Florida Town Accidentally Sells Water Tower To Businessman
By Zuri Anderson
June 15, 2021
A small town in Florida made an oopsie with a recent real estate transaction.
Bobby Read bought a municipal building underneath the city of Brooksville's water tower last April with plans to convert it into a gym, according to the Tampa Bay Times. What he didn't realize was that the entire water tower site came with his $55,000 purchase.
“I don’t know where the blame falls here,” Blake Bell, a city council member, told reporters. “We’re council members and we rely on the city manager. We assume that he has done his due diligence."
Read was gracious enough to give the water tower back to the town via a warranty deed last month. Brooksville is located 50 miles north of Tampa and is home to 8,500 people, reporters noted.
City Manager Mark Kutney blamed a bad legal description for the head-scratching transaction. The city's redevelopment agency director resigned after the accidental sale, Tampa Bay Times added.
“We’re human,” Kutney said. “Sometimes we make a mistake.”
Some weird transactions have happened in the Sunshine State before. For example, a couple purchased a baby bouncer from Goodwill. While the item itself wasn't strange, what they found inside was shocking.