The Political Whore

Photo credit: capitalist_b/flickr.com

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

As we fight to keep public parks open, the Tampa Sports Authority uses your tax dollars to hire a new executive director at $170,000 a year plus a $2,000 a month housing allowance for up to five months. Looks like you are also footing a $12,500 bill for his moving expenses. Meanwhile, County Administrator Pat Bean is recommending to the Hillsborough County Commission to cut hundreds of jobs and basic services.

Commissioner Jim Norman, who sits on that board, voted to approve the director but not the housing allowance. He is quoted in this article as saying “the people who are paying this today, which are the taxpayers will be outraged.” Um, Mr. Norman I bet if taxpayers knew how much of their money goes to the Sports Authority in general they would be outraged that it even exists.

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My column this week deals with a decision by the Tampa Sports Authority to ask city and county taxpayers for more than $3 million in capital improvements, including $1.5 million for $4,000, HD flat-screen TVs for the luxury suites and pricey Club Level. In time for the Super Bowl in 2009. At a time when the governments are slicing jobs.

The give-it-all-to-the-Bucs contract approved by the local governments in Hillsborough in 1996 mandates that Raymond James Stadium must be kept up to the standards of all the other taxpayer-financed money pits in the NFL. I get that, but my question was, in the middle of the property tax crisis, couldn’t we defer the TVs for a while more and, instead, ask the Super Bowl fatcats to turn around in their seats and watch the game live, in reality, instead of viewing it on the HD sets in their suites?

Check it out here and let me know what you think.