TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

County losses

ADVERTISEMENT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 29, 2009

In 2006 Hillsborough County commissioners spent $170,000 to terminate a golf range's lease on the Linebaugh Avenue County Northwest Landfill to hasten development of another solid waste transfer station. Today, the golf range remains shuttered, the site is an eyesore, no new transfer station is built and there is no sign of the construction that was to be completed this year.

In addition to the public recreation loss, the county has lost more than $50,000 in rental income. Also, 12 jobs have been lost, and the county has had to maintain the vacant, all-grass site.

Only nine years ago, county staffers touted the golf range as a synergistic recreational use for an "unbuildable" public landfill site. Shortly after, they changed their minds and wanted the site back to add another garbage-processing facility like the one already on Linebaugh.

The golf range contended the county would be better off keeping the lease and locating the new garbage station elsewhere on the mostly vacant landfill. A number of homeowner's associations backed this position.

A county study even showed that keeping the golf range would save $36,000. The county administrator and the Solid Waste Department argued the county would save far more in "financing and incidental costs" if they ended the lease early and started building right away.

Commissioners based their decision on what were clearly unrealistic estimates by county Administrator Pat Bean and her Solid Waste Department. Understandably, county staff could not predict the recession, but shouldn't they have had some idea their proposed construction timetable and benefits could not possibly have been realized?

BILL PLACE

Tampa

The writer is owner of Ace Golf.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT