Blurbex

That’s a question I pose in the CL print edition this week.

Across Tampa Bay, men and women looking to buy condoms from local drugstores and supermarkets are finding the prophylactics locked up. And in a state that ranks third in HIV rates and sixth in teenage pregnancy, some local health advocates say that’s a bad prescription.

Read the story here and comment on your own experiences.

Thanks to the Seminole Heights blog, I stumbled across an interesting website earlier today: KnowThyNeighbor.org.

The site allows you to search the names of those who signed the petition to put a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage on the ballot. Those signatures, gathered by Florida4Marriage.org, are public record, so the Christ Church of Peace in Jacksonville decided to put them online.

A quick search for some of our more infamous anti-gay public figures was fruitful. Ronda Storms and Brian Blair both signed petitions, according to the site. So did failed St. Petersburg city council candidate Gershom Faulkner.

Can you find any others?

Matthew Culp, left, and his partner Wade Burghardt stand in front of a renovated home in St. Petersburg’s Palmetto Park neighborhood

In many ways, St. Petersburg resident Matthew Culp could be considered a model citizen.

Three years ago, he bought and rehabilitated a home in Palmetto Park, one of St. Pete’s rougher neighborhoods. He’s heavily involved in the Palmetto Park Neighborhood Association and the local crime watch. He’s bought other dilapidated properties to ease blight in the area. He has a spotless criminal record and participates in community events.

So when Culp applied to the city’s Citizens Police Academy — an 8-week course designed to give residents a better understanding of the police department — he never imagined he would be denied. But last week, St. Petersburg Police Department spokesman Bill Proffitt called Culp to say he would not be allowed to attend the course this spring.

SPPD spokesman Proffitt declined to discuss his decision to reject Culp, except to say, “The police report speaks for itself.”

Which police report is that?

You may remember Culp from CL’s story back in August 2006. On May 21, 2006, a local drug dealer threw concrete chunks through the windows of Culp’s home. Culp responded by emptying his personal handgun into the ground outside his home. Police arrived, alerted to the shots, and no charges were filed, but police claim Culp used a racial slur while explaining what happened. After police left, a man paid off by local drug dealers threw a Molotov cocktail at Culp’s home.

That firebombing proved to be the final salvo for Culp and several neighborhood activists across St. Pete, who loudly criticized Mayor Rick Baker and Police Chief Chuck Harmon for a blasé attitude on crime. In several media accounts, including in Creative Loafing, Culp railed against the understaffed police force and called for changes in department leadership.

Culp denies using the racial slur and maintains he was within his rights in his use of the handgun. He’s not alone.

“If they are judging a person for protecting his own self, then that is very poor for the police department,” says Lurlis Simmons, president of the Palmetto Park Neighborhood Association. Simmons also doesn’t believe Culp made the offending comment.

Every applicant to the Citizens Police Academy is required to undergo a criminal background check. According to Proffitt, a handful of applicants are denied each session based on their criminal records. Even applicants with simple misdemeanor charges are “generally” not allowed in the course, he says.

But a check of Pinellas County court records online shows at least three attendees in the last three years have entered the academy with criminal histories, mostly single misdemeanors involving theft, weapons violations or alcohol infractions. One participant was arrested for trafficking in hydrocodone, a felony charge, though the state attorney had dropped the case.

The Palmetto Park crime watch leader sees a double standard and suspects retaliation on the part of SPPD.

“Anybody who has been vocal about the inaction of the city has been marginalized. It’s not a matter of my background — they think I’m a threat. It shows they have vengeance toward me.

It’s true. Late last month, Governor Charlie Crist signed the proclamation that states “the solution of the issue of homelessness requires that all citizens become involved in helping their neighbors in need through donations of time, talents and treasures.”

But the St. Petersburg City Council must not have gotten the memo.

Last week, they voted unanimously to expand the city’s panhandling ordinance that bans begging in most of downtown. And next week, they plan to pass two more ordinances that would ban all storage of property in the right-of-way, and prohibit sleeping or “reclining” in the downtown area during daylight hours.

While Crist asks us to give to the homeless, Mayor Rick Baker is asking us to call the police “immediately.”

Crist has made me feel a little guilty, too. In this week’s Urban Explorer, I’m resigned to the fact that people won’t give money to the homeless, so I laid out my own “modest proposal” on how to avoid panhandlers’ requests.

In the spirit of Crist’s proclamation, maybe you should reconsider avoiding that outstretched hand on the sidewalk.

At least for this month.

The state of Florida’s 2006 hate crimes report is out and I have good news and I have bad news.

The good news is hate crimes in Florida fell to their lowest levels since 1998. Residents reported 259 hate crimes to law enforcement last year; the average since the 1990 federal law began mandating hate crimes reporting is 277.

