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The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 3, 2008

Six Roads Set For Reconstruction

SEBRING - Portions of six Highlands County roads are scheduled for complete reconstruction in the new 2008-09 fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1.

Also, portions of 60 county roads are scheduled for resurfacing in the new fiscal year.

The six reconstruction projects and the 60 resurfacing jobs were originally planned for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

None of the scheduled work has been done, though, because county road resurfacing and reconstruction was canceled for the 2007-08 fiscal year.

Five of the roads that will be reconstructed after Oct. 1 are in the Avon Park area, and one is in the Sebring area. No roads in the Lake Placid district are scheduled for rebuilding.

Judged to be the worst sections of the worst county roads, the following six roadways are scheduled for reconstruction by the county's road and bridge department:

In the county's Avon Park district:

•One quarter mile of South Corvette Avenue, from Thunderbird Road south;

•About six/tenths of a mile of Renault Avenue, between Cooper Drive and Rachel Lake Drive South;

•Just under two/tenths of a mile of Shamrock Street, from Arnolt Avenue to Abarth Avenue;

•Just under one/third of a mile of Talbot Street, from Abarth Avenue to Jaguar Drive; and

•Nearly four/tenths of a mile of Sunbeam Street, from Renault Avenue to Cooper Drive.

In the Sebring district, just under nine-tenths of a mile of Tearose Street will be reconstructed, between Tremont Avenue and Coolidge Avenue.

Principal Readies 'Fabulous' New School
AVON PARK - As workers and school staff moved boxes big and small with carts and hand trucks, Memorial Elementary Principal Ruby Handley said the new school looks "fabulous."

Handley was all smiles in the main office when the lights went out. A worker checking a main control panel flipped the wrong switch. He quickly switched the lights back on.

After eight years at Fred Wild Elementary School, Handley is learning the ins and outs of the first brand new public school in the county since Hill-Gustat Middle School, which opened in 1996.

In preparation for the first day of school on Aug. 18, Assistant Principal Carla Ball unpacked boxes of new reading text boxes with the help of two staff members. Workers assembled teacher desks and other furniture as others unloaded a truckload of SmartBoards, one for each classroom.

A first impression of the new campus reveals that this is not your father's elementary school nor like any other in the district.

It's one big building with a large lobby. Once you enter the main lobby you're inside for good. You don't have to go outside to reach any classroom or part of the school.

The lobby is a feature absent from other schools.

Also, to make no mistake that you are entering the home of the Patriots, the school's mascot and three 5-foot-by-10-foot American flags hang vertically in front of the lobby's back wall.

In keeping with the patriotic theme, the school's colors and outside paint scheme are red, white and blue.

The school has 42 classrooms and a number of resource rooms.

"We will start the school year with some empty rooms," Handley said. "Our enrollment has not yet filled the 42 classrooms."

Handley is preparing for 560 to 600 students. She doesn't have a firm number on the school's enrollment because, as a School of Choice, some parents may request a transfer for their children to the school.

The phone system was not yet operational Thursday, but should be working next week. The phone number will be 784-0200.

Also, the school is not yet open to the public, but parents can register their children to attend Memorial Elementary at one the district's other elementary schools.

The school's orientation for parents and students will be held 4:30 - 6:30 p.m., Aug. 15.

The school is located at 861 Memorial Drive, just north of Ravine Road. Parents and visitors should use Ravine Road to enter the school's campus.

Higher School Tax Rate Proposed

SEBRING - The Highlands County School Board tentatively approved its 2008-09 budget with a small increase in the school tax rate.

The board approved a tentative budget Tuesday of $173,228,694, which is about $22 million less than the 2007-08 budget. The decrease is because the district spent some of the $56 million it borrowed for school construction and a decrease in the general fund.

The school board approved the tentative tax rate at 7.687 mils, which is .023 mils higher than the 2007-08 millage of 7.664.

The tax rate can be lowered but not raised at the final budget hearing, which is scheduled for 5:05 p.m., Sept. 9.

Despite the slight increase in the tax rate, due to a reduction in the assessed property values, the local tax revenue will decrease $1.49 million from $52.69 million in 2007-08 to $51.20 million in 2008-09.

The board will continue to hold workshops and consider changes before the final budget is adopted, Superintendent Wally Cox said. There are several areas to discuss including debt service, utilities, personnel numbers and the capital outlay final budget.

School Board Member Wally Randall noted that the school district is doing more this school year, including the Career Academy and the pre-International Baccalaureate program, with less per-student funding.

The base per-student funding, which is set by the state, decreased 4.61 percent from $4,163.47 in 2007-08 to 3,971.74 in 2008-09.

