Nelson opens throttle in effort to get Lacoochee back on track

LACOOCHEE - About the desperately belated revitalization project percolating through the three villages of northeast Pasco County, this much, at least (and at last), can be said:

It sure has a lot of moving parts: Residents. Activists. Advocates. Critics. Voyeurs. Politicians. Journalists.

Here's the thing about moving parts. Even when designed for a single purpose, they tend to resist coordination. That's where big, impressive cogs come in.

As chief of the Withlacoochee Electric Cooperative, Billy Brown is a big cog. CSX, which owns the railroad tracks that slash through Pasco's eastern flank, is another. County commissioners, the school district chief, the sheriff, the Economic Development Council - each is a substantial cog, and each has a proportional role.

A dozen independent systems churning, unsynchronized, toward a shared outcome: an up-by-the-bootstraps recovery in the land that care forgot. Sadly, to date that pace has been unhurried and haphazard.

On Monday, the project may have received precisely the piece the combination master cog and power source it needed. On Monday, Bill Nelson showed up, eager to re-create the area tour WREC organized for federal agency representatives and media tagalongs last month.

Wheels on the bus

Give the man credit. Florida's senior U.S. senator, a honcho on the Select Committee on Intelligence, could have spent the last week of August's recess fact-finding in Aruba or the Bavarian Alps. Instead, hooked by a newspaper column inspired by the first tour - *blush* - Nelson came to Pasco, demanding to see for himself this place of squalor, plagued by peeling paint, loose boards, sagging porches and problematic roofs, where the lawn ornament of choice is a lean and ornery pit bull.

As the bus thumped along Lacoochee's unpaved byways, Nelson alternately marveled at the natural beauty - "All these oak trees; it's just spectacular" - and messaged regional Habitat for Humanity boss John Finnerty: "When you get Habitat going here, let me know; I'll come help you build a home."

Impressive turnout

At length, what Nelson saw was that the columnist did not overstate things. At its worst, Lacoochee is as awful, as depressing and as dangerous as reported. And Lacoochee's worst is obvious and abundant.

To his credit, Nelson was properly impressed with both the magnitude of what troubles the place, and with the energy of its citizens, through generous applications of enthusiasm and unity, to reverse its course. At a pair of stops along the way, Nelson and his escorts mingled with nearly 200 sign-boosting residents of every ethnic stripe and from preschooler to senior citizen, representing the magnificent stew of humanity that is northeast Pasco.

Ultimately, Nelson described the experience as "one of the best days" of his public life, shot through with "enthusiasm" that was "intoxicating." Monday, he said, was "a blessing."

Beyond that, however, was a caveat: Lacoochee's predicament, an abandoned one-industry town locked in a downward spiral, is not unique, and resources available for repair are not unlimited. Nonetheless, Nelson said, "But where you see these unfortunate conditions, it gives us all a certain amount of responsibility."

Nobody, least of all the local organizers of the three-village resurrection project, wants Washington swooping in with a top-down directive. The locals have assumed responsibility on the point. What they want - influence where it matters, and at critical moments - Nelson agreed to shoulder.

He would "cut through the red tape" and "open the doors." The conundrum that has so far been wrapped and closed to Lacoochee's, and even the redoubtable Billy Brown's, best efforts has been at the top of the CSX corporate pyramid.

The railroad's spur, which once linked the Cummer Lumber Mill to America, remains, long after the last of the mill was disassembled for scrap. A distribution center or two, or three, along that spur could reverse the self-feeding cycle, from joblessness to drugs to crime, that doomed previous revitalization efforts.

Did Nelson mention that he's well-acquainted with Jacksonville-based CSX CEO Michael Ward? And that the senator would be happy to make a telephone call?

"Tell him," said Brown, the local bear of his mountain of hope, "we can build to suit."

Now we're talking. Here's another thing about lots of moving parts. Once you get them organized and clicking together, momentum often takes over. Rather like a fine, self-winding Swiss watch.