The Political Whore

Elaine Silvestrini over at the Tampa Tribune has a great story to go with all the Brian Blair news today: One of Blair’s benefactors, the late Ralph Hughes, a top Money Man and power broker in Hillsborough County politics and business, died owing millions of dollars to the Internal Revenue Service.

From her story:

The agency has filed a claim with Hughes’ family trust seeking more than $69 million in unpaid income and business taxes and interest for the years 2003 to 2007.

Hughes’ beneficiaries – his widow and two of his three children – are contesting the IRS claim, arguing Hughes paid millions in taxes.

After Hughes died at age 77 on June 27, 2008, Hillsborough County commissioners voted to rename the county’s Moral Courage Award for him. The decision was controversial, with detractors accusing commissioners of repaying their benefactor and injecting politics into what was supposed to be a nonpartisan award.

OK, so this was shot long before former wrestler and Hillsborough politician Brian Blair’s arrest on child abuse charges this weekend, but we’re pretty sure here at PoHo Central that the always erudite Iron Sheik feels the same way about that “jabroni” Blair today as he did back in March.

Full video after the jump:

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In video now just hitting TV news websites, Brian Blair calls the family fight and his arrest “an unfortunate situation” and “a misunderstanding that could have been prevented.”

Fox 13’s Warren Elly has a report on that station’s website, here is the link (sorry, but the video didn’t embed into our software.)

According to Elly’s story, Blair told reporters on the way out of jail:

“It’s a misunderstanding that could have been prevented. I have over 7,000 hours mentoring children and the last thing I’d ever do is hurt a kid. Sometimes the hardest kids to mentor are you own. I guess that’s all I’ll say for now,” Blair told FOX 13.

Elly came by Creative Loafing before Blair’s release and I taped a short interview about what this does to Blair’s political career. Blair told reporters upon his release that his supporters would understand his actions once they hear the full story, but I’m kind of doubting that. Blair is not dead politically in the sense that he won’t ever quit the game, but he can’t possibly win public office after this.

At a first appearance hearing this morning, a judge has ordered that jailed former Hillsborough County Commissioner Brian Blair be released on his own recognizance, without any bond posted, commonly referred to as ROR. Blair likely won’t clear the jail’s long release process until this afternoon.

According to one reporter at the scene, Blair’s wife, Toni, spoke briefly to media to say only that her sons were fine, but she made no other comment.

Blair was arrested this weekend and charged with two counts of child abuse after getting into a fight with his teenage sons, shown in this photograph from his campaign website Blair continues to maintain.

Brian Blair’s Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office booking mug shot

Brian Blair, defeated Hillsborough County Commissioner, sore loser and, now, criminal defendant.

From ABC Action News:

Brian Blair, the former pro wrestler and Hillsborough County commissioner, is facing child abuse charges after he allegedly got into a scuffle with his teenage boys.

Blair, 52, was arrested his home on 12702 Boulevard N shortly after 5 am and booked into the Orient Road Jail at 12:45 p.m, jail records show.

According to Hillsborough Sheriff’s spokesman Larry McKinnon, Blair got into an argument with his two two teen-aged sons that turned physical, sheriff’s Deputy Larry McKinnon said.

“It was a family argument between him and his sons and during the altercation at least one was battered,” McKinnon said.

The Times adds these details from the arrest report:

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A curious piece of political literature has been hitting South Tampa homes over the past few days as a handful of County Commissioner Ken Hagan’s supporters do what is called a “lit drop” of campaign literature.

Only it is not really campaign literature, or at least, it doesn’t carry the necessary campaign disclosures that a campaign advertisement would carry. Nor is it a county government piece, as it points out that it was “Not produced at taxpayer’s expense.”

That left some Democrats e-mailing me furiously about how this was akin to the stealth campaign that Buddy Johnson ran with federal dollars in 2008, the one being probed by the Feds and the St. Pete TImes’ Jeff Testerman. And it caught the attention of at least one Democrat who has been thinking about running against the Republican Hagan in 2010.

Read the rest of this entry »

Trimming the fat at the top of the St. Petersburg City Hall pecking order would help mayoral hopeful Kathleen Ford trim property tax rates in the city by 8.5 percent, according to a proposed budget she released this afternoon.

Here is her plan, in her own words:

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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 »

The Tampa Bay Rays continue their inevitable move OUT of St. Petersburg and to a mid-Pinellas location after being denied a waterfront ballpark and realizing, “Hey, we could be closer to tens of thousands of new fans if we weren’t stuck in The Burg’s downtown.”

