Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 20, 2009, at 10:49 am
My guest co-host for this week’s HoCast is Seth Nelson, a Tampa lawyer who is running for the Tampa City Council in 2011 (for Linda Saul-Sena’s citywide seat; she is term-limited).
He is a former law clerk on the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, so we look at how Sonia Sotomayor did in explaining her statement about policy being made at the appellate court level. Plus, we discuss Walter Cronkite’s death and how it shows what is wrong with today’s news media and ask ourselves whether Barack Obama’s health care reform effort is in trouble.
And between all those headlines, Seth talks about why he’s running for the Council and what his top priorities are.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 18, 2009, at 6:30 am
I’m starting a new Saturday feature to wrap up news and blog posts you might have missed during your busy week. Here’s a look at the Week in Review:
New book blasts sportswriters for ‘hysteria’ regarding steroids – Mitch Perry. The WMNF anchor writes about a new book that lays the blame for steroid-mania at the foot of writers who aren’t aggressive. “The writers, the supposed experts, watched over the last 20-30 years as steroids became a very, very common substance. And they didn’t see it.”
POTUS and the Pope — Peter Schweitzer. Our contributors asks: if the US bishops are sideways with Barack Obama over his abortion stance, why is the pope so warmly receiving him?
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 17, 2009, at 6:58 am
Some bad news for those County Commissioner Jim Norman haters out there: the champion of Championship Park has landed a near knockout blow (at least in terms of fundraising help) from three top GOP senators in his bid to get a promotion to the Florida Senate.
Three Republican state senate leaders, including the future senate president, have taken sides with Hillsborough County Commissioner Jim Norman over state Rep. Kevin Ambler in the Republican primary for a Tampa Senate seat.
Norman and Ambler are running for the District 12 seat now held by Victor Crist, R-Tampa, who faces a term limit next year.
Norman got the endorsements of Sens. Mike Haridopolos of Merritt Island, who will be Senate president after the 2010 election; JD Alexander of Lake Wales, a key member of the Senate leadership team; and Don Gaetz of Niceville.
By George Niemann PoHo contributor and R-LAND and UCAN activist
On Wednesday, Hillsborough’s Moral Courage Award became respectable again. The County Commission voted 7-0 to remove Ralph Hughes from the award’s name. It also agreed to not to assign any honorary name to this award, going forward.
I attended this week’s commission meeting to throw my 2 cents in when I saw that Commissioner Rose Ferlita had put the Moral Courage Award discussion on the agenda.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 16, 2009, at 2:53 pm
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.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 15, 2009, at 8:53 pm
Gays and straights alike carried red flags (a comment on a Media General exec who said the station viewed Speechless: Silencing Christians and “it didn’t raise any red flags”) and signs relabeling the NBC affiliate in Tampa Bay as News Channel H8 on Wednesday afternoon. More than 100 protesters gathered along Kennedy Boulevard in front of the station’s News Center to draw attention to the hate program that was aired for what they believe was $35,000 paid by a Christian group.
In a sign of political courage, Tampa City Councilman John Dingfelder attended the rally and said of News Channel 8’s decision,”This is not who Tampa is. This type of hate is just not acceptable in our community.” Dingfelder is running for a County Commission seat, a demographic that is much more to the right than the city of Tampa where he has served two terms.
Watch CL video coverage of the rally after the jump.
Hillsborough County commissioners will discuss dropping conservative activist Ralph Hughes’ name from the county’s Moral Courage Award on Wednesday.
Commissioner Rose Ferlita put the controversial issue on the agenda for discussion weeks after the federal government said Hughes died owing $69 million in unpaid taxes.
Ferlita told the Tribune on Tuesday that Hughes’ son Shea has sent a letter to the commissioners asking that his father’s name be removed from the award.
UPDATE: County commissioners did just that. The vote this morning was unanimous.
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?
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 14, 2009, at 12:01 pm
Earl Lennard, right, with Commissioner Ken Hagan earlier this year after winning the 2009 Hillsborough Good Government Award. Credit: Hillsboroughcounty.org
It is not a worst-case scenario for voters or Democrats who hoped that Gov. Charlie Crist would appoint a good adminstrator (and Democrat) to replace Phyllis Busansky, who passed away suddenly a few weeks ago. The choice of Earl Lennard is not wildly ideological, as he is not a fire-breathing conservative, nor especially partisan, as Lennard has been both a Democrat and Republican (or at least considered running as both/either for the State Senate in 2006, a race he entered as a Republican and later dropped out of) and spent much of his public life as an appointed nonpartisan leader.
