Category: Tampa Bay

The University of South Florida can venerate diversity with the best. Not the ideological kind, mind you, but that which can be most easily quantified by favored color-and-hue groups — as well as gender, sexual orientation and international cachet. The usual short list.

It is what it is. They are what they are — American university campuses.

But USF should be commended for its most visible foray into diversity with the selection of Renu Khator as provost and vice president for academic affairs. The native of India is the first female provost in USF history. It’s a very important position for a formidable university facing some critical issues — such as increasing faculty salaries and expanding graduate programs — in times of enrollment growth and increasing financial uncertainty.

It’s also the right move for all the right reasons.

Khator, who had been interim provost since July, should be seen as a symbol of diversity and inclusiveness gone right — not righteous. There was good cause to choose her from an outstanding group of finalists.

Khator, who has a doctorate in political science/public administration from Purdue University, has the requisite academic background, including the authorship of four books on environmental policy. But by all accounts, she brings an objective temperament, organizational prowess, solid people skills and scholastic enthusiasm to the provost’s office. She understands the value of — and complement between — research and instruction. She’s a good listener, prioritizes well, solicits input and favors an open-door policy.

Moreover, the 48-year-old Khator can make the tough decisions, including personnel. She will not be mistaken for a rubber stamp.

Khator’s appointment further validates a program under former President Betty Castor that enabled notably bright, ambitious faculty members, especially minorities, to gain administrative experience. Khator, who had been director of graduate programs for the department of governmental and international affairs, was faculty assistant to the president in 1995-97. From there she became chairwoman for the environmental science and policy department, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and then interim provost.

Khator, after nearly two decades at USF, has significant history with the university. She obviously saw something 19 years ago other than “just a commuter school.” USF is now recognized as a player among national urban-based, research-oriented institutions that are key, synergistic partners with their surrounding metropolitan communities.

She has played an influential part — actually a number of parts — in USF’s metamorphosis. Now she plays an even more important role.

Her ascendance to provost can be called a win for diversity, and she can — and will be –labeled a role model for all who aren’t white males. But that diminishes her accomplishment. Her selection as provost is a fitting testimonial to ability and hard work — not identity politics.

Yes, we live in politically correct times. But call Provost Khator’s achievement an old-fashioned success story with an interesting subcontinent subplot.

The centennial edition of Gasparilla has come and gone wildly into the night. These follow-up thoughts:

1– A signature parade for the city — not the region — is still cool.

2– Out of Bamboleo came something better.

3– The hassle and cost is still worth the three-day, $20-million economic infusion and national, uh, exposure.

4– (Pirate) hats off to the city’s Krewe of Klean-Up. Once again they win best in show for working around the clock to remove 40 tons of garbage.

5– The line between acceptably bawdy and downright disgusting isn’t exactly razor thin.

6– Best line: “Hey, miss, please don’t do that in front of the children. But if you must, here’s my (plastic surgeon/breast augmentation) card.” Next best line: “Yo, lady, here’s some (beads) if you just put that back on.”

7– We’re all familiar with the orange, Home Depot wrap-around fencing many homeowners use to discourage parade revelers from using their property as urinals. Add another deterrent, this one observed near the intersection of Orleans and Bayshore. Call it the Tangerine Toss. Alas, most trespissers seemed more deterred by long Port-o-let lines than incoming citrus.

8– Teen-aged drunkenness is deplorable enough. But what, if anything, happens to these kids when they get home in a state that has all the telltale signs of boozing and vomiting? At best, their parents are unbelievably clueless; at worst, they are derelict. At any rate, they are at fault. Thanks for nothing.

The Florida Legislature, it can be argued, keeps giving gridlock a really bad name. Think team mud-wrestling as a metaphor. Ironically, it’s been pretty much a bipartisan effort. At crunch time, Republicans can be counted on to treat Gov. Jeb Bush like a substitute social studies teacher.

But hope, however faint, hangs on. In fact, here is what it would take to create a legacy that was more deliberative than dysfunctional.

