The Political Whore

Obama clarifies and defends his energy policy proposals in this contentious interview in Nevada with Jon Ralston.

• Bruce Ivins e-mail indicates he was maybe kind of a loon, so it’s certain he perpetrated a solo biological weapons attack on liberal members of our government and the media (though the e-mails never mention anything close to that). Case closed.
• Bush slams China’s human rights record — in the most gentle way possible, of course.
• “Sure I’ll plead guilty to murder, But I gotta have the Colonel and Papa John as witnesses.”
• Hillsborough to spend $50 million on park maintainence and a scaled down version of Jim Norman’s field of dreams.
• How to: stockpile cheap(er) gas.
• Headline of the week: “I’m a breastfeeding fiend.”
• Favre goes to the Jets. Get your Jeff Garcia jerseys here.
• Case closed in the death of Heath Ledger.

That’s the question I investigate in my story about the movement for an elected county mayor in this week’s print CL editions. As in, do you have seven county commissioners running Hillsborough County with the help of an appointed, professional manager, or do you elect one strong county mayor to run things instead of the current appointed county manager. Here’s an excerpt:

Last week, the bipartisan group supporting an elected county mayor rolled out some decidedly B-list and C-list political figures who are on board with their movement. They have a PAC and are raising money for campaign ads, with a professional political consultant helping guide their efforts.

The opponents, meanwhile, are unorganized and without either consultants or a fundraising committee.

And yet I have to think that beating the county mayor plan wouldn’t be all that tough. Opponent Beth Rawlins, a political consultant (and former colleague of mine when I was running campaigns), offers this simple strategy for defeating it:

Advertise on several huge billboards along I-275 before the election, with the simple words “County Mayor Brian Blair” and Blair’s picture. The following week, you swap out Jim Norman’s name and photo for Blair’s. Then Ronda Storms. And so forth until Election Day.

“You basically just run through the County Commission,” said Rawlins, who has helped defeat strong mayor referendums in several communities in Florida on behalf of her clients, the Florida City and County Management Association and the International City/County Management Association.

Her point should be well taken by even those who support the county mayor plan: Do we have a single politician who can unite the entire county and has strong managerial skills and not some crazy agenda?

I couldn’t reach Elected County Mayor PAC founder Mary Ann Stiles before my deadline, but I spoke to her yesterday, and she said the scenario cited by Rawlins is “presumptuous,” since voters haven’t even yet approved the change to an elected administrator.

I’ll post the results of my interview with Stiles here later today, along with an interview with Jim Shirk, the Democratic activist who has sued to take the Elected County Mayor referendum off the November ballot. It is the first media interview with him, to my knowledge.

New feature time: I’m going to point out great conversations that occur on our comments, as well as the comment of the week. You win nothing except your 15 minutes of fame.

This week, the best conversation occurred in response to my latest post about the doings of Sen. Ronda Storms, and an anti-city law that would limit the finances of urban redevelopment districts, between Chris, Chris W, Bill Peak and Can’t We All Just Get Along. Here’s a sample:

1. Chris W Says:
   March 5th, 2008 at 6:07 pm eMaybe it’s time for Tampa and points west to form West Hillsborough County and leave the rest of it to the social conservatives so they can form their own inbred utopia.
2. Chris Says:
   March 5th, 2008 at 6:42 pm eLOL Chris W

   I grew up on the “west side” and to me anything east of US 301 was foreign territory.

   However, many younger, up and coming families have moved into Brandon, FIshhawk, etc in recent years (b/c of jobs and waning affordbility of home in Tampa proper)…give them some time to stay and get acclimated (unless the market drives them right back out first), and you might see a “moderation” across the county in a few years.

   And Tampa, the city, could stand to do a better job of moving itself out of the bubble for which it has viewed the world for years…Wayne was right in the aritcle, there’s 3x as many unincorported residents than city denizens…that’s a political fight the city lost 2 decades ago and will never get back.

3. BillPeak Says:
   March 5th, 2008 at 7:11 pm eOf course Help me Ronda would want to renew the city-county wars, these kooks thrive on dissension and the “us against them” attitude that is killing our county. Ronda and her master Hughes simply would never let the city and the county unite and heal towards the common goal of making the area a better place to live…”them gays is wiked”. In the united world of ideas and creativity they’d be lost and insignificant. They are only head honchos when they can mis-inform, play dirty politics, and buy off politicians….i.e. make things shitty for the rest of us.