But it is not, as many had hoped, the choice of Democrat Craig Latimer, who was Busansky’s chief of staff and the driving force behind the planned changes at the office.
Lennard makes sense in terms of a picking a relatively nonpartisan administrator who has run a large organization and who understands how to gear up for really big work days (first day of school vs. Election day). Some may grouse about it, and there are Lennard haters out there, but Crist surprised me with this pick. I expected something that would please conservatives more.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 14, 2009, at 7:31 am
I’m fascinated by John Warren, a longshot and last-minute candidate in the St. Petersburg mayoral race. He has a long history in the city as a preservationist, history advocate, real estate investor and — currently — the owner of Savannah’s Cafe on Central Avenue. Yes, he’s made rookie mistakes at a recent forum and in his campaign finances. But that’s not important. What is important is his message about learning from the past and looking at the city’s problems (especially those downtown) as all linked. He would restart the city’s visioning process to work on solutions in the aggregate.
Listening to Warren makes you think outside the box about the problems in St. Petersburg. Sure, as the Times has pointed out, he’s long on pointing out the problems and short on pat “solutions.” But his solution is the processes he advocates, the transparency and inclusion and comprehensiveness, and he bring an entrepreneurial bent and preservationist’s soul to the campaign, and that is refreshing.
I also asked him about the problem of aggressive panhandling. He had this to say:
Well, we do have an ordinance that serves a portion of downtown and it’s to discourage aggressive panhandling. But I think for a lot of the merchants who are down there right now, aggressive can be anybody who is sitting in front of their business. The presence of an unbathed individual sitting right at their front door is as aggressive and deters as much business as somebody that’s actually going up with a stick and asking you for a dollar.
CL: But that’s not something that’s drawing police action.
They are not. What really ought to be recognized is that downtown sidewalks and our whole street grid system is intended to allow for society to move, to flow, and your sidewalks downtown originally were owned by the property owners, and those rights were given up so that commerce could be conducted. Commerce is important for a strong tax base. Unless the community has a source of revenue, there is no way they can take care of the destitute. It’s important, No. 1, for us to recognize that the homeless, … is completely different from the career panhandler or the individual who has chosen not to live in a shelter or live in a home. And that distinction needs to be recognized. A lot of downtown business people are very charitable. They’d like to be able to help.
It makes business very difficult if you have the career panhandler who is competing and threatening the livelihood of those businesses whose sales and taxes are going to be providing for the other individual who genuinely has that need.
So, how do you balance that? One of the things that has been considered in other communities is extending to the merchant, or property owner, a bit more control. you’re not giving the land back to them, because you can’t, but assigning back to them some responsibilty for maintaining the property between the curb and their doors.
CL: So they would have the ability to say you’re trespassing on their area.
Exactly. It’s a delicate issue. There still are a lot of people who feel that any piece of property in front of business out to the curb belongs to the public, it’s a public right of way, without recognizing that public right of way was intended for infrastructure elements that are under the surface…
CL: And not as a living room…
It’s not somebody’s bedroom or bathroom.
Listen to the full interview with John Warren after the jump.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 13, 2009, at 8:13 am
Scott Wagman gets some help in his attempt to the be the next mayor of St. Petersburg, and two council candidates — incumbent Karl Nurse, long known for his conservation efforts, and newcomer Steve Kornell — also get the nod from St. Pete Sierra Club, which endorsed in just three municipal races.
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 »
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 10, 2009, at 6:18 am
Applicants Sandy Murman, left, and Victor Crist.
As Charlie Crist looks to appoint an interim replacement for the late Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Phyllis Busansky, the governor has trimmed a list of 22 applicants to six people — four Republicans, two Democrats — who will get job interviews.
The list includes some frontrunners for the position — Republicans state Sen. Victor Crist (no relation to Charlie) and former state House member Sandy Murman (full disclosure: both are past clients of my former political consulting firm). Others who will get some interview time with the gov and/or his staff are Republicans Chris Hart, a former Hillsborough County commissioner, and Earl Lennard, former superintendent of Hillsborough County Schools; and Democrats Craig Latimer, a former high-ranking Sheriff’s Office official and Busansky’s No. 2 in the current office, and Bob “Coach” Henriquez, a high school football coach, teacher, state bureaucrat and former state House member.
