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. 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.
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. 22, 2009, at 10:54 am
Ah, the evolution of media. Murphy-Goode winery is looking for a blogging-tweetering “social media whiz” who is into wine to move into their vineyards home for six months and jump-start its viral marketing efforts.
CL’s own wine expert, Corkscrew author Taylor Eason, is an applicant, and here is her video:
By Catherine Durkin Robinson PoHo contributor, “feminist mother of twins” and a political blogger, working under the title Out in Left Field
I grew up listening to Q105. That’s right, before I developed taste in music, I would tune in regularly to the WRBQ Morning Zoo, and Mason Dixon with his recorded laughter tracks. If you peered into my bedroom circa 1984, you’d certainly find me singing along with safe standards like The Fixx, Michael Jackson, and Cyndi Lauper.
Oh. The. Horror.
Eventually I discovered WMNF, mixed tapes, and the Cuban Club. I soon forgot all about Top 40 radio, its censored, dissected tunes that represented the lamest of corporate rock, and never looked back.
Q105 was dead to me.
Recently, though, I began listening again. The station now plays oldies from the 1960s and 1970s and occasionally such songs provide a history lesson from which my kids could learn to appreciate music.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 2, 2009, at 10:41 am
I never really talk about it much or pimp it to you, but indulge me for a sec: Our News & Politics section page is a great companion to this blog and has lots more headlines, video, Twitter feeds and podcasts than you will find here on any given day.
Here’s how it works:
NEWS HEADLINES: All the important news in Tampa Bay and Florida politics and public affairs that we don’t have time to expand upon with a separate story in PoHo ends up being aggregated into our News & Politics section, with links to the original articles. In other words, I find the news so you don’t have to. Just read the headline and blurb, or click on the link and read the whole thing. Plus, headlines from PoHo posts automatically feed into the News & Politics section, so if you miss checking on PoHo you won’t miss a blog post.
TWITTER FEED: If the word “Tampa” or the hashtag “#cltampa” is in a tweet, it will show up on our Twitter Feed panel. Sort of a cross between micronews and voyeurism.
PODCASTS: Our streaming podcast player for the Political Whore podcast is always on the News & Politics section front, so if you missed an episode and can’t find it in the blog archives you can get it easily.
USER COMMENTS: The most recent three comments on PoHo blog roll up here, no matter which post they were posted on.
CL TV: I scour the best political videos and news bites on YouTube and elsewhere and post them here, so that you can get lost in the joy of streaming video and screw off for another 2-3 hours at work. Wanna see Tom Tancredo call La Raza the Latino equivalent of the KKK? This is the place to do it.
CONTRIBUTORS: Click on each PoHo contributor’s picture to learn more about them and see their latest posts.
If you haven’t checked it out, give it a shot and let me know if you like, dislike or want me to add new features or types of news to it.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 13, 2009, at 2:17 pm
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?
Posted by Ben Luongo on Mar. 16, 2009, at 10:30 am
By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor
Ben Luongo is a USF political science graduate student. He will be graduating this spring.
Tampa’s 15 billion gallon reservoir is now basically drained and the rainy season is months away. According to Tampa Bay Water spokeswomen Michelle Robinson, Tampa is now going to have to rely on both the underground water aquifer, which could increase the risk of sinkholes, and the small of amount of desalinated water from the plant.
When people think of Florida they might find it unlikely that it would suffer from a water shortage. However, after decades of development even a state surrounded by water is prone to shortages, and Florida is not the only one. According to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, 36 states are projected to suffer water shortages in the next five years. Water shortage is a problem felt at local levels, like the city and state, but also at national and international levels. This means that efforts to remedy water shortages are going to require both state and federal solutions.
However, on a more individual level, there is stuff that we as Tampanians can do to reduce the amount of water that we use on a daily basis. Here are some easy and cheap examples:
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Feb. 4, 2009, at 12:45 pm
My favorite magazine, The New Yorker, has taken a blowtorch to Florida, rightly branding it “The Ponzi State” in an article just hitting subscribers’ mailboxes. The article details how fraud and greed created the housing bubble in Florida, and its subsequent collapse and recession. Creative Loafing owner Ben Eason is even quoted. The story is available online only to subscribers, but here is what Ben’s mentions look like:
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Feb. 4, 2009, at 9:20 am
From the Tampa Bay Business Journal:
The housing market is expected to improve later this year, according to a new report from Metrostudy, but for now, construction on new homes is limited.