The bad news? While Broward County led the state with 50 incidents against people or property, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties came in a close second and third. Hillsborough County reported 41 hate crimes in 2006, the majority being crimes based on race; Pinellas County reported 22 incidents, almost half of them based on sexual orientation.

A further look at the numbers provides another alarming trend. While racially based crimes are the clear majority of hate crimes in Florida — over 55 percent — they have also decreased over the years (with a jump here and there). But the percentage of hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation has topped out this year at 20.1 percent of all hate crimes committed. And next year could be worse if the drive for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage gains traction.

In a January 2006 post, Jim Burroway, editor of the gay rights blog Box Turtle Bulletin, analyzed hate crimes reporting from 2004 in those states that had amendments to ban same-sex marriage on the ballots. He found that in those 13 states hate crimes rose 47 percent over the previous year. In some of the states, like Missouri and Michigan, incidents rose over 70 percent.

And those are just the crimes reported.

From our alt-brethren at The Weekly Dig:

Day Three – ‘We’ve been drinking since we got here …’
dispatches from one pathetic presidential primary
by Chris Faraone

I promised to bring you in the back rooms and bar booths where locals, staffers, volunteers and journalists dance the pre-primary tango. We’ve been drinking since we got here, but on Saturday we hit the strip with pens drawn. While most reporters crowded in and outside of the debates at St. Anselm’s, my crew split up to cover the jamborees that campaigns host around Manchester.

I arrived at Murphy’s Tavern minutes before the Ron Paul wagon pulled in. Unlike in Boston, where bars were reluctant to change the channel from ESPN to C-SPAN when the Democratic National Convention was in town, even Manchester’s greasiest moron holes blast politics during primary week. At Murphy’s, only one screen was left on football, presumably for the drunk, loud Neanderthal who was committed to screaming over the debate.

At first, the only dissent around the room came from a peanut gallery of Huckabee supporters in the back. It was standard arbitrary cheer; like when insecure baseball fans broadcast their preference for the visiting team. The Paul people were equally obnoxious, but considering that they had the home team advantage, and that their candidate was the only Republican on stage who speaks truth – not hollow consultant scripted tag lines – they had a right to party. Their tendency to roar every time Paul got face time reminded me of when my entire family went to see my cousin’s two-second cameo in Married to the Mob.



The only Republican candidate who the Paul supporters outright booed was Romney; one guy suggested that Mitt could free America from its foreign oil habit by simply shaving his head. The group seemed to respect John McCain and, for the most part, lacked the aggressive prep school arrogance that you generally find at grand old gatherings. That’s no surprise, since Paul is more of a cheap suit Libertarian than a Brooks Brothers Republican.

I left Murphy’s near the end of the Republican debate to find a liberal bar. Ignorant as most conservatives are, lefties have them beat on closed-mindedness. As I predicted, the gather.com herd at Milly’s Tavern had no interest in the Republican debate, even though a lot of them were allegedly there to write about it. The entire scene at this party was abhorrent; in addition to how the kiddies talked through the Republicans and shushed the room for Barack and Hillary, organizers had roped off a corner for about a couple dozen bloggers to set up. Since my next dispatch will feature a heavy tirade on blog culture, I’ll hold back for now. But if anyone can explain why I have to share space, air and wi-fi signals with every post-collegiate dip with a shiny MacBook Pro and trite opinions, please enlighten me in the comment section below.

I’m sorry — did you want me to tell you about the actual debate? On the Democratic side, my only notable opinion is that Barack Obama sucks every time he gets knocked off his stump. He’s a gifted speaker, but he can’t smack the curve balls. I would have something to say about Bill Richardson and John Edwards’ performances, but since they’re unpopular amongst the college weblog crowd, I was unable to hear anything they said over all the chitchat that went down when they were talking. Well, I do have one thing: I think that Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich have the same hair stylist. Either that or their mothers still lick their hands and glue their bangs down with spit before they leave their houses every day.

Sunday morning called for a bowel rupturing brunch. This shouldn’t have been a problem at 11 am; most visitors were out campaigning at events, and the few yuppies back in downtown Manchester were all in line at Dunkin Donuts playing with their Blackberries. But due to the local service industry’s drastic unpreparedness, I had to walk out of three fast fooderies after not being served for several minutes.

I would have been angry about my hapless calorie hunt had it not ended with a blessing. Just when I was about to get angry, some guy with a bullhorn announced that in minutes Kucinich would be appearing at a nearby restaurant with Hollywood heavyweight Viggo Mortensen. I heart Dennis, but I was enthralled to see Viggo, who is kind of an inside joke between me and my girlfriend; not because we think he’s a bad actor or anything like that, but because of the Vanity Fair cover on which he looked like a gay porn star, and because his name is Viggo.

