The Political Whore

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 »

Credit: Arlen Redekop, Vancouver Province

1. Craig Pittman of the Times details how Tampa Bay Water was too inexperienced and rushed its massive public works projects, notably the cracked-and-expensive-to-repair CW Bill Young Reservoir. Public officials such as Ed Turanchik lauded its construction at the time, Pittman writes, but put an inexperienced 29-year-old in charge of managing the project and hired an engineering firm that had never built such a large reservoir.

2. Florida’s funniest newspaper columnist-turned-novelist Carl Hiaasen blasts Charlie Crist’s growing turn to political whoredom: “Unlike Sarah Palin, Charlie Crist has chosen not to quit his governorship early. Florida’s own one-term wonder is using his remaining time to ingratiate himself with as many deep-pocket interest groups as possible. The governor’s unseemly burst of groveling is directly connected to his upcoming run for the U.S. Senate. Sucking up to the National Rifle Association and the Christian right, Crist last week declared his opposition to the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, whose confirmation is already a done deal.”

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