Tampa had 932 single-family housing starts in the fourth quarter of 2008, a drop of nearly 33 percent compared to 2007, marking the first time in 23 years that the Tampa Bay market had fewer than 100 housing starts.
The previous low, 1,041 starts, was reported during the first quarter of 1991, said Metrostudy Tampa Bay division director Tony Polito. The year-over-year decline mirrors what the market did over the course of 2008, falling just under 35 percent to 4,730 units.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Dec. 29, 2008, at 12:14 pm
The Tampa Bay chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has criticized former Tampa Tribune/current St. Petersburg Times op-ed contributor Daniel Ruth before because of his anti-confederate flag columns (he called them “narrow-minded simpletons” in this one), but this is a new high/low: the group has erected a sign thanking/blaming Ruth.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Dec. 19, 2008, at 12:00 pm
As is the practice of most media, the final weeks of the year are the time to reflect on the news that was and try to make some sense out of it. Alex Pickett and I are working on our Top 10 list together but would love some feedback from you.
Here (in, as they say, no particular order) is our full list of important stories from Tampa Bay and Florida this year, from which we hope to choose 10. Did we miss anything? And which ones are the most important for 2008.
Mayor Pam Iorio pushes for a 2010 referendum on light rail in Tampa
Kevin Beckner beats Brian Blair
A relative tries to blackmail Don Wallace
Florida Democratic delegate brouhaha
The ginormous Confederate battle flag over Tampa
Mel Martinez announces Senate retirement
Charlie Crist woo’ed as vice president
The Without Walls church scandal/divorce for the pastors White
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Dec. 2, 2008, at 4:24 pm
As Michael Hinman at The Business Journal so eloquently points out, the Tampa Tribune is just coming off an utterly destructive round of layoffs that claimed marquee columnist Dan Ruth and editorial page editor Rosemary Goudreau and yet … its parent company is partnering to launch a new luxury magazine called Blu:
[Financial difficulties at the Trib haven't] stopped Tribune parent Media General Inc. from moving forward with new projects, including a luxury focused magazine the publisher created with a Tampa media group and expects to launch during Super Bowl XLIII.
Called Blu, the new magazine is a joint partnership between Media General (NYSE: MEG) and South Tampa Magazine publisher Fourthdoor Creative Group. The two organizations formed Rain Publishing Group in July and a sales team hit the streets to sell ad space costing between $1,800 and more than $13,100.
At the same time, Blu bought a sponsorship said to cost nearly $60,000 from the Super Bowl Host Committee, the group bringing the National Football League’s biggest game to Tampa in February. The sponsorship includes a kickoff event for the magazine during festivities leading up to the Super Bowl, said John Schueler, president of Media General’s Florida Communications Group and the representative for the Richmond, Va., publishing giant with Rain Publishing.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Nov. 5, 2008, at 2:54 pm
Just a sample of Tampa Bay and Florida conservatives with their reaction to last night’s Obama victory.
From Chris Ingram, a former Capitol Hill staffer and Republican consultant in Tampa:
Get Ready for Obamalism
I want to puke, but at least HRC isn’t the president-elect.
My friends, George W. Bush has left our Republican Party in disarray. Make no mistake, John McCain ran a lousy campaign, but McCain could have run a lousy campaign and won had it not been for the pathetic eight years of the Bush presidency. Bush I believe will go down in modern history as our worst president — even worse than Carter.
Despite being outspent by hundreds of millions of dollars, and taking bad advice by a bunch of (Bush) people who never had his interest at heart, John McCain’s numbers on Election Night were actually respectable. Had George W. Bush been on the ballot for re-election to a third term, I’m not sure he would have even carried Texas. McCain for his part put up a good fight and managed to win enough states to show this wasn’t a clear mandate on Obamalism. But in the long run, McCain was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or as my friend and noted political scientist Darryl Paulson likes to say, George W. Bush defeated John McCain not once, but twice.
So where do we go from here? I can tell you one thing, as sick as I am that Barack Obama (a man with no experience leading anything other than a bunch of little old ladies as a community organizer), is our next president, I am thankful every time I get ready to puke about that fact, that it is not Hillary “Rob’em” Clinton who is our president-elect. Yeah, Obama sucks. He’s a socialist. He cavorts with terrorists. He has no spine. He’s untested. He has no record. But he’s not a Clinton.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Nov. 3, 2008, at 4:46 pm
We will be fanning our correspondents out throughout Tampa Bay tomorrow in search of the pulse of the electorate … and Jello shots.
