Fort Meade deflects blame as agreement with Polk County for equestrian center falls apart

At the beginning of June, it appeared that Fort Meade might finally be moving toward construction of a long-sought equestrian facility.

The city had received a pledge from Polk County of $6.5 million in funds to support its development. And the state budget contained an allocation of $250,000 for the project, a funding request from Florida Rep. Melony Bell, R-Fort Meade.

Now, though, the prospect of a combined equestrian park and emergency shelter in Fort Meade appears highly questionable, if not dead.

Polk County has withdrawn the offer of $6.5 million amid concerns about Fort Meade’s ability to handle the financial obligations of running the facility. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed the $250,000 appropriation when he signed the state budget on June 15.

Bell has been promoting the creation of an equestrian center in Fort Meade for at least a decade, beginning with her time as a Polk County commissioner. The Fort Meade native served from 2010 to 2018, before her election to the Florida House.

In the past two sessions, Bell has pitched the project as not only a horse facility but also an emergency shelter and agriculture center. In her appropriation request for this session, Bell wrote that southern Polk County lacks any emergency shelters, requiring residents to shelter in place during hurricanes and other threats.

She wrote that the dual-purpose facility would promote tourism by hosting animal shows and would have appropriate parking for recreational vehicles and trailers.

Fort Meade City Manager Jan Bagnall had been meeting with Polk County officials, including County Manager Bill Beasley, to discuss a partnership under which the county would provide money and Fort Meade would operate a center to be built at Peace River Park.

The county offered $6.5 million in money derived from federal COVID relief funds. The money would have been used for construction of the first phase of the equestrian center, also known as the Fort Meade Outpost. The emergency shelter would come in a later phase.

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But Beasley sent a letter dated June 20 to Bagnall and Fort Meade Vice Mayor Bob Elliott indicating that the county was withdrawing the offer. Beasley referred to a meeting he attended with Bagnall and Elliott four days earlier.

“Based upon our recent discussions, due to pressing higher municipal priorities, the city of Fort Meade has officially declined to be associated with a proposed equestrian venue in any site ownership, site operations or site maintenance roles as originally envisioned,” Beasley wrote. “While we are disappointed by the city's decision in this regards, we clearly understand the conflicting business priorities faced by many of the local governments within Polk County. And we deeply respect the business nature of your decision.”

Beasley wrote that Polk County would seek other potential partners in pursuing the project at alternate locations.

Fort Meade pushes back

Both Bagnall and Elliott took exception to the wording of Beasley’s terse letter.

“That letter was kind of hurtful for me,” Elliott said, “because, truthfully, I was in on that meeting and I was copied on that email. We did not officially decline.”

He added: “There's a lot of moving parts that have made this project difficult. ... There are some obstacles there, but it's all doable. And from my standpoint — I'm just one of the commissioners — honestly, we want to be a part of that. With given time, we'll make it work.”

Bagnall has requested a place on the agenda for the County Commission’s July 11 meeting to discuss the project, Elliott said.

The county manager wrote the letter one day after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the state budget and vetoed $250,000 the Legislature had allotted at Bell’s request for a Fort Meade “multi-use emergency shelter and equestrian center.” Last year, the Legislature included $250,000 for the project among a list of local support grants, but DeSantis allowed the deadline for approval to pass without signing, and the money returned to the state’s general fund.

Bagnall wrote a letter of response to Beasley, providing more detail about the project and the discussions between his city and county officials. He wrote that his “understanding is a little bit different” than what Beasley described, saying that he had expected his counterpart’s letter to acknowledge the efforts Fort Meade had made to support the project.

In his response, dated June 21, Bagnall detailed Fort Meade’s efforts on behalf of the project and explained why progress had been slow. He said he and Beasley at their June 6 meeting had discussed “the timeline, the budgeting, the approvals, the geotechnical work completed, the change of the design due to the geotechnical and added costs for the City to continue the project.”

Bagnall mentioned the delay in getting approval to move the spray field and cited a cost estimate of $800,000. He also wrote that the city would need to make a capital purchase of $600,000 for equipment.

“Please note that the City is still very interested in pursuing the Equestrian Center, but we have not been able to solve all the variables according to the Polk County timelines and that the City of Fort Meade has limited resources,” Bagnall wrote. “The City of Fort Meade also has many pressing priorities with infrastructure as also discussed.”

Fort Meade has secured more than $30 million in grants and other funding the past two years for infrastructure work, fire department upgrades and other improvements, Bagnall said.

The city manager closed his letter by asking whether Polk County would allot $1 million of the funds intended for the equestrian center to be used instead for a new fire station in the city. He also asked the county to reimburse Fort Meade for expenditures of about $294,000 since December, noting that County Commissioner Rick Wilson said in a focus group meeting that the city would be reimbursed for those costs.

The County Commission has not met since Bagnall sent the letter and has not publicly discussed his requests. Beasley did not respond to an interview request.

'Multiple unknown costs'

Bell sent Fort Meade a letter in September announcing that her office had secured three local support grants for the city, one of them the $250,000 allotment for the equestrian park and emergency shelter. Bagnall said city officials were counting on that appropriation as they commissioned the Lunz Group, a Lakeland architectural firm, to design the equestrian center at a cost of $250,000.

Peace River Park occupies reclaimed phosphate mines given to Fort Meade by a precursor of The Mosaic Company. Bagnall said that no thorough study of the park’s soil had previously been conducted to determine what areas were suitable for construction.

At Fort Meade’s request, the Lunz Group drilled 47 test holes, raising the project’s cost to $270,000, Bagnall said. The results prompted plans to shift the location for the main facility to the south, an area now used as a spray field for dispersing treated wastewater to filter into the aquifer.

