Fix it now

As City Council gets ready for another vacation, leaving work on the budget and Tampa’s down turning economy on the table, angry citizens in Drew Park met to discuss eliminating the city’s hastily and completely backward proposed land-use changes. With citizens sick and tired of a city working against them at every turn, the voices had one common thread: the city needs to get out of our way, handle the basics of government (which they can’t get right) and leave the rest up to us.

For those of you unfamiliar with the drew park economic development plan here is a quick rundown, drew park the area west of Raymond James stadium, north of Columbus Ave, south of Hillsborough Ave. and east of the airport, is a CRA (community redevelopment area) and it has a TIF (tax increment financing district), which means that the area gets to keep all of it’s tax revenue over a base year to spend solely in the area, but the money can’t be used for traditional city services. Every time the city creates one of these areas they then go out and hire a consultant costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to tell them how to spend the money. (You could figure this out by walking the neighborhood and asking a few people, but who needs the exercise?)

The city then adopts the plans that often include land-use changes. In the case of drew park, a mostly industrial area, the city consultants decided that jamming residents into the neighborhood and forcing business out was a great way to start. Then in traditional city fashion, instead of carefully studying the plan, the city quickly adopted it because they wanted the plan adopted before councilwoman Alvarez retired from council. So basically they shoved through with no thought a plan affecting thousands of businesses, and turning a neighborhood on its head for over a year because they wanted a nice going away present. What everyone quickly discovered is that businesses could not borrow money because lenders were afraid of losing money if the property lost its zoning, business could not expand and the area quickly ground to a halt. Then the city suspended the land use change part of the plan and discussed it for over a year.

Now, finally having enough, the people have spoken and voted to tell council to stick the plan where it deserves to go, in the trash!Just a few weeks later when the business of Drew Park thought their voices had been heard; city council showed just how out of touch they really are.  To add insult to injury the city council so eager to get finished with its meeting because the hour was late — 11:00 in the morning. They decided they just did not have the time to deal with the suffering of hundreds of businesses. Now remember this is the elected body that pushed through this land use change as a present to one of their fellow council members as a retirement present [needs link to newspaper story] in just one week, and that has spent more than a year trying to undo the damage, the whole time with not a peep from Mayor Pam Iorio. Oh that’s right she is out of town riding the rails in other cities, after all what is of real concern to these businesses that can’t expand or grow is mass transit. But don’t worry, Drew Park, they will take the matter up at their next meeting in 30 days, WOOPS my mistake, it will have to wait 60 days, council is going on vacation. Apparently the world stops this month: people don’t have to worry about their mortgage payments, or putting food on the table, or paying their exorbitant city property taxes. And don’t count on 60 days, either; from what I hear, council’s schedule is so packed already with unfinished and new business that it is not going to have time to discuss it then either, so tack on another 30 days to that at least. So only another quarter of a year until council discusses how it stuck it real good to this neighborhood. I won’t hold my breath waiting for the outcome.

Here is an idea; council should cancel its vacation, and start meeting every day until all city business is finished. That way we can get our local economy moving again. Now for full disclosure, I was one of only a handful of people to originally object to the plan when it was being considered. I informed city council that the land changes would make lending impossible and my companies could not lend money under the conditions they were imposing. I have repeatedly been at council asking that the changes be eliminated. While I appreciate that some members want to carefully deliberate any changes one has to ask where the thought was when this plan was passed.

Remember when TBARTA came out with its proposed maps with routes C and D on Map 8 (aka the revisitation of the Green Swath of Death bypass highway)? It made about as much sense as the county proposing to give away our land use and transportation planning to special interests………NONE!

Recall I asked the question several months ago about a red dot (listed as a major employer) in the middle of the Green Swath just as it made the 90-degree turn to the east. That turn now avoids plowing over my neighborhood but still appears to bisect a state park. Who is employed there at that mysterious red dot, I asked in April……..a Park Ranger? Even though the map was vague and didn’t show environmentally sensitive lands or parks, it looked to me as if it was right in the middle of a state park!