As I wrote in our print edition this week, I expect Gov. Crist to have to appoint a Republican, as he is embroiled in a primary election for the U.S. Senate nomination in 2010. If there is any good news for Latimer, a favorite among those who mourn the loss of Busansky, it is yesterday’s fundraising ass-whupping that Crist put on his challenger, Marco Rubio, that will take some pressure off Crist’s need to appoint a conservative Republican.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 9, 2009, at 1:40 pm
Just getting back into the office today after six days off and getting caught up with stuff like this TV commercial from St. Pete mayoral candidate Deveron GIbbons. Yes, of course Charlie Crist is in the ad. As are Deveron’s parents. And footage of Deveron chatting with two old white ladies, evidence for nervous white St. Pete voters that it is all right to support a black candidate.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 9, 2009, at 9:25 am
Why do I do this to myself? I get a call from perfectly nice people at the Greater Pinellas Democratic Club asking me to speak at one of their meetings (tonight at 6:30, to be precise) and I agree and then I am asked what topic, and I choose to speak on “Fixing Tampa Bay Politics.”
I should have opted for “Getting the Palestinians and Jews Together for Middle East Peace” instead. Tampa Bay politics are hopelessly damaged, so where do I even start?
You’ll have to attend to hear. And no, one of my suggestions will NOT be a plea for kumbaya-like bipartisanship or the like.
The social hour starts at 6 pm (let’s hope for the Club’s sake and listeners’ sakes that they’ve stocked a lot of vodka for me) and the meeting lasts until about 8 pm. It is at Banquet Masters in Pinellas Park, 8100 Park Boulevard. For reservations, call 727-360-3971.
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!
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 »
Posted by David Warner on Jul. 2, 2009, at 10:58 am
What happens to you if, according to police reports, you put your teenager in a choke hold and punch your 12-year-old in the head?
If you’re Brian Blair (mug shot at right), nothin’ much but some bad publicity, apparently. Check out these reports from Fox NewsRadio, and after the break, TBO.com, in which an assistant state attorney characterizes the incident as “discipline.” UPDATE: The St. Petersburg Times goes into further detail on the case and the reasons for the charges being dropped, referring to a memo from Assistant State Attorney Rita Peters that indicates Blair “took more punches than he gave.” (That would explain his condition in the mug shot).
TAMPA, Fla., (970 WFLA) – The Hillsborough State Attorneys office said it will not file child abuse charges against former Hillsborough County Commissioner Brian Blair.
The State Attorneys Office won’t comment, but said prosecutors will not pursue the case against Blair.
Blair was arrested on Father’s Day. He was charged with hitting his two teenaged sons. There were no serious injuries.
Enough already with the military’s ridiculous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
And it’s about time we legalize gay marriage.
Yet after the stunning parades this weekend and the first official recognition of the movement by a sitting working US President, I’m filled with more hope than ever before.
Which is why I didn’t allow my blood pressure to rise when WFLA/News Channel 8 aired an “it would be disturbing if it weren’t so silly” documentary infomercial Saturday night about wicked gays trying to silence Christians. I urged my fellow libs to take deep breaths and see this program for what it was — a spoiled brat stomping his feet and holding his breath in the hopes of getting attention and that last piece of cake.
“Their world is ending, Mary,” I said with a giggle. “It’s falling down around them and they can’t do a thing to stop it. Let’s not be so reactionary. Pass the Sangria and shut the fuck up. I want to hear what these freakshows have to say so I can make fun of them later.”
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 29, 2009, at 1:57 pm
UPDATE: We have 10 candidates for mayor, as Alex Haak didn’t qualify. They are Deveron Gibbons, Kathleen Ford, Bill Foster, Scott Wagman, Larry Williams, Jamie Bennett, John Warren, Richard Eldridge, Ed Helm and Paul Congemi. The primary election to determine the two finalists is Sept. 1.
—-
Today is the last day to file all the necessary paperwork to run for St. Petersburg mayor or city council, a day called Qualifying Day. We’ll know who is in and who is out by 5 pm.
A last-minute entry into the field, however, is entrepreneur, preservationist and restaurateur John Warren, 59, who owns Savannah’s Cafe on Central Avenue in St. Petersburg.
Warren, who has been frustrated by the city’s inability to help small businesses and truly grow its downtown in a sensible fashion, told supporters in an e-mail that he knows he is getting in late but doesn’t hear the issues he thinks ought to be disucssed.
“I don’t believe current candidates are addressing the issues that need to be discussed, nor do I feel they have the vision or experiences to deal with today’s challenges. Apparently many of you agree,” Warren wrote.
