Abolish Historical Commission

The city of Sebring should consider the disbanding or preservation of the Sebring Historical Preservation Commission. As a preservationist and former chairman of the SHPC, I admit that the organization is totally ineffective and no longer preserving the historical buildings in compliance with the state guidelines and the city of Sebring ordinance. With exception to Lorrie Smith, chairperson, the commissioners would rather bend or ignore the guidelines. I have heard numerous times the members state that proper restoration is too costly, so they allow a building to be renovated instead.

Also, the attitude of some city council members who object to buildings being placed on the historic register is a reason for the body's ineffectiveness. Recently, an effort was made to save the beautiful old Weem's House next to the original Orville Sebring home. After all documents were done and the previous owner agreed to the placement on the register, one of the senior city council members objected to it and it was lost the protection of the historical register.

With this type of support the SHPC is nothing more than a monthly meeting of members. To my knowledge there is only one building in the downtown area that comes close to meeting the required guidelines for historical preservation and that is the Hainz Building (Dee's Restaurant.) Owner Sam Corsen, without encouragement from the commission, carried out the closest thing to an actual restoration. Other buildings by Gene Brenner and Jim Rimer are excellent renovations, but not historically correct.

Harder Hall cannot be considered a historical restoration. The bastardization of both the exterior and interior public areas by Shenker and his agents have made such a mess of the interior that it is no longer even recognizable by those who experienced it in its heyday.

The CRA has in its framework enough controls to guide the "renovations" of those historically designated buildings. With some minor changes to their building criteria, it could be more effective to the renovations of existing buildings and they do have incentives to assist owners in their renovations.

Gary Puckett
Sebring