BROOKSVILLE — A year after Brooksville turned its fire service over to Hernando County, 14 of the 17 city fire employees who transferred are still with the county, Hernando County Fire Rescue Chief Paul Hasenmeier told the City Council on Oct. 5.
Hasenmeier’s first-year report showed county crews answered 3,566 calls in the city from October 2025 through Aug. 31, an average of 10.4 a day and 317 a month. Brooksville accounted for 9.2% of the department’s total call volume.
As with most fire rescue agencies, the bulk of the work was medical. Medical calls made up 78.7% of the city’s total, followed by lift assists, in which crews help people who have fallen, at 10%; nonmedical service calls at 8.1%; hazardous situations at 1.1%; and fires at 1%.
July was the busiest month, with 381 calls. Fridays were the busiest days, and 2 to 3 p.m. was the busiest hour.
Since the merger, 13 of the county’s 14 stations have responded to a call in the city, and 47% of responses have included a unit from outside Brooksville.
That old house
After another lengthy discussion, the council voted 5-0 to deny a request to forgive about $86,000 in code enforcement liens on the house at 314 Hendricks Ave.
The 1930s house, renovated without a permit in 2023, has kept piling up fines and has deteriorated further since the prospective buyer last came before the council. A tree has fallen onto it, exposing the interior to water damage.
The council heard earlier requests for relief June 16 and July 6. At one of those hearings, the lien was reduced from $98,747.55.
Ilya Nabutovskiy of River Tree Properties LLC, which has a contract to buy the property, sought the relief to make the project feasible, according to agenda documents.
Answering a question from Council Member Betty Erhard, Nabutovskiy said the purchase price is $4,000 plus payment of the code lien, which he knew about. He said he had been hoping the lien “would be relieved, or at least significantly reduced.”
Nabutovskiy said he wants to close on the sale and bring the house into compliance, including connecting it to city water and sewer, but the size of the lien makes that difficult. Without relief, he said, the house would have to be condemned, because its value of $140,000 to $150,000 would leave too little margin for it to be “flipped.”
Erhard also noted that the contract set an Aug. 31 deadline for acceptance, but the buyer’s and seller’s signatures were dated Sept. 1.
“That must have been just an error,” said Nabutovskiy, who added that he should have fixed it.
Public Works Director Richard Weeks said connecting the house to water and sewer would be difficult and costly, possibly about $30,000.
Council Member Louis Hallal said that with roof repairs at about $10,000 on top of the other expenses, he couldn’t see how the numbers worked. The purchase price, lien, utility hookup and roof alone would total about $130,000, close to the house’s projected value, before any other repairs.
Erhard said wiping out the lien would set a precedent, and other council members agreed. Mayor Christa Tanner said she worried it would bring a stream of property owners to the chambers asking the council to zero out their own liens.
In other action
The council voted 5-0 at the start of the meeting to pull the second reading of changes to the city’s tree ordinance from the agenda. Two public commenters warned that restrictive tree rules have hurt business deals and could expose the city to legal challenges.
The city presented a Margaret R. Ghiotto Improvement Award to Haggard Coffee & Oddities, 635 W. Fort Dade Ave.
The city proclaimed Oct. 15 White Cane Awareness Day. Theresa Santana of the Lighthouse for the Visually Impaired and Blind accepted the proclamation. The city also proclaimed October Breast Cancer Awareness Month; an awareness walk is set for 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 17, at Tom Varn Park.
The council approved 5-0 a license agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation for a parcel tied to the State Road 50A/East Jefferson Street improvement project. The agreement lets FDOT use the property to build the roadway improvements and handle related work. It will remain in effect until the project is finished, but no later than Oct. 31, 2028.