The Political Whore

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

Regional parks came up during budget talks last week at the Hillsborough County Commission. County Administrator Pat Bean’s budget proposal would close them down two days a week, much to the dismay of well, almost everybody showing up at the last budget public hearing. Looks like they will now remain open seven days a week after all. Several commissioners voiced their concerns and wanted parks to be kept open! Nimby translation: Get this angry mob of voters off our backs already and give them their damned parks!

There will be a new fee, which sounds like most likely to be $2 a car. It isn’t official yet, but commissioners voted unanimously to proceed with the idea that Mark Thornton, parks director, came up with for them. I wouldn’t ordinarily complain about $2 except I know what they are spending in other areas and things like the Sports Authority funding appears completely intact.

Read the rest of this entry »

Update: Late Wednesday afternoon (4:37pm to be exact) the applicant pulled CPA 09-13 and CPA 09-14 from consideration in front of the Board of County Commissioners. The letter states in part “Please be advised that we intend to re-file these applications although we will make every effort to address issues raised in the process to further resolve many misconceptions regarding the project.” Nimby translation: Crap, we just didn’t have the votes so we will try again later. Don’t go to the hearing Thursday as it will not be heard.

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

Is it appropriate for State Rep. Darryl Rouson (D-St. Petersburg and shown above with President Barack Obama) to lobby Hillsborough County Planning Commissioners (and copy the County Commissioners on his letter) pushing sprawl?

He must have thought so, according to his letter. He openly advocated for a “multi-modal” center (nimby translation: big ass WAREHOUSE) out in the far corner of the county, where we purposely do not have urban services such as water and sewer and where the land use designation does not allow for this sort of thing. If Democrats are good for anything, isn’t it usually being anti-sprawl and pro-gay rights? Rouson appears to be neither, but then I found he used to be a Republican. Also interesting is the very tiny portion of Hillsborough that Rouson represents……………looks to me to be mainly underwater. How would this project help the fish in your district, Representative Rouson?

The California developers initially claimed that Port of Tampa needed this facility but then the Port said thanks but no thanks. Now, with a shitty economy proponents are claiming the project will bring jobs to the area. That is great but we can’t afford to breach the rural area with more sprawl so I respectfully suggest they find an appropriate site for this warehouse inside the Urban Service Area. The Ruskin Chamber of Commerce is pushing this project very heavily. Recall: your tax dollars help support the Chamber. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo credit: capitalist_b/flickr.com

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

As we fight to keep public parks open, the Tampa Sports Authority uses your tax dollars to hire a new executive director at $170,000 a year plus a $2,000 a month housing allowance for up to five months. Looks like you are also footing a $12,500 bill for his moving expenses. Meanwhile, County Administrator Pat Bean is recommending to the Hillsborough County Commission to cut hundreds of jobs and basic services.

Commissioner Jim Norman, who sits on that board, voted to approve the director but not the housing allowance. He is quoted in this article as saying “the people who are paying this today, which are the taxpayers will be outraged.” Um, Mr. Norman I bet if taxpayers knew how much of their money goes to the Sports Authority in general they would be outraged that it even exists.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

I have been following the developments on the concrete-deficient, cracked CW Bill Young reservoir in eastern Hillsborough County for quite some time now, mainly because if that heap actually has any water in it when if it breaks, I won’t have to drive to the other coast to go surfing! (Or in my case drive to the other coast to go fall off my surfboard.) Tampa Bay Water voted recently to repair the cracks in the reservoir at a cost of $125 million (let’s not forget the whole thing cost $145 million to build in the first place). It was completed in 2005 and we first heard about the cracks in 2007 when the thing was just a mere two years old. Read the rest of this entry »

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

In a Hillsborough County Commission meeting last week, Commissioner Rose Ferlita brought up those clandestine raises issued by County Administrator Pat Bean. When Ferlita holds up a mountain of paperwork indicating that she has done her research that usually isn’t good news for whoever might be on the other side of that paperwork. Ferlita didn’t think that Bean had fully informed the Commission prior to giving those raises, and because proper procedure had not been followed, the board’s decision to approve those appointments back in November could be null and void. During the discussion, Ferlita cited agenda documents and ordinances (article 6 section 1) and she even brought up a similar situation from way back in 2005, before she was even on the board.