   Without the “us and them” theatrics these losers would be exposed as the short-sighted cowards they really are.

4. Can’t We all Just Get Along Says:
   March 6th, 2008 at 1:11 pm eBill, I don’t disagree with your vew ont the policy issues.

   However, it’s not like the City of Tampa is brimming with gracious comraderie as well.

   The fact is the County – by nature of the role of local governments and by electoral facts – will always politically and fiscally hold the upper hand.

   That puts the city in a position of “suck it up and deal with it if you want to accomplish anything” that it frankly has never embraced, nor gotten past the denial that it is no longer top dog.

   And at the end of the day, perhaps the BOCC is representing their constituents well. Have you ever asked residents in the unincorporated county what defines their quality of life?

   If it comes down to 3 county residents opposed to mass transit versus one city resident in pro, you know how that vote is always going to go.

   And the more shrill you get calling those residents names like hillbilly, rube, ignorant, etc., the more they will glady exert that 3:1 power they have to strike you down in opposition.

Read the entire exchange here.

Phyllis Busansky, a Democratic Hillsborough County commissioner in the 1980s and ’90s, is set to announce her bid for Supervisor of Elections on Thursday.

Busansky would take on incumbent Supervisor Buddy Johnson if she wins an expected primary contest against fellow Democrat Lee Nelson. Johnson, although a frequent target of news reports about screw-ups in his office, is expected to be a tough pol to dislodge, given Hillsborough County’s skew toward GOP candidates.

Busansky confirmed her candidacy in a conversation with PoHo last night. She is recovered from lung cancer surgery and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2006.

(Full disclosure: I previously worked in Busansksy’s 1996 congressional campaign and worked for her when she was the director of the state’s welfare-to-work program, WAGES.)

The saga of Speak Up Tampa Bay’s attempts to get back onto Hillsborough County cable channels continues. You may recall that county commissioners cut funding for the public access producers last year, ostensibly to save money in a tight budget year but likely more nakedly an attempt to crack down on programming and speech that the commissioners aren’t real fond of.

Speak Up Executive Director Louise Thompson says now the county wants her nonprofit to pay back at least some of the nearly $300,000 the county gave the group to buy a production truck, used to tape and broadcast remote events, speeches and other independent programming. The truck was used 52 times in 2006, according to Speak Up’s annual report, including to televise UT women’s basketball games and animal friends programming.

In an Oct. 24 letter, County Administrator Pat Bean said the repayment could be monetary or non-monetary, including the promise to allow residents outside of Tampa who live in the county to continue to use Speak Up production facilities. Thompson countered with an offer to allow non-Tampa residents to use Speak Up facilities, including the truck, to produce shows in exchange for a dedicated cable channel and the right to charge those residents a fee, since Speak Up no longer receive county funding.

To date, Thompson reports, he has had no response. Thompson pleaded her case to county commissioners in an e-mail today:

Dear Commissioners:

Please see attached: [1] a letter we received from Pat Bean dated October 24 [postmarked a week later] asking us to make an offer on the truck that could include our serving the residents of unincorporated Hillsborough County; and [2] our November 16 response to Bean which includes a proposed new contract in which we would agree to serve those residents by charging them user fees, and, more importantly, in which the County would guarantee that the channel capacity continues to be made available to the public. We asked for a response by December 4.

Also, see below pasted in both the emails sent transmitting our November 16 response to Bean and a December 19 reminder that we’ve been waiting a long time for Bean’s response to it.

To date, we’ve not heard back from Bean. This confirms our belief that de-funding the channel was not really about money but, instead, a way to silence government criticism on our channels.

You can download a .pdf of Bean’s and Thompson’s correspondence here and here. Bean was not in the office this holiday week and could not be reached for comment. But Deputy County Administrator Wally Hill did get back to CL and told us that the county is not dragging its feet on the proposal. Instead, it was waiting for an independent appraisal of the production truck to be completed before it decides whether Thompson’s offer works or not. Hill would not say whether county officials can live with the production fee idea or giving Speak Up a dedicated county cable channel. A draft of the appraisal is completed but no timetable is set to complete the negotiations with Speak Up, Hill added.

