Florida Town Accidentally Sells Its Water Tower

BROOKSVILLE, FL — There are so many questions about a Florida city’s accidental sale of its water tower.

How in the world did it happen that after Bobby Read asked Brooksville city officials about buying a building in the shadow of the water tower, he ended up with the whole kit and caboodle?

Read, who plans to open a gym in the building, told city officials when the $55,000 sale was finalized earlier this spring that he thought the property description seemed too extensive, but the Brooksville City Council went ahead and unanimously approved it.

He discovered earlier this month while filing paperwork with Hernando County officials that he had purchased the building, the parking areas around it and the water tower.

“I don’t know where the blame falls here,” Brooksville City Councilman Blake Bell told the Tampa Bay Times, the first news outlet to report the accidental water tower sale. “We’re council members, and we rely on the city manager. We assume that he has done his due diligence.”

The city manager, Mark Kutney, blamed a bad legal description. Bell told the newspaper he’s “unhappy that we lost control of our water tower,” but that the city “gave a lot of parking with it.”

“We’re human,” he said. “Sometimes we make a mistake.”

Chris Anderson, the director of the Brooksville Community Redevelopment Agency who proposed the sale, resigned.

And at least one business owner — John Lee of Brooksville’s Coney Island Drive Inn — complained about not getting an equal chance to bid on the building when he called out officials on a fan page for his restaurant.

“Last month we accidentally sold the water tower,” Lee wrote. “What should we do today.”

Commenters skewered city officials over the mistake and raised other grievances as well.

“They should resign with embarrassment,” one person wrote. “That's complete incompetence.”

Sarcasm dripped in the comments.

"Water shortage soon?" someone asked.

"By mistake," someone else posted, using three question marks for emphasis. "Hell of a mistake."

"Always love to go to the circus to see the clowns in action," someone else wrote.

Brooksville Mayor Pat Brayton says everyone should calm down.

“It’s all taken care of now. We’re all good,” he told the Tampa newspaper. “We just need to be darned sure that it doesn’t happen again."