Category: Tampa Bay

This much we know about the search for a director for the Port of Tampa:

* It better yield a seasoned veteran who can juggle multiple egos and myriad priorities. The latter include accommodating bulk shipping as well as the cruise business, realizing the container potential, and playing real estate developer and landlord. It puts a premium on communication skills and international, i.e. Latin American, savvy. Fluency in Spanish would help.

*T he first go-around, when a national search was summarily and secretly jettisoned, was a blindsiding mistake . A sharply divided (3-2) Tampa Port Authority board awarded the job to interim director Zelko Kirincich — for a year.

* Kirincich , who seems well thought of, read the resulting uproar correctly and within a day had declined the promotion. He will compete in the re-instituted national search.

* As one of the country’s biggest ports (in tonnage) and a $13-billion, economic colossus for the Tampa Bay area, the Port of Tampa must act the part . This isn’t Biloxi. This really is the big time.

* When Mayor Pam Iorio and Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms — the two dissenters in that ill-fated vote to initially promote Kirincich — agree on anything, it’s worth noting. And in this case, worth heeding.

Hillsborough County is in the midst of a rare political parlay. It is home to Florida’s outgoing Speaker of the House as well as the incoming Senate President. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the Speaker was Johnnie Byrd.

When asked recently at the Tiger Bay Club of Tampa Bay luncheon, what was the biggest ethical lapse that he has seen in the Legislature, incoming Senate President Tom Lee pulled no rhetorical punches. He cited the “unfortunate” goings-on in the House the last two years. He made it clear that Plant City’s Byrd was out of line for fundraising for a U.S. Senate seat campaign while still calling legislative shots as the Republican speaker.

“When you offend the conscience of the lobbying corps, you know you’re out there pretty far,” assessed Lee.

Byrd’s co-mingled priorities — and bullying leadership style — helped undermine legislative priorities, intimated Lee. One result: precious little got done in the last session. “We passed a budget, and that was about it,” Lee acknowledged.

Other Leeward points:

*On Gov. Jeb Bush’s veto pen that eliminated nearly $40 million in Hillsborough County projects: “Because of the unique tandem of an outgoing Speaker and an incoming President, we had more dollars flowing to the region this year. So we were subject to more dollars being vetoed. No, I wouldn’t characterize it as an ‘unfair hit.’ Keep in mind, for instance, that it wasn’t USF who originally asked for the ($12-million) Alzheimer’s research center.”

*There is a serious need in Tallahassee to “reassert the authority, power and influence of the committee process .” It’s where “the public and the media” can be privy to “what we’re doing.”

*A philosophical consensus on “smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom” is meaningless “if we don’t have more integrity and courage and a lot less b.s.

Add another footnote — or maybe chapter — to the politically circuitous route being traveled by the Central Park redevelopment plan.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development turned down Tampa’s bid for a $20-million grant proposal to replace the decrepit public housing complex. Presumably, the government would have been more amenable to the application had it been jointly proposed by both the Tampa Housing Authority and a private-sector partner. Earlier this year the Hillsborough County Commission wouldn’t sign off on such an arrangement with the Civitas development company.

This much, however, is still known. Central Park is a slum and needs replacing. In its stead should go a planned community — not a public-housing island in a sea of dilapidation. The only way to make that happen is to involve private developers and, in this case, the creation of special taxing districts to pay for infrastructure improvements. It’s hardly without precedent in the county.

Moreover, the only way to induce such a partnership is to allow for profit. Even encourage it. It’s called incentive.

It’s also called the real world. One that the commission may yet be forced to inhabit.

It’s one of those items that requires a re-read. Sure enough, the Pentagon has announced that it is proposing a plan to withdraw its two Army divisions — about 40,000 troops — from Germany. They will be sent where they’re needed more — as in the Middle East.

That part makes sense, but it’s a reminder that we STILL have troops in Germany. Post Cold War Germany. Unified Germany. Undivided, Checkpointless Charlie, wall-less Berlin, Germany.

What’s next from this time warp? An end to the Cuban embargo?

Not.

Whatever the outcome of the Stanley Cup Finals against Calgary, the Tampa Bay Lightning has been as improbable a rags-to-more-rags-to-riches story as the sometimes jaded world of pro sports has seen in some time. These thoughts:

Who would have thought that the city’s new ethics code would have impacted the Stanley Cup finals? But the code precluded Mayor Pam Iorio from being comped by the St. Petersburg Times for the opening game against Calgary, and she had to ante up for tickets. Guest luxury box ducats for the mayor and her husband had a face value of $700. Since the mayor can’t accept a gift in excess of $100, she paid for them. Sort of. With left over campaign money.

Here’s how that works.

After campaigns, politicians typically allocate a portion of left over funds to charity and to an “office account” for business-related items that are inappropriate to charge off to taxpayers. Iorio did both.

She wrote out $7,500 checks for the Boys and Girls Club and the Andy Aviles Scholarship Fund (in honor of the Robinson High Marine killed in Iraq). She also contributed $10,000 to the Community Foundation Scholarship Program that had been established by former Mayor Dick Greco. The remaining $10,000 went into the “office account.”

She tapped into that account, for example, when she treated the budget staff to lunch upon completion of her first budget. The same account covered the ticket value.

“The office account helps fill a gap,” explains Iorio. “Things that come up of a work nature that you don’t want to spend tax money on.”

It just happens that the nature of some work is more fun than others.

The real estate section of this month’s “Money” magazine carries a feature on “What Makes a Place Hot.” Florida was mentioned prominently.