Other commissioners echoed similar complaints about not having the full information, and this is not the first time they have hammered Bean about this raises. Commissioner Kevin Beckner brought it up several weeks ago. But Bean held firm during Wednesday’s meeting stating she felt “we” had done everything “we” were supposed to (is there a Co-County Administrator that “we” don’t know about or does “we” just mean herself and Commissioner Jim Norman?) Read the rest of this entry »

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

Remember when the whole idea behind the Cone Ranch possible sale was because Commissioner Ken “Half-Truth” Hagan wanted to “preserve it” after being asked by big-time Republican donors to subdivide and sell off Cone Ranch [more than 12,000 acres of publicly owned land in Northeast Hillsborough County]?

The county now has an advisory board pondering this deal. You can read my take on their first meeting here. This second meeting started with County Administrator Pat Bean addressing the panel lobbing threats about the state of the county water utility which owns the land. Wasn’t this panel supposed to be objective? Yet here we have the County Administrator throwing in her 2 cents. She did admit that the land was already preserved though, glad we got that cleared up. Recall the earlier threats that the Florida Environmental and Conservation Group (FCEG) (the group pushing the sale) made implying that the alternative could be commercial or residential development. Read the rest of this entry »

From my cover story in this week’s print edition of Creative Loafing:

I got an e-mail a few weeks back from the good people at the Greater Pinellas Democratic Club. I had agreed to speak at their monthly meeting in July and they wanted to know what my topic would be.

Without thinking, I said, “Fixing Tampa Bay Politics.”

Now I’ve been known to offer my fix-it advice to Tampa before: See CL’s Fix It Now series from 2008 for my thoughts (rants?) on growth, sprawl, transportation and diversity issues.

But fixing politics?

Read the rest of this entry »

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

Hillsborough County pork thinks it should be fed before basic public safety services, before public parks, before important public agencies like the Environmental Protection Commission (EPC), The Planning Commission and before voter-approved programs such as ELAPP [the county's environmental land buying program]. Hillsborough pork even thinks it should be in line in front the homeless. Why? Because under Pat Bean’s administration, evidently, that is how it works. Hillsborough pork knows no boundaries and has no ethics. Who thinks it is time for a little visit to the butcher?

Read the rest of this entry »

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

If you think County Administrator Pat Bean’s recent double digit raises to a few of her favorite minions amid epic budget cuts were unbelievable you might want to take some Beano before catching a glimpse at her proposed budget itself. The millions thrown at special interest is enough to make anyone’s stomach turn. County Commissioners have the final say on her budget. Many of these same Commissioners renamed their Moral Courage award after a pardoned ex-felon last year, and they also think it might be OK to sell off sensitive publicly owned land to investors in order to “preserve” it, so I suggest you offer to help them in this budget decision making process.

Parks are what got me looking into this budget in the first place. When I heard my beloved Flatwoods Park was on the chopping block to be closed two days a week, (and knowing how much this Commission gives away each meeting on the consent agenda alone) I was furious. They pass out hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions regularly under the Consent Agenda without even discussion yet they now claim they have to cut public parks. Read the rest of this entry »

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND; activist

Stay out of the water! That was the warning just prior to the start of this year’s 4th of July holiday about the Courtney Campbell Beach. Was it because of a bull shark attack? Nope. Maybe an invasion of rogue lionfish? Nope. Maybe a jellyfish convention then?

No, silly, there was just too much shit in the water. Course they said the high bacteria count could be due to several things including animal feces, stormwater runoff, and lastly they mention sewage. Uh-huh. Don’t forget there is a 14-mile-long algae bloom going on right now that’s also attributed to contaminated run-off. Oh goodie, let’s make it easier to build more houses!

Photo Credit: James Laurence Stewart at Flickr.com Read the rest of this entry »

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND; activist

Remember that water bill we were concerned about that would silence public input and made water permits easier to get (behind closed doors)? Environmentalists and editorial boards alike urged The Bent Over one to veto it. Well, on the heels of signing SB 360 and eliminating what little growth management laws we do did have, Governor Crist signed that water bill (SB 2080) making water and wetland permits easier to get and again disappointed us while putting yet another black mark on his environmental record. In his defense, he did ask them pretty please to continue to make their water permitting decisions in the open (while signing a bill that alleviated them from doing just that).

According to my research everyone in the House and Senate that voted on this voted in favor of it regardless of party affiliation.

