The Political Whore

Guess who just brought up the June 1968 assassination of Bobby Kennedy as justification for staying in the Democratic primary race?

What’s next? Add your guesses in the comments section.

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From the folks at Heritage Square, who want to rebuild the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory into a luxury hotel and Euro-market, this update just e-mailed out to media:

We wanted to bring you up to date on our efforts to bring Heritage Square at the Armory to life in West Tampa. The effort entails a two-step process.

• The first is to build a suitable new facility to which we will relocate the Florida National Guard.
• The second is to take ownership of the armory property in West Tampa once the Guard has relocated, and build out Heritage Square at the Armory.

Our work with the Florida National Guard is moving forward. Although it may appear that nothing is happening because the Florida National Guard continues to have operations located on the property and construction is not yet taking place, there have been many recent developments.

March 29, 2008 - A key milestone was achieved when the Armory Board for the State of Florida unanimously approved our proposed terms to relocate the Florida National Guard from the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory property to Pinellas Park. We continue to work closely with the Florida National Guard to facilitate that relocation.
Other key milestones that we are working toward include:

• putting the necessary zoning in place in order to build a new facility on land we’ve secured in Pinellas Park
• designing and building a new facility to the Florida National Guard’s specifications. The FNG is in the process of determining its final specifications.
• physically relocating the Florida National Guard to the new facility.

We estimate that it will be about two years before we can relocate the Florida National Guard to Pinellas Park. Following that, we will officially take ownership of the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory property and start the redevelopment process. The redevelopment is expected to take about two years as well. Realistically, we are estimating late 2012 for the grand opening of Heritage Square at the Armory.

Thank you for your continued interest and support of this exciting project that will provide a powerful economic engine and create a beautiful and vibrant urban core for West Tampa.

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On the upside, the Rays haven’t trotted out a phalanx of lobbyists and spinmeisters in the team’s effort to win public approval for a new $450 million waterfront ballpark. They get brownie points for that. On the downside, for them at least, they are getting creamed so far.

Last night, nearly 600 people — mostly opponents — showed up to a public forum in St. Petersburg to speak about the proposal. This came after a workshop session of the City Council at which even some of the council members who seemed open to the idea initially — mainly Jamie Bennett — are starting to get testy with the ball team.

Also this week, preservationists weighed in on the plan with a big negatory, good buddy. This from St. Petersburg Preservation:

Over the years significant portions of our open Waterfront Park land have been lost as buildings and parking areas were allowed to encroach into the Waterfront Park. While these encroachments were for uses perceived at the time to benefit the public, cumulatively they have significantly eroded our downtown waterfront open green space. The construction of the proposed stadium would constitute the largest encroachment on the Waterfront Park. It also sets a negative precedent for perhaps even larger projects at some future date.

… The mass and scale of the proposed waterfront stadium is far beyond what may be reasonably accommodated at the Waterfront Park site. The scale of the project is such that it would overpower and interfere with other nearby historic park amenities and residential areas. … We recommend the Rays Owners consider alternative sites, or further enhance the current stadium.

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From your soon-to-be-receiving-$2 million-in-tax-dollars-unless-Gov.-Crist-vetoes-the-money transportation agency, TBARTA:

 More than four out of five Tampa Bay region residents say that traffic congestion is a serious problem, and there is widespread support for addressing the region’s traffic challenges with a regional approach that includes commuter rail and mass transit.  These findings come from a public opinion survey on regional transportation issues conducted recently by the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority (TBARTA), which was formed in 2007 by the Florida state legislature and tasked with developing a mass transportation plan for the seven counties surrounding Tampa Bay.

Overall, survey respondents cited traffic congestion as a significant problem in the Tampa region. Across all counties, 60 percent of survey respondents rate traffic congestion as an “extremely serious” or “very serious” problem, compared to 9 percent who rate it as “not serious.”

The survey results indicate that traffic congestion is viewed by residents in the Greater Tampa Bay area as a problem that requires a regional strategy. Survey respondents generally favor transit investments over more road building: 59 percent agree with a statement that “highways and roads alone aren’t enough. . . we need commuter rail and more mass transit to reduce traffic congestion,” compared to 34 percent who agree with an opposing statement that argued “build more roads and highways … light rail and mass transit are too expensive and ineffective because not enough people use them to justify the high cost.”

Also, respondents favor an integrated, regional transit planning approach over a county-by-county approach. Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) agree with the statement that counties in the greater Tampa Bay region “should join together and jointly plan an integrated regional transportation solution,” while 31 percent agree with an opposing statement that “each individual county should develop its own plans and transit systems.”

