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Get it done

Get it done

Suncoast News Staff

Published: October 1, 2007

It has been pretty quiet of late around Port Richey City Hall. Regimes have changed settling a relative calm over council chambers.

Gone are the days of cutting off comments of residents during council meetings, council members walking out of meetings in disgust, accusations of violations of the Sunshine Law and, yes, even fisticuffs during a council meeting.

This Little City by the River, as it is affectionately known, has had a reputation for divisive politics and past scandals.

It has overcome most of these adversities, but still it can't seem to get its entire act together.

For 10 years it has been trying to get its miles of canals and waterways dredged.

It has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for consultants and studies and still no sign of progress.

Who is to blame for this fiasco? It depends on whom you ask.

In the last two years, Port Richey has paid The LPA Group, a Tampa consulting firm, more than $457,000 to obtain the proper studies, contracts and permits to move the more than 400,000 cubic yards of silt to clear the waterways.

LPA says a lack of communication between them and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has led to the confusion and delay.

Never mind that the city tried for eight years before LPA was hired to get the job done. Now the city's Port Authority Board wants to fire LPA because it says it has lost confidence in the firm.

Before LPA, the city had hired Tampa Bay Engineering to get the job done after taking responsibility from the city's Port Authority. It, subsequently, relieved TBE of the project.

Some argue the $15 million price tag is too costly to justify the little benefit to the residents who live along the canals. Perhaps.

It is time for Port Richey to take the bull by the horns and stop this needless spending and haggling. It needs to get everyone involved to the table, to lock the door, and sequester them until an agreement is reached. Ten years is much too long.

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