First, it would take a successful campaign to get the FAIR (Floridians Against Inequitable Rates) amendment on the November ballot. (I know, I know, we are turning representative government into a legislative bypass — and no wonder — but let’s leave that debate for another day.)

FAIR is no pregnant pig in a poke. It is the citizens’ initiative that would flat-out force the Legislature to get serious about tax reform, something it’s disinclined to do on its own. It would mandate that legislators take a fresh look at the state’s myriad sales-tax exemptions and vote them up or down. It could mean showing some accountability, staring down special interests and finally confronting a regressive tax code that ill suits an increasingly service-based economy.

It would allow legislators to defend a legitimate business exemption — and many are. But it would also smoke out those who are beholden to the loophole crowd — and many are.

There’s a reason that Florida now collects $17 billion in sales taxes — and exempts $23 billion.

This isn’t some Florida version of the class warfare that masquerades as tax debate in a presidential election year. This is about a sales tax structure that hasn’t changed in a half century. This is about a tax base that must be broadened to offset times of economic uncertainty — which are most times. It’s about not having to hold education, social services, transportation and various trust funds hostage to economic vagaries.

Simply adding another 700 sales-tax-paying newcomers a day is not enough. Soon the state will run out of one-time sources of revenue that help pay for ongoing programs.

Opponents of FAIR — and they are an influential bunch — are led by the governor. They see scrutinizing those exemptions as a thinly-veiled vehicle to higher taxes. Proponents say something must be done because those tax breaks — some 300 in total — are littered with inequities. They don’t think it’s fair, for example, to tax a fishing rod but not a charter fishing-boat rental. Dog food for the family pet is taxed, but feed for racing animals isn’t. A lot of professional services are exempt.

But first, FAIR has to get on the ballot. Then it has to pass. Then legislators have to show more guts than gall. That hat trick remains a long shot.

But it beats no shot. FAIR doesn’t have to mean Floridians Advancing Idiotic Rationales.

* I t was gratifying to see the overflow crowd that shoehorned its way into last week’s auction fund-raiser for photographer Bud Lee at The Lotus Room Yoga Studio & Art Gallery in South Tampa. According to Val Spies, owner of The Lotus Room, more than $20,000 was raised for Lee, a nationally-recognized photographer and local arts-scene icon who recently suffered a stroke. Spies estimated the attendees at 1,000.

*S o how was your Super Bowl party ? More like back to basics, I’d guess, where the emphasis was where it belonged — a major excuse to party. But, yes, it was fun to have had a real rooting interest.

Tampa’s Old Hyde Park Village could define marketplace “resilience.” From the get-go.

In the early 1980s, Canadian developer Amlea met considerable local resistance about shoe-horning a shopping village — with parking garages — into the upscale, history-steeped, South Tampa neighborhood. Town homes above boutique retail weren’t seen by all as the vanguard of “new urbanism.” More like the “Amleaville Horror,” to quote more vocal critics.

Eventually the Village survived — and thrived as a neighborhood amenity and regional shopping option featuring specialty retail, popular restaurants, outdoor ambience and a dearth of teenagers.

Fast forward to more recent times. The Village is now owned by Washington, D.C.-based Madison Marquette Realty Services.

In the last four years, some 3 million square feet of retail has been added to the marketplace, including International Plaza, Westfield Shoppingtown Citrus Park, Channelside, Centro Ybor, an expanded WestShore Plaza and even Baywalk in St. Petersburg. Some malls brought in retailers, such as Pottery Barn, Sharper Image and Williams-Sonoma, which eliminated the Village’s regional exclusivity. Then there was economic turbulence and the aftershocks of Sept. 11. Stalwart stores such as The Gap and Banana Republic left — as did the Cactus Club restaurant.

In the aftermath of anchor tenant Jacobson’s departure two years ago and AMC-7 Theaters last year, local Cassandras had a field day with doom-and-gloom scenarios.

Not among them: Madison Marquette.