The latest evidence? The Rays commissioned a study on rehabbing Tropicana Field. Even with improvements and a retractable roof, to the tune of $471 million, the Trop would only be a “B-, B+” kind of facility, the report concluded.

The Rays, however, want an A+ home. Rays stadium procurer Mike Kalt wrote to the A Baseball Community meeting, according to the Times, “We believe the study leaves little doubt that a renovation of Tropicana Field would not be a prudent course of action going forward.”

Take it with a grain of salt, but fired Jamie Bennett campaign manager Peter Schorsch (first a GOP political consultant, then avowedly Democrat in his outlook) has endorsed (sort of) Republican Bill Foster, probably the most conservative of the candidates, for mayor of St. Petersburg.

After savagely dismissing Deveron Gibbons and Scott Wagman, Schorsch writes:

Bill Foster is the devil we know. I disagree with Bill Foster’s rightwing worldview, but I think he would do right for our city. He is a good person with a wonderful family, a fact that reflects well on Foster. Sure, he can be clunky at times. He can be holier-than-thou most of the time, but the city will be safe in his hands.

Instead of raising money from developers and lobbyists, Foster first wrote a 15-page plan about how he would lead the city. I don’t think anyone has read the Foster Formula other than me and Cristina Silva, but if you have, you know that there is some serious thought in it. Particularly on public safety, Foster has the most sensible approach to leading St. Petersburg.

It is a only bit of a surprise (and far from “stunning,” as the campaign puts it), since Deveron Gibbons has long been a supporter of Charlie Crist and a beneficiary of the Gov’s appointments, but Crist has publicly endorsed Gibbons in the mayor’s race in St. Petersburg. Normally, politicians running in their own races have their hands full and stay out of other campaigns where they could make enemies. Nonethless, Crist is on board with Team Gibbons. Here is the news release, and DL the entire release after the jump:

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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.

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From The Gradebook:

Seven months after her election to the Pinellas County School Board, Nina Hayden has decided she wants to go to Tallahassee. Hayden, an attorney in the Public Defender’s Office, confirmed on Thursday that she will run for Sen. Charlie Justice’s seat in 2010.

Q. So you’ve made up your mind not to run for School Board again. Was that a difficult decision?

When I first signed on for School Board, I wasn’t sure where I would be in two years. I already was passionate about kids. I had a history of being involved with children and young people in the community. Did I have future aspirations to go to Tallahassee? Of course. Did I expect it to happen so soon? Not really. That’s where the decision came into play. I looked at the political climate of Florida. I saw how important education had become. It’s always been important, but now it’s more so. We’re dealing with a situation where we’ve sort of been bailed out by the stimulus money. But that’s going to run out. It’s going to be a crucial time in the state of Florida. That’s why I’m going to Tallahassee.

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 Catherine Durkin Robinson
PoHo contributor, “feminist mother of twins” and a political blogger, working under the title Out in Left Field.

Hillsborough County, like most of the country, is facing a budget shortfall. Officials have to come up with ways to cut at least $144 million in spending. Unfortunately, they won’t go after no-bid vendors or other white-collar prostitutes fleecing the Bay area. Instead, commissioners target programs serving our children and abused animals.

Because who cares about them?

The other night, several hundred concerned residents showed they cared by turning out to speak before the Hillsborough County Commission and voice support for these threatened programs.

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 had a politician who called me up one day and chewed me out because she was seated in the back dining room,” he recalls. The key to getting a seat in the vaunted main room is not status, it’s timing, he reveals. Agliano tells the hostesses to fill the back room and bar first. Those rooms are farther from the entrance, and it takes more time for the hostesses to go back and forth once the lunch rush hits. — Creative Loafing, 6.11.08

It was THE place to be and be seen in Tampa politics, for fundraisers and just to see who is chatting up who at lunch. Now, the Valencia Garden tradition of political intrigue is over. (And I need a new spot for a lunch date I had set for there next Tuesday.)

From the Tampa Tribune:

A padlock at the entrance to the Valencia Garden restaurant on Kennedy Boulevard today had patrons and others wondering: What is happening at the iconic local business?

Owner David Agliano confirmed late Wednesday afternoon the business is closing. He is informing his employees.

I wrote about David and how he sets (or doesn’t set) part of the city’s political agenda. The story started like this:

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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 »

The old saw that you heard from Mayor Rick Baker and Police Chief Chuck Harmon was that despite perceptions and neighborhood leaders’ unhappiness, the crime rate in St. Petersburg was actually going down.