A person's school tax bill will increase slightly if his assessed property valuation remained the same.

With no change in assessed valuation, a property with an assessed valuation of $200,000 and a $25,000 Homestead Exemption would have an annual school tax increase of $4.03. The school tax bill for 2008-09, based on the tentative millage, would be $1,345.23 on that property.

Good Samaritan Pays Woman's $287 Fine

DESOTO CITY - Good Samaritans have helped the elderly woman who was fined when she couldn't remove a weather-torn mobile home from her lot.

After the 2004 hurricanes blew the windows out of Verdell Deshazior's trailer house, she bought another. Neither was habitable, so Highlands County Code Enforcement condemned them both.

After the county housing office built a new house for her, they hauled off one trailer, and the 78-year-old woman agreed to remove the other.

"I didn't have the money," Deshazior said. "I'm on a fixed income of $987 monthly."

So she was fined $287, and her yard at the end of an isolated lane near the DeSoto ball fields still contained concrete blocks, wood, lawn chairs, the frame of an old shed and the debris from those two mobile homes, all of which could be the subject of a future complaint from her neighbors.

In April, she finally paid a man to disassemble the mobile home and haul it three miles to the county dump. After the county commissioners balked on whether they should dismiss or reduce the fine, Deshazior's case was featured in Saturday's edition of Highlands Today.

That same day, four readers called. One man and the member of a church group have offered to haul off the debris from her lawn.

"Our youth at church are always looking for ways to bless our community," said the church member, who planned to contact the youth director.

And on Monday, a reader who asked to remain anonymous went to the county finance office and paid her fine.

Land-Buy Tax Proposal Won't Appear On 2008 Ballot

SEBRING - Efforts to place on the 2008 ballot a property tax to help the county conserve environmentally sensitive lands appeared to be dead late Wednesday afternoon after its backers conceded to a county advisory commission that the worsening economy would dampen its support.

A spokeswoman for an international land conservation group said at Wednesday's Natural Resources Advisory Commission meeting that she and the core backers of the new tax agreed with some of the county commissioners' complaints, suggesting that such an initiative to fund a $20 million bond for the conservation effort wouldn't be successful right now.

"I think the people that have really been behind this have agreed... because of economics, that now is not a necessarily good time to move forward with this," said Tricia Martin, the director of the Nature Conservancy's Lake Wales Ridge program.

Martin instead suggested to NRAC that the initiative could be voted on either in a mail-in vote or during a primary election in the future, after the county and the tax's supporters have more time to educate the public about it.

NRAC agreed with Martin before it voted unanimously to recommend to the county commission against putting any ballot proposal for the tax on November's general election ballot.

"I don't think we're ready for primetime yet, but this raised in my mind that this is much more of a reality," NRAC member Hillary Swain said.

Competition High To Build Sheriff's Building

SEBRING - A record number of companies is competing for the contract to build the new Highlands County Sheriff's Office building.

County Administrator Michael Wright said the increased competition could lead to a great price for taxpayers on the new law enforcement facility, which now carries an estimated price tag of about $11.2 million.

Twenty-one general contractor firms filed by Thursday's 2 p.m. deadline to qualify to compete for the job. Within 10 days, the county's purchasing department will announce which firms are qualified to bid on this project.

Due in large part to the faltering economy, county projects have been drawing many more bidders over the past 18 months than several years earlier when the local and state economies were booming, said Jed Secory.

Secory, director of the county purchasing department, said the greater competition should lead to a lower price on the new sheriff's building.

"That's what we're hoping for, the best possible price for taxpayers," Secory said. More competition generally leads to better prices, in both the public and private sectors, he said.

If all the 21 general contracting firms qualify to bid for the law enforcement building, the county would have triple the number of bidders than it did for the county's last major construction project, the 2003 addition to the Highlands County Courthouse.

Seven general contracting firms qualified to bid for that project, compared to the 21 firms.

"That project," Secory said, referring to the courthouse addition, "was about the same size, as far as cost, as the new law enforcement building."

The new law enforcement building for the sheriff's office will be a two-story, concrete structure of about 50,000 square feet. The new facility will be built on South George Boulevard, near the county's fuel site and adjacent to the county's Emergency Operations Center.

Firms have to qualify to bid on large construction projects so that the county knows if they are capable to do the work, Secory said.

"This is a two-step process," he added. "We are qualifying vendors first, and then whoever is qualified will be allowed to bid on the actual construction."

Groundbreaking for the building is scheduled for January 2009.

Over the last 18 months, competition has been increasing for all contracts which the county awards through competitive bidding.

The qualified general contractors will start submitting bids on the sheriff's building in mid to late September.

The general contractor getting the contract is expected to be named in late October.

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