Fix it now

I attended the TBARTA board meeting last week. If there is a hell, then suffering through one of those meetings could be it! My concerns are with “Corridors” C and D on Map 8 Hillsborough Connections which would destroy rural and preservation lands and bring certain unwanted sprawl along with them.
The meeting started without the chairman, former Bucs star Shelton Quarles. When he later arrived, he explained that he went to the wrong location. In his defense, it sounded like he went to the location of last month’s meeting … not in his defense but… THEY CHANGE THE LOCATION OF THE MEETINGS EACH MONTH MR. CHAIRMAN!

Feeling good about regional transportation yet?

My first concern was that on the agenda it said ADOPT Conflict Resolution Plan. At last month’s meeting (which I confirmed with the transcripts from the April 25th meeting page 9 of 11, download it here: may-2008-tbarta-board-package.pdf) they said they would only PRESENT the final draft of the Conflict Resolution Plan in May. Why do I care about the difference? Because if Corridors C and D of map 8 don’t get removed, oh, will there be a conflict! Not only was it now on the agenda to be adopted, it was to be done BEFORE public comment. (Having attended enough Hillsborough County Commission meetings, I know that if an item is to be voted on then even they give us an opportunity to speak in a public hearing before they screw us). So what to do? Ask Commissioner Ken Hagan, who represents Hillsborough on that board, to bring it up? Considering the mountain of e-mails I have sent to the county commission (and have never received a response from him) combined with his actions on that board, I didn’t think he was the man for the job.

Protocol dictates that I should make the chairman aware of this before the meeting (oh yeah, he wasn’t there yet). Instead, I brought it up with Commissioner Patterson of Sarasota before the meeting. Last month, she asked for the future transportation line that would destroy environmental lands in her county to be removed, and it was clear to me from her comments that she isn’t afraid to speak up, so I relayed my concerns to her. Even though she didn’t have a problem with the Conflict Resolution itself she still raised my concerns about process and that the public should be allowed to weigh in BEFORE the actual vote (after some bickering from the board they agree to let us weigh in on the item). Dee Layne and I asked them to make provisions for citizen input regarding the Conflict Resolution Process but to no avail. Sooo, if TBARTA’s Master Plan turns out to violate our local Comprehensive Plan, then there is nothing you or I can do about it. Sounds like it will be between the local governments and TBARTA to hash it out, and according to Layne’s comments, this might be done behind closed doors and you and I will never know about it. Round One goes to The Partnership…………oops……. I mean TBARTA.

Recall that recently there has been some fingerpointing regarding the maps (or information on maps) that TBARTA put out for public comment. Commissioner Mark Sharpe blamed our MPO for inaccurate information on the maps containing the controversial lines back in April but strangely enough could not come up with the proof when asked at the May 6 MPO meeting if he had run down the source yet. Paying very close attention to these maps, I made him aware that they were from FDOT. How did I know? It said so in very fine print at the bottom! He still wasn’t buying it. Remember that conversation I had with Elba Lopez of FDOT that I thought was completely worthless? Turns out it helped me prove where the maps and info came from……..the Strategic Regional Needs Assessment done for TBARTA but…………done by (drum roll please) FDOT! They decide what goes on and what stays off of the maps they produce, so if something did not get on there ………check with them! I headed down to the MPO Policy Committee meeting armed with this information last Tuesday and brought it up, since it seemed they were still trying to get to the bottom of it at the last MPO board meeting and Sharpe’s accusations. I delivered my info and concerns about the wrongly accused and guess what? First of all, the FDOT representative sheepishly announces that indeed the TBARTA maps in question are from FDOT. As a bonus, Councilwoman Linda Saul-Sena speaks up with a motion to have to the chairman of the MPO write a letter to TBARTA and tell them they don’t want the Sprawlway! Yes, she called it the Sprawlway! The motion passed. So while I went down there only to try to set the record straight………….I came away with a bonus for Green Swath opponents.

