the 941

The public meeting on the proposed mooring field we previewed last week was like karaoke for boaters, with each singing a familiar chantey. Those who came before the panel of city employees last night wished to defend their right to a free mooring area — and during the two-hour Q&A session held at City Hall, the roughly two-dozen speakers used questions as a means of lodging their complaints.
One wanted to know whether the city had done a comparative study of docking rates in other mooring fields — the $15/day charge seemed steep, compared with the $8 he’d encountered in Ft. Myers.
“I think the planning for this is very poor,” the liveaboard said, his question asked but anger mounting. “Let’s let the public know what’s really going on. Because $15 is way out of line!”
Speakers were urged to keep things original.
“If you already spoke at the public hearing, there’s no need to repeat your comments,” said Michael Raposa, director of the City Neighborhood Partnership Office, addressing the fleet. “That information is already on record.”More hijinks after the jump:
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Today, the city announced a public input session regarding the proposed mooring fields. The special meeting, slated for Nov. 20, will feature a select panel of question answerers culled from city staff and local law enforcement.

Debate over the controversial proposal — which would entail changing both the layout of the marina and the ordinance governing it — has been hot since the $650,000 field was first suggested several years ago. Boaters aren’t crazy about having to pay for bay territory they’ve long called their own; policepeople aren’t crazy about derelicts; city officials can’t stop crying over the marina’s seeming lack of organization and general filth. (Though Buchanan just passed them one helluva Kleenex: $10 mill in water improvement legislation!)

It all came to a head last Monday, when commissioners held a public hearing on the proposal. They expected a simple yay-or-nay. They got…

…well, let’s just say they had to pencil in another public input session.

We’d tell you more, but actually, you can read about how it all went down in this week’s issue: The major players, provocateurs, planners — and the boaters themselves.

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As Max just pointed out, this morning’s results weren’t all that surprising. What was, however, was the incredible amount of citizen and media concern evident throughout the afternoon and late into the night. During these elections, even simple housekeeping items like the Charter Review Board and City Manager Emergency Powers seemed to bubble with controversy. And if you drove past Kathy Dent HQ any time of day, it was all you could do to dodge the NO SUPERMAJORITY and YES SUPERMAJORITY picketers.

Then the optical scanners broke.
Today’s Herald-Trib described voters as “angry,” anti-growth and against big-business campaign donations. But judging from the flurry of e-mails and blog updates I’ve read in the last 24 hours, I’m not sure “angry” is really what I saw.
I saw a small-city sporting event.
After the jump, a few highlights from yesterday’s media/gadfly blitz:

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Since its inception two years ago, the YouTube universe has grown in
bounds. An estimated 65,000 video clips are now uploaded daily to the
user-driven website — some professional, most shamelessly personal.
Forget prefab tourism promos: With its amateur content, YouTube might
very well be the most realistic snapshot of a place you can find.
Which got us wondering, what does Sarasota’s YouTube presence look
like these days?

“Belly Dancing in Sarasota” Parts 1 & 2
Posted by zeldarnet
Everyone’s got his own drum to dance to on the Suncoast; the Net’s no different. From bikini babes grinding at Gilligan’s to hippie trances along Siesta Key beach, shaky money makers are in evidence all over town. At a SPARCC charity hoedown in early April, Metro Coffee & Wine treated the world to the buxom stylings of “Sheba’s Goddesses,” five talented belly dancers who later gyrated, shimmied and twirled across our computer screens. Who needs a harem when you’ve got two episodes — that’s 20 exotifying minutes! — of sensuous footage, complete with VistaVision-worthy zooms in and out of their spangled cleavage?

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And we have ourselves a winner! (Uh, such as, the Iraq and the Asian countries…)

+Miss Teen USA, anyone?  Anyone? [Media Life]

+Gonzales resigns; another one bites the dust. ”Donald Rumsfeld, an architect of the Iraq war, resigned as defense secretary one day after the November elections. Paul Wolfowitz agreed to step down in May as president of the World Bank after an ethics inquiry. And top Bush adviser Karl Rove earlier this month announced he was stepping down.” Just one left to go before we break open the champagne. [npr]

+Daily “which is more disturbing?”: 1) That this heartwarming H-T story made it into the top three “Most Popular” online videos, or 2) that I, a priori cat woman that I am, helped put it up there? [H-T]

+You couldn’t wait for some Simpsons.  I can’t wait to get me some Stephen McTowelie cyber-extras. [Hollywood Reporter]

+Whatwatwat?! Real estate economists predict the first drop in the median cost of U.S. homes since the ’50s. Michael Saunders, we think you’ve got ’splainin to do… [NY Times]

+Former Weekly World News “reporter” Stan Sinberg’s elegy on the now-defunct tabloid.  This shit’s so quotable, I can’t resist giving you a whole paragraph:

For three years, under various pseudonyms (including Jake Anderson — a play on Jack Anderson, the great muckraker of my youth), I “reported” that the real reason for global warming was that teenage space aliens were stealing our glaciers for party ice, that the judicial system was in chaos because a thief stole “the book” that judges throw at them, that leftovers from the Last Supper were found in a man’s fridge, and that a man who killed a fly was arrested for “pesticide” (the police chief chided, “That’s why we have a SWAT team”). And several hundred more “scoops.” [salon]

+Kind of old news at this point, but I know I speak for at least two people in this office when I say that M.I.A.’s new album Kala is galangalanga-good! (Wish I could say the same for Christgau’s writing style, but hey, maybe someone will understand this review.) [Rolling Stone]

+[Insert link to totally tired, ubiquitous Hogan kid story here.]