Well, TBARTA has new and sort of improved maps on their website that now depict parks. Right where that red dot was claiming to be a major employment center…………is indeed …….A STATE PARK! If this confirmation wasn’t so sad I might tout I TOLD YA SO but I will refrain. You can see the other State Parks, wetlands, and environmentally sensitive lands these two corridors would destroy. I wonder how much this effort cost the state since FDOT provided the technical support and created these maps for TBARTA from a regional needs assessment study earlier this year.

Here’s the before and after versions of Map 8:

The good news is that now TBARTA, the regional transportation authority, is suggesting that both lines — which would destroy rural and preservation areas, bring with them unwanted sprawl and, oh yeah, have public opposition — be removed. Ya think?

In the meantime, looks like the Green Swath is sporting a new summer dress as she has gone from Green to Orange, and the Purple leg of the green swath of death is now Blue. Note to TBARTA: We can fill in the blank for whatever color you choose for your ill-conceived Swath of Death and calling it the Sprawlway covers just about the whole color spectrum…………although sprawl is usually the anti-Green.

Both lines are Grey on the map that has them recommended for removal. So, is the Green Swath of Death finally dead? At the county level….yes. At the special interest level……..that remains to be seen.

TBARTA’s next board meeting was today up in San Antonio. You can click here for agenda details. Should I wear black for the Green Swath’s funeral or does proper protocol dictate that I at least wait until the time of death is officially announced?

What can you do? Write to TBARTA and tell its leaders what you think. If you agree with those who want to protect what is left of rural and preservation lands then feel free to send in our letter from R-LAND. We made it easy for you. It goes to TBARTA, our BOCC, our MPO and our Gov. You can access it here.

In what can only be called one of those gotcha moments, Tampa City Council was confronted with the realization that its actions are not only costly but so slow-moving that spending $30,000 is cheaper way to avoid its own processes.

Here’s how we know this: City Council had a small item tucked into its consent agenda, an increase of more $30,000 to build three affordable houses in East Tampa.

What made this request for additional funds interesting was the background data that stated that the request was to redesign plans to bring them into compliance with the East Tampa overlay district.  For those of you unfamiliar with the City of Tampa overlay districts, these are not health or safety regulations but rather special design requirements for homes in various areas throughout the city.  The problem is that City Council and Mayor Pam Iorio’s administration never do any economic analysis of these regulations. They are all designed to pander to the existing homeowners in communities who don’t want “outsiders” moving in.

So in this case, it is going to cost the city’s affordable housing fund $30,000, resulting in higher mortgage payments and property taxes for the new homebuyers.  But more important than showing the cost of compliance with these excessive overlay regulations, it shows the extreme expense in requesting a PD (planed development) rezoning in the City of Tampa — more than $30,000 for developers and, ultimately, homeowners.  So when city officials talk about how fast and easy its processes are, or how you are their customers and they care, remember this: For the city to get through its own process of waiving the restrictions that caused the plan redesign would have had to cost it more than the $30,000 just to redesign the plans. Otherwise why would the City not have just applied for the waivers?

Council had a simple option: It could have had city staff fix the regulations so the city could use its current affordable housing plans, without having to re-draw them to comply with the overlay district.  Apparently they thought that the $30,000 was the easier and cheaper option.  This is an example of the city being called to account for its own regulatory schemes, and unfortunately it is the taxpayers who end of paying the price.  In a time of tight budgets, skyrocketing fuel prices and benefit costs rising exponentially, one has to ask if a $30,000 expenditure — which could be avoided — is the way to go, or if council should FIX IT NOW.

The shortage of trees in the bay area got a little shorter recently when former Tampa Bay Buccaneer/Cleveland Browns/Baltimore Ravens/New York Jets/Dallas Cowboys/New England Patriots/Carolina Panthers quarterback Vinny Testaverde cut down a few on his new lakefront Odessa property.

By a few I mean around 40 or so (not Vinny’s ex-trees pictured at left; the actual trees are now appearing in a mulch bag in a Lowe’s near you). They could have filmed an episode of Ax Men at his house. Sheesh, Vinny, why so many? There are people around here that would freakin’ kill for that many trees on their property.

