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Meeting With County Baffles Some

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By TOM BRENNAN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 27, 2007

BRANDON - There was plenty of show but little time for telling county planners how residents want the area to develop.

Members of a committee overseeing creation of a long-term community plan for Brandon bristled Monday night at a meeting agenda chock full of presentations by county agencies but with scant time for residents to express their concerns.

'I am extremely disappointed,' said Barbara Glotzbach, who lives off John Moore Road and is a member of the Brandon Community Plan steering committee. 'What we heard tonight was not necessarily pertinent to our project.

'You have to wonder if this is just window dressing, or whether they really want to give us any real responsibility.'

Residents thought they would continue to debate where the boundaries of the community plan should be, a topic that dominated the last committee meeting.

Instead, they heard presentations on the county's hand sanitizer ordinance - which requires liquid hand sanitizer dispensers in permanent and portable public restrooms - and projects the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority would like to bring to Brandon if it had money to fund them.

Residents were baffled by the apparent irrelevance of such topics.

'I can't believe we had to listen for two hours while county departments said what they do,' said Lisa Rodriguez, a Brandon resident and civic activist. 'You would think they would have left some time for us to give our input.'

Residents also said the rapid succession of agency presentations gave them short shrift on asking questions about weightier topics those representatives could address.

'Traffic and transportation issues are the No. 1 problem in Brandon, and we didn't get a chance to ask a question,' said Richard Bennett, a local real estate broker and business owner. 'We can't plan anything for Brandon unless we can fix the transportation problem.'

Joe Incorvia, the county's chief of community planning, promised another meeting will focus solely on transportation issues. He also promised the boundary concerns will be addressed.

Incorvia said county planners are waiting for a similar committee that recently started mapping out the Seffner Community Plan to get organized. That group won't hold its first meeting until next month. He said planners are also waiting for a decision on a request by the Bloomingdale Homeowners Association to join the Brandon effort.

'I am sure we will be addressing it boundaries in the future,' Incorvia said.

HOW YOU CAN SOUND OFF

The Brandon Community Plan committee's next meeting is Nov. 26 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 402 E. Lumsden Road, Brandon.

For information, call William Lamboy at (813) 276-8337.

Reporter Tom Brennan can be reached at (813) 657-4528 or tbrennan@tampatrib.com.

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