Not any more.

The Times is reporting that in the first four months of the year, crime is up:

Crime is on the rise in the city, jumping up 7 percent the first four months of this year.

The rise is fueled mostly by an increase in property crimes, which have risen 8 percent from January to April, according to police department statistics. Violent crime is up 3 percent.

The most serious jump may be in Midtown, which has seen a 16 percent rise in property crimes, including a 39 percent leap in auto thefts.

And here’s the obligatory “No shit, Sherlock” quote from Harmon:

“This is only four months of data, it’s early,” said Police Chief Chuck Harmon. “But these are trends you don’t want to see continue.”

2008’s winner for Best Politician, Sen. Charlie Justice

Times flies when you’re struggling to make ends meet, but it is rapidly approaching that time in each summer when a Tampa Bayite’s thoughts turn to … Best of the Bay!!

This year, as we expand and make voting for the best goods, services, places, people, restaurants, bars, strip clubs, etc. more fun and interactive, we’re going to start by asking you: What categories in People, Places and Politics (the equivalent of our News & Politics section, my personal bailiwick as your Political Whore) would you like to see in the balloting?

Here are a few of the classics and new CL staff ideas we hope to feature this year (after the jump):

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Ed Helm, l’enfant terrible of St. Petersburg Democratic politics, has gathered up his lance and mounted the steed of another political campaign for mayor. The St. Petersburg Times reports that Helm filed paperwork late last Friday, citing the “lack of a progressive voice” in the already crowded field of nine.

From the Times:

“I think it’s important there be a progressive voice,” said Helm, who retired after 26 years as an attorney with the U.S. Department of Labor. “I’m confident in terms of who I am, what I’ve been and that I’ll be speaking with a progressive voice. That’s part of what I want to see happen.”

The playbook for Helm focuses on the notion that government can and should do more to help residents. Among his first ideas: the city should explore offering a public access channel for residents to communicate, initiate curbside recycling citywide and grind deeper into neighborhoods to fight crime.

It’s unclear how strong Helm’s support could be, given his late entry into the race and the polarizing figure he has become in local politics. He was ousted as chairman of the Pinellas Democratic Party in 2006 after only four months because local Democrats grew tired of his aggressive leadership style. ? And much of the county’s elected Democratic leadership has openly shunned Helm.

In Helm’s last mayoral effort, in 2005, he got his clock cleaned by current Mayor Rick Baker. Our own Max Linsky wrote a profile of the longshot effort, noting just how much Helm is able to convince some diehards of his positions and viability:

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Cristina Silva has a great story over at Bay Buzz about how the St. Petersburg City Council has a letter queued up to go to Gov. Charlie Crist urging a veto of SB 216, a good-government bill by local Sen. Charlie Justice.

Upshot is that city officials want to keep the ability to spend your money to tell you how to vote on city referenda or other issues. They say this bill is overly broad and could result in local elected officials getting arrested, they say. It is on the St. Petersburg City Council agenda for Thursday’s meeting, so if you can go and tell them to stuff it, that might be a good idea.

Download the draft letter in .pdf format after the jump:

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By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor and R-LAND activist

Looks like Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin White is not only digging himself in deeper but there are new names now helping to throw the dirt on. This scandal gives new meaning to the phrase shovel-ready and just keeps getting more interesting. I wonder what the tab is up to for taxpayers on this?

By Manny Leto
PoHo contributor

Kiley Gardens, the hotly contested riverfront park nestled between Kennedy Boulevard and the new Tampa Museum of Art off of Ashley Street, will be saved after all.

Well, most of it will be saved.

Locals have fought for years to restore the park, designed by world-renowned landscape architect, Dan Kiley. Completed in 1988 and neglected almost from the beginning, when plans for the new art museum were announced back in 2000 during the Greco administration, Kiley Gardens was scheduled for demolition. It seems that in Tampa, to create art, you must destroy art, which is, I’m sure, exactly the postmodern statement city officials were trying to make. Irony notwithstanding, local architects and others began to speak out. After what is now nearly a decade of debate, studies and grass roots activism, which reached a highpoint in 2005 and 2006, the Downtown Partnership hosted a forum this morning to assess the current plans for Kiley.
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Just released from Tampa City Hall is Mayor Pam Iorio’s memo supporting a planned City Council vote tomorrow to lift the Bay area’s toughest lawn-watering ban that prohibited anything but limited hand-watering of lawns.