Oh, and the public says it has no idea who TBARTA is:

Another key finding is that while TBARTA is still largely unfamiliar among Greater Tampa Bay area region residents, there is strong support for the creation of the organization and its goals.  When survey respondents were first provided with basic information about TBARTA and its mission, and then asked whether they believed such an organization was a good or bad idea, 69 percent agree that such an organization is a “good idea.”

C’mon, my peeps, we did a whole cover story on these guys. Ahh, the awesome power of the press.

More survey results on the jump:

(more…)

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Screw timeouts. This Lake County teacher straight-up body slams his students.

Apparently teacher Stephen Berry was messing around (and by that I do not mean like a predateacher) with a 14-year old student when things went a little too far and the student wouldn’t calm down. So Berry did what any kickin’-ass-and-takin’-names teacher would do: He body slammed the punk.

Word. I’ll bet the kid learned his lesson that day.

The whole thing was recorded by a someone with a cell phone.

While it is unknown what exactly brought this incident on, the kid must have deserved it because the parents (at least so far) have decided not to press charges. That’s right, they have decided (at least so far) not to press charges.

There must be more to this story than has come out yet. A teacher freakin’ body slams a student and the parents decide it’s no big deal?

Maybe they are waiting to speak to a lawyer so they can sue. There’s more long-term justice in a large cash settlement than a criminal prosecution, after all.

Berry has resigned and the Lake County Sheriff’s office is reportedly investigating the incident. Lawyers everywhere are salivating at the possibilities.

Stay tuned.

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Happy Memorial Day Weekend everyone!

• McCain is quite healthy — for someone who could die of natural causes at any moment.
• Not so fast gay couples in California …
• Hillary’s next move: handing out pitchforks and torches.
• Hot rumor: Hillary asked to be V.P., and Obama said no.
• Driving this Memorial Day weekend? Better get a loan.
• China and Russia band together in opposition to U.S missile defense.
• Texas: The land of big hats, big trucks, and big time illegal child seizures.
• Tarantino gives a great fuckin’ lecture at Cannes.

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Michael Hinman over at The Business Journal reports that Tampa Tribune parent Media General is cutting 750 jobs companywide and expects 60 of those losses to come in the Tampa newsroom.

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Over at Demconwatch, they’ve basically proven what we’ve known here in the Sunshine State for quite some time: we’re irrelevant when it comes to deciding the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee.

An analysis of five different scenarios involving the Florida and Michigan convention delegations (both officially on the “no fruit cup” list for violating party rules and moving their primaries up ahead of other less populated and less important states) shows almost no hope for Hillary Clinton no matter what combination of seated or unseating of delegates is arrived at. In two scenarios, Barack Obama has clinched a majority of pledged delegates and an almost certain nomination. Only in one scenario does Clinton even come close — if all Florida and Michigan delegates were seated exactly as the voting occurred (recall that Obama wasn’t on the ballot in Michigan) Clinton would still be 71 total delegates behind Obama.

In an interview with the St. Petersburg Times yesterday, Obama said he would accept seating half (or more) of the delegates from Florida and Michigan. The Clinton campaign’s response in a telephone conference call today was pretty much the same as Gen. Anthony McAuliffe’s response to the German army in Bastogne.

Oh, and today, Florida Senate Minority Leader Steve Geller filed a federal lawsuit to force the delegation’s seating (and a restoration of their fruit cup privileges, no doubt). He joins other courthouse windmill tilters Victor DiMaio Jr. and Bill Nelson on this subject.

The Party just never ends …

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At least in the NY Times today. Not only does he get coverage for his invite to McCain’s weekend veep auditions, but he also gets the featured spot (with photo, in print edition) in a story about how budget-strapped state legislatures are trying to find low-cost options for covering the uninsured.

All the slams against Crist’s veep appeal notwithstanding — he’s too moderate, he’s too “single,” his hair is whiter than what’s left of McCain’s — the buzz does seem to be getting a little louder. The Romney/ Jindal/ Crist face-off this weekend might be almost as much fun (or every bit as excruciating) as those ubiquitous Alltel battling-nerds ads.

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The Empire Strikes Barack

• Charlie Crist shows up on McCain’s short list … and mine.
• If Hillary is angling for the VP slot, she sure has a funny way of showing it.
• Clarification: Despite her high-horse prancing, Mrs. Clinton is responsible for Florida’s votes not counting.
• The decider is overridden.
• The Port of Tampa almost exploded this morning.
• American Airlines to start charging $15 for first checked bag. What’s next, $2 to use the can?
• Facebook gets a facelift.
• Six degrees of Paris’s hoo-hah.

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