Photo credit: Johnnyalive Flickr.com

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND; activist

Oh boy, where to start on this Cone Ranch scheme proposal? Recall Ken Half-Truth Hagan’s half-baked proposal to sell Cone Ranch to private investors in order to “preserve it”? Apparently the Hillsborough County Commission chair all of a sudden became an environmentalist worrying about the future of this sensitive land and wants to do all he can to preserve it, emphasizing the wetlands on the property. You might also recall that ironically he was one of the very same Commissioners hell-bent on getting rid of the wetlands division of the EPC. Hey, people can change, right? Especially when those behind the idea are big-time Republican fundraisers, uh-huh. Come to think of it, that assault on the wetlands division by the majority of the County Commission was also widely thought to be the idea of a ………….big campaign contributor. Read the rest of this entry »

By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor

Local transportation agencies have been holding joint public outreach meetings in an effort to inform and involve the public on transportation issues. These agencies, which are the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority (TBARTA), and Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART), have coordinated efforts forming a transportation task force which has held public meetings throughout the city.

The need for public transportation is growing, especially in Tampa, which makes these meetings rather important. Wednesday, I attended a meeting at the Community Center on 22nd Street. Thursday, I was able to chat with the MPO Executive Director Ray Chiaramonte.

Why is developing public transportation in Tampa important? Here is what we talked about:

Read the rest of this entry »

Cross-posted from CL’s Green Community:

By Michelle Schenck
CL Green Community contributor

Everyone has a pet peeve or two. It is common to get slightly annoyed with a member of the human race every now and again, even if it is something small, like the way way a person slurps their cup of morning joe or the last person in the bathroom not replacing the toilet paper roll. It is the way that you confront and handle these matters, if at all, that turns these pet peeves into issues.

For example, when I was a little girl, I used to see a family member (they shall remain nameless) leave the water faucet on while doing the dishes. She or he would start to wash a dish, walk away to do something else, and then come back. I didn’t understand why they didn’t just turn the water off if they were going to step away for 15-20 seconds at a time? It seemed like such a huge waste of water even at a young age when the words “green” didn’t really mean much to me.

I would say time and time again to “Stop doing that!” It became frustrating and eventually became a pet peeve of mine. As I grew older, though, I was able to talk to that same person about this habit in a better, less screamy and immature way. I would talk to them about the importance of conserving water and to only use it when you are in need of it, not just because they can. They finally understood my point and, at least around me, has always made a conscious effort to turn off that faucet when they weren’t using it. It felt good to get a pet peeve off my chest so to speak while also instilling a green action in a family member.

Now days, I still get those pet peeve feelings but I feel a little more confident expressing myself in a mature manner about these peeves, at least if I have some form of relationship with the person. When I go to the beach, for example, if a friend just throws their water bottle or any trash for that matter on the sand and walks away, I will confront them about it. Nine times out of 10, a trash or recycling can is nearby and I just laughingly look at them and say, “Really?!” They usually laugh a little too and realize their mistake, pick it up, and throw it away. Sometimes people just need a little light-hearted reminder from their friends or co-workers about green actions.

As readers, what kind of green pet peeves do you have and what have you done to bring these peeves to light? Have you confronted anyone or groups of people about it? What kind of tactics do you think are acceptable to confront someone about green actions? Please post here.

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

Hillsborough County Administrator Pat Bean took more than a few stutter steps last week when the discussion at the budget workshop finally addressed the earlier article in the St. Petersburg Times about her issuing fat raises to a handful of her BFFs. Commissioners are in the middle of a budget nightmare, up to 900 jobs could be eliminated and Bean is passing out up to double-digit raises to some of her faves, including the bean counters.

So at the end of the day’s budget workshop last Thursday, Commissioner Kevin Beckner acknowledged the elephant/s in the room and brought up the subject to Bean newspaper in hand.

I had my own concerns with two of her minions getting these raises. Lucia Garsys is listed in the Times article as a “former planner,” yet she makes even more money than the head of The Planning Commission. How can Bean justify this, and more importantly how can Commissioners let her get away with this? (Especially with elections nearing?) Read the rest of this entry »

Photo credit: otisarchives3 Flickr.com

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

I wasn’t the only one that thought something smelled funny about this Cone Ranch deal, a recent proposal by Commissioner Ken “Half Truth” Hagan (to subdivide and sell public land to private investors) and in the process serve up millions to Republican donors for brokering the deal. The St. Petersburg Times raised some major concerns and inconsistencies in this editorial and, according to this article in the TampaTribune, Mariella Smith says it stinks! Smith is a highly regarded environmentalist and she fights tirelessly and fearlessly on behalf of it. She always comes armed with enough information to make even the most seasoned and highly paid development interests look like buffoons, and I have nothing but respect for her on this or any other issue for that matter.  If she says it stinks, bring a clothespin or a gas mask.

