In just four years, Storms has insulted almost every person in Hillsborough County who is not like her. She's assailing values that truly matter. Things like equality and free expression. This is America, and Storms can think and say whatever she wants. But the way she does it tends to paint people who don't think like her as, somehow, dirty.
Just as an example for you, she quipped on whether a law school devoted to graduating minority lawyers could do its job: "We can get them through law school, but we can't get them to seem to pass the Bar."
Storms
seems to be voting new laws in to benefit herself. Residents, mainly from Thonotosassa
in east Hillsborough and Keystone in the northwest part of the county, are
angry. Storms voted on an issue they think benefits her [Storm's] family's
landscaping business. They want the vote overturned and Storms held accountable.
Storms was the swing vote in a 4-3 commission decision in June to change the county land development code allowing landscape nurseries to operate ancillary businesses, such as landscape maintenance and irrigation, on agriculturally zoned properties.
Storms denies any wrongdoing, saying she sought an opinion from a county attorney who determined there was no reason for her to abstain.
Before the vote, landscape maintenance businesses could operate only in commercially zoned areas.
The new rules apply to all landscape contractors. To run an ancillary business, they must have at least 2 1/2 contiguous acres, at least 51 percent of which must be devoted to growing plants. Those plants must be used by the contractors or sold on the wholesale market. Retail sales are prohibited.
Homeowners argued that the code changes were just a dodge to hide commercial sprinkler and lawn businesses in agricultural areas. And Storms' family landscaping business benefits directly, they said.
Ardin, Pandorf and Keystone neighbors Shane James and Rich Dugger, who live near Hughes Tree Farm, are among 14 residents who have filed complaints with the Florida Commission on Ethics. Others are expected.
Before the vote, a county attorney issued an opinion at Storms' request that she didn't have to abstain from voting. The attorney said that because Storms' family business, Storms Landscaping Nursery in Valrico, is one of about 200 businesses that could be affected, her family business is not being singled out by the new rules. But Rich Dugger disagrees, he says "Repeatedly we were told of 300 businesses that would be effected - when outright asked - Zoning administrator Paula Harvey said - they were 3. not 300....... but 3"
Opponents say Storms had a much bigger stake in the issue since the code changes likely will affect only a handful of landscape nurseries, including her family's. Dugger said, "I find it amazing that she sat up there handing out her judgments to everyone about doing the right thing - following the laws as they are written - and all the time she was operating an illegal business........ breaking her own set of laws... till the time came when she could group together with other violators and change the laws till they fit her need".
The three also complain that:
* Storms and other commissioners who voted in favor of the code changes have accepted campaign contributions from the landscapers who proposed the changes. Landscaper Shea Hughes, who owns Sunrise Landscaping and Landcare, just west of Thonotosassa, proposed the code changes. He is the son of Ralph Hughes, one of Storms' primary political backers.
According to campaign finance reports for the current county commission race, Ralph Hughes and Sunrise Landscaping each contributed $500 toward Storms' re-election, and a number of other nursery owners also made contributions. Ralph Hughes' political backing history has included Greco also: see Sweetheart Deals. (Ralph Hughes, along with backing Storms for county commissioner, and Storms were both intent on seeing that legal alien residents are denied access to public healthcare. See that story here)
* The code changes do not comply with the Thonotosassa Community Plan, which rural residents and county officials worked for three years to develop. The plan is a blueprint for future growth in the area.
Storms said residents are accusing her of an ethical breach only to get the code changes revoked. Yeah, Ronda....it's all about you.
``I don't think there would be any complaints if I would have voted the way they wanted me to vote,'' Storms said. See, it works like this...you...an elected official....work for the people. You have an obligation to vote the way your constituents want you to vote and not just vote to benefit yourself and your financial backers like Ralph Hughes and his son..
She said the changes won't affect her family business because it was established before the county had a code. So it is grandfathered in, meaning the nursery can continue to operate ancillary businesses such as irrigation and lawn maintenance, even if rules adopted since prohibit such uses.
County Zoning Administrator Paula Harvey disagrees. Harvey said she knows of no businesses that are grandfathered because they were established before the codes were established. And no businesses were grandfathered in as part of the new code change, she said. Ronda makes it up as she goes.
Storms also said people living in rural areas should not expect to be sheltered from activities related to agriculture.
``I'm sorry people were not aware that this is the type of trade-off they make when they move into an agricultural area. We also allow pig farms and packing houses and migrant farmworker housing in areas like this,'' she said. Once again the arrogant person she portrays herself to be in county commission meetings slings holier than thou's at her constituents.
Dugger said when people bought property in agricultural areas, they knew they could potentially be buying in an area where pig farms and packing houses are allowed. ``But they are allowing the service industry into an area they've never been allowed before,'' he said.
Residents in east and south Hillsborough County should wonder what Ronda Storms has to show after six years in county government especially when she does nothing but belittle and denigrate people who do not beleive as she does, and votes to benefit her own finances instead of looking after her constituents. Her penchant for getting the commission off-point on petty, divisive controversies doesn't serve residents in the entire county, either.
Commission confronted over gay pride
Activists urge five commissioners to lend their names to a proclamation, without success.
TAMPA -- Activist Mauricio Rosas couldn't figure out why only two of Hillsborough's seven county commissioners signed his recent request proclaiming June to be Gay Pride Month. So on Wednesday, Rosas decided to confront the commissioners who didn't sign at a public hearing.
One by one the commissioners again declined to sign, leaving only the signatures of Democrats Pat Frank and Jan Platt on the proclamation. Actually, Commissioner Jim Norman never answered, instead raising questions along with Commissioner Chris Hart about whether public speakers are allowed to question commissioners.
The nonsigning commissioners did not explain themselves. Afterward, Rosas said that by refusing to back a proclamation promoting tolerance they were actually supporting intolerance.
"We want to be an accepting community," said Rosas, a member of the Tampa-based human rights advocacy group Voice of Freedom.
Later, another Voice of Freedom activist, Lorelei Jackson, gave a video presentation to the commission. It included a brief pictorial of gay people who died serving their community, including Tampa police Officer Lois Marrero, killed last year by a fleeing bank robber.
Jackson expressed frustration that Commissioners Tom Scott and Ronda Storms had left the meeting by the time she got to speak, and she requested their attendance records. (Commissioner Stacey Easterling had also left at that point.) Jackson then accused Storms of doing a crossword puzzle during a previous commission meeting, saying it had been captured on videotape.
Jackson was informed that she could get copies of attendance records but that there likely would be a charge. Just then, Storms, who was actually watching the end of the meeting from the commission office area, charged into the chamber to declare: "I have never done a crossword puzzle in my life."
After the meeting, Storms went up to Jackson and demanded to see the videotape. Jackson said she didn't have it with her but that she'd get her a copy.
Afterward, she and Rosas said that, of course, they'd have to charge her.