The Hillsborough Environmental Protection Commission came to the rescue and cited him for cutting down the cypress trees because they were in a protected wetland area. Testaverde said he didn’t realize it was a big problem. He apparently had a landscaping company cut the trees down and they never said anything about it being illegal.

“You’ve got to rely on the advice of these people. Whoever cut down the trees didn’t do a very good job of informing him,” Clayton Studstill, Testaverde’s attorney, told the Tampa Tribune. (We did not make up his attorney’s name, we swear. Studstill.)

OK, getting bad landscaping advice is understandable. It’s puzzling that he would want to de-tree his property to any extent, but I guess I can believe he didn’t realize he was doing something illegal. And putting aside any environmental implications caused to the waterway next to his house, or any possible deed-restrictions he may have violated, or the pissing-off of his new neighbors, it is his place after all. He should be able to cut down any trees not located in a protected wetland area of his property.

As punishment, the EPC ordered Testaverde to plant 40 15-gallon cypress trees on the property within 30 days and make sure they all survive for one year. Testaverde didn’t want to replace all the trees, so the EPC caved and said he could plant 20 30-gallon trees instead, along with some herbaceous plants along the shoreline.

If he doesn’t like that, the EPC will probably let him plant a single 600-gallon tree, only mow the lawn every third week, and do the edging only in a month that ends in a ‘y’ or a consonant.

That’s wetlands mitigation for you. You know what they say, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

It will probably be a few years before Testaverde’s new trees mature enough for the property to be returned to its previous ecological state. Understandably, Testaverde’s neighbors aren’t happy about the whole mess.

I wouldn’t eat any of that house-warming pie, Vinny.

photo by saveena(AKA LHDugger)

Our Planning Commission recently proposed a Visioning project to our Hillsborough County Commission. In a nutshell, this would consist of coordinating land use with transportation planning. Historically, transportation drives land use; just drive along any toll road plopped down in an area that was previously rural in this state and you can see the Monopolyesque houses stacked up on either side of it — we call this sprawl.

Planning land use with transportation seems to make good sense. What doesn’t make good sense is handing over a project like this to a public-private partnership like One Bay, whose private business supporters could certainly benefit from its planning outcome. Yet this is what our County Commission was ultimately proposing. I got on One Bay’s website and clicked on to the Smart Growth button and, not so ironically, the first two articles listed that day were about toll roads.

Our County Commission has been accused of being blind to having a balanced vision for Hillsborough’s future, and sadly, they have proven this again and again. They denied the Planning Commission $100,000 it sought for its Visioning project. (which, by the way, had been allocated to it last year and lost on a technicality). Commissioner Mark Sharpe’s recent commentary suggested that One Bay be a part of the of this Visioning project along with the Planning Commission. To his credit, he tried to give it to the Planning Commission alone on two other occasions, but the rest of the boys on the board weren’t buying. I suspect that is because the Planning Commission is the only objective agency we have in this county that promotes smart growth and discourages sprawl.

In an effort to compromise, Sharpe suggested the Planning Commission work with One Bay since One Bay already had a vision. Why were we NIMBY’s, informed citizens, and activists so opposed to this? Because we know how developers can hijack a project and felt what little voice we do have would certainly be overshadowed by special interests. If I recall correctly, One Bay’s big claim to fame, Reality Check, was an exercise with Legos that people had to be invited to. Does this seem conducive to public input? Evidently that is what they are assembling their Vision from. Sorry, I just can’t see it.

I am not opposed to everybody having a voice, but I and many others feel that the Planning Commission should take the lead in the project. Its staff serves this community with pride, ethics and integrity. They provide an objective, balanced approach, taking into consideration all views. They have proven to me that their recommendations are in the best interest of the community and not driven by any political bias or hidden agendas.