He also hints that he will get rid of controversial police Chief Chuck Harmon if the SPPD can’t start battling crime more effectively.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 29, 2009, at 1:41 pm
From the there’s-no-such-thing-as-bad-publicity-(or-polling) files comes this pitch to Scott Wagman supporters to pony up some bucks despite a pretty rotten showing in a recent St. Petersburg Times poll that placed Wagman tied for fourth, behind Kathleen Ford, Bill Foster and Deveron Gibbons and tied with Larry Williams.
For those not studied in the art of politics, this is called spin.
But before the Wagman haters chime in, let’s give some context to the poll. More than 60 percent of the voters surveyed said they didn’t have a preference yet, meaning that this is a wide open race and the poll was only an indication of a lack of voter engagement and existing name recognition, not a legit look at who will finish in what order. I don’t say this to defend Wagman’s poor showing; but the truth is not all of the campaigns have spent little or nothing in tems of direct voter contact (direct mail, television ads, radio ads, robo-phone calls, etc.) that is what gets voters ready to make decisions. At best, some of the campaigns have been walking door to door and using some new media advertising on Facebook and the like. That’s not enough to drive serious interest to an off-election year municipal election.
But Wagman felt his placement in the poll could be spun to his advantage with supporters and sent them this e-mail today: Read the rest of this entry »
You may not have even known it was happening, but “Rapprochement With Cuba: Good For Tampa Bay, Good For Florida, Good For America,” a conference sponsored by the Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy Foundation and held Saturday at the Italian Club in Ybor City, was, by its very existence, a milestone in repairing the tattered relationship between Tampa and Cuba.
About 150 guests, panelists, professors and local politicians filled the grand, neo-classical Italian Club, once the social, cultural and political epicenter of Tampa’s Italian community. Whether the speeches, panel discussions, and networking sessions will really accomplish much toward ending the 50-year-old U.S. embargo, no one is really sure. However, to get a sense of where the Cuba barometer is pointing, you could start with the venue itself.
In 1955, a young, verbose Fidel Castro arrived in Ybor City. This was no accident, no anomaly. In fact, it made perfect sense. Castro, in a bid to gain popular support for his uprising against CIA-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, he followed — literally — in the footsteps of an earlier young, charismatic Cuban revolutionary, Jose Marti. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 28, 2009, at 7:17 pm
Cross-posted from The Daily Loaf blog
By Denis Baldwin Daily Loaf contributor
Last week, I attended the Rhino Political Action Committee’s political mixer at NOVA. Like the first event I attended, local mayor candidates and other politicos met with the common man, answering questions and trying to convince us that they were the right person for the job.
Unlike the first one I attended, the candidates actually seemed to have an agenda now. Many spoke on the importance of keeping our children in programs to avoid gangs. Others spoke of keeping the streets clean, both of garbage and of drug users and prostitutes. Still others pushed issues involving the St Pete Pier and its ongoing subsidy by taxpayers. It seems that everyone was making good points, making this a valuable (if somewhat overwhelming ordeal).
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 26, 2009, at 4:44 pm
Of the Big Six candidates for St. Petersburg mayor (Jamie Bennett, Kathleen Ford, Bill Foster, Deveron Gibbons, Scott Wagman and Larry Williams), the only one that I have not had a chance to have in the CL Studio was Williams — until now. The former St. Pete city councilman came in recently to tape his half-hour on the HoCast, talking about how to battle the city’s crime problems and whether he is behind the eight ball because he got into the race late.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 26, 2009, at 3:20 pm
Call it Phyllis Math: a gathering of Phyllis Busansky’s “five closest friends” numbered nearly 1,000 at her funeral at Temple Schaarai Zedek in Tampa on this dark, rainy Friday morning. It was a running joke throughout the tributes to the late Hillsborough County supervisor of elections, how Busansky had told so many people that they were one of her three or five or seven closest friends.
For some, that would be duplicitous; Busansky, however, meant it and was close friends with just about everybody she met, forging an instant connection, building communities and circles of influence, her longtime friend Jeannie McGuire told the gathered mourners. McGuire had one of my favorite lines of the funeral, talking about Busansky’s sense of fashion as not quite classic but “classic — plus dramatic.”
There were more laughs than tears.
Tampa Tribune columnist Steve Otto, who long held a valued spot on Busansky’s speed dial and in heart, called his politician-friend “a tornado with hair.” Busansky’s daughter, Rebecca, read a 2005 e-mail that came to Busansky’s husband, Sheldon, from a woman that Phyllis had helped in the 1960s get into a college. The woman was hoping that Sheldon was related to Phyllis so he could pass along her thanks.
