes, a staunch anti-tax political powerbroker who recently had died. The decision caused an uproar among those who did not want to see the award politicized.

One former winner, Eileen Hart, showed up at the commission chambers and gave back her award.

It got worse in July when the Internal Revenue Service went to Hughes estate, contending he owed $69.3 million in taxes. A month later, the IRS was back, claiming his company owed a hefty $299.3 million. All of this was too much for the Hughes family, which asked the commissioners to take his name off the award, which they did.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal, which just has become the biggest circulation paper in the country, recounted the entire story, letting millions of readers around the globe know about the continued embarrassment that is the Hillsborough County Commission.

Some friendly advice

The Journal even tracked down Jim Hosler, a former research director at the county planning commission. He maintained that at commission meetings Hughes "used hand signals to let commissioners know how he wanted them to vote."

You know, it's bad enough the county commission has been our own local embarrassment all these years. Now the rest of the country is getting to read about these people we elected as so-called public servants.

"I'm getting to be an old lady," Oberting, who is 78, said to me. "Somebody else is going to have to keep an eye on these people after awhile." Fortunately for all of us, Cam Oberting doesn't appear anywhere near sitting back and raising animals out in Seffner. Hopefully, she will continue to raise Cain instead, down at the commission chambers.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, for more of Steve Otto's musings.

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