A Citrus County man’s wish is close to coming true.

But the completion of his Wishing Well Center has caught a snag.

After nearly two decades of working with saws, Bob Krokker still has both hands and all his fingers. He just asks that you don’t talk to him while he’s working. He has to concentrate to make up for the fact that he can’t see.

Krokker is blind, and he founded Blind Americans Incorporated, an organization to teach the blind independence through woodworking. Building from the ground up, Krokker paid as he went, through donations and selling his woodwork. After five years, the Wishing Well Center is almost ready to open.

The biggest obstacle with completing the building has nothing to do with the bricks and mortar. It has to to do with the impact fees. The center owes about $11,000 to the county.

“Thank God we had the impact fee back in 2002 when we applied for our permit because now it’s more than doubled,” Krokker said.

Krokker also wonders what possible impact his blind students would have. They already live in the county and they obviously can’t drive to the center.

“The impact is nothing, it really isn’t,” Krokker said. “I don’t know how they can consider it an impact fee that’s going to help the county because nothing’s going to change.”

Krokker asked the county to waive the impact fee. But the county’s turned a deaf ear.

Krokker had hoped classes for the blind could begin in the new building by September. However, nothing will start until the impact fees are paid.

To donate to the Wishing Well Center or buy hand made wood products, call (352) 637-1739.

Ref: Baynews9.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 7:00 am and is filed under General, Community Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.