The memo:

I am pleased to report that our reservoir level is currently at 21.8 feet, and Hillsborough River flows are 152 million gallons per day at Morris Bridge. In my May 19th memorandum to you, I said we would support a relaxation of the water restrictions if the reservoir exceeded 21 feet and rate of flow in the river exceeded 60 million gallons per day.

Since rains have continued throughout the Hillsborough River watershed and the two thresholds placed on our water supply have been exceeded, I am recommending that our existing emergency water use ordinance be amended to adopt the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Phase IV modified level, effective June 1, 2009. With your concurrence, an amended ordinance will be walked onto City Council agenda at the Thursday, May 28th meeting.

The Phase IV restrictions will:
• Allow customers to irrigate with sprinkler systems once a week on their designated watering day.
Watering hours for most customers are Midnight to 4 a.m.; however, hours are specified for property
sizes and irrigation methods.
• Limit non-turf irrigation by low volume methods to three days per week.
• Limit pressure washing to that conducted by commercial businesses.
• Prohibit residential car washing.
• Apply 78 degree requirement in water-cooled buildings to government facilities and common areas only.
Again, I would like to thank you for your vote in adopting very tough water restrictions that saved hundreds of millions of gallons of water.

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 »

With a hat tip to Peter Schorsch at his blog, it appears the St. Petersburg Times local politics blog Bay Buzz had a post late Wednesday, about St. Petersburg mayoral candidate Paul Congemi and an incident at a KFC restaurant. The post was subsequently pulled from the blog (and restored after further reporting on Thursday). But thanks to Google Reader (and Google is forever) the original can be shared here.
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Late yesterday, Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio weighed in on a movement to perhaps lift her city’s lawn-sprinkler ban and water restrictions, the toughest in Tampa Bay.

In a letter to city council members, Iorio said the recent torrential rains have helped — but not enough to lift the sprinkler ban. She set a goal of a flow of 60 million gallons a day in the upper Hillsborough River before lifting the restrictions.

Going forward, the best way to decide when water restrictions should be eased is by the level of our reservoir and the rate of flow in the river. This is an approach that is scientific in nature, not subjective. Our staff indicates that when the reservoir level is at 21 feet or higher, and Hillsborough River flows exceed 60 million gallons per day at Morris Bridge, we will propose that our watering restrictions be relaxed to the Southwest Florida Water Management District Phase 4 modified level, which will allow customers to irrigate once a week on their watering days.

Download her full letter after the jump.

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He’s got plans this summer for vacation with his family, but the most interesting thing about speaking with St. Petersburg City Councilman Wengay Newton for our CL Summer Guide 2009 was hearing him talk about the old days, growing up in a large family that didn’t have a lot of financial resources (translation: money):

“It was eight of us with a single mom, so there wasn’t a lot of vacationing. We’d go to Busch Gardens … one or two of us, then we would come back and tell the rest how it was.”

Watch the full video of Newton and his summer vacation plans/memories after the jump.

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There is a lot of talk about the 2011 Tampa elections, how all or almost all of the City Council could be turning over, due to higher ambitions, term limits and (in the case of Joseph Caetano) susceptibility to being beaten.

Caetano has had his hair styling business in Chapter 11 bankruptcy court (just like my own publication!) since November, but now comes a headline that surely will be on attack mailer ads in 2011: Caetano bought pricey Super Bowl tickets despite his financial straits.

From Mike Deeson at 10 Connects:

Meet Tampa City Councilman Joseph Caetano, who has fallen on tough times. But, despite the fact Caetano closed his Bostonian Hair Studio and Spa and filed bankruptcy in November, he took advantage of the offer to elected officials and bought two Super Bowl tickets for $1,000 a piece.

Caetano says it was one of those last minute decisions that he debated whether he should or should not buy the tickets. In the end, Caetano decided he should buy the tickets.

Caetano says he worked hard all his life and he felt he deserved it.

As part of our upcoming Summer Guide issue (on newsstands throughout Tampa Bay on Wednesday), we asked a lot of people in Tampa Bay about their vacation plans and memories. I’m going to run the political vacation videos here on PoHo, starting with St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker, who said:

I go to a place that’s kind of like a summer camp for families (in North Carolina). Every night they have either square dancing or some sort of music or karaoke in the big pavilion. For me, the cell phones don’t work, and I like that.

See the full video of Baker talking about how he rolls on vacation after the jump.

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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 »

From the recent Florida Humanities Council “A Tale of Two Cities” forum featuring Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker, here are the two mayors answering the question: Who is your favorite mayor from your city’s past?

Full video answers after the jump.

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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 »