“We are proud to be owners of the project,” says Craig Estrem, COO of Madison Marquette. “Even in the very competitive Tampa retail market, the Village stands out as the only upscale shopping destination that appeals to residents and visitors alike.”

Indeed, with the city increasingly wooing conventioneers, visitor attractions have become a key recruiting gambit. So much so that the city is helping expedite the re-routing of the (rubber-wheeled) Uptown Downtown Connector to the Village. Moreover, look for traffic-calming devices on Swann Avenue and more on-street Village parking later in the year.

According to the Village’s general manager, Pat Westerhouse, the overall strategy is one of “repositioning.” Approximately 15 per cent of the Village’s 270,000 square feet is vacant. The commitment of MM, she underscores, is one of “significant investment.”

The two biggest “repositioning” priorities have been filled, says Westerhouse. Lifestyle Family Fitness — and its 4,000 members — are now ensconced in 28,000 square feet of what was once most of Jacobson’s. Lifestyle spent more than $2.5 million in the retrofitting.

The other foot-traffic coup was Madstone Theaters, a nine-cinema chain specializing in foreign, festival and independent fare. It replaced — and upgraded — AMC.

Yet to happen — although aggressively targeted — is a gourmet market, a bookstore and additional restaurants.

Another element in the strategy is attracting unique national retailers — to add to the eclectic likes of Anthropologie, Tommy Bahama and MAC Cosmetics — and more local independents. The latter help create a “Best of Tampa” niche. It ranges from the recently relocated Kit’s Well-Heeled & Well-Dressed to the pioneering Georgette’s ladies’ shop, now in its 17th year at the Village.

“This is pedestrian friendly, open-air environment,” says WH & WD’s Kit Stewart. “It’s a tremendous atmosphere. They are specialty oriented and very supportive of my needs.”

“We never reached the alarming stage here,” explains Village General Manager Pat Westerhouse. “We’ve always seen it as a transition. And we think we’re making the right decisions. This is not just about ‘adding stores.'”

It’s also about capital investment and aggressive promoting.

Not only did Madison Marquette ante up (some $25,000) to help defray the trolley cost, but it also spruced up the landscaping, updated some facades and will make “significant architectural changes” in the months ahead, says Westerhouse.

“There isn’t a shopping area that doesn’t need a facelift periodically,” notes Georgette’s owner, Georgette Diaz. “They’re making a real effort to enhance the ambience that’s already here.”

Promotions — from concerts, arts festivals and a Saturday Farmer’s Market to carriage rides during the holidays — are all supportive of the Village marketing theme: “The Cure for the Common Mall.”

“There are a lot of malls that are lovely,” acknowledges Westerhouse. “But they’re pretty much the same inside

In the best of all possible worlds, there would be no need for public housing.

In the next best of all possible worlds, there would be enough public money to build, maintain and rebuild quality subsidized housing, and there would be residents who said, in effect, “Thanks for the helping hand, and now we’ll take it from here and do our part.”

So much for those Panglossian scenarios.

Here’s the best we can expect. Some form of imperfect, public-private partnership. Those with a profit motive to accept risk and invest in something that can do more than merely maintain a suspect status quo.

But here’s what usually happens.

New and improved public housing replaces the dilapidated — only it’s still mired in the midst of an economically deprived, crime-ridden, drug-infested, eyesore environment. And, yes, incumbent residents — all poor, mostly minority — get displaced. Eventually the nicer housing is no longer nice. Many of the tenants have created a generational legacy of dependence.

Eventually the cycle is simply repeated — if there’s enough public money available.

If nothing else, the 157-acre, mixed-use, private sector-driven Civitas project — warts and all — represents a pragmatic, positive opportunity to break from the largely ad hoc, band aid norm. Hope VI federal grants were fine as far as they went — not nearly far enough. Moreover, they are now all but phased out.

