Commissioners reconsider 'tent city'

TAMPA - Once again, they lined the front row of County Commission chambers, standing their ground against a Hillsborough successor to Pinellas Hope, a tent city offering 90 days of help from Catholic Charities to find jobs and self-sufficiency.

The opponents brought their maps and their fears. Monroe Fauntleroy worried about a nearby school bus transfer station that would be "zero-point-five miles from Tent City."

"With these types of individuals there early in the morning, when our children are transferring buses."

Commissioner Kevin White sided with the neighbors.

"From noise from the Amphitheater, noise from the casino, noise abatement," White said, "this community has just been bombarded, inundated."

White pushed the charities to use a former Catholic school site nearby, but when Frank Murphy of Catholic Charities gave White an answer, there were jeers from the crowd.

"That is an active site of a church," Murphy said, "where there are children and there are activities committed to the property."

"What about our children? What about our children?" said members of the audience as they held big red stop signs labeled, "Stop Tent City."

Commissioner Rose Ferlita, a tent city advocate, actually got applause from the neighbors when she said, "We are looking at other sites, but, but..." before applause drowned her out.

"I think the county commissioners are finally starting to listen. I think the fact they are talking about other sites means that they are paying attention, that they want to make sure this doesn't negatively impact our community," offered Hal Hart, a Stop Tent City leader.

Catholic Charities says they're open to a land swap with the county, but there is no place they own, they say, that will work better than the East Lake site.

"We've looked at all the sites before we came here," Murphy told FOX 13. "This was the best site."

A hearing master will hear from the public on August 25 at 6 p.m.