As it turns out, Viggo is the Goddamn man; pretty boy is the most eloquent and enlightened star endorser out here pitching. He knows issues, and he’s right: this country really is in too much trouble to not have a real leader with compassionate convictions. Too bad we never will. Since Ron Paul had been able to sneak so much progressive rhetoric into his debate appearance, and Kucinich had been excluded from the Democratic crossfire, I asked the congressman if he’d ever considered running as a Republican. He gave me an answer so strong and so passionate that for the first time I understood how he roped that stunning wife of his. The man has heart, and next to thick cocks, that’s probably the number one turn-on for most women.

The semi-homeless guy with the five-foot dreadlock at the Kucinich press conference didn’t make it to Romney’s event at Elm Street Middle School in Nashua. It’s a good thing, too, because they would have stopped him at the door. This event — billed as “Ask Mitt Anything” — was a pristine production. Mitt rode in on a cocaine white unicorn cradling a small child. Other than a red hot blonde MySpace slut with hoop earrings, everyone on stage looked like they just jumped off a page in J Crew’s winter catalogue.

I can understand why rich, simple-minded yuppies and other assorted selfish jerkoffs gravitate to Romney. He says all the optimistic economic babble, family junk and racist anti-immigration fluff they love, which is especially easy when everybody’s lobbing questions at you. Sure, you could ask Mitt anything, but only if it’s written on a cue card that gets handed to you at the rally. To the lady who got up and gave a spiel about how her and her kid have diabetes: if that’s not true I hope your husband takes your youngest daughter’s virginity with a baseball bat.

Sorry for the aggression. I should be happy that I got into the event wearing my dingy old wax coat. Not everyone was so lucky; due to a costume ban, some global warming protestors in snowman suits were denied access, as was a girl who drove from Haverhill to hold her sign. After covering Romney for three years in Massachusetts, I can attest to the metaphorical value of their non-admittance. If Mitt pulls this off, they won’t be the only ones left outside.

Until a few weeks ago, I did not have global warming high on my list of worldly concerns. I believed it was a legitimate problem, but figured it wouldn’t have that much of an effect on me. I didn’t really care if my grave was covered by land or a few feet of water on top of that land.

But a news item that hit a few weeks ago has me certifiably concerned, and maybe even rounding the bend toward freaked out.

Last year, a couple of top scientists projected that Arctic sea ice was melting so quickly that it could vanish by 2040. Then in December, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally, after reviewing the latest data, had an update: “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free by 2012.”

Whoa now. I plan on being quite alive in 2012.

Zwally’s scary number was based on data that said:

• 552 billion tons of ice melted from the Greenland ice sheet this summer, 15 percent more than the annual average summer melt.
• At the end of last summer, the volume of Arctic sea ice was half what it was only four years ago.
• The surface area of Artic summer ice in ’07 was nearly 23 percent below the previous record.

One scientist called it a “watershed year.”

No kidding.

No one can really know what this dire prediction portends, or if Mr. Zwally is just another Chicken Little type. But the idea that you could have a swim at the North Pole just five Augusts from now is enough bring a bead of sweat to the brow. (Is it getting hotter in here?) News analysis was very general about what a complete lack of an arctic ice sheet could mean for the global environment.

Scientists cited rising sea levels, worsening floods and drought, more immediate changes in winter weather, and the extinction of plant and animal species. Something tells me it could end up a lot worse than that.
I was surprised as well to see virtually no follow-up in the mainstream media about this alarming development. Maybe Mitt Romney flip-flopped on something or other that day and distracted them.

Some scientists warned that we may have reached the tipping point on global warming. NASA scientist James Hansen, often called the godfather of global warming, said this: “We have not passed a point of no return. We can still roll things back in time — but it is going to require a quick turn in direction.”

Cool. But just how do we go about that? Hey, I drive a Prius, but must be honest and admit that far and way my major motivation for buying it was to save gas money — not our atmosphere. When certain folks congratulated me for my contribution to preserving the environment, I played it off. Not so much anymore.

Am I alone with this news giving me the heebee-jeebies? Certainly there are staunch environmentalists who are way, way ahead of me, but how about rank-and-file folks who kind of go about their business and don’t worry quite so much about preserving the earth for future generations? There are a lot of you out there. Does the idea of no Arctic ice cap in 2012 shake you up? Do you buy that it could happen?

I’m still sleeping at night, and without galoshes, but I’ll be watching this global warming thing a lot more closely from now on.

From our alt-brethren at The Weekly Dig:

Day Two – Pissing in America’s Stream of Consciousness
dispatches from one pathetic presidential primary
by Chris Faraone

I’ve been a Dennis Kucinich fan since 2003, when I was abducted by aliens who coerced me to accept a leading role in his last hapless presidential bid. In addition to the intergalactic intervention, I was also persuaded by the fact that he’s the best candidate for me. I truly respect Kucinich’s courage – always have and always will – but in this past year I’ve both admired and resented his perpetual lunge at the White House. Not because I’m one of those hack pundits who think every race should begin and end with a few top media-propped candidates, but because while I know that he’s on point – and perhaps the only one in either party who is genuinely interested in engineering social equality – I’m constantly embarrassed by his campaign.

