By Barbara Behrendt, Times Staff Writer
Thursday, January 20, 2011
BROOKSVILLE — After more than 16 years of trying to get the Hernando Beach Channel dredged, county officials have a new, and novel, idea: Let's do it ourselves.
County Administrator David Hamilton is pitching an idea to the County Commission that the county's own staff act as the lead agency on the project, contracting out the tasks that county staffers cannot perform.
Part of that plan is to bring community members, businesses and organizations into the process to get the project done cheaper and by the state's Jan. 1, 2012, deadline.
Those community resources would form a dredging advisory group, and it would offer advice and guidance to the project. Hamilton noted in a memo to the County Commission that such a partnership could be a model for future projects.
On Tuesday, Hamilton will recommend that the commission ...