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Ozona group joining fight against incorporation

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By Mark  Schantz | The Suncoast News

Published: May 2, 2009

OZONA - When it comes to talk of incorporating into a city, Ozona officials note village residents have been there, done that and do not want to repeat the experience.

Officials from the group supporting Palm Harbor incorporation contend Ozona and Crystal Beach can stay out of the proposed city. This week, however, officials of the Ozona Village Improvement Society community group said ensuring the independence of the village could be an expensive proposition.

OVIS officials recently penned a letter to state legislators vowing to fight any attempt by Palm Harbor to incorporate.

James Kleyman, president of the pro-incorporation group the Palm Harbor Coalition, recently said Ozona and Crystal Beach could ask to be left out of the proposed city. Palm Harbor does not need the property tax revenue that might be derived from Crystal Beach and Ozona to be economically viable.

Kleyman said all the two groups need to do is provide an official delineation of their communities' boundaries.

On Tuesday, however, Dennis Green, OVIS president, said rejecting incorporation could prove costlier and more difficult than Kleyman seems to be suggesting.

For example, providing legal surveys delineating the Ozona and Crystal Beach areas would be expensive and residents of neither community could afford the cost, Green said.

Kleyman recently said if opponents of incorporation in Crystal Beach or Ozona give the coalition a legal survey outlining the community's boundary, the coalition would remove that area from the proposed Palm Harbor municipality.

After opposition to incorporation from the Crystal Beach Community Association surfaced, Kleyman announced the coalition would not ask the Legislature to set up an incorporation referendum this year. The coalition, however, will resubmit the incorporation proposal for next year's legislative session, he said.

Meanwhile, incorporation is nothing new to the little laid-back village of Ozona.

According to Terry Fortner, a local historian and OVIS member, Ozona was an incorporated city from 1914 to 1917, not long after Pinellas County was carved out of Hillsborough County. Eventually, however, Ozona residents decided becoming part of unincorporated Pinellas made more sense, he said.

Every few years someone comes up with the idea of incorporating Palm Harbor, Fortner added.

Ozona residents believe an incorporated Palm Harbor merely would add a needless layer of government to their lives and be more trouble than it is worth, Green said.

"We want to preserve our originality and uniqueness, not be swallowed up into a town of Palm Harbor," the OVIS leader said. "We have been promised representation but we would never be big enough to override anything Palm Harbor wanted to do.

"We are happy with the service and representation received from the county," he added.

People in both Ozona and Crystal Beach have no complaints about the programs and services they get from the county, Green noted. For example, the county granted residents of both areas the right to drive golf carts on community streets, he said.

Pinellas County Planning Director Brian Smith, an OVIS board member, said he and other Ozona residents are interested in preserving the special quality of life, which includes special architecture, a quaint business district and waterfront.

Mark Schantz can be reached at 727-815-1075 or mschantz@suncoastnews.com.

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