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And we have ourselves a winner!

Been a hella/wicked busy day for us all, but never too busy for a few dinner links.

+Beating out a reggae singer, a 14 year-old and a human beatbox, ventriloquist Terry Fator comes away with a (well-deserved, if you ask me) $1 mill cash prize last night on America’s Got Talent. [The Money Times]

+Internet time now has the edge on tube time, say researchers, with Americans spending way more hours surfing than flipping. Vindicated! [Hollywood Reporter]

+William Schramm on organizing St. Pete’s first annual erotic art show (tomorrow!): “I kept hearing, ‘Oh we can’t show at that gallery because they are too conservative.’ And I was like, ‘game on’…” [sptimes]

+New Cary Tennis: ”Frankly, I think that most of the group is scared of street people and only want to hide in the kitchen or behind the service counter … God forbid they sit elbow to elbow with someone who hasn’t bathed in a week.” [Salon]

+Quick, which is funnier? This? [the onion]

+Or this? [wonkette]

+This? [la times]

+Or this? [gawker]

+This? [mtv.com]

+Or this? [fourfour]

+Or… this?! [letssingit.com]

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So how was your day, kids?

 

+Start of a new school year for area youngsters: Added mandatory hours of PE, college-style majors for high schoolers, post-winter break exams. Best years of your life, we promise. [Herald-Tribune]

+”‘This was our Super Bowl,’ Disney Channel Worldwide Entertainment president Gary Marsh told Variety.” [Mercury News]

+Can anthropology, biochemistry and the length of your ring finger help predict your online dating success? (Not as perverted as it sounds.) [Salon.com]

+Curved claws have I,/But I have been sold like a fattened sheep. Gitmo poetry in analysis. [Slate]

+The Cruise curse? [AP movie wire]

+Them Serbs do the darnedest things: “‘There’s a good chance he was drunk or drugged. Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage,’ zoo director Vuk Bojovic told Reuters.” [cnn/Reuters]

+Beware the Boeing 737. [Forbes.com]

+Is he or isn’t he?  If Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell et al. follow through with phase two of the Tribune buyout tomorrow, it could mean more massive debt for the paper. But those plans could just as easily fizzle, some say. (Of course, you know who your friends are when the Trib hits the skids.) [NY Times]

+We can’t figure out what’s more awesome: 1) that Foxy Brown finally got called out for the “idiot” she is (and by a drugstore employee!), or 2) that the number of comments earned by Gawker’s post on the subject “passed the 2,500 mark” this morning. [Gawker]

+Giddyap! [sptimes]

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Tony Souza, CEO of Sarasota’s Downtown Partnership, recently announced that his career will soon be taking a new turn: Come September 1, the chief executive will be hitching up with Habitat for Humanity Sarasota, leaving the Farmers Market mess for …

… the affordable housing mess.

“I love the job I have,” Souza told CL of his decision to join Habitat’s fundraising team. “But there are things you love and there are things you really love.” And what Souza really loves, apparently, is helping cities confront shortages in affordable living. Prior to his arrival in Sarasota, Souza lived in New Bedford, Mass., and directed the small whaling community’s Housing and Neighborhood Development office for 23 years.

Souza says he’d been contemplating the open Habitat position since April. It seemed a good match for his extensive background in fundraising, he explains, and while the demands will be high — Habitat director Mike Jacobson recently told the H-T that they’re shooting for $50 million within a year — Souza’s not nervous.

“This is one of the best Habitat [chapters] in the world,” he said. “It won’t be a hard product to sell.”

Whatever the case, Souza plans to keep in touch with the Partnership as a volunteer even after he moves on (”I will miss it,” he added twice during the conversation). BFFs 4-ever!

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The King has not left the blogging…

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This week’s UrbEx piece, on conflict between the Herbal Gourmet food stand and the Downtown Partnership, described high-profile food vendor Andrea Daniels’ desire to keep her stand on the east side of Lemon Avenue to protect (she claims) her wares from harmful, sunlight-induced bacteria. She’s told CL that she will only remain in the market if she could stay in the shade; on Thursday, July 26, the market’s board of advisors responded that she would be moved to the west side.

Yesterday, after the story was published, Daniels called to say that while she’s currently taking a “vacation” from the market, she has not officially resigned. She’s still looking into the Partnership’s claim that her food will be fine in the sun, and plans to “see this all the way through.”

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