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Crystal Beach Group Facing Boundary Quagmire

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By Mark  Schantz | The Suncoast News

Published: April 4, 2009

CRYSTAL BEACH - The Crystal Beach Community Association wants to draw a line in the sand and opt out of a vote that will ask Palm Harbor-area residents if they want to incorporate into a municipality.

The association's problem is it needs a legal description of where that line should be drawn.

Late last week, in an e-mail "blast" to all its members and friends, the association requested the public's help in defining its boundaries.

The Palm Harbor Coalition, the group behind the incorporation effort, told the association the Crystal Beach area would be omitted from the proposed city. To do that, however, the community association would have to provide the coalition with legal documents describing the area the association would want excluded.

The coalition made the offer after the community association began circulating petitions opposing turning much of unincorporated northwestern Pinellas into a city. A city would just add another unneeded layer of government area residents would have to pay for through taxes, incorporation opponents say.

In attempting to accept the coalition's offer, the association has asked anyone who has "any historical documents, letters, deeds or other type records that would validate its boundaries" to make them available to the association.

"We feel sure that some in the area have lived here or have relatives who were original residents and property owners and might have evidence of the community's original established boundaries," Claudette Otto, Crystal Beach Community Association president, wrote in the e-mail.

Published historical reports suggest the coastal area now know as Crystal Beach was first identified as a community sometime after 1872. An 1884 deed, for example, shows street names and an area called Seaside.

The name Crystal Beach does not appear until much later, Otto explained.

Records pertaining to Crystal Beach could date back to the time when what is now Pinellas County was still part of Hillsborough County, Otto said. Pinellas separated from Hillsborough in 1912 and was officially incorporated in 1913.

The community association is also seeking volunteers to aid the effort to define Crystal Beach's boundaries by researching courthouse records.

The CBCA will discuss its fight against incorporation at its next general meeting.

It will be held 7 p.m. this Tuesday, April 7, at the community hall.

In a recent interview Palm Harbor Coalition President James Kleyman said the area that calls itself Crystal Beach is loosely defined. Crystal Beach and Ozona were included in the proposed city of Palm Harbor because they are within the Palm Harbor Special Fire Control and Rescue District, he said.

Community association representatives met March 25 with coalition officials and state Rep. Peter Nehr, R-Tarpon Springs.

At the meeting the association officials, Otto said, stated "firmly that Crystal Beach does not want to be included in any plans for incorporation and that we will continue to fight any effort to do so."

Crystal Beach residents, she said, have been well served by the county and residents of the gulf-front village do not want another level of local oversight.

Kleyman argues if local residents incorporate, they will have a voice over how their tax dollars are spent.

A vote on whether to incorporate Palm Harbor is not expected to take place until 2010.

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