The five minutes that I spent in Kucinich’s Manchester office gave me flashbacks of the 2004 campaign I helped run in New York City. I haven’t seen such a swarm of apathetic credit-seeking students, bleeding heart fools and barely post-pubescent Sondheim fanatics since liberal arts school. All week I’ve been griping about how a maniac fringe Republican like Ron Paul can generate so much more steam than his benevolent equivalent across the aisle, and I think I’m closing in on an answer. Instead of focusing on pragmatic people who might agree with his ideas if they paid attention, Kucinich hangs in smoothie bars and vegan delis. The highest-ranking member of his staff who was on the premises couldn’t tell me one place where the man was speaking today.

Having had enough with self-destructive loser staff types, I went back to covering the dirty rotten scoundrels who have a shot at placing in this kumite.

I’m beginning to think that Hillary Clinton’s declining popularity has to do with the aggressive presence of armed guards and police dogs at her campaign events. To cover ground, the Clintons have embarked on separate speaking tours this weekend. I went to peep Bubba at a high school up north in Dow, where I was greeted by a Reservoir Dogs-esque cop and K-9 team in the bathroom. And while it would have been mightily ironic to get busted holding weed at a Bill Clinton event, I felt relieved to have left my crops back at the car.

This was probably one of the smallest crowds that Bill Clinton has ever romanced; it was less than half the turnout that Mike Huckabee – that other former Arkansas governor – turned out in a nearby gymnasium just one day earlier. Sure, Bill Clinton didn’t have Chuck Norris in tow, but that’s just because there aren’t enough mops in New Hampshire to soak up the roaring female cum rapids that would surely flow if Chuck and Bill were in the same room at one time.

Bill was on time in a way that no other presidential candidate or celebrity has ever been on time before; Maya Angelou was wrong — he wasn’t really the first black president, which is good news for Obama. After being introduced by a local politician who said something about change, change and change – political panhandling, if you ask me – he gave the first amazing speech that I’ve seen so far this week.

I have to admit — Bill still chokes me up every damn time. He can even make this “change” shit sound convincing. Always the diplomat, he even managed to praise governors Huckabee and Romney before diving into pharmaceutical corruption and slashing Bush for appointing cronies instead of competent officials. It would have been cliché rhetoric out of any other politico’s jaw, but Bill marinates my soul. For a moment, he nearly convinced me that his wife is a committed public servant instead of a megalomaniacal carpetbagger.

And like that – we’re off to the Manchester pub scene.

It’s The Boys on the Bus, 2007 — the boys being a team from Boston’s notorious alt-weekly, The Weekly Dig. Living in the state of Romney, they’ve had lots of time to build up antipathy toward him, but they don’t like any of the other candidates much either. That’s what makes their dispatches from the NH primary, which they’re circulating to alt-weeklies around the country, so entertainingly blunt.

And besides, where else but the Dig — for better or worse — are you going to read descriptions like this: “Sure, Bill Clinton didn’t have Chuck Norris in tow, but that’s just because there aren’t enough mops in New Hampshire to soak up the roaring female cum rapids that would surely flow if Chuck and Bill were in the same room at one time.”

Today, we bring you their first installments to get us caught up from their travels over the weekend. We’ll post their remaining stories as we get them. (Cross-posted at The Political Whore.)

— David Warner, editor

Day One — The Case for Not Voting in November
Dispatches from one pathetic presidential primary
by Chris Faraone, Mark Grueter and Dan McCarthy

While you were sleeping like a dead baby at 4 a.m. last Friday morning, three of us crammed into a rental car and hurtled up I-93. We brought laptops, long johns, stimulants and skepticism — all the necessary tools for documenting New Hampshire’s notorious first-in-the-nation presidential primary and the carnival that surrounds it. Initially, we came for the same reason that we cover local politics: because by delivering antipartisan commentary with some stank on it, we believe that even intellectually retarded hipsters and college kids who wonder why a Middle Eastern country named itself after a drinking game might be interested in the policies and people who govern them. But after four days of chowing bullshit and baloney, we decided that you’re all better off not voting. If you’re a status quo robot who wants press release-inspired rub about flip-flops, hollow promises and poll results, then please consult your daily newspaper. For the rest of you lazy fucks who need new excuses for not exercising your democratic duty, this is the only set of stories that you need to read all year.