As we watched what we thought was the beginning of the end of citizen’s voices on March 6 as Commissioner Al Higginbotham made a motion to have the County Commission participate in One Bay’s technical advisory meetings (and he mentioned they had already paid One Bay a consulting fee!) and come back in 30 days. Mark Sharpe made a substitute motion (even though I attended the actual meeting and read the transcripts, I could not find a clear statement of the motion because it was never clearly made in my opinion. Here is the best summary I could assemble of Sharpe’s motion:) Have the county as the lead facilitator and bring the rest of the interested parties into the mix keeping the Planning Commission involved but not solely giving the lead to the Partnership. So as the activists, NIMBYS, and informed citizens sat like deer in headlights I wondered…………are we just gonna get screwed by Sharpe’s motion or are we gonna get REALLY screwed by Higginbotham’s motion? The vote was 5-2 the outcome? REALLY SCREWED. Rose Ferlita voted with Sharpe and the rest of the board with Higginbotham. Another 5-2 vote; we all could have guessed that. George Neiman, a UCAN director, was not given permission to speak in the morning session due to time constraints and had to wait all day to voice his opinion but only after the actual vote occurred. In true George fashion, he made the wait worthwhile as he presented our County Commission with pretty wrapping paper and a bow so that the county would look nice as they gave it away to the Tampa Bay Partnership.

Well, the beginning of April rolled around and since it was nearing the 30-day mark, many of us looked at the agenda to see if the BOCC would again address this issue. It was not on the agenda but then in the late afternoon on April 1 we were informed that indeed it was a part of the next day’s meeting. This was at the very last minute and many of us myself included cried foul because we did not make the arrangements to attend and there are rules about how things are added to the agenda and it certainly seemed as if they had been violated. After a lengthy discussion on the subject they finally voted to hold off another 2 weeks before voting on their plan of action. As luck would have it, before the next vote a lot of information would finally surface about One Bay.

Some digging revealed that One Bay was created by the Partnership and is listed as consortium of business and governmental interests. Hmmm. TBARTA was also spawned from The Partnership, and it has been charged with coming up with a transportation plan (that scares us). So if One Bay is given the VISION and TBARTA has been given the Transportation Planning, it seems the Partnership will be dictating growth in Hillsborough. I don’t recall the Partnership being on the ballot, do you? How will local voices be heard on a regional level and will they be heard at all since not all of the officials on TBARTA are elected some are appointed and One Bay was being marketed by Amy Maguire, a lobbyist with ties to developers. She is associated with former House Speaker John Thrasher, who was part of the campaign to kill Florida Hometown Democracy.

So even in a time of upcoming budget cuts we can’t afford not to have objective planning. We also can’t afford to give it away to private interests. The county planning staff also got tossed into the mix and are now involved as well. Sadly, I trust the county transportation staff even less than special interests considering my recent battle over the Green Swath.

Think that is the worst of it? Think again because recently a Trib editorial broke the story that not only was Maguire a lobbyist but she was involved with a land project with 20 landowners in south Hillsborough County who own about 90 percent of the undeveloped land there, and it is outside the urban service area and……. right about where that ever-famous Green Swath resides. Should she be given a lead in this VISIONING project by our county? No wonder the same Commissioners so opposed to the project when it was just the Planning Commission were happy to support the project when OneBay was asked to join.

Sadly our BOCC remains blind to a vision other than the one special interests are more than happy to create for them and they don’t even appear to possess 20/20 Vision in hindsight! It remains to be seen what the final outcome of this will be. Amy Macquire has since stepped down but I wonder how our BOCC will handle this one since they haven’t had a final vote on the issue yet. What can you do? Contact them and let them know how you feel about special interests creating our Vision. I did and told them I thought our Planning Commission was the only choice for the job especially in light of recent events. I also attended the morning session of the BOCC meeting on 4-16-08 because this item was on the agenda. It was a hot topic during public comment and although I signed up to speak I was not given permission due to time constraints (glad I wasted that time to attend and then proceeded to feel sick as I watched them bicker about our ELAPP land among other things). Anyway, the item in question was A-12 on the consent agenda and it read: Receive follow-up report to Proposed Conceptual Plan of Action to Begin Visioning in Hillsborough County. I would have never thought that this would include a continuation of the item so I was surprised to hear from Ms. Garsys of the county staff later explaining that to me. Someone should really inform Mr. Marchetti of this development………putting his last minute continuations on the consent agenda would really save those of us opposed to them a lot of time and energy.

