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Paula Dockery, officials with three Polk cities, call for CSX review

Posted May 11, 2007 by Billy Townsend

Updated May 11, 2007 at 04:30 PM

State Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, on Friday entered the CSX hub/development of regional impact debate with some pretty strong words. Like a majority of the Polk County Commission, she thinks the Winter Haven project should be treated as a development of regional impact from its inception and subjected to a thorough regional review.

“The fact that it’s not going through a better process, and people are just being told to deal with it, is not proper planning,” Dockery said during a phone interview, calling the CSX center “a major regional project.”

She said he had heard from a “diverse group” of downtown Lakeland business owners concerned about increased train traffic, and she considers their concerns legitimate. Dockery’s office is itself in downtown Lakeland.

She added: “If the project is good for economic development and good for the community, then going through the proper review shouldn’t be a threat. Once done, [development of the project] can’t be undone.”

But what can she do about it? Dockery said she’s not sure. She said she could speak to Tom Pelham, the secretary of the Department of Community Affairs. One of his employees, Mike McDaniel, signed off on CSX’s request to waive the regional review. (That decision predates Pelham’s tenure.) But if the state remains dead set against a DRI for the hub portion of the project, and the Orlando commuter rail deal it is working through with CSX gives it an incentive not to, Dockery doesn’t know that there’s much anyone, including her, can do to force it.

But if that happens, it appears the state will have to ignore the wishes of an increasingly large number of Polk cities.

Lake Wales City Manager Tony Otte said Thursday that he plans to ask his city commission at its meeting on Tuesday to offer some form of support for the County Commission’s vote asking Pelham to reconsider the DRI “clearance” granted CSX. He said he expects commissioners will agree because the city has various traffic and environmental concerns, related to the CSX hub.

Lakeland Mayor Buddy Fletcher said he will meet with City Manager Doug Thomas on Monday to discuss suggesting a similar public show of support for the county by the almost pathologically polite Lakeland City Commission, which has yet to discuss the CSX question in any public meeting.

In a phone interview, Fletcher said he is “absolutely in favor of the [CSX] project,” but that it needs to be better reviewed as a whole, not split into two parts.

“The whole project is going to be so large,” Fletcher said. “I really believe they need to look at it as it’s going to be, not just one small part of it,” Fletcher said. “It should be a DRI, so we can see what the impact is on the surrounding communities.”

Brian Hinton, Bartow mayor, said he expects that the issue will be discussed by the Bartow City Commission as well. “It’s probably a good idea” to go through a DRI process, he said. He expects the 1,150 projected daily truck trips onto S.R. 60 from the project’s first phase to have a “high traffic impact” on Bartow, which straddles 60, as does Lake Wales.