Back to hell — I mean the TBARTA board meeting. During public comments I bring up the concerns regarding this map debacle because I learned that there is not one member if our MPO or Planning Commission staff on TBARTA’s TMC (Transit Management Committee). It includes members of HART and transit officials from the various counties but no professional staff from our MPOs! If they had an oversight of these maps before they were released, maybe TBARTA wouldn’t need to worry about Conflict Resolution! I suggested that they put an MPO and Planning Commission staff member from every county on their committee to help resolve this issue and prevent similar issues in the future. There is some discussion like (we are only doing what the state mandate says)……..I bet you are boys, I bet you are. Later in the presentation by the TMC they assured us that the MPO is invited to every meeting. INVITED is not the same as having a position on the committee, but good try. One of the missions that the Transit Management Committee has listed on TBARTA’s website is: Provide technical assistance regarding the development and implementation of a multimodal transportation plan. Who better to give technical advice than those who know our Long Term Transportation Plan and Comprehensive Plan the best? That would be our MPO and The Planning Commission, yet the professional staff of these agencies don’t have an official seat anywhere on TBARTA as far as I can tell. I think this is important especially since now TBARTA is holding Land Use meetings ……..yes, I said land use……..I told you TBARTA’s motives were clear to those of us paying attention. Also of some concern to you Visioning fans, at TBARTA’s board meeting there was a presentation praising One Bay’s efforts with their “scenarios.” I know you are shocked.

I also questioned their process during public comments because they said the new maps would be revealed in April (they were not), and at that meeting Bob Clifford said wait until May….. and at this May meeting ………………you guessed it……NO NEW MAPS. I was attacked for my comments by Manatee Commissioner Amy Stein when she read the reply to my form letter from R-LAND and evidently thought that told me enough about the process. I agree it was encouraging, as it stated, “The committees will review the findings of the Screen One analysis, where preliminary results show that Options C and D in Connection 8 did not perform well and are recommended for removal.” My concern is the out they leave themselves in that last line…. “The committees will review consultant recommendations and make recommendations to the board in June.” Anyway, she waited to attack my comments and concerns until I was all the way back to my seat in the back of the room and sitting down…………..I wanted to reply but I would have been yelling out of order from my chair (I know, why let that stop me?), but I can wait until next month.

So while it certainly seems like these two corridors are on life-support, considering those behind TBARTA (the Partnership) have been pushing this BYPASS route since I had a bedtime, I am guessing they have a few curve balls still waiting for us. Our local opposition has been forced to go regional and our R-LAND form letter is getting good traffic from concerned citizens in many of the counties that TBARTA reigns over (these include: Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Citrus, Hernando, Manatee and Sarasota). If you are so inclined to help preserve rural and preservation lands and SAY NO TO SPRAWL then the link to our form letter is here. It goes to TBARTA, Our BOCC, the MPO and even our Gov. Tell a friend (or tell 100 friends).

As TBARTA asks our Governor to give them that $2 million that the legislature set aside for them, I have to sadly say that they have not proven to me they deserve public funds. Their guise of using the promise of rail transit to gain credibility? Brilliant! Should our tax dollars be spent on an agency that can override local government, shut out citizens and benefit private companies? I don’t think so. If they want a state agency to run a regional transportation system then make them a bona fide state agency, not a quasi-state agency, where the lines are blurred and the public pays whether we benefit or not.

Cross-posted to PoHo blog:

By Ben Fry

Our buildings pretty much suck. Too many of them are monuments of energy inefficiency. They suck too much electricity off the power grid and water out of the ground. Construction materials often travel far to the work site, sucking fuel out of the tanks of big rigs. Many were built using harmful chemicals, which sucks.

The Pasco County school system has joined the small but growing ranks of those trying to do something about it.

Gulf Trace Elementary in Holiday became the first K-12 public school in Florida to be certified as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver by the U.S. Green Building Council.

“We were requested (by Pasco County schools) to build green,” said Joshua Bomstein, vice president of business development for Creative Contractors, Inc., who built the school.

Creative Contractors made some minor changes to the original design to make the school greener. The overall cost of the school was only one percent higher than the budget for the original design.

“We delivered a school that was far greener than if we didn’t make those changes,” said Bomstein.

During construction, about 80 percent of the site’s construction waste was recycled and around one-quarter of the school was made from recycled materials. Workers used different bins to collect waste materials, like concrete, scrap metal and drywall, Bomstein said. The drywall was finely ground and mixed into the soil after testing revealed it was environmentally safe.