Read the rest of this entry »

From Time magazine:

Of all the things that have changed in China over the past 30 years, transportation has undergone one of the most obvious of transformations. Where city streets once swarmed with bicycles, they are now full of automobiles. Cars clog intersection and expressways. Their exhaust clouds the sky and the air is full of the sound of horns. But zipping through the congestion is the vanguard of another transportation revolution: vehicles that use no gas, emit no exhaust and are so quiet they can surprise the unwary pedestrian.

In China, electric bicycles are leaving cars in the dust. Last year, Chinese bought 21 million e-bikes, compared with 9.4 million autos. While China now has about 25 million cars on the road, it has four times as many e-bikes. Thanks to government encouragement and a population well versed in riding two wheels to work, the country has become the world’s leading market for the cheap, green vehicles, helping to offset some of the harmful effects of the country’s automobile boom. Indeed, as engineers around the world scramble to create eco-friendly, plug-in electric cars, China is already ahead of the game. Says Frank Jamerson, a former GM engineer turned electric-vehicle analyst: “What’s happening in China is sort of a clue to what the future will be.”

Photo Credit: eschipul/flickr.com

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

The Hillsborough County Commission seemd at a loss during a discussion about SB 360 during Tuesday’s land-use meeting. Peter Aluotto of the County’s Planning and Growth Management Department (same guy that helped push the ill-fated South County Transportation Plan, for all you Green Swath of death fans) gave the presentation and asked for direction from the board on what to do now. Don’t worry, he wasn’t alone; he had members from the developer community ready and willing to help him present if needed but in a rare wise move from Chairman Ken “Half-Truth” Hagan he did not call up any of the development community to speak.

Basically, what I got from the presentation, combined with the questions raised by the board, is that the county has no freakin’ idea what to do, and the developers they are a-callin’! How are they going to foot the bill for this developer welfare? According to the material online, possibly a gas tax! Or maybe they do the right thing and raise impact fees? (hysterical laughing) No doubt the taxpayers will be taking this one for Charlie’s team; the only question left is how. You can see Aluotto’s documentation here and read the transcripts from the discussion here Warning: if you are a smart growth fan, NIMBY, concerned citizen or activist or if you just think developers have already ruined Florida then you might want to pour a glass of wine (or two) before reading. Read the rest of this entry »

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

Hillsborough County’s top lobbyist Edith Stewart makes $136,094; that is including a 17 percent raise of $20,000. I had to read this in the Times even though I did ask Commissioners what our lobbyists made in an e-mail back on April 14 and have yet to hear back on that.

Why did I want to know? Because I didn’t think our lobbyists were doing anything about bad environmental and growth management bills and  I wondered how much you were paying them. Now we know. Maybe she got the bonus for letting SB 360 get through? I also asked Ms. Stewart herself in an e-mail several months ago to provide me with a detailed list of the activities of our lobbyists in Tallahassee and asked if any of them have ever spoken on the record in committee about SB 360 or any bills for that matter. I am still waiting. I even suggested the Board fire Ms. Stewart in this recent post regarding SB 360 so to read she recently got a raise while sitting back and letting the worst growth management laws quietly pass in Tallahassee is unbelievable. Especially amid such a budget crisis. In fact she got the highest percentage increase. Read the rest of this entry »

I was poking around the Internet this morning, reading about last night’s Phish show in Mansfield, MA., when something hit me. The author kept referring to the concert’s venue, The Comcast Center, by its pre-sponsorship name of Great Woods. I started thinking about the big-three Bay area sports venues and their old names, and now I’m thinking about ditching the corporate sponsorship names too. I have my reasons, and they are as follows:

Building: That big stadium with red seats on Dale Mabry where they play football
Corporate sponsorship name: Raymond James Stadium
Old-school handle: Tampa Stadium. OK, technically it’s always been Raymond James Stadium, but it was built next door to, and replaced, Tampa Stadium.
Reason to switch back: It’s The Great Recession folks, and you want some investment bankers slapping their logo feces all over the local altar to the biggest sport in America? (On a personal note: I think Raymond James had a hand in the Loaf 401(k) program last year. Fell free to label me bitter in the comments.) Tampa Stadium is an excellent name, a simple-but-solid description of the place the moniker represents. Tampa Stadium sounds tough. Not to many players want to travel to Tampa Stadium, a blistering sand pit where opposing teams get the life suffocated out of them. Raymond James Stadium, on the other hand, is the type of place that sees cash from the hometown squad’s retirement account vanish quarterly for as long as they’re in the league.