A Barack Obama rally Sunday in Milford, N.H. (courtesy of lindsayg5218/flickr.com)

CL staff writer Alex Pickett writes for our issue next week about a split in the Bartlett Park civic group. Here’s a preview:

On a bright Saturday morning, eight residents of St. Petersburg’s Bartlett Park neighborhood gather in the renovated home of Julie Richey and Stewart Nicol. The former vice president of the neighborhood association, Scott Swift, is here. So are Lindsay Myers, editor of the Bartlett Park Newsletter, and John and Rosemary Kitchen, both elected officers in the association. The Kitchens are black, and longtime residents; the others are white, and moved to Bartlett Park in the last three years.

Over crumbly coffeecake, the group shares the successes, failures and frustrations of local activism. But then they get down to business: They are meeting today to plot a defection.

For the last year, these residents have labored to improve Bartlett Park. They helped to form a Crime Watch group, started a newsletter, sponsored litter clean-ups and enforced codes regulations in this oft-forgotten part of St. Pete just south of downtown.

But trying to improve the neighborhood, as Brian Wyllie puts it, is “like pushing a lead ball.”

Wyllie and the others say the more they work toward making Bartlett Park a safer, cleaner, more hospitable place to live, the harder some in the association push back.

“To those of us that are new, [revitalizing the neighborhood] is still a very slow process,” Swift says. “We do a project every three to four months. Everyone else in the city does one every two weeks.”

So this group of eight — and two other relatively new residents who couldn’t make the meeting — have formed their own organization: the Buena Vista Neighborhood Association, which will focus on the area between Fourth and Martin Luther King streets and 13th and 18th avenues, approximately half of Bartlett Park.

“We’re going to continue to do positive things for the neighborhood,” Swift says. “But the association has served as an obstacle.”

(more…)

I stressed about it all week. Every time I brought him his food, I scratched behind his ears, stroked the soft fur on his chest, and felt helplessly guilty. See, I was about to have my stray neutered by the Animal Coalition of Tampa and I was having doubts about my decision.

The handsome, shorthaired tom came with the house we bought in January. He was probably left behind by its previous owners, abandoned carelessly like the cabinet full of kitchenware or the tools in the backyard shed. He wasn’t scared of my husband Phil and I. He prowled around our yard and slept on our porch like he belonged there, meowing at us plaintively and gazing at us with his big, heartmelting blue eyes until we fell in love and were forced to feed him and give him a name – Rutherford the Brave, from a Phish song.

Soon enough, we were was also feeding the feral female he’d impregnated, and then we were feeding Rutherford and the four blue-eyed kittens that turned up after their mom mysteriously disappeared. I was in cat heaven, but the honeymoon didn’t last. The day before my wedding, I ran over and killed a kitten that was hiding underneath my car. I’ve run over two cats in my life, but I was never emotionally invested and the death hit me hard. It was then I decided that I had to do something.

The kittens vanished shortly after the incident – I think one of the neighbors had them picked up – so the only one left was Rutherford, he who’d actually started the whole cycle in the first place. When we were assigned the task of locating and reporting on local nonprofits for the upcoming holiday issue (which comes out this Wednesday), I immediately claimed two animal rescue groups: Pet Pal Rescue and Animal Coalition of Tampa. Both combat pet overpopulation, Pet Pal by rescuing sick, injured, or un-socialized animals – those not suitable for adoption and more likely to be euthanized – from local shelters and giving them a second chance, and ACT by offering low-coast spay/neuter services to the Bay area community.

After taking a tour of ACT’s South Tampa clinic and talking with founder/executive director Linda Hamilton, I resolved to bring Rutherford into the clinic later that week to be neutered. Hamilton loaned me a cat carrier and I was set.

As the week went by, I wondered whether Rutherford could sense my apprehension. But he seemed oblivious. He smelled, then ignored the cat carrier, which I’d left on the porch the three days leading up to his fateful neuter visit so he would get used to it. Thursday morning, while I was petting him and he was purring away, I persuaded him to go into the carrier with a tiny taste of food. After a frantic struggle, I got him into the carrier and sped off to the clinic, crying all the way and singing “Three Little Birds” to calm myself down.

He was not happy. He yowled, pawed at the door and tried to get out. I felt horrible, like I’d taken advantage of the trust I’d built up with him. I was worried that he’d hate me forever because he knew I was taking away his manhood. His mournful meows didn’t make me feel any better.

Rutherford got extremely quiet once we arrived at the clinic, as if resigned to his fate. But everyone at the clinic was exceedingly nice. Linda greeted me at the door and reassured me that my anxiety was normal. The vet tech took his information and then, I left my cat for an overnight stay.

Rutherford was obviously grumpy when I picked him up. He fell into a drugged sleep on the drive home, but woke up as soon as I pulled up to the house and turned off the car. He started meowing when I took the carrier out of the box and brought him back to the porch, the scene of the crime. Phil went and got some food. By then, Rutherford was meowing more frantically, as if he saw that he was home and was eager to get out of the carrier. I opened the door and Rutherford came creeping out, looking around in what I interpreted was relief. We brought him food and he pigged out like he hadn’t eaten in days, even though I knew he’d been fed at the clinic. When he was done, he approached me with his usual grateful purr, and I rubbed his favorite spots, and everything was all right again.