For long-term benefits, the school uses 40 percent less water than an average building by using dual flush toilets, low-flow sinks and showers, and landscaping with water-wise plants, Bomstein said. Even the school’s carpeting is (environmentally) green: it was made from recycled windshields.

“To build the first K-12 school in the state to reach LEEDs silver really means something,” Bomstein said.

Gulf Trace is one more building in Tampa Bay that is sucking up less. Now on to the rest of them.

Tampa officials have discovered something that landlords (at least in this city) have known for years: For a high-end restaurant space to succeed, it has to serve beer and wine. For years, the Iorio administration has increased the costs of these R(restaurant) wet zonings — restricting locations, adding fees, documentation requirements and cost to landlords.

But when the city is landlord to a restaurant, things look a little different.

The location is Ballast Point Park tucked below Gandy Boulevard at the end of the Bayshore. The restaurant is the Taste of Boston. The city owns the park and pier where the restaurant is located, so it is the landlord in this case. And because the city likes to have its commercial spaces rented out, as most landlords do, it filed for a rezoning and a wet zoning that would allow Taste of Boston to serve a taste or two of beer and wine.

What makes this so funny is not the fact that the city was asking for a rezoning, nor the fact that while the city claims it is so short on tax revenue that it has to cut services but that the city paid the rezoning application fees out of its own pockets — actually, that is, out of our pockets.

So the Parks and Recreation Department went before City Council recently and explained how selling beer and wine in the middle of a park right next to a brand-new $200,000 playground renovation for kids was a good idea, and that the administration supported the sales of alcohol because their sale had no negative impact on children. Council members were so outraged they asked if the upper levels of the administration (i.e. the mayor) knew the parks and recreation position. The answer? A resounding yes. Council members voted the application down.

So Tampa, known for hosting the most strip clubs per capita in the nation, where we promote cigar smoking because it is our history, now has a new credit: shill for the liquor industry. And what is worse, it was done with taxpayer money.

The city, which is often so quick to tell landlords how to run their businesses, once again does not like it when the rules are applied to itself. Even worse, while complaining about revenue shortfalls and offering no more tax relief then what is state mandated, city officials have the money to pay lawyers for rezoning applications. I hope the city now realizes the detriment it has caused to property owners and small restaurants and will re-examine its policies.

Gay marriages can commence in Cali in 30 days after that state’s highest court strikes down two laws limiting marriage to being the union of one man and one woman. NYT coverage here.

The opponents of Amendment 2, aimed at discriminating against gay couples who want to share the same marrriage/partnership benefits as straight couples, have been saying it for a long time, and now the Michigan Supreme Court agrees: a law there aimed at gay marriage has been applied to strip domestic partnership benefits already granted to same-sex couples.

This from Florida Red and Blue, one of two main groups fighting the November ballot initiative:

Dear SayNo2 Supporter:

It’s not often acceptable to say, “We told you so.”
But on occasion, nothing quite says it better.
Just hours ago, the Supreme Court of Michigan ruled that that state’s amendment banning ‘gay marriage’ also prohibits offering benefits to unmarried employees.
This is the exact scenario we’ve been talking about from the start – Amendment 2 could be used to strip existing benefits from Floridians.
We’ve said it, the Florida Legislature’s independent analysis says it and, today, the Michigan Supreme Court confirmed it – broadly worded amendments sold to ban ‘gay-marriage’ will actually take away benefits from everyone.
When we’ve talked about what Amendment 2 can do, the sponsors have been quick to deny it.
In fact, right now, their website says: “our amendment will not invalidate benefits granted from domestic partnerships or any other source.”
Sure. Tell us another one.
Want to hear the kicker?
According to today’s Michigan ruling the Justices on the losing side, wrote, “circumstances surrounding the election suggest Michigan voters didn’t intend to take away people’s benefits.”
And the Associated Press reported today that legal arguments were made in which, “…the ballot committee that sponsored Proposal 2 “consistently and repeatedly” assured voters that the initiative was only about protecting marriage.”
Remember, our opponents – the sponsors of Amendment 2 – claim that their amendment “will not invalidate benefits granted from domestic partnerships or any other source.”
But there’s just no argument any more.