Most touching was the remembrance of her son, Alex, who said he was happy to have had 47 years with his mother. “I am my mother’s son,” he told the crowd, which flowed over into a separate room and outside, where monitors were set up. “If you’ve met her, you’ve met me.”
The room was full of politicians and elected officials, from Mayor Pam Iorio to the county commission, city council and constitutional officers — including Gov. Charlie Crist. Even the man that Busansky vanquished in the 2008 elections, former Elections Chief Buddy Johnson, attended, making for an uncomfortable moment when Rabbi Richard Birnholz said he had endorsed Phyllis in that election because it was the community’s only hope to clean up a hopelessly bungled office. Johnson later shook hands with people in the parking lot.
For progressives, it was a trip down memory lane, a viewing of some of the people who helped Tampa and Hillsborough County make great strides during an eight-year period, from 1988 to 1996, when social conservatives began their destructive takeover of county government and the rise of suburban development gave them the numbers to consistently beat urban progressives at the ballot box. Busansky’s quarterbacking of the county’s landmark indigent health care program, part fiscal sense-part social justice, that was a highlight of that era.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 26, 2009, at 8:24 am
The now-rejected watefront ballpark; will St. Pete-Pinellas also be rejected?
And the other shoe drops. It was predictable after the outburst earlier this week from Tampa Bay Rays President Matt Silverman about poor attendance at the Phillies series that it was just setting the table for a St. Petersburg departure. Now, comes confirmation that it is very actively being considered.
The A Baseball Community, studying everything from new sites for a Rays stadium to how to boost ticket sales, now confirms that three of the five geographic areas it is analyzing are in Hillsborough County. The three are in Westshore, downtown Tampa and east of the city at/near the Florida State Fairgrounds. Those sites join mid-Pinellas County (the Feather Sound/Carillon area) and downtown St. Petersburg on the list of five regions under study.
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:
By George Niemann PoHo contributor and R-LAND and UCAN activist
It looks like Commissioner Ken Hagan has decided to become the first point of contact for all county residents with problems.
As you may recall, Wayne Garcia reported that Hagan (District 2) has been distributing fliers in District 1 in what the Hillsborough County Commission chairman calls a public service gesture. As it turns out, the distribution of these fliers is heralding a new method of operation for the county, which is the brainchild of Hagan. During these hard economic times, Hagan has decided to singlehandedly re-engineer the way the county does business.
Interestingly enough, the flier says that Hagan wants to know about any issues that county residents have. He also encourages everyone to contact him saying, “Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can ever be of service.” Well, I decided to ask the commissioner if he really meant that. Is he going to work on anyone’s issue, regardless of which district they’re in? Does that mean that he intends to be the first point of contact for all of the districts??? I got some surprising answers when I called his office.
I spoke with Hagan’s senior aide, Rich Reidy by telephone on Monday. Reidy emphatically supports his boss’s idea of being the first point of contact for any inquiries, on a countywide basis. Here’s how Reidy responded to my questions: Read the rest of this entry »
By Catherine Durkin Robinson PoHo contributor,“feminist mother of twins” and a political blogger, working under the title Out in Left Field
Charlie Miranda has come up with a plan to turn hundreds of millions of gallons of wastewater into drinking water. All in the name of self-sufficiency.
Yes, we are in the middle of a drought. But we aren’t desperate:
In 2005, the U.S. Geological Survey conducted a study of the treated wastewater from the city’s Howard F. Curren Wastewater Treatment Plant and found 27 different kinds of micropollutants in the recycled water even after it passed through a filtration process.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 23, 2009, at 3:52 pm
It’s funny the things you remember — and don’t remember — about your friends when they die. I spent much of the afternoon searching my brain for a tiny detail about Phyllis Busansky among the thousands of bits of info I know about her over the past two decades.
A drink. I can’t remember the last line of a 1991 Tampa Tribune article that I wrote about Phyllis on the night she completed her major opus, an effort to create a decades-ahead-of-its-time indigent health care plan in Hillsborough County. I remember how she gathered allies, the narrative approach the story was written in, the delight in my editors when they read it. The last line had her going out for a drink after the vote (I was along) and detailed exactly what she drank.
But it’s gone, lost in the recesses of my brain and not available online.
