July 3, 2005

Courthouse Controversy Linked to Condomania

Bring out the crying towels. Old Punta Gorda -- the quaint, historic village on the southern shore of Charlotte Bay is gone – soon to be forgotten in a Naples frenzy.

Hurricane Charley moved the time clock forward by several decades. Team Punta Gorda administered the mercy deathblow.

The demise was inevitable. Invention of the automobile, drive-in hamburger joints and shopping malls changed shopping habits forever. This was neither good nor bad – just different.

Sadly, however, the process wiped out the sense of community, neighborhood, family and personal identity. We have become as ships passing in the night.

This we can bemoan. Things wither and decay. Human relationships are fragile, but the foundation stones of civilization.

Most thoughtless is the cry of self-centered latecomers to tear down the “old, ugly, sick” Charlotte County courthouse.

Canards all.

“Old” is relative. By Florida statute, anything 50 years old is historic. This is a loose definition, but a start.

History is significance.

The old courthouse is historic because it unified the western, eastern and southern county communities into a governing whole. This after decades of rattling around in the Manatee and DeSota mega-counties.

Most sad are the trumped up objections tossed off by mentally challenged objectors to anything nostalgic.

We must challenge the perception of old as if decrepit and unworthy of regard. Seventy percent of county residents of advanced years reject this stupid notion.

The old courthouse is not ugly. It is not as pretty as it was originally, but that is easily fixed. Pretty is skin deep, but ugly goes to the bone. Courthouses are the marrow of a living, breathing community.

“Sick” is the invention of sick minds. There was a brief time when a windowless addition was wrapped around two sides of the original courthouse. \

Too many people in too small a space – sucking up oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide on which mold thrives. That architectural stupidity has been removed.

In the same category of propaganda is that the original courthouse sits atop a “flowing artesian well.” In fact the structure – largest in the county at the time – sits in a wet spot as do all other downtown Punta Gorda buildings.

The technology of 1923 -- when the courthouse was built after county incorporation in 1921 – called for excavation to the water table just four feet below and install a sump pump.

Nowadays, the building code calls for raising the ground level with fill, laying a waterproof membrane and topping the artificial mound with a concrete slab.

Downtown Punta Gorda – designated several years ago by Council as a “local historic district – is granted a variance to bypass the modern building code.

The courthouse sump pump continues to perform its assigned duties as it has for 82 years.

Demise of downtown began when the Punta Gorda Shopping Mall -- anchored by Publix Supermarket and Eckerd Drugs – moved a mile down the road. The relocation from one-way streets to a four-lane divided highway was good business.

Replacement of the old shopping center with restaurants and little specialty shops topped with condo apartments also is good business.

It is interesting to note that the largest contributors to Team Punta Gorda’s generic “plan” for condo apartments everywhere were developers, builders and real estate insurance brokers.

City Council will ignore this and hire outside “consultants” to dream up its own version of condomania. Condos bring in lots of tax dollars without requiring many municipal services.

Time marches on.

Lindsey Williams is a Sun columnist who can be contacted at linwms@lindseywilliams.org