There were plenty of reasons for healthy skepticism about Civitas without resorting to ad hominem attacks on its leader, Ed Turancik, or conjuring up ersatz civil rights scenarios over the “whitenizing” of a major Tampa corridor. With its sub rosa real estate accumulation, a compressed, rush-to-vote time line and need for special taxing authority, Civitas didn’t make it easy on the mayor, city council, the housing authority or the county commission.

None of the above reasons, however, justified not signing off on a process that would still leave a lot of hoops in front of it. And it would have improved Tampa’s chances of landing a final Hope VI grant to replace the 28-acre (and Civitas centerpiece) Central Park Village. In addition, Mayor Pam Iorio had gained enough concessions from Civitas to feel comfortable in letting momentum continue. City Council and the Tampa Housing Authority followed suit.

No obligation, no endorsement. Civitas, they were saying, in effect, was just too good an opportunity to summarily dismiss because the process was flawed.

But once again, the county commission lived down to its reputation. Getting creative and cooperative in trying to revitalize a neighborhood — not just raze and rebuild a public housing project — was beyond its collective vision. In a pinch, it can be counted on to get parochial, personal and persnickety. To wit:

*Pat Frank is intransigent about dispensing public funds to investors for infrastructure needs.

*Jan Platt isn’t comfortable with capitalism.

*Ronda Storms — of all people — doesn’t like being “bullied.” And while we’re deep in disbelief — neither, presumably, does she like testy exchanges.

The Civitas project may yet reincarnate. Turancik & Co. has a lot of land, some heavy-hitting investors and time to reflect on what happens to Tampa’s Hope VI grant proposal.

Then again, Civitas may not happen at all, and most pundits, self-appointed civil rights spokespersons and some county commissioners can claim credit that “Son of Olympic Bid” will not be foisted on Tampa.

In which case, it would hardly be cause for celebration. For just north of downtown there would still be this really big slum.

Florida A&M, the country’s largest historically black university, has been around for more than a century. For most of that time, it was a legitimate victim of legal segregation. It was a product of rules that were different — and discriminatory. It soldiered on with its charge to provide an opportunity for more blacks to have access to higher education.

However, the time has long since passed that FAMU should be playing by different rules. Any more than it should be playing the race card of past injustices and preying on white institutional guilt.

For too long — notably under the 16-year tenure of former president Frederick Humphries — it has gotten by with phantom oversight of accounting and bookkeeping practices. It has skated on accountability. Education leaders — often cowed by Humphries –routinely excused FAMU its shortcomings: allowing for lower admissions requirements and permitting a long-simmering financial mess.

Lawmakers are now demanding answers and solutions — and rules compliance. “We were not held, in my opinion, to the same kind of rigorous standards as the other (state) universities,” FAMU trustees chairman James Corbin told the Associated Press.

The condescending attitude that less should be expected of FAMU is finally being seen for what it is: a more insidious form of racism. After 117 years, a new era at FAMU now beckons.

For many of us, the post-Christmas period is one of inevitable anti-climax. There had been the gathering, the tree-trimming and the gift-giving. Then the re-united disperse. The tree is unceremoniously un-trimmed. Toys soon lose their novelty.

But what’s it like for Santa? The mother of all melancholia? A welcome respite from the seasonal exertion?

A bit of both, as it turns out.

“When it’s over, I’m a little sad, and I’m a little glad too,” acknowledges 74-year-old Bob Kyle, arguably Tampa’s most pre-eminent Santa. “The children are always special, and it’s fun to see the teenagers get in the spirit too,” says Kyle. “It’s really an invigorating month, and it’s my way of giving back. But, yes, a bit tiring by Christmas.”

The Town N’ Country resident, who is also one of the area’s leading arborists, has been playing Santa for the last 20 years. From Tampa’s Festival of Trees and the Santa Fest Parade in downtown to Sweetwater Park, Clay Elementary and Girl Scout Troop 1498. And a bunch of schools, churches, senior-care facilities and neighborhood stops in between. He has been known to change into costume on the job — hustle to an event — and then resume landscaping or tree-trouble shooting.

