Commissioner's land-use voting falls short of claims

[LATE TAMPA Edition]

St. Petersburg Times - St. Petersburg, Fla.

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(ran State / Suncoast edition of Metro & State)

Earlier this month, an opponent zapped County Commissioner Ken Hagan at a political forum in New Tampa about the $50,000 in campaign contributions he has received from building and real estate interests, more than a third of his total.

"Campaigns are expensive," Hagan retorted. "On a weekly basis, I vote against a lot of developers and their attorneys, so I don't see any problems in taking their money."

But Hagan might have a problem identifying those votes.

A Times check of 265 land-use votes by Hagan since he took office two years ago revealed only 19 cast against the applicants, often developers and their attorneys. In 14 of those votes, Hagan joined a unanimous County Commission in defeating a land-use proposal.

No other commissioner was less likely to oppose development, although Tom Scott was close. Excluding unanimous votes and looking at the 104 votes where commissioners disagreed, Hagan voted against the applicants five times. The other six commissioners voted against the applicant an average of 42 times.

Among the seven county commissioners, Hagan was the lone supporter of:

A proposed motorcycle showroom in the University of South Florida area, defeated because of neighbors' fears about noise.

A 280-unit apartment complex proposed for the bayou areas off Upper Tampa Bay, defeated partly because of flood-evacuation concerns.

A 144-unit apartment complex in a Town 'N Country neighborhood already complaining of traffic problems.

Hagan didn't return Times phone calls to discuss his land-use voting.

However, several weeks earlier, he denied that campaign contributions were an influence.

"I listen," Hagan said. "I look at the facts. I look at the merits of the case, and I do the right thing."

Hagan's opponents have disputed that, particularly when told he had supported applicants in some 93 percent of his votes.

"Those percentages speak volumes," said Tom Jones, one of Hagan's two challengers in next Tuesday's Republican primary.

"Is he that much better informed than the rest of the commissioners? Or is he out of step with the rest of the commissioners? It's my belief that he's out of step with the rest of the commissioners in his overzealous desire to please the development community."

"Holy mackerel," said Hagan's other primary opponent, Rod Gaudin.

"The world has got to look at the state of Hillsborough County politics, how everything is bought and controlled," he said.

"What's it going to cost us to support this zoning?" Gaudin asked. "It's going to cost us millions of dollars of money that they don't have budgeted, to support infrastructure needs."

The Times tallied Hagan's votes from summary tables and meeting minutes filed with the county's Clerk of Court - a total of 332 commission decisions.

The examination didn't cover all land-use votes, which are the most common topic commissioners address. It excluded procedural votes and any others where the impact on the applicant wasn't decisive, such as returning applications to county planners for closer study. The numbers exclude votes in which commissioners approved hundreds of uncontroversial rezonings in bulk on the "consent agenda."

Obtaining a rezoning doesn't necessarily mean a developer won a complete victory.

For example, the commission unanimously rezoned 12 acres in Lutz last September for a complex of offices and stores. But the vote occurred after Hagan sided with dozens of his constituents in criticizing the prospect of a gasoline station in the complex, next to a huge cypress swamp. Other commissioners chimed in, and the applicant sacrificed the gas station to save the rezoning.

In another unanimous vote in June, the commission approved 28 homes near Carrollwood's Lake Ellen while rejecting the developer's request that each home have lake access. County planners, followed by Hagan, had spoken against such access.

Dozens of Hagan's votes occurred when motions to approve or deny rezonings were decided by one-vote margins, where a switched vote would have reversed the outcome, or two-vote margins, where a switched vote could have produced a tie, defeating the pending motion.

In March, Hagan voted for a 10-acre office complex on Bearss Avenue, which would have backed up to neighborhoods. The motion to deny the rezoning died on a 3-3 vote, and commissioners postponed a final decision. Hagan was absent when the issue came back up three weeks later; Commissioner Jan Platt, who missed the earlier vote, was present. She helped defeat the office complex 4-2.

Hagan, in the July interview with the Times, called land-use decisions the most challenging part of his job, often requiring him to choose between groups of constituents.

"The community is split down the middle," Hagan said. "From a political perspective, that's a lose-lose situation."

Of the votes studied, Hagan had missed 67 since taking office in late 2002. The only commissioner to miss more was Ronda Storms, who is the only other commissioner seeking re-election this year. Storms missed 119 of the votes.

Times staff writer Michael Van Sickler contributed to this article. Bill Coats can be reached at (813) 269-5309 or coats@sptimes.com.