– Photos by Philip Bardi

Those St. Pete homeless advocates are at it again!

Since Sunday evening, Rev. Bruce Wright and Eric Rubin have gathered with other activists and segments of the homeless population protesting St. Pete’s treatment of street people. By setting up camp — literally — outside the Mahaffrey Theater, the activists had hoped to bring national attention to the city’s homeless plight during the CNN/YouTube debates. (The irony being the last time St. Pete’s homeless made national attention, YouTube was also involved.)

Of course, that sort of thing doesn’t play well with Mayor Rick Baker, so city officials confronted the group yesterday afternoon, asking them to leave the Mahaffrey property. The activists are also holding a hunger strike, which may have accounted for some irritable, raised voices when this little powwow occurred. Eventually, the activists agreed to leave their patch of grass in front of the Mahaffrey.

They’re currently across the street.

Anybody who has followed the events of these homeless advocates for the past few years probably could have seen this coming. Wright has a penchant for high-profile confrontations. But I don’t think this protest can be chalked up to a few angry activists looking for media attention. If anything, it’s the city that has raised its rhetoric in recent weeks.

There was Councilman Bill Foster’s comment to a Times reporter: “Those who don’t want to go to the tent city because they are afraid of the system, we will not tolerate them. The red carpet is gone.” There was the city’s refusal to sign an agreement penned by Pinellas Hope’s organizers. And, as I posted earlier, there’s been an increase in passive-aggressive tactics to rid city property of vagrants.

City officials seem to be the ones eager for a confrontation. And after Dec. 1 — when Pinellas Hope tent city opens — there will be one.

It’s your ball, Mayor.

I took a trip to Lakeland this week to visit the famed Hollis Gardens Park.

I was quite disappointed.

Not by the park itself; on the contrary, Hollis Gardens is a botanical paradise, with all sorts of exotic plants laid out in a Zen-like pattern. Overlooking Lake Mirror, you are almost guaranteed to get a picturesque photo no matter where you stand (and many parents with little kids in tow did just that).

What disappointed me were the herb, vegetable and fruit sections of the park. In news articles and second-hand accounts, I’d heard the fruit, vegetables and herbs were free for the taking, much to the joy of the local homeless population. In fact, some of the homeless population from St. Pete had moved to Lakeland because of the city’s liberal attitude. I thought I’d found a great story: Town welcomes bums with free fruits and vegetables! Hell, I even wanted a piece; I hadn’t eaten breakfast that day and was looking forward to a nice grapefruit and avocado.

Alas, no such luck.

I should have known when I talked to the homeless men and women camped on the benches outside the park and they didn’t know what I was talking about. I circled the one-acre botanical garden three times before I found the “vegetable” section. It was almost bare except for a few immature peppers, corn stalks (without corn), cotton bushes and one almost hidden eggplant. And there weren’t any fruits! The herb section was better — I got to nibble on some basil — but that didn’t satisfy my hunger.

If anyone has ideas on other city parks that supposedly offer fruit and veggies for the taking, please pass them on. I haven’t eaten breakfast this morning either

This week, I’ve been seeking out public fruit.

My search was inspired by Fallen Fruit, a Los Angeles-based collaborative project of three artists who decry our “barren” cities and “frivolous and ugly landscaping.” These fruit activists contend that people should plant trees and shrubs that yield produce.

“We ask all of you to petition your cities and towns to support community gardens and only plant fruit-bearing trees in public parks,” declares their manifesto. “Let our streets be lined with apples and pears! Demand that all parking lots be landscaped with fruit trees which provide shade, clean the air and feed the people.”

As part of their project, they began mapping all the public fruit (and vegetables) in their neighborhoods. They define “public fruit” as any fruit on or overhanging public spaces like sidewalks, streets, parking lots or alleys.

The lawfulness of picking this “public fruit” is up for debate (and it has been debated in California and even through Islamic law), but the thinking follows laws that state if a neighbor has a tree that is overhanging into your yard, you’re free to trim it. So, by extension, if a fruit-bearing tree overhangs the public sphere, it’s fair game.

In addition to producing maps and T-shirts, Fallen Fruit also organizes several foraging events each year for community members.

Intrigued by this concept, I set out to map the fruit in Tampa, St. Pete and Clearwater. A little too ambitious, I soon found out. So, I narrowed my search to just a few St. Pete neighborhoods.

I am sad to report that in a survey of Pinellas Point, Lakewood Estates and Bayou Highlands, I could not find fruit in public spaces.

I could see it — in people’s front yards or hidden in the back — but without stepping foot on their property, completely inaccessible. After a few hours of seeing, but not touching, I grew despondent and gave up my mapping.