Cross-posted from The Daily Loaf. To read the rest, go to Take back our stadium names: No more St. Pete Times Forum, Raymond James Stadium or Tropicana Field.

Photo credit: DRB62 Flickr.com

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor and R-LAND activist

Just when you thought that renaming the Moral Courage award after their shuga daddy (and pardoned ex-felon) Ralph Hughes was the low point, the Hillsborough County Commission, led by Chairman Ken Hagan, floats an idea that is starting to smell worse than the reclaimed sewage that some officials want to dump into our aquifer.

Sell the preservation land that is Cone Ranch to private developers … in order to save it! Read the rest of this entry »

Photo credit: amerune at Flickr.com

OR

Photo credit: Daquella Manera at Flickr.com                   YOU DECIDE!

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor and R-LAND activist

As if the past dirty deeds and developer-driven agendas of many of our Hillsborough County commissioners wasn’t proof enough (yes, we mean you Team Sprawl) now the Florida Legislature has shown you exactly why we need Florida Hometown Democracy (FHD). FHD is a citizen-driven initiative that would allow voters to make growth decisions instead of leaving it in the greased and dirty hands of politicians. To help make the case for FHD, there is this year’s legislative session.

Where to begin?

Read the rest of this entry »

Dan Waite e-mailed me to tip me off to his first effort to make and post a political video, and it is a good one, explaining how Senate Bill 360 that is on Gov. Charlie Crist’s desk is a bad one.

Watch the full video after the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor and R-LAND activist

A  piece in the Times from Senator Mike Bennett-R who spawned SB 360 (a bill that dismantles growth management), shares his idea of smart growth as it is titled For smart Fla growth. OK, Mr. Bennett, I guess that depends on what your definition of smart is. He says in part:

The bill promotes growth in dense urban areas by removing the state required costs of transportation concurrency and the duplicative development of regional impact (DRI) process within those areas.

(Nimby translation: Developers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for more growth by having to pay for infrastructure; that is what you taxpayers are for.)

Read the rest of this entry »

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor

photo by shioshvili flickr.com

You heard me. Hillsborough Commissioners under the threat of a teetering bond rating voted for automatic annual increases for water rates that total to 1.72 percent for FY 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: Weekend Rewind is a new feature of PoHo, republishing the best, longer posts about politics and public affairs from my blog and Daily Loaf as well, in case you might have missed them the first time around. Think of it as my version of a Sunday/weekend newspaper.

By Grant RImbey, CNU
Green Community contributor

A year ago I was doing microfilm research on local history at the John German Library in Tampa. Anyone who’s done this research knows how tedious it is; there’s no index for microfilm so to find pertinent articles one must scan each newspaper page on each microfilm roll. While doing this I was flabbergasted to discover a Tampa Tribune article from Nov. 25, 1924, that mentioned the work of the famous town planner John Nolen in connection with Tampa.

To my surprise, the City of Tampa commissioned Nolen to survey the city in 1924 in preparation for a master plan that he was to create for the city. I know a good deal about the planning and architectural history of the area but hadn’t heard that Nolen was working in our area. Tragically, Nolen created his survey but was never commissioned by the city to create his master plan for Tampa: 1924 was the height of delirium during the 1920s Florida real estate boom and the development industry of the time did not want to slow down the good times enough to allow the creation of a master plan and code to direct them. The great depression came early to Florida and by the end of 1926 the roaring 20s were over.

The discovery of John Nolen’s survey of Tampa is important as he’s arguably the finest town planner to have worked in Florida and is the namesake of the John Nolen Medal for Contributions to Urbanism in Florida, given by the progressive planning organization Congress for the New Urbanism, Florida Chapter. In Florida, Nolen was the genius behind the town plans of Venice, Sarasota, West Palm Beach, Clewiston, and Temple Terrace.