Phyllis Busansky — who died on the job at an elections conference in St. Augustine overnight Monday — was a unique political force in Tampa Bay. She was a domineering presence, physically and mentally, smart and savvy, with top columnists’ phone numbers at the top of her speed dial and an unwavering enthusiasm that led to her say the word “fabulous” at least once every 10 minutes.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 23, 2009, at 2:40 pm
Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: Winning a mayoral forum or debate is not the most meaningful thing in a campaign. The myriad gatherings of the 10 mayoral candidates in St. Petersburg that have already occurred and are yet to occur likely won’t alter the Sept. 1 primary outcome one iota.
Why?
Because such forums are a place that can only do a candidate harm. Stumble, or stumble badly, and the media coverage can magnify it into major damage. “Win” such a debate and not only will the MSM mostly not declare you the winner, but you have only “won” in front of a few hundred people, at most.
The way campaigns are really won are through spending campaign contributions on direct mail, television and radio advertising and through a concerted grass-roots voter contact effort.
So that brings me to reporting the “results” of Monday night’s mayoral forum held by the St. Pete Pride organizers at the King of Peace MCC. The “winners”?
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 23, 2009, at 11:05 am
From Congresswoman Kathy Castor:
Phyllis will be well remembered in our hearts for her brave leadership, for her open, gregarious style and for her ability to fix problems that were tough to tackle. Her legacy as the primary author of the Hillsborough County Health Care Plan lives on every day in the improved health of our neighbors and our community. She was truly passionate about making sure those who least could afford medical services had an advocate on their side. She already was showing that passion as Supervisor of Elections, working to guarantee that voters’ rights were protected in Hillsborough County. My thoughts and prayers are with her family. She will be sorely missed.
From Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio:
I am shocked by the death of Phyllis. How sad that death claimed her just as she was embarking on a new challenge that she loved very much. The public needed her and this was her calling. I had the pleasure of serving with Phyllis on the County Commission and her passion for helping those who needed help the most was something I always admired. This is a great loss to both her family and to our community.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 23, 2009, at 9:42 am
Phyllis Busansky was a friend of mine, and I worked on her various political efforts, including her stint as the director of welfare reform in Florida, so it is with great sadness I pass along news of her death today, from ABC Action News:
Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Phyllis Busansky has been found dead in her hotel room in St. Augustine, according to Pam Iorio.
Ms. Busansky was supposed to be participating in a conference in St. Augustine. When she didn’t show, coworkers came looking for her, and found her dead in her hotel room.
Foul play is not suspected.
I spoke with a mutual friend who mentioned that Phyllis had a health problem earlier this year in which she was hospitalized but that they thought it was simply hyperventilation. Busansky did battle lung cancer in 2007 but told friends she was cleared of the disease after surgery.
She was 72 and had battled lung cancer. She died in her sleep, said Sigrid Tidmore, spokeswoman for the Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections office.
“Honestly, this is all I know,” Tidmore said.
Tidmore was with Busansky last night, before she went to sleep about 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. She said Busansky was not complaining of any pain. When Busansky didn’t respond to phone calls this morning after not showing up to today’s conference meetings, hotel security went to check on her and found her dead, Tidmore said.
(Busansky’s office says she was 73, but the Times says records show she was 72.)
Tidmore went on to say that everyone connected to Busansky was in shock, that she was very vibrant and had lots of plans for the office. I can attest; I ran into Phyllis two weeks ago in Bamboozle in downtown Tampa and she was her usual exuberant self, eliciting a promise from me that I would pay a call on her to hear about her innovations at the office in a few weeks, after she was done traveling.
Busansky was a mainstay of local Democratic politics for the past two decades, after winning a seat on the Hillsborough County Commission in the late 1980s as part of a reform effort that brought progressives to that board.
Under state law, Republican Gov. Charlie Crist will appoint a successor until voters choose a new supervisor in the 2010 elections.
UPDATE: This statement just in from the Supervisor of Elections Office:
Ed.’s note: George Niemann filed this report before Brian Blair’s arrest on Father’s Day on two child abuse charges.
By George Niemann PoHo contributor and R-LAND and UCAN activist
Here’s the latest update on the Brian Blair campaign finance scandal.
In case you didn’t know, former Commissioner Blair is headed to a “trial” on charges he violated Section 106.19 of Florida Statute relating to campaign finance regulations (Case# FEC 08-224).
On Feb. 28, the Florida Elections Commission ruled that there was “probable cause” that he violated the statute more than once. His violations involve the acceptance of illegal campaign contributions from two contributors. Anyone can make a clerical error, however, the Elections Commission looks beyond just the accounting. They look for actions that indicate the intent of not following the law.