Then I heard about Lakeland’s Hollis Gardens Park, a city park, where the fruits and vegetables allegedly grow free (to pick). But more on that in another post.

So I’m opening up this question to our readers: Do you know of any places where someone could find “public fruit?” Remember, it must be in the public sphere and you cannot set foot in anyone’s yard.

Check out Fallen Fruit’s mapping here and feel free to point me in the right direction, or make a map yourself.

WET BLANKET: One homeless man covers his head after sprinklers drench both sidewalks around City Hall. Most left after this first water assault. After they came on again, the rest moved.

In my travels last night, I happened to pass by St. Petersburg’s City Hall while visiting some friends in the downtown area. What I saw boiled my blood.

For the last few months several homeless people have taken to camping out on the sidewalk in front of the building. It’s not a protest; there are simply few places to sleep these days where business owners won’t complain.

Last night, I noticed there were considerably less people on the sidewalk than normal. I immediately saw why: the sprinklers were on and drenching the sidewalks on both sides of City Hall.

I got out of my car and approached a group standing by a bus stop wrapped in blankets. I asked them about the sprinklers. They replied the sprinklers have come on the last five nights.

“You see, we timed it before — Tuesday or Wednesday night,” said Warren, a husky man in a red sweatshirt, who sleeps out here every night. “But the last week, it’s been every day.”

Another bum piped in: “I thought we were under conservation rules.”

These street people said they didn’t expect the sprinklers tonight. They jolted awake as the water hit them.

“Now our stuff is wet,” complained Warren.

Is this just a coincidence? Or a concerted effort by Mayor Rick Baker to rid the sidewalks around his offices of homeless people?

Either is plausible, I guess. I’m waiting on callbacks from the Mayor’s Office, the parks department and the water conservation department to figure out the rules for watering city land and if they knew about this situation.

But seeing as many of the sprinklers were soaking the sidewalks and not the small patches of grass surrounding City Hall, and the city’s own water rules recommend using reclaimed water only three times a week, I don’t think it’s a coincidence. In the least, it is a horrible waste of water; at most, it’s an attack on some of the city’s most vulnerable citizens. City officials know these people are sleeping here — couldn’t they figure out a solution that doesn’t involve soaking them with reclaimed water?

If this is a concerted effort to get the homeless off city property, I would be seriously disappointed in city officials. What a passive-aggressive way to deal with your homeless problem, St. Petersburg.

If city officials hate the homeless sleeping on the sidewalk so much, I would much rather them order the police to arrest said bums. At least that takes cojones. But turning on the sprinklers and drenching them with reclaimed water on the coldest night of the season is not only cruel, but spineless.

UPDATE: I missed a call late Friday from Cliff Footlick, director of the city’s parks department, but he did leave a message. Turns out, the Mayor’s Office was wrong and the sprinklers feed off a well and not the reclaimed water system. Footlick said the sprinklers are only supposed to water the lawn on Sundays and wasn’t aware of any change to that. He said he’ll check out the timers on Monday. I’ll update with any extra news then.

In case you haven’t heard by now, another tent city is coming to Pinellas County.
On a 10-acre tract of land off of 49th Street at 126th Avenue North, next to a UPS warehouse and surrounded by swampy woods, a camp of tents will emerge by Dec. 1.

The tent city (called a “soft shelter” by its proponents) is Pinellas Hope, an audacious Catholic Charities emergency shelter program that will offer shelter, meals, showers and bathrooms to nearly 250 homeless men and women. Catholic Charities donated the land, the Pinellas County Commission kicked in $460,000 and charities donated $500,000 to run the camp from Dec. 1 to April 1, which also happens to be the county’s prime tourist season.

“It’s a first step,” says Sheila Lopez, chief operating officer for Catholic Charities, who contributed the land for Pinellas Hope. “Somebody has got to do something.”

But — as is the case with all homeless issues in the county — not everyone agrees this is the best step to take. Some advocates say the presence of Pinellas Hope could actually harm homeless individuals on the streets.

(more…)

A proposal before the Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners calls for a change in the land development code that would drastically change the limitations on signage along highways and industrial areas.

Among the proposed changes: Highway billboards raised from 30 feet to 60 feet and local street signs raised from 15 feet to 30 feet. Every business that has 150 feet or more property fronting the street would be able to have a ground sign. And those signs could grow to 1,000 square feet; 2,000 square feet in industrial areas.

But probably the most drastic change would be the proposal allowing signs to be flashing or florescent.

(more…)

Channelside’s attempt to Save the Arts (a fundraiser for Visual Arts for Students with Disabilities, the Education Channel and Gala Corina) this weekend looks to be a success. Adam Rose, the event’s creator and GM of Channelside IMAX, put the attendance at around 4000 throughout the day and the estimated net (from a Bennigan’s donation and StA T-shirt sales) at $8,000. He also pointed out that several groups approached him to make the event an annual occurrence, and plans are in the works to absorb the film festival of the newly impoverished Ed Channel into the next StA. (Their Independent’s Film Festival, which happened in September, screened at Channelside.)