In 1924, the problems that Mr. Nolen identified in Tampa’s planning remain problems to this very day:

Read the rest of this entry »

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor and R-LAND activist

Nice going-away present, Guv. According to this article, The Suntanned One sounds like he is going to sign SB 360 the ill-conceived bill that guts what little growth management we do did have. Maybe he didn’t get that opposition email from our County Commission yet, huh? Unless he switches teams last minute it sounds like we are screwed. Read the rest of this entry »

Bill sponsor J.D. Alexander

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

Who in the Florida Legislature voted to make water use approval easier to get and take away wetlands permitting from local officials by giving it to a five member statewide board while also eliminating any power from the public by having closed meetings? Why, everyone, that is who.

Read the rest of this entry »

Cross-posted from the Daily Loaf blog:

By Michelle Schenck
Green Community contributor

The Florida Green Building Coalition is organizing its Sixth Annual Florida GreenTrends conference to take place between June 10-12 at the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront. The GreenTrends 2009 conference focuses primarily on housing and building green trends that are both cost effective for the individual homeowner and business owners.

Some of the Education sessions that are already set in motion include Green Remodeling, Greening your business, and new trends in water efficiency. There are also myriad keynote speakers, ranging from general contractors to solar energy experts. Read the rest of this entry »

photo by .res flickr.com

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

After months of hounding from activists and even early coverage in both papers including this editorial in the Trib dated Feb 21st, 2009 the Hillsborough County Commission finally weighs in on Senate Bill 360, a bad revamp of Florida’s growth-management safeguards. This is a bill that everyone (except developers and their politicians) thinks is a bad idea. The bill’s sponsor is Mike Bennett -R of Bradentucky Bradenton. So, after two months of Legislative Session where the bill sailed through committees and was voted on twice on the floor in the House and three times in the Senate and eventually passed on the last day of Session, our commission, at the urging of Commissioner Mark Sharpe decide to discuss it.  You would have thought they were being asked to consider…..gasp…… domestic partnership benefits or something considering the discussion. Some of them acted surprised or feigned ignorance about the content of the bill citing that things change minute by minute in bills in Tallahassee and while that is true the bigger truth is that the main things in the bill that everyone was screaming about, transportation concurrency and no reviews for DRIs (big ass subdivisions) have been in the bill since the beginning as noted in this Feb 20th article by Mariella Smith. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a video that was the winner of The Congress for New Urbanism CNU 17 video contest, a film that looks at the connection between suburban sprawl and environmental degradation. From independent filmmaker John Paget.

h/t to Kelly Cornelius, PoHo contributor.

Watch the full video after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

photo by Tom (hmm a rosa tint)

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor and R-LAND civic activist

For all of you mass transit supporters … buses everywhere were busy last week giving you a glimpse of what really goes on down at County Center. Read the rest of this entry »

A 360 of flip-flops … get it? (photo: Katy Warner/flickr.com)

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

Well, my earlier post on who voted in support of SB 360 (a gutting of growth management laws) caused quite a stir, and as Wayne already reported and corrected on that post, State Sen. Victor Crist actually changed his last vote on the growth management bill from yes to no. I do apologize that I did not find that change online before submitting that post. I spoke with Crist himself Tuesday afternoon regarding the issue. He wanted to make sure I understood the process so I will share his explanation with you as well. Read the rest of this entry »

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

Well, for one the now State Sen. Victor Crist, who has an eye on Ken Hagan’s county commission seat in a game of musical sprawlers and  just voted to throw Hillsborough under the bus by gutting what meager growth management laws we do have. Yep, he voted YES on the deplorable bill SB 360 denounced by environmentalists, smart growth advocates and anyone with two brain cells that touch (who aren’t in the pockets of developers).

[EDITOR'S UPDATE: Legislative records show that Crist changed to a "No" vote on the bill. In an interview with PoHo, Crist said he was off the floor in a budget conference meeting during the vote in question and another Senator "voted his button," a fairly common practice in the Legislature. Crist said he noticed the yes vote and changed it by the end of the day. More from Crist in the comments section. The Senate floor vote record is here.]

Remember that in 2010 when we have the “special election“ experts think is going to occur for Hagan’s seat. I didn’t know anything about Crist one way or the other before this, but voting yes on SB 360 tells me all I need to know. Looks like some of his constituents aren’t all that happy with him either regarding past issues. You can contact Crist here and tell him what you think.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

Looks like maybe Dr. Richard Garrity might be a PoHo fan because my post questioning his activities as Executive Director of the EPC Wednesday morning wasn’t up very long at all before I heard from several sources regarding emails he sent listing documents regarding his recent activities. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Read the rest of this entry »