North Palmetto Borrow Pit Revisited as Long-promised Recreational Park

MANATEE COUNTY, FL— Before the Tuesday, November 4, 2013 regular meeting of the Manatee County Board of Commissioners began, leaders and residents of North Palmetto’s community, growing in number, began to fill the halls of the administration building.

During citizen’s comments, fourteen of the community’s attendees engaged in a voice-after-voice campaign in support of being placed on the day’s agenda, further asking for the commission to agree to taking the first procedural step needed to discover if the North Palmetto Borrow Pit—an excavated area where from which material may be dug out for use as fill at another location—is a sound area for a recreational park to include a rowing pond.

Reverend Arthur Sellars began the comments, speaking subsequent to such juxtaposing items as a proclamation in recognition of the $646 million impact of agriculture on Manatee County, which accompanied coffee mugs and a plethora of donated fresh produce. Additionally, preceding the reverend, was a request from prosecutors to tighten restrictions on existing laws, which apply to pawn shops and other second-hand retail stores who take in merchandise, noting a single case where a $1.2 million tear-drop necklace may never be returned to its rightful owner.

In a show of self-sufficiency Rev. Sellars set his own timer for the allotted two minutes. He began, “I don’t have food to give you. I don’t have cups to give you,” referring to the bounty of donated fresh produce and the free coffee mugs that were passed out to each commissioner.

“But, I have a request!” Sellars continued, turning to acknowledge a sea of attendees, which filled the wide aisle leading to the podium. “We wanted to appear as a community…this is just a microcosm concerned about the property at the 88 acres, and it’s really time,” Sellars announced. “It’s really time!” he repeated for emphasis.

Reverend Lawrence Livingston alleged that former commissioner Lamar Parrish, 92, who held the seat from 11/16/76 to 11/ 17, 2980 had earmarked $200,000 for the Borrow Pit to become a recreational facility for their community to enjoy. According to Rev. Livingston, that same money was later appropriated to GT Bray Park, a large recreational center in west Bradenton, which is too far from their community to enjoy.

“We saw park and recreation drawings,” Livingston told the commission. “Can you imagine how that feels for us?”

L.D. Edwards, a 34-year-old graduate of the University of Florida, represented a younger generation, and, according to Commissioner Betsy Benac, a growing trend of people returning home to revitalize their neighborhoods. Edwards appealed to the commission. “If you step up on an administrative level, it may save the morale in the community,” he said.

Daisey Milledge Stewart, secretary of the Washington Park Homeowners Association told commissioners that she believes money is going into prisons instead of to help their children, who, she says, are being recruited into gangs and dying too young to become future leaders of their community. “The consensus is that there is hopelessness,” she told the commission, and “that there is nobody who cares.”

Although Commissioner Robin DeSabatin pointed out that there is no money available from the capital improvement plan budget, she suggested creative ways to make a project like this happen, comparing it to Benderson Development near Lakewood Ranch.

District 2 Commissioner Michael Gallen made the motion to request $7,081.50 to test the land to see if it is feasible to turn the North Palmetto Borrow Pit into a recreational facility.

County Attorney Mitchell Palmer briefly interrupted, reminding commissioners that, according to statute, action is not “ordinarily” taken on agenda items that were not previously scheduled. Further, if the commission continued, they would need to open the topic for comment by the public.

Gallen continued, “What you have here is a community that represents some of the communities that have been economically discriminated against for several years. It wasn’t this board. It was a board before this one. Hundreds of years of discrimination, and we’re just playing catch up.”

In a 7-0 vote commissioners approved North Palmetto’s request to be placed on the agenda and to use $7,081.50, from contingency reserves, to perform environmental testing on the site to ensure its viability in what must be maintained as a healthy wetlands, if it is to have a pond for rowing.

County Administrator Ed Hunzeker warned commissioners that by agreeing to the expenditure, they were sending a message to the community that they accept “out of budget requests” He also suggested it would only provoke further expectations from the community.

“And that’s why you get paid the bucks you do,” Commissioner Whitmore told Hunzeker, “to say what you did, because you’re a ‘Debbie Downer,’ right now.”

“We may have to reprioritize a lot of things we work on just to make the budget in a few years,” Whitmore continued, “unless we raise taxes, and that’s where Ed has been very good at not raising millage, and we haven’t done that, and we may have to look at everything with a fresh new look.”