Bagnall said the city has proposed moving the spray field to an adjacent, 395-acre tract owned by The Mosaic Company, which would free up land to be used for the equestrian center. City officials discovered a 1994 letter from a precursor of Mosaic offering Fort Meade the land.

Mosaic had not yet approved the proposal at the time that Beasley sent his letter, Bagnall said.

In addition, Fort Meade paid $49,000 for consulting, $20,000 for legal services and $5,000 for engineering and surveying, bringing the total spent on the project the past two years to $388,000, according to the city staff. Fort Meade had previously spent a combined $98,000 on planning for the equestrian center, Bagnall said.

In a report for Fort Meade City commissioners before their June 13 meeting, city staff wrote that that project presented “multiple unknown unquantified costs.”

While offering the $6.5 million, Polk County had emphasized that it would have no role in operating the park. Bagnall said at the meeting that Fort Meade would seek a third party, possibly a nonprofit, to manage the Outpost. Discussions had also included Polk County Public Schools.

Fort Meade staff said the equestrian center would require two full-time employees at an estimated cost of $100,000 annually for maintenance. The city projected expenses of $2 million for extending water and sewer services to the park, $400,000 to $800,000 for relocation of the spray field and $600,000 for capital equipment and replacement.

In all, city staff estimated additional costs at about $10.3 million.

Personal conflicts arise

In April, the Fort Meade City Commission directed Bagnall to forge an agreement with Polk County to secure the promised $6.5 million in funding. Bagnall and Elliott met on May 11 with Beasley, Wilson, Polk County Attorney Randy Mink, Assistant County Manager Ryan Taylor and representatives from Polk County Public Schools, the Lunz Group and Polk County Tourism and Sports Marketing.

Bagnall said he emphasized that Fort Meade would not proceed with the project until it reached an agreement with the county to receive the $6.5 million.

Along with the tricky details of coordinating among multiple entities, personal dynamics apparently figured into the collapse of the deal.

As he discussed the project at a June 13 City Commission meeting, Bagnall said he had “reticence even jumping into this knowing full well that the commissioner that I would be reporting to for this has actively been trying to spread mistruths in the city to have me fired, as well as the state representative who is the original sponsor of this project has reached out to four of the five commissioners and said the same thing.”

Audience members assumed that Bagnall was referring to City Commissioner James “Possum” Schaill, who was absent but had called for a vote to have Bagnall fired at a previous meeting, upset about the city manager’s signing of a contract to buy a fire engine without commissioners’ approval. Bagnall said he thought he was merely signing a change order, and the commission voted 3-2 against his firing but opted for a written reprimand.

In reality, Bagnall was referring to Wilson, the county commissioner most involved with the equestrian project.

Wilson called that claim “an outright lie.”

“I never called any city commissioner and ask them to fire him,” Wilson said. “This is what I don't understand: Why would I want him fired? Because if he got fired, this thing (the project) would have burned down.”

Wilson acknowledged that he talked to some influential Fort Meade residents and told them that if the city didn’t “get off its you-know-what” that it would lose out on the county’s offer of $6.5 million.

Bell also said it was “absolutely false” that she had asked Fort Meade commissioners to fire Bagnall.

Barbara Arnold, who resigned as a Fort Meade city commissioner at the end of the June 13 meeting, pushed back on those denials. She said that Wilson called before that meeting and said the city stood to lose $10 million in funding “if the city manager didn't figure out what he was going to do about the equestrian center.”

Arnold also said she believed Bell had been coordinating with others in Fort Meade to have Bagnall dismissed and had “been working on me since day one, when I got sworn in.”

Defending the city manager

Arnold said it was not fair for Polk County to make it seem that Bagnall had tanked the equestrian center project. At her final meeting, Arnold asked who would pay to construct the second and third phases of the center after the county funded the first phase.

“And nobody could answer that, so I made the comment that since this is Rick Wilson and Melony Bell’s baby, then they need to figure out how they're going to take care of it.” Arnold said. “Nothing else was said that night, and the next thing I know, they go to a meeting and then I'm reading that they're trying to blame it on Jan as the reason their equestrian center got dropped, because he refused to do any more work. That is not true.”

Bagnall has been a target of frequent criticism from some residents, often through social media posts. Bagnall shared a screenshot of a Facebook post after his meeting with county officials on the private page, “The truth behind Fort Meade.”

The post said the city would lose the county funding “due to the city manager, Jan Bagnall’s, unacceptable public actions, actions and public statements regarding misappropriation of funds, and stating in public meetings, how he was going to move money from other grants to other things.”

Bagnall stressed that the post from a Fort Meade resident was made before he had even received Beasley’s letter informing him that the county was withdrawing the offer of funding. He noted that only five people had attended his meeting with Beasley the previous Friday.

Wilson said Tuesday that Polk County is exploring other options for the creation of an equestrian park, though he would not offer details. He said a facility is needed because the Polk County Youth Fair has outgrown the facility it uses in Bartow.

Bell expressed sadness that Fort Meade apparently will not get the facility she has sought for so long.

“For over a decade the citizens of Fort Meade have anxiously awaited the dream of the Equestrian Center coming to fruition,” Bell said in a text message. “It would not only provide an economic boost to our town but serve as a much needed shelter in place for the citizens of south Polk County.

“It is unfortunate that despite the county’s willingness to provide a significant amount of the funding and the PCPS board’s offer to support, our city leadership has been unable to take this project to the finish line. Losing this potential for growth is a huge setback for our community.”

Elliott said he hopes the project will eventually become a reality.

“The whole complex idea is great; I think it's a wonderful concept and a great project,” Elliott said. “And it would obviously be good for south Polk County and the city of Fort Meade. But the biggest loss is the emergency shelter, which is not just for Fort Meade but the residents of south Polk County.”

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Fort Meade, Polk County differ on withdrawal of funds for horse center