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Forecast is tropical for Saturday’s Brooksville Christmas Parade. Page 10
Friday, December 11, 2015 HER
DAN DEWITT
ddewitt@tampabay.com
Monument
must shun
county’s
racist past
T
he plan is as vague as
it ambitious, as under-
funded as it is well-
intentioned.
At the request of Paul
Douglas, president of the Her-
nando County branch of the
NAACP,
the County
Commis-
sion on
Tuesday
set aside
land at the
Hernando
County
Govern-
ment Cen-
ter for a
monument
to African-
Americans.
What will it look like?
Douglas can only say he
intends to hold a design con-
test.
How is he going to pay for
it? He has commitments from
businesses and individu-
als, he said. But he didn’t say
which ones or how much they
are willing to give.
Who will raise this money
and put up the monument?
It won’t be the NAACP, Doug-
las said, but a group formed
strictly for this project. For
now, though, he doesn’t know
who will be included or what
it will be called.
Finally, what’s the monu-
ment supposed to say to the
community and visitors about
the history of African-Ameri-
cans in Hernando? What is its
message?
That’s not really clear,
either, even though it is the
main question Douglas needs
to answer.
Remember, this all started
nearly six months ago, after
Dylann Roof allegedly shot
and killed nine innocent con-
gregants at a historic African-
American church in Charles-
ton, S.C.
Even in that hidebound
state, it was an easy call to
remove the Confederate bat-
tle flag from the lawn of the
statehouse.
Hernando, on the other
hand, faced a weightier issue.
Really weighty. Its flag is
etched in the base of another,
larger, granite-and-marble
monument to racial oppres-
sion — the statue of a Confed-
erate soldier on the lawn of
the Hernando County Court-
house.
Douglas wanted it gone.
So did Commissioner Diane
Rowden. Cart it away, she
said. Take it to a museum.
Don’t leave it where it is — a
place that, along with the lir-
iope planted lovingly at its
base and the floodlight that
reverently shines on it at
night, implies public endorse-
ment.
But then, Rowden said, she
talked to community lead-
ers, including the pastors
. See DEWITT, 8
Paul Douglas
has questions
to resolve
about the
monument.
BY BARBARA BEHRENDT
Times Staff Writer
BROOKSVILLE — Faced with
a room of angry residents and
recommendations of denial from
both their staff and the Planning
and Zoning Commission, Her-
nando County commissioners
on Tuesday voted down a rezon-
ing for an outdoor gun range and
training center north of Weeki
Wachee.
Theperplexedapplicant,Chris-
topher Russo, told commission-
ers that the permitting process
was unfair and that the county
shouldn’t have taken his applica-
tion fee if it wasn’t going to give
him the specifics he needed to
get the rezoning approved, espe-
cially when he planned a facility
with even more safeguards than
other local ranges.
His initial pitch to the com-
mission was that, with all of the
recent gun incidents around the
nation, he wanted to provide
proper training for gun owners.
That prompted one Wood-
land Waters resident to express
concern that Russo was plan-
ning a “commando camp” on his
3.75-acre parcel west of U.S. 19,
just north of Long Lake Avenue
and south of Glen Lakes.
Residents of Glen Lakes and
surrounding communities filed to
the microphone to voice concerns
about noise, stray bullets, pollu-
tion of groundwater and falling
property values; Russo countered
thathe had a right to use his prop-
erty to run a business and feed his
family and that the fear of stray
bullets “is fantasy land.’’
Not to Gary Eckenroth.
With a copy of a police report
in hand, Eckenroth spoke about
a 9mm shell that pierced the wall
of his Auction House business
on Nov. 14, narrowly missing his
teenage daughter. He called 911,
and deputies came to take his
statement. Another call that day
County rejects gun rangeResidents said the facility would be unsafe, noisy and environmentally harmful.
. See GUN RANGE, 2
BY DAN DEWITT
Times Staff Writer
SPRING HILL
T
he assignment was to sift
through written clues — that
this place is the home of fish,
that the water is salty, that peo-
ple like to swim here — and
come up with the main idea.
Six first-graders, huddled around a
table in a classroom at Spring Hill Ele-
mentary School, quickly arrived at the
answer, “the ocean,” which Lilyana
Noguez was assigned to get on paper.
“Can I draw it?” Lilyana, 6, asked her
teacher, Toni Berlinger.
“No, I want you to write words, my
friend,” Berlinger said. “Write words.”
It’s a timeless goal: teaching children
to read and write. But at Spring Hill Ele-
mentary and the district’s three other D-
rated schools — and, to a lesser extent,
its several C schools — this goal is inter-
twined with another, more politically
charged aim: engineering a turnaround.
These schools are under pressure to
Photos by BRENDAN FITTERER | Times
Spring Hill Elementary School students, from left, Bailey Smuz, Jayden Gunadasa, Lilyana Noguez and Kaden Johnston
participate in a lesson on main ideas and details within a story being retaught by first-grade teacher Toni Berlinger.
Spring Hill Elementary School teacher Toni Berlinger works with students
Cameron Flood, left, and Ashton Curtis on reading comprehension on Dec. 3.
RETEACHING FOR
A TURNAROUND
At D-rated Spring Hill Elementary, the state pressure is on.
. See SCHOOLS, 17
BY BARBARA BEHRENDT
Times Staff Writer
HERNANDO BEACH — On
the day before Thanksgiving,
Hernando Beach resident Diane
Martinez visited the community
fire station with a gift of food for
the volunteers.
While there, Martinez leaned
down to pet the station’s 70-
pound, 1½-year-old brown and
white pit bull mix, Sam, and the
dog severely bit her in the face.
Butinsteadofcallinganambu-
lance, the volunteers called the
woman’s husband and had him
take her to Oak Hill Hospital.
About four hours later, officials
said,Martinezwastransferredby
county ambulance to the trauma
center at the Regional Medical
Center Bayonet Point because of
the severity of the wound.
That decision and the fact that
no calls came from the volunteer
fire department to Hernando
County Fire Rescue, the Sheriff’s
Office Animal Services officer or
the Health Department, which
handles dog bites, has raised
questions with county officials
and stirred outrage among Her-
nando Beach residents aware of
the incident.
This week, after county com-
missioners were questioned
about the dog attack, they
decided it is time to formally ask
residents of Hernando Beach,
Aripeka and Forest Glenn, the
areas served by the volunteer fire
department, whether they want
to continue that service, join
Hernando County Fire Service or
choose some other option.
By consensus, the commis-
sioners asked county staff-
ers to research the options for
a poll or a vote and return at a
future meeting to formalize the
action.
The Hernando Beach Volun-
teer Fire Department recently
has come under scrutiny for mis-
use of a gasoline card, allega-
tions of alcohol consumption at
the station and a scolding by the
county attorney’s office about
insurance certificates, written
protocols and a lease agreement.
Officials
queried
after
dog bite
Thecountywillaskif
residentswanttokeep
theHernandoBeach
volunteerfireservice.
. See AGENCY, 17