Log in to PoHo blog starting in the morning for our coverage of Election 2008, coverage throughout the day that will end up being anchored at our multimedia Election 2008 Media Center (Joe the Blogger’s couch at home) starting at 7 p.m. Here’s what we have on tap so far:
9 a.m. — Senior Editor Eric Snider will be reporting in from his polling place in St. Petersburg to give us an idea of how long the lines are.
Throughout the day, news from Alex Pickett covers Pinellas County breaking election news and Wayne Garcia handles Hillsborough.
7 p.m. — Pickett takes to the streets of St. Pete to report on the end of the voting and reactions to returns as they come in; Snider blogs about voting in a mixed marriage (he’s for Obama, she’s for McCain) over on The Daily Loaf; David Warner visits several election parties, including the Stonewall Democrats; Brian Ries reports from Sarasota where the Vern Buchanan-Christine Jennings race has dominated the ballot; and Wade Tatangelo holds down the fort at the TIny Tap in SoHo Tampa, equal parts politics and cheap beer. Leilani Polk, Sal the Angry Copy Editor and Stephen Hammill join in with blog and vlog reports about the returns and coverage of the coverage.
7:30 p.m. — Garcia reports from “Barack Obama’s Florida Campaign for Change statewide Election Night event ” in downtown Tampa. He’ll also visit the Republican Party of Florida/Pinellas REC’s party in downtown St. Pete at some point in the evening.
Joe the Blogger gives Pinellas, Hillsborough and national vote totals throughout the evening as they come in.
Sometime between 9:30 and 10:30 p.m. — Garcia reports from the Kevin Beckner for HIllsborough County Commission party at Gaspar’s Grotto in Ybor City.
10:30 p.m. — Garcia will talk live on WMNF 88.5 FM community news coverage of the election for 30 minutes.
Later into the evening — CL correspondents go in search of the best Election Night celebrations, being careful of course to observe all state laws and journalism ethics.
Let us know in comments if you have a particularly groovy Election Night planned.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Feb. 4, 2008, at 2:55 pm
As I flipped through the “news” on cable television yesterday, I ran across the top story of the day at Bay News 9: that Tampa officials are at the Phoenix Super Bowl to see what they can learn to make the Tampa 2009 championship game that much better. Uh, yeah, if you believe that’s what our folks were really doing out there. And tha’s also if you believe that of all the things happening in Tampa Bay and the nation and the world, that is the most important thing that was occurring on Sunday.
The hype has started, make no mistake about it. This from The Business Journal:
Fans heading to Sky Harbor International Airport Monday to return home after the Super Bowl saw a billboard proclaiming “See You in Tampa Bay.”
Hoteliers, restaurateurs and lap-dancers rejoice! Just 363 days until financial salvation, Tampa Bay-style.
The biggest news of the day, however, will be the unveiling of the Tampa Bay Super Bowl logo, a media spectacle that is set for tonight on NBC primetime. The local reaction?:
“The unveiling of the Super Bowl XLIII game logo puts Tampa Bay officially on the clock,” said Tampa Bay Super Bowl Host Committee Chair R.A. “Dick” Beard, in a release. “Our preparations are already well under way, and we’ll be ready to host the NFL and the world in 2009.”
Several websites are posting the following logo as the official one:
It may be a blue way to open the new year, but some economists say Florida has up to a 60 percent chance of falling into recession this year.
It’s not just Florida as a whole that’s at risk, either. Some regional economies, including the Tampa Bay area, stand a greater risk of recession than others, largely because of their deep ties to the housing industry.
Moody’s Economy.com ranks Tampa as the ninth most likely metropolitan area in the nation to go into recession in 2008.
If the state goes into recession, with or without the nation, Florida would probably see rising unemployment, layoffs, and reduced spending.
OK, by strict economist definitions, maybe Tampa Bay is not already in a recession. But I doubt that anybody living here doubts that we are already there, and headed for worse. Small businesses are not growing and adding jobs; tax reform isn’t working; home and biz insurance is still out of control; and the state has done little to diversify its economy beyond tourism, growth & housing and cheap service-industry labor.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Dec. 27, 2007, at 12:36 pm
My column this week delivers the somber pronouncement that Tampa Bay has jumped the shark:
When I first moved to this area in 1988 to be part of the dynamic newspaper war between the Times and the Tribune, Tampa was flirting with its whole “America’s Next Great City” dream. The drinks were cold; the beaches were beautiful. Ybor City was alive and vibrant, with interesting shops, restaurants and artists’ lofts that gave way in late nights to tens of thousands of partiers.