He has long-time, “elf” assistants and an elaborately decorated float. Moreover, Kyle is a Claus lookalike. A dead-ringer for the Kris Kringle character in “Miracle on 34th Street,” which happens to be his favorite Christmas movie.

For “Kris Kyle Kringle,” it’s all about the “magic.” Santa is as real as you wish to believe,” he tells all those who need telling. “When you believe, he lives in your heart forever.”

Kyle began doing Santa, he recalls in a, yes, jolly laugh, when his beard turned white. He trims it drastically each January. For the rest of the year, he foregoes any more such trimmings — or haircuts.

And the verisimilitude is always worth it, says Kyle. Santa does have his skeptics.

Kyle remembers an especially persistent little boy at Tampa’s Festival of Trees about five years ago. Flat-out, the kid said he didn’t believe in Santa. Kyle replied: “That’s ok; Santa believes in you. And someday you’ll do the magic yourself.”

The tough little tyke wasn’t buying it. He reiterated that Santa “wasn’t real.”

Kyle then played his tonsorial trump card.

“If you really think that, then pull on Santa’s beard.”

He did. And not all that gingerly.

“That was it; I had him,” says Kyle. “He came up behind me later on and whispered, ‘You’re cool.'”

Over the years, Kyle has observed predictable patterns. For one thing, kids are still kids.

“You see true feelings,” says Kyle. “And it’s not just that Santa brings gifts. You can see the look of absolute joy. There’s nothing like the joy a child can experience. That’s very moving.”

And however joyous, some children will always test you, explains Kyle, and many tend to reflect the economic times. A bit more buoyant when times are good. More likely to ask for, say, G.I. Joe than a Playstation, when times are tougher. No one, interestingly enough, has asked for cowboy stuff in more than a decade.

But kids don’t just get a hug and candy and Santa’s ear.

Sometimes it’s up to Santa to moderate their wish lists and manage their expectations.”Occasionally they ask for guns,” he says. “And I steer them to something else. Or they want an electric guitar, and I play up a wooden one. I can also get preachy, I guess. I tell them about bike helmets and where not to ride their scooters.”

He’s also been known to politely lecture on the merits of pet responsibility.

Santa will also try to personalize requests as best he can. He will mention that Barbies, for example, come in safari outfits, and evening gowns and bathing suits. And there are all kinds of trucks.

Sometimes he prods the overly shy with special, memory-jogging “brainfood” that looks not unlike ordinary candy canes.

“On your toes”

While Santa slips in his share of counseling, he also has learned a thing or two after 20 years of on-the-job Clausing. “You gotta constantly be on your toes,” he says. “And you just can’t blame everything on the elves.”

One child, for example, was incredulous about his wristwatch. His — by now — stock answer: “Rudolph gets mad if I’m late.”

And speaking of, so where exactly were Rudolph and the rest of the reindeer? Why weren’t they there?

“I tell them that the reindeer are magic, and they are parked on a cloud,” says Kyle. And for the more precocious: “The FAA says the reindeer and sleigh have to stay parked.”

Kyle also has learned to temper his preference for coffee while in character.

A certain little girl prompted the change. After motioning to Santa to lean down for some serious whispering, she confided: “You forgot to brush your teeth.”

He now munches candy canes when he gets the coffee urge.

But sometimes the wide-eyed and innocent request that which is way beyond Santa’s purview — or mythical powers.

“Sometimes I get some real tear-jerkers,” says Kyle. “They want Santa to help their mom and dad get back together. Or to make their grandmother well.

“I tell them that Santa doesn’t work that kind of magic. That’s God’s kind of magic.

“They seem to understand,” notes Kyle. “And I think they feel better for telling me and knowing they’re doing everything they can.”

Other than that, just another seasonal day at the office for Santa. Lots of listening, counseling and credibility proving.

And magic. And joy. And hope.

Now more than ever.