The court’s opinion came in National Pride at Work Inc. v. Governor of Michigan.

(An important aside: A reading of the opinion in the case finds the decision narrowly tailored to prohibit granting same-sex domestic partnership benefits for public employees. It is not clear from the case whether private company benefits would similarly be prohibited, or if domestic partnership benefits for straight non-married couples would similarly be banned, and, of course, the ruling is not binding on Florida courts.)

Florida Red and Blue is dead on point about the “reassurance” that Florida’s Amendment 2 supporters make about their amendment not taking away partnership benefits. Here is what the Michigan court said about that:

Plaintiffs and the dissent argue that Citizens for the Protection of Marriage, an organization responsible for placing the marriage amendment on the 2004 ballot and a primary supporter of this initiative during the ensuing campaign, published a brochure that indicated that the proposal would not preclude public employers from offering health-insurance benefits to their employees’ domestic partners. However, such extrinsic evidence can hardly be used to contradict the unambiguous language of the constitution.

In fact, the Yes2Marriage group’s language and tack is eerily similar to that used in Michigan anti-gay marriage brochures:

Marriage is a union between a husband and wife. Proposal 2 will keep it that way. This is not about rights or benefits or how people choose to live their life. This has to do with family, children and the way people are. It merely settles the question once and for all what marriage is—for families today and future generations.

When it comes to the law, it is about what the people vote on, not what supporters promise, as the Michigan court reinforced in a footnote to its decision:

 … [I]t should bear little repeating that the people ultimately did not cast their votes to approve or disapprove counsel’s, or any other person’s, statements concerning the amendment; they voted to approve or disapprove the language of the amendment itself.

(photo from 2007 St. Pete Pride Parade by Tom Stovall) 

Our guest blogger Spencer Kass is a regular attendee at Tampa City Council and other city government meetings and is a real estate broker in West Tampa. He files his latest report:

For the past few months I have watched as neighborhood groups complained to the Tampa City Council about repeat offenders of the city’s codes and ordinances. The story told to Council often repeats itself: a violation is found, the offender is given a chance to fix it, they do fix it and then they violate the same ordinance a few weeks later. The response from neighborhoods is that the business is just using a legal trick, a technical maneuver that is allowing someone to do something which is clearly not the intent of the law, that there is no honor in the business owners’ actions.

And they are correct.

Then an unusual situation occurred. Tampa officials on April 8 went before their own Variance Review Board, which has the power to bend development rules if it is in the public interest. The city sought a permit to remove 153 trees, and I objected. The board quickly ruled in favor of the city and I was not able to appeal because of a technical requirement that you must own land within 250 feet of the location in question in order to have standing to complain.

The situation is even more egregious when you discover that the trees are being killed to make way for a place that is supposed to highlight beauty and truth and aesthetics in our community: the new Tampa Museum of Arts on the riverfront in downtown.

When I explained this situation to a friend of mine, he said, “Well, the city did not technically break any laws, did they?” While he was technically correct, his question leads to a more basic one: Just because you can do something wrong does it mean you should?

In this instance, the City and variance board members did not use their standard criteria for review. Board members did not give the city the hassle they usually give to a private landowner. They did not ask their usual questions about the well being of the citizenry. They instead focused on the fact that they wanted a new museum and were not going to let anything stand in its way.

By using criteria that was different for the city than everyone else was wrong, and although the city can get its permit because no one can object, the question remains: Is this the right thing to do? The best way to think of this is: Would the variance board have given the variance if this was an adult book store that wanted to go in and remove trees? Would you want them to grant such a variance.

So the city got away with skirting the law, placed the tree ordinance in permanent jeopardy, and brought into question the entire variance process. And for what? To get something built quickly? As fair-minded individuals, if we believe that there is a formulation to allow for the removal of trees then why not change the code to reflect that position? Why debase ourselves to twisting the law to merely allow us to get away with something?

It is only by holding ourselves to the highest standards that we can expect others to do the same. We certainly cannot expect individuals to act in a more honorable fashion then our own elected city officials. The do-as-I say-not-as-I-do mentality of days gone by is past. I hope a reasonable dialog with all residents emerges as a result of this situation, one in which we can openly discuss the priorities in our community and creating answers so we can finally fix it now.