It’s been a big week for Chinsegut Hill.

1. On Monday night the Brooksville City Council discussed their future role on the property.
2. On Tuesday the Hernando County Commission unanimously voted to create their own DOGE committee and to have the Chinsegut Hill lease be their first item of study.
3. Today I received documents from the County for my March 7 public records request regarding the Land Use Plan approved by the State.

I’m going to do my best not to get into the weeds in the blog, but will provide links along the way and the full documents at the end for anyone who, like me, enjoys the weeds. I find the weeds often house root issues and reveal hidden agendas.

1. City Council – the City Council sub-lease for the Chinsegut Retreat Center expires on June 30, 2025. If they want to continue to lease the retreat, they were required¹ to notify Hernando County Commission no less than 60 days before that. In other words, they had to tell the County by April 30th if they wanted to continue the lease. So what did Council decide? To postpone a vote until the County decides what they are doing. Unfortunately, the City Attorney did not weigh in to make Council aware of the April 30th deadline, so it seems the lease will terminate without City Council taking a vote. You can watch the Council meeting here (agenda item starts at 21:25) and also comes up during Citizen Input at 1:11:35.
2. Following their Land Use Hearing, on May 6th the DOGE Review will discuss the County’s lease of Chinsegut Hill. To my knowledge, they have not publicly discussed the fact the Tampa Bay History Center’s lease would automatically terminate. I have not heard them discuss the legal ramifications of breaking their contract with Tampa Bay History Center (who has invested over $500,000 into the property). I have also not seen public notification that the County does NOT get to decide what happens IF the State allows them to cancel the lease. By getting out of it, Hernando County gives up all control over whether or not the public will have access to the land or the museum.
3. Land Use – The Land Use plan was adopted for Fiscal Year 2015. Since I asked for the Land Use Plans and this is the only one Hernando County provided before closing my public records request, I deduce this is the only one that exists. The plan includes a map that shows the archeological area. This document proves the veracity of my statement to the Commission on March 11, 2025 that their proposed and permitted modular building was being placed in the archeological area.

The State of Florida has not, nor would they, approve building on an archeological site, especially since digs haven’t been done yet . Gary Ellis, of GARI Archeology, attended the BOCC meeting to explain this to the commissioners, but they seemingly disregarded his expertise.

I chose not to blog or speak about the March 11 Commission meeting because it was so disappointing (soul-crushingly) that I didn’t know what to say. I’ll just summarize by saying that our commissioners “knew better” than an archeologist, the Presidents of local Museum and Historic Preservation groups, museum professionals, a certified Historic Preservation contractor, and multiple people, including myself, who have managed the site. One Commissioner even thought he had the right to decide the definition of the word “Historic” even though his definition didn’t align with the United States or State of Florida governments. I’d recommend listening to the professionals who spoke, it starts at 2:40:09 . The second discussion, at 4:10:27 isn’t quite so informative, especially the Commissioners’ responses. But it does clearly reveal their motivations and attitudes. And a fierce Commissioner Allocco expressed his evident frustration with being threatened by those who contacted him over the issue.

As a former elected official, I found that deeply concerning and did a public records request to see those emails. But no threats or even rude language were found in the emails. I’m glad to know they weren’t threatened but sad at his dishonest attempt to discredit his constituents. I would never have expected this from him and it’s another reason I stayed quiet so long.

The Land Use Plan written by the County and approved by the State DOES NOT include any of the $400,000 in “improvements” the county put in this year’s budget. I mentioned it in the last blog and in the Commission meeting, but I’ll say it again, any unauthorized changes to the property are required to be undone within 60 days of the State notifying the county. So the county would spend all that money putting pavement and portables in only to have to spend more money to take them out.

I still hold onto hope that the County Commission will do the right thing (aka stop cutting down trees and wasting money on projects the State hasn’t authorized them to do). The property needs the grass mowed, the house insured, and to be open to the public much more than it is now. It would really be a very cheap park if they would just let it be the natural preserve it has been for almost 100 years. They just need to ask for some help from residents or from a nonprofit to take some of the current burden off the taxpayer. It also needs more archeological digs (which the State would pay for if applied for before June 1).

I don’t like “fighting” with my government, but Chinsegut Hill Sanctuary is worth fighting for. When I proposed the County ask the State for the 50 year lease, it was because I believed it would best be cared for in local hands. I still believe that. I also believe it doesn’t need to be this expensive to run.

Let’s not give up control of one of our county’s most valuable assets before we have a real discussion about how to manage it. The State requires an updated Land Use Plan to be submitted by 2027. Let’s get our community together and help give our community access to this treasure.

1. From the lease “The Licensee shall have the option upon giving written notice to the Licensor no less than 60 days prior to the anniversary date to renew this Agreement for successive terms of two (2) years” ↩︎