As the race to succeed Sen. Bob Graham coalesces in the new year, look for Betty Castor to pick up the fund-raising pace and solidify her position as the early Democratic front-runner. Also look for her main Democratic primary competition, Miami Dade-County Mayor Alex Penelas and Pembroke Pines Congressman Peter Deutsch, to up the ante on the in-fighting — especially Deutsch.

Most political observers expect the name of Sami Al-Arian, currently jailed on charges of aiding and abetting Palestinian terrorists, to surface as a campaign issue. They’re probably right. Especially in South Florida, where the Jewish voting base is concentrated. But it’s wrong.

Let’s go back to when Castor, the former state education commissioner, came to USF as president in 1994. She was praised for her political skills and Tallahassee contacts — as well as criticized for educational credentials that were conspicuously minus a doctorate. She would soon win over the critics with her staunch support for all things academic. Including freedom.

She inherited Al-Arian, an increasingly controversial but quite competent — in fact, award-winning — computer science professor. She also inherited Al-Arian’s think tank, WISE — or the World and Islam Studies Enterprise — and a university culture enamored of such an ostensibly prestigious, internationally-connected organization.

Although a comparatively young and relatively undistinguished university, USF apparently had itself a coup with WISE. If nothing else, it meant that USF was a geo-political, higher-ed “player.” That can be heady, important stuff in academic circles — helping to advance understanding and “dialogue” between the West and Middle East.

The following year, former WISE director Ramadan Abdullah Shallah surfaced in Damascus as the leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the infamous, prototypical terrorist organization. Prior to that, a PBS documentary had fingered Al-Arian as part of a PIJ cell and published reports in the Tampa Tribune linked WISE and Al-Arian’s Islamic Committee for Palestine charity to the PIJ.

By now — late 1995 — the feds were on the case with search warrant affidavits. By the middle of the following year, USF had placed Al-Arian on paid leave. In 1998, absent any law enforcement action, he was allowed back on campus. The following year — 1999 — Castor left USF.

Two years later the world changed — as well as the USF campus. After the Sept. 11 attacks, there followed the ill-advised, uproarious Al-Arian appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor,” an agonizing dilemma for new president Judy Genshaft, and a lot of revisionist thinking on terrorists, their sources of support and the obvious Islamic nexus.

It’s so much Monday morning quarterbacking to second-guess what Betty Castor could have done — better and sooner — regarding Al-Arian. She was expected, according to some, to have summarily booted Al-Arian even as the feds were dragging their heels.

What matters is the context.

There’s not a lot of precedent — nor on-campus, popular sentiment — for sacking a tenured professor who hasn’t been charged, much less convicted, of anything. Guilt by association and outrageous rhetoric is normally not a credible enough rationale.

The pre-Sept.11 era, while hardly an age of naivete, is not to be confused with the Homeland Security crucible — and expedience — we’re experiencing today. The Al-Arian of the Castor years was not the mega-count-indictment version of 2003. The one who was finally fired in early 2003 by President Genshaft.

When terrorism is targeted as an issue in this senatorial campaign, the focus should be on Iraqi reconstruction, foreign and domestic intelligence, immigration, the Patriot Act, Islamic money trails and policies of pre-emption and unilateralism. The role of the United Nations and America’s relationship with the rest of the world, including putative allies, despotic sheikdoms and Israel, are much more relevant than Al-Arian’s treatment during Castor’s watch.

Earlier this month USF awarded some 3,200 degrees. It brought its alumni total to more than 180,000.

This means USF, a 40-something university, is now reaching a critical mass of graduates. But it’s more than the raw numbers. For USF, it means a number of alumni are reaching the point where they can give back — sometimes in a very significant way.

This reality was underscored recently when a member of USF’s inaugural graduating class — 1963 — pledged $5 million from his estate to USF. Moreover, a state match will increase the total to $7.5 million.

“There are no free lunches,” said Jack Boyd Jr., 62, who earned a marketing degree in 1963 and later became wealthy as a stock broker and real estate investor. “This university has been good to me, so you have to give back.”

The gift from Boyd and his USF-grad wife, Janis, is the largest alumni gift for USF.

For now.