As I walked through Ybor on a Thursday night last week, I was nearly alone.
I thought about many of my old South Tampa buddies who have deserted what was once a great neighborhood to move to a better, more interesting (and more affordable) place, St. Petersburg. That city’s nightlife and arts scene may be small by national standards, but by Tampa Bay’s shrinking yardstick, it seems downright Bourbon Street. Young creatives can afford to live there, even if we don’t give them enough job opportunities to keep them in Tampa Bay for long.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Oct. 23, 2007, at 3:43 pm
Nikki Pike is 29 years old, a world traveler, an artist and builder and conservationist — and she can’t wait to get the hell out of Tampa Bay.
Not that Pike takes any great pleasure in her desire to flee. It’s just that this community doesn’t offer her much of a future, either for work or for play, once she completes her master’s degree from USF’s Fine Arts program.
“I actually have an exit strategy for Tampa,” Pike said. “In eight months, I’m out of here. I graduate”
Pike made this admission in front of about 200 people gathered to listen to Portland economist Joe Cortright deliver his third wave of data about how Tampa Bay could be better than it is. Pike could have stepped straight out of the pages of his first study, “Young and Restless,” which examined how poorly Tampa Bay is attracting and keeping educated young professionals and creatives, especially college-educated women such as Pike. She’d like to see Tampa Bay takes Cortright’s advice, or at least learn from his three data studies, and make a more vibrant, diverse economy with lots of job, housing and entertainment choices.
Her question to Cortright (”What can an individual do?”) was a painful reminder of how much work remains to turn around a prevailing tide of mediocrity and complacency that seems to dominate much of the public discourse.
Cortright didn’t have an answer. Only the people in this room can tell you that, he said. The composition of people in the room also was alternately exciting and depressing: lots of people with cool ideas who are just below the ruling class, but very few decision-makers who could take Cortright’s ideas and turn them into reality. Two Hillsborough County Commissioners (Jim Norman and Ken Hagan) were there; only John Dingfelder attended from Tampa City Council; no Mayor Iorio, no Mayor Baker.
Cortright’s report this time dealt with the “green dividend” that cities can realize by making environmentally friendly public decisions. Studies disprove the old saw that saving the environment is devastating to the local economy, he told the Creative Tampa Bay audience. By his calculations, Portland saves $2.6 billion a year through a combination of transit systems and land-use plans that promote more housing choices closer to jobs. Those savings stay in Portland and are spent on local businesses (such as restaurants) instead of flying out of that region to Detroit (to pay for new cars) and Saudi Arabia (for oil).
Using his same formula, Tampa Bay could inject a saved $1.8 billion into the local economy if it cut the average time commuters spend in cars each day from 28 miles to the national average of almost 25. That doesn’t include the value of increased productivity or the value of something more important — happiness.
But Cortright added that the process of changing government and individual decision isn’t easy and can take decades. “There isn’t a silver bullet out there,” he said.
As if to remind us of the need for a silver bullet, transit opponent Jim Norman chimed in that Cortright was relating only the savings side of the equation. What about the cost of building rail, and the decades of supporting it? Cortright didn’t know those numbers for Tampa Bay but said in Portland, it was a no-brainer, that the annual savings far eclipsed the $1 billion or so that the rail system cost to build.
Pike got to see the hope and promise for Tampa Bay butt right up against its political realities. She hopes the region can transcend its past, even as she looks for other places to live, such as Portland. For now, however, she’s not going to go away without saying something about it. “I’m here,” Pike said, “and I’m trying.”
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 18, 2007, at 12:41 pm
If Tampa Bay has any hope of being liveable in 50 years, after absorbing another 3.2 million people from Brooksville to south of Sarasota, then the answer may lie in a stack of yellow and red Legos sitting on 30 tables in the Tampa Convention Center.
Business and civic leaders from seven counties are taking part in Reality Check Tampa Bay, a visioning and planning session put together by the Tampa Bay Partnership. The 300 participants included elected officials from all over the greater Tampa Bay region, including the “Big Three” mayors, Pam Iorio of Tampa, Rick Baker of St. Petersburg and Frank Hibbard of Clearwater.
The exercise put eight of the leaders at a table with stacks of children’s toys and colored ribbon. They had 90 minutes to plan the next 50 years. The Legos represented people (yellow) and jobs (red) that will come to this region during the upcoming half-century. The ribbons were road corridors (orange) and transit lines (purple).
