Let's Make a Deal

We've all heard a hundred jokes that begin with "Florida man..."

They're not always jokes; sometimes, they are real news stories. So this one begins with: Small town in Florida sells its water tower in a bungled real estate deal.

Look at this map! I've never even heard of Brooksville, FL, but here it seems to be a bigger deal than Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando, and Miami!

Anyhow, in April, a local business wheeler dealer bought the city-owned building under Brooksville's water tower. He gave the city $55,000 for the building, which used to be used as a storage site for various city agencies; the plan was to turn it into a gym (one where people would constantly look up to the sky in fear of the tower collapsing, but anyway...)

Bobby Read is the businessman here. As the City Council was closing the deal on May 5, he told city officials he thought the legal description of the property went far beyond what he thought he was buying. But officials, relying on the description they had, said no, we're cool, go ahead with the deal.

When Read went to the Hernando County Property Appraiser’s office to get the official address for the site of his new gym venture, the appraiser told him the parcel he bought included the entire water tower site.

Fortunately for many, on May 14, Read signed a warranty deed, transferring the water tower back to the red-faced city (population 8,500).

“I don’t know where the blame falls here,” said Blake Bell, a city council member. “We’re council members and we rely on the city manager. We assume that he has done his due diligence."

City Manager Mark Kutney said a "bad legal description" was to blame for the snafu. No lawyers have resigned yet, but the city's redevelopment agency director quit his job.

“We’re human,” Kutney said. “Sometimes we make a mistake.”

I can assure you, dear reader, that just WHO made the mistake and WHO should have caught it are topics of intense conversation around the town offices these days, make no mistake about that.