Richard Florida, that is. He’s the popular author of “The Rise of the Creative Class” and a well-referenced guru to CreativeTampaBay.

Alas, Tampa didn’t make any of the top rankings, including America’s “Up & coming cities” (between 250,000 and 499,999 population) that will be attracting more than their share of creative sorts 10 years from now. The top five were: Saginaw, Mich.; Brockton, Mass.; Salem, Ore.; Charleston, W.Va.; and Madison, Wisc. Saginaw?

In fact, the state of Florida was limited to a lone, drive-by reference to Orlando as an “affordable place” that has appeal to “financial and tech companies.”

Moreover, states “Money,” Dr. Florida also believes that “the most attractive places in the next generation of cities may be Canadian — Toronto and Calgary. Calgary? Ouch.

Elsewhere in the real estate section, however, there was a spread on “Best Places To Live On The Coast.” Mentioned under Gulf of Mexico were Pass Christian, Miss., Rockport, Texas and Dunedin. Rationales for the latter included “a Main Street reminiscent of Mayberry,” proximity to the Pinellas Trail and Honeymoon Island State Park and a “beautiful waterfront” with “far fewer tourist traps” than nearby Clearwater.

It appears that St. Petersburg dodged a bullet a fortnight ago when the civil disturbance in Midtown didn’t morph into a full-fledged riot. That, of course, is small consolation to those merchants who did have their shops broken into and inventory hauled off. And then there were some wrong-time, wrong-place folks who genuinely feared for their lives.

But the big picture is clear; it could have been much worse. It could have been a reprise of 1996’s exercise in wanton destruction and serial torching.

This time the city was better prepared, and more community leaders spoke out against violence as an acceptable reaction to anything — including the run-up to the TyRon Lewis civil-suit verdict. This time the tired Uhuru rhetoric of revolt didn’t get much traction. This time the city had more to lose.

Since ’96, St. Petersburg has poured more than $100 million into the economically disadvantaged area on the city’s south side. The moniker “Midtown” was coined by Mayor Rick Baker to underscore a new beginning for the 5.5-square-mile area. Baker even jettisoned a police chief to appease the storm troopers of political correctness.

But here’s the message that still needs to resonate with Midtown’s 20,000 residents. There is a limit to government spending. Arguably, it has been reached. And it was mostly spent on key public infrastructure and amenities: new schools, a library, and recreation and healthcare centers. The city even spent $4 million to clear out 16 acres by buying rundown homes and businesses.

Here’s what has to happen now: The private sector needs to become the catalytic player. There is already activity afoot, but nothing like the commitment required for a viable foundation for tax-generating commerce and community-stabilizing jobs.

The private sector, suffice it to say, will not be induced to invest in Midtown if the marketing slogan, in effect, is: “Bring your business to Midtown and build your future here. It’s been nearly 8 years between lootings.”

There’s no room any more for bogus priorities such as the lionization of thugs like Lewis. Or for scapegoating the police. Certainly not when the overriding issues are black-on-black crime and community-corroding drug-dealing.

The onus is on Midtown’s residents to mount a zero- tolerance crusade against its self-destructive, loser elements. It’s time to serve notice that not only are the fear-mongering, time-warped Uhurus history — but so also are the tactics of extortion and the practice of generational victimization.

Frankly, it’s time the community seriously partnered with the police, especially when Midtown — representing less than 10 per cent of the city’s population — is responsible for more than 50 per cent of the homicides.

That’s not the sort of statistical beacon that impresses the private sector.

Tampa’s mid-sized, 14-year-old convention center is still on hold regarding expansion plans. That’s the latest, more or less, from John Moors, the man who runs it. Last year a task force gave a thumbs down to the idea of replacing the center for more than $300 million. But left open were expansion options with smaller price tags. (The center was built for $72 million in 1990.)

What the center grapples with is this:

*There’s more supply (new and expanded centers and hotels) out there than ever before, and the pressure is on to keep up with the “core competition,” notably Charlotte, Atlanta, Nashville and, increasingly, Orlando.

*As a key part of the city’s economic-development tool kit, the center would like to “layer the business,” explains Moors. That is, be able to run more than one convention/trade show concurrently. As it is, a 3-day convention takes a week, including set-up and tear-down time. That’s 4 days of no economic impact.

*If they build it, will they, indeed, come? Business — especially since Sept. 11, 2001 — hasn’t been gangbusters lately, although bookings for 2006-2009 are looking “very positive,” says Moors.

These are the three scenarios that Moors ponders:

*Expansion with the addition of another headquarters hotel — one that would add about 800 rooms to the inventory. This would be “preferable,” notes Moors. And, no, the 371-room, Embassy Suites hotel that will break ground this summer across from the center, doesn’t count. It’s already factored in.

*Expansion with no such additional anchor hotel. This is “not preferable,” adds Moors.

*Status quo — even as the Sunbelt competition continues to heat up. This is, well, not preferable either.

Maybe the voters of Plant City know something that no one else is privy to. Or maybe a “living within our means” mantra totally carries the day in District 62. Or maybe they’re just clueless. But their representative — and outgoing House Speaker — Johnnie Byrd will now try to pull off an improbable political feat: win a U.S. Senate seat when so many people outside Plant City don’t like him.

But Byrd, it should be noted, is off to an unprecedented start. By the time the recent Legislative session had finally argued its way into exhaustion, Byrd had scored an unparalleled Capital hat trick: the alienation of the media, lobbyists and fellow legislators — no small accomplishment.