City residents may get a chance to decide on the fate of a tower on Clearwater Beach. Bob Clark, a candidate for city commission, told commissioners that planned zoning changes on Clearwater Beach would make the parcels of land they have considered for the tower a matter for public approval. The zoning changes would place most of the land in the southern portion of Clearwater Beach in a recreational open space category. The city charter currently says that leasing and development on such property must be approved by the public. "I think the residents spoke to this when they voted overwhelmingly for the bluff issue," Clark said during a commission meeting Thursday. "They wanted to make our most valuable resources immune to" the whims of developers. The news stunned the commission. Commissioner Sue Berfield, looking shaken, chastised staff for not bringing the issue to the commission. "Why wasn't this brought to us?" she asked. "We spent months wasting our time and Mr. (Jack) Grogan's time on this." Grogan is the developer of the proposed tower, which would rise 335 feet above the beach. Central Permitting Director Scott Shuford said that staff was aware of this problem, but didn't realize the implications at the time. The tower issue and the zoning changes that the city has undertaken over the last year seemed two separate things, he said. Nothing is carved in stone yet. Currently the land under consideration is zoned for preservation, meaning that the city can lease it without having to ask the public. But an ordinance to change the zoning category has received preliminary approval from the commission. The second _ and final _ approval was scheduled for later this month. So commissioners faced a dilemma: Push through the lease for the tower, while the land is still zoned for preservation, or start all over again. They opted to start again. "There's a loophole here if we want to go forward,"said Commissioner Fred Thomas, the tower's biggest booster. "But I don't want to do that. I want to have a totally new hearing on this matter. Commissioners will discuss the tower and the zoning change in their next work session. In other business, commissioners started the process for a new Memorial Causeway Bridge. In a 4-1 vote, commissioners agreed to have staff begin studying the feasibility of the bridge. They agreed that the bridge should be paid for with Penny for Pinellas taxes, and that the county commission should expedite a referendum to renew the tax. Memorial Causeway Bridge was slated for repairs this year, but was halted when commissioners found that much of the bridge would be inoperable during the tourist season. Since then, commissioners have looked into paying for the new bridge with local dollars, rather than going through the long process of state funding.