Belleair’s water department superintendent David Brown, left, presents Mayor Gary Katica with the Best in Taste trophy for this year’s regional win by Belleair.
BELLEAIR – The town of Belleair laid claim to the distinction Best Tasting Water, as determined by a regional, seven-county taste-off conducted by the American Water Works Association.
The recent event in Lithia, pitted 12 regional water works teams from seven municipalities. Belleair brought home top honors.
The town’s water department superintendent David Brown presented a proud town commission with the title and a trophy during Tuesday evening’s commission work session.
The distinction marking Belleair’s strong commitment to water quality comes on just the second occasion of the local utility’s entrance into the competition.
Brown, who supervises a four-member team of water engineer specialists, said they keep the process of maintaining good tasting water supplies to Belleair residents to as simple a formula as possible, using very few chemicals in the process.
“The solution for success is utilizing the expert guidelines provided by the Florida Rural Water Association,” Brown said.
Belleair will go on to compete in the statewide water taste-off April 2-3 in Tallahassee.
Dog park on hold
For the time being, a proposed dog park located at the east end of town on property between the utility department and Biltmore Construction will have to wait. Biltmore Construction had offered the town $15,000 for the parcel, which appraisers had valued at approximately $40,000.
Commissioners unwilling to accept the low offer opted instead to study the possibility of using the green space for a dog park. Town Manager Micah Maxwell reported Tuesday that in discussions with staff it became clear that such a plan would be costly in terms of maintenance and manpower; the park would have to be cleaned at least twice a day. Maxwell recommended waiting until the budget was further along before making such a commitment.
Commissioner Karla Rettstatt said she had discussed the park with local business owners and from those discussions had emerged the idea for a park based on annual user fees.
For the moment it appears the dog park will have to wait for a leg up in the budget process.
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