ADDENDUM: I neglected to add our usual disclaimer on this, that Creative Loafing’s CEO Ben Eason is a longtime board member of Speak Up Tampa Bay and our general counsel, David M. Snyder, also provides legal advice to the public access group.

Tampa City Councilwoman Mary Mulhern has been leading an effort to expand the representation of the Hillsborough Environmental Protection Commission board (currently made up of only county commissioners) to include the cities as well. Two weeks ago, Mayor Pam Iorio attempted to short-circuit that effort by writing to local legislators and letting them know that she, not the City Council or Mulhern, speaks for the “City of Tampa” and that she doesn’t support messing around with the EPC.

And if Mayor Pam is against something, you know it won’t be long before the Tribune’s editorial page weighs in on Herroner’s side. So came the editorial this weekend,

Mulhern has responded and shared a copy of her letter to the Trib with PoHo. She raises several valid points overlooked by the Trib:

The recent conduct of the EPC board evidences the problems inherent in a regulatory board overseeing itself. With the board made up exclusively of County Commissioners, a conflict arises when the agency wishes to bring an action against the county.

Mulhern’s full response is posted after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

Government officials lying to their citizenry?? Say it ain’t so. Here’s my tale of the good people of rural Lithia (such as Marlee Clouston shown above) and the Sprawlway plan that might pave their horse-lovin’ paradise.

Jim Norman’s two-year quest for a $40 million amateur sports complex in NE Hillsborough died today at the County Commission. Most commissioners disagreed with spending that kind of money on the complex in a tough budget year and with so many other unment needs.

Even normally staunch Norman allies such as Brian Blair weren’t on board with the controversial plan. While he applauded Norman’s commitment to sports and children, Blair said existing parks need the $40 million more.

“We need to fix the parks that need to be fixed now,” Blair said. “We don’t need to wait, we need to fix them now. Our parks are busting out at the seams. “

Another Republican board member, Mark Sharpe, echoed those thoughts and choked up when he recalled speaking with a neighbor who had been coached by Norman and had a great deal of respect for the former Berkeley Prep high school coach.

“The question for me is … the investment of a significant amount of money in a competitive sports complex,” Sharpe said. “An invest this size may take up to 60 years to ever pay itself back. Do we have the resources today to make that kind of investment? I cannot support that.”

Republican Commissioner Ken Hagan said “several red flags appeared to me” in the proposal.

Norman’s dream ended without a vote when commissioners later voted to kill the project after initially putting it aside without a tally; there was no support for a compromise recommendation to delay a decision and study the park concept further.

Read my cover story on the project and its problems here.

(Kat Clement contributed to this post)

The Tampa-based Speak Up Tampa Bay, which operates a public access channel and produces community-based television shows, has sued the county over losing its $355,000 annual grant.

This new release from Executive Director Louise Thompson via e-mail:

[TAMPA] Speak Up Tampa Bay Public Access Television, Inc. today filed a lawsuit in Federal court [Case No. 8:07-CV-1782] against the Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners and Hillsborough County. The lawsuit asks the court to intervene by enjoining the County from terminating the non-profit’s funding and access center management contract as a result of its cable-cast of protected speech and programming.

The suit comes after the BOCC terminated the rights of its residents to use the public access facility after September 30, 2007.

“The vote to terminate Speak Up’s funding was just a pretext for unconstitutional censorship of protected speech,” said David M. Snyder, counsel for Speak Up. “Terminating public access funding of $355,443 while maintaining more than $2 million for government access television, is the government playing favorites based who is speaking and what they are saying.  It is a violation of the First Amendment.”

Speak Up Executive Director Louise Thompson added, “As a result of the September 20, 2007, vote to terminate our funding, Hillsborough County’s unincorporated area residents will no longer be able to broadcast their viewpoints on our channels. Neither will they be able take advantage of training, equipment, facilities and services offered at Tampa Bay Community Network.”

Full disclosure: Creative Loafing CEO Ben Eason is a Speak Up board member, and David Snyder serves as general counsel to the newspaper.