Michael Mendolusky with dancing baby Olivia and Nikki Ferraro (d’Visitors lead singer) come to see Jay Giroux beautify an old CL box.

The locale, however, was less than ideal. On Saturday night Channelside was the eye of a meat market hurricane — frat boys and hot chicks swirled about as funky models and out-of-place creative types descended on the downtown Tampa nightspot. It was hard to tell if people were there for the arts, or because Channelside was their usual game. Auditorium frontman (and fellow Creative Loafer) Joran Oppelt, a self-proclaimed “jaded, bitter musician,” played late in the evening and couldn’t argue with the good attendance numbers. “At least there were people there,” he said. “[It was] smarter than doing it at a theatre and no one showing up.” But if the bodies aren’t paying attention, is art really being saved?

After watching the fashion show by Aleka Phoenix, Ivanka Ska, and (2007 Best of the Bay’s best designer) Ben Chmura, I literally had to run to Tampa Theatre (well, you know, park then run) to catch the screening of Itty Bitty Titty Committee at the second-to-last night of the Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (just renamed the Clip Film Festival, by the way; their new logo will be unveiled early next year). The screening brought out between 700-800 people, mostly women.

Itty Bitty Titty Committee (directed by Jamie Babbit) is the first production of Power Up, a professional organization that promotes the visibility and integration of gay women in entertainment, the arts and all forms of media. The film, which proved a good counterpoint to StA’s skinny-thigh-dominated fashion show, follows the CIA (Clits in Action) as they tag L.A. plastic surgery clinics with slogans such as, “Women come in all shapes.” Interesting, since in this Hollywood-produced film most of the leads are as bite-sized as their mainstream counterparts. The character’s MO is “reclaiming public space for women,” even if many of them are vaguely (or completely) unaware of the effects of the societal demands on women’s lives. But it’s the thought that counts … right?

Pass the celery stalks, please.

This afternoon for lunch I stopped into my favorite beans-and-rice place in downtown Tampa, priced just right for young alt weekly writer-types.

After I parked and was exiting my vehicle, I faced a moral dilemma. Upon spotting an empty Tupperware container on the passenger seat, I thought I could bring it in with me instead of getting the Styrofoam take out container. But the part of me that occasionally abides by the mores of society overruled that thought, and it was left in the car.

When asked by the pretty cashier with the Jamaican accent if I wanted a bag for the box, however, my inner environmentalist saw an opportune time to out herself. I declined the bag and she asked why, a little astonished.

I explained I thought the bag was unnecessary — it wasn’t as if I was taking out anything spillable. I read just this morning that it takes 1,000 years for a plastic bag to break down in a landfill and that earlier this year the entire city of San Francisco banned plastic bags altogether.

I wished aloud that Tampa would do the same, seeing as with almost everything else, we’re at least 10 years behind the rest of the country. Again, she had a look of astonishment and said she had no idea about all this stuff, adding that I should be the person to get the ball rolling.

Hmm…but how to educate and make others listen, care, etc.?

Some things I’ve already noticed in this vein: Pinellas County has dog-walking stations around town with biodegradable poo bags. Why not pay a few pennies more for non-plastic grocery bags that we use once that won’t hang out for the next millennium? And am I the only one who sees the pointlessness in buying plastic garbage bags? It’s literally throwing one’s money away.

Ideas? Suggestions?

That’s just one of the ideas coming from Catholic Charities to help control the homeless population on county streets. The St. Petersburg-based social services agency recently proposed allowing the homeless to sleep at the Calvary Catholic Cemetery off U.S. 19 just outside Pinellas Park.

“We have all kinds of ideas,” says Chief Operating Officer Sheila Lopez, stressing there have been no plans to proceed with any kind of proposal. “We want to partner with anybody who wants to help the homeless.”

The suggestion was first heard at a recent department head meeting of Pinellas Park officials. City spokesman Tim Caddell says he heard the rumor and relayed it to other officials. (Though the cemetery in question is not inside Pinellas Park, it is inside the city’s fire district.)

The whole initiative makes me wonder if the good people at Catholic Charities are George Carlin fans:

“Hey, here’s another place we could put some low-cost housing — cemeteries!” Carlin proposed on his hilarious Jammin’ in New York comedy album. “There’s another idea whose time has passed. Saving all the dead people for one part of town? What kind of medieval, superstitious, religious bullshit idea is that? Plow these muther-fuckers up! … If we’re going to recycle, let’s get serious.”

Personally, I’m a fan of using golf courses:

(h/t to Tampa Bay Newspapers for breaking the story)