I have to say that Ms. Garsys of the county staff has contacted me regarding this issue several times and is more than willing to set up a meeting about it. Not sure what more we would talk about yet other than the fact that I don’t want special interest planning our future (and I already emailed my comments to their website regarding a vision and you can too. She sent me a copy of the BOCC agenda for 5/7/08 and this time the visioning issue was a time certain item and again the county staff is requesting more time. They cite lack of citizen input and do note what little input they have had list concerns about ONEBAY. Part of their recommendations include regaining public trust. I think if our BOCC truly wanted to re-establish public trust they would give the Planning Commission the lead in the project because they have never lost public trust. One way not to regain my trust is to put staff member Ned Baier on this project but the county staff suggested he be involved at the April 2nd meeting. I tuned in to the meeting on May 7th and several of the Commissioners (Higginbotham, Sharpe, and Ferlita) went on record wanting the public to be part of the process and finally Commissioner Higginbotham asks Ms. Garsys if One Bay is running this program?

Ms.Garsys: No, it is our program.

Higginbotham: That’s all I wanted to hear. That’s right. I just wanted to make sure they were on the same page because that has been my mantra from the very beginning, that this is being powered by the county, the county commission, and the Planning Commission.

Ms. Garsys was asking for a continuation and they asked her if she needed a motion she said yes and a motion was made by Commissioner Higginbotham and seconded by Sharpe but nowhere in the transcripts could I find any conditions on the motion (like how long this is continued and is One Bay still a candidate to help lead this effort?) I emailed our BOCC and asked them if this meant they were completely divorcing themselves from One Bay regarding Visioning but I only heard back from Commissioner Higginbotham. He sent me the link to the transcripts and then stated in his e-mail “As you will read, I was very clear on my stand regarding the visioning process.. Comparing his quotes to the March 6th transcripts, I have to say it did not sound like the same mantra to me.

So is the BOCC finally heeding citizen’s requests not to give away our planning to special interests or is this more like a bad DRI rezoning with citizen opposition…………………just continue the hell out of it until finally nobody shows up and they can pass it without many people watching? I urge you to contact them and let them know you are watching.

In a slight to both neighborhood leaders and city council, the administration of Mayor Pam Iorio decided that it had better things to do then to televise the ongoing city budget discussions. The administration, which has restricted citizen access to council and administrative staff by not allowing staff to attend meetings in the Mascotte conference room (a procedure allowed for years) on the pretense of having everything televised and open to the public, balked as soon as the light of day was about to be brought to the city budget discussions.

Despite a motion from City Council to televise the meeting, calls from Council Chairman Thomas Scott and from Councilwoman Mulhern, the city administration denied the request to televise the meetings saying that “we have never televised them in the past.” It is time for the Mayor to lead, apologize to the taxpaying citizens and fix it now.

No big name in the grand marshall’s seat for the annual St. Pete Pride as parade organizers have chosen to make a political statement instead. This from the organization today:

St. Pete Pride is please to announce that Janice Langbehn has agreed to be our Grand Marshall this year. Janice is not a house hold name yet but her story is compelling especially in light of the current attempt to deny gay partners any rights.

A year ago Janice Langbehn’s partner of nearly 18 years was pronounced brain dead after being stricken with a brain aneurysm. While at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida, she was met with prejudice and apathy. Janice and her family were consistently denied visitation and didn’t see Lisa until many hours after she was admitted.

Langbehn, a social worker, said officials Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami did not recognize her or their jointly adopted children as part of Pond’s family. They were not allowed to be with her . . . and Langbehn’s authority to make decisions for Pond was not recognized.

Even after a friend in Olympia faxed the legal documents that showed that Pond had authorized Langbehn to make medical decisions for her, Langbehn said she wasn’t invited to be with her partner or told anything about her condition. She said she wasn’t allowed to see Pond again until a priest arrived to give “Last Rites.”

It was only after passionate pleas that a doctor finally spoke to the family about Pond’s condition, informing them that there was zero chance for recovery. With the help of a Catholic priest assigned to perform last the family was granted a five-minute visit, eight long hours after Pond was first admitted.

The Board of St. Pete Pride believes that this story and ones like it are necessary to put a personal face on the consequences of Amendment 2. Please come out and support St. Pete Pride on Saturday June 28, 2008 at 10AM.