Category: Tampa Bay

Bright House customers around Tampa Bay can look forward to faster Internet service in the new year–and at no extra cost. The download and upload speed hikes, according to a BH announcement, have nothing to do with Google seriously considering bringing its Google Fiber Web service to this market.

But what a coincidence.

The focus of Jeff Vinik’s mega makeover in Channelside is understandably on a major tenant, presumably of the Fortune 500 stripe, to anchor the billion-dollar-plus redevelopment. There’s also the inclusion of the USF medical school and plans for millennial/empty-nester residential.

But urban planners–and potential residents–realize that another, much-lower profile element must also happen for a live-work-play-stay community to take meaningful, synergistic root: a supermarket. It’s a critical, real-world necessity.

And as it so happens, very much a recruiting priority for Vinik and his partners.

Obviously venues such as Raymond James Stadium and Amalie Arena are even more security minded in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist shootings. But what of other, smaller-but-high-profile venues such as The Straz Center for the Performing Arts?

“We already have a sizable security presence all the time,” says Paul Bilyeu, public relations director for The Straz. “But we did put on a few extra security people for (the well-attended) ‘Newsies.’ The safety and peace of mind of our patrons is a top priority.”

For the record, my wife and I attended “Newsies” on a Saturday night. A security person shone a light into her purse as we approached Morsani Hall. It was part of a random security check, explained Bilyeu.

BTW, reviewer plaudits for the dancing in “Newsies” was no hyperbole. It was that athletic, that acrobatic, that mesmerizing to watch.

As we now know, the University of Tampa is planning to expand.  Again.  Actually, it seems like the 105-acre, downtown Tampa campus is in perpetual expansion-renovation-upgrade mode.

Currently, the largest ($150 million) fund-raising campaign in its history is focused on growing the endowment and underwriting priorities that range from the largest residence hall on campus and new fitness center to modern accommodations for cybersecurity and organic chemistry labs.

It still amazes.

Back in the early 1990s I was at USF as media relations manager and had a different vantage point of UT.  It still missed football and Freddie Solomon, and it had seen its enrollment fall below 2,000 students.  It had budget–and as a result, viability–issues.  And no one, to be sure, was referencing it as the “Harvard of the South.”

Talk of USF, which had long pined for a downtown presence, eyeing UT was no longer considered idle chatter.  TransPlant Hall might happen.  UT was that vulnerable.

Enter a game-changing trifecta: a new, energetic president, a pro-active approach to recruiting and key benefactors.  UT turned it around.

Two decades later, that can-do, new president,  Ronald Vaughn, is still there–only he now presides over a university with more than 8,000 students, academic programs that have increased from 80 to 200 and an endowment that has grown from $6 million to $68 million.

UT’s economic impact on the Tampa area is now estimated at $850 million. It’s a major player in the vision and verve of downtown. Just ask Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who appreciates major economic engines as well as a catalyst for growth on the west side of the Hillsborough River.

And, BTW, that fund-raising campaign, which will also underwrite UT’s wherewithal to attract high-quality students, faculty and lab support, had already collected $135 million in donations before the official campaign announcement earlier this month.

It’s often said that world-class cities have two attributes in common. They are on water and they have a higher-education presence.  Sometimes that reality is overlooked.  That’s no longer the case in 2015 Tampa.

Go Spartans.

 

***

Ever notice how often guns are part of the news?  Of course, that’s a rhetorical question.

And we’re not even talking about generic holdups and homicides, a controversial “Black Lives Matter” scenario or the most recent mass murder.  Just page-one, above-the-fold, local news within the last fortnight with guns as overlapping constants.  To wit:

*We’ve had high-profile insights into a case that is the latest test of Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” law.  It’s the notorious movie theater-texting confrontation that led to a patron being shot to death.

Prosecutors say the victim threw popcorn at the suspect’s face and the suspect responded by drawing his handgun and shooting him. The law allows people to use deadly force when they fear death or great bodily harm. It erases the duty to retreat from violent confrontations.

It will all be hashed out legally, starting with a hearing in January. But this is “Flori-duh,” and (misunder)stand your ground may be further validated.

*We know the Department of Environmental Protection still has plans to allow hunting in Florida’s park system–including the Hillsborough River State Park in Thonotosassa and Cockroach Bay Preserve Park near Ruskin.

It’s part of a Scott administration mantra to monetize public property, even though the parks system is intended to preserve Florida’s natural landscape, which includes habitat. It’s part of DEP’s effort to make the parks–all 161 of them–pay for themselves.

To that end, perhaps a well-publicized series of on-site, gubernatorial dunk tanks would obviate the need to turn state parks into killing fields. Moreover, they would likely become profit centers.

*And we’ve recently had a colloquium at the University of South Florida that weighed in on, among other things, a (concealed carry) bill that would allow people to carry guns on college campuses such as USF.

The most ardent opponents? Police chiefs–as well as Florida Fraternal Order of Police and the Florida Sheriff’s Association.  Among the more outspoken at the USF forum: former Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor.  “This whole issue about the open carry law, I really don’t get that,” she said.  “My interpretation of this is that you’re going to be the first one to die when the shooting starts.”

The common theme here is a culture and a mindset.  You go to a movie and you’re armed? You go on a college campus and you pack? You go to a Florida state park with a gun? We’re still the “Gunshine State.”

It probably won’t rise to the notoriety of “Gatesgate,” however colloquially tempting. And “Giftgate” is likely a reach as well. But this much now seems certain: the Hillsborough County School System was sold a bill of Gates goods on that much-ballyhooed, 9-figure grant in 2009.

In short, the $100 million Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant–aka a “gift”–was misleading from the Gates-go. It wasn’t a prestigious “gift.” It didn’t deserve that self-flattering, windfall connotation.

This “gift” had to be matched, meaning it had to come from somewhere else in a budget, where it wouldn’t have been in the first place had it not been purposeful. This should have been the reddest of flags.

Moreover, this was no deus ex machina money that the school district could target to pressing priorities–such as bringing poverty-area schools up to speed, investing in better teaching tools and funding teacher-recruitment bonuses.

This was, more than anything else, about peer evaluators and consultants. The former proved a morale game-changer for the worse, the latter proved why the consultancy class is so reviled.

The district, according to Superintendent Jeff Eakins, will now be unraveling the teacher-evaluation system it had developed with the Gates Foundation. The costs, including disputable outcomes, proved prohibitive.

The Gates’ legacy (in addition to coming up $20 million short of that promised $100,000 million grant): A district/teacher union relationship that imploded, a ravaged budget that burrowed into reserves and a county graduation rate that now trails other large counties in Florida. Hillsborough County didn’t get educational help; it got schooled by consultants.

Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Melinda. Thanks, MaryEllen.

We all know the best advice for those who have penned a heat-seeking epistle: Sleep on it. Too bad that principle wasn’t applied by Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce CEO Bob Rohrlack, who sent that testy missive to Gov. Rick Scott for having appointed Sam Rashid–of “tax-payer, subsidized slut” infamy–to the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority.

Two points. First, Rohrlack is right to feel the way he did. Scott cavalierly picked a right-wing political flamethrower for the HCAA. It embarrassed everyone down here, if not up there.

Second, Scott remains in a position to help this area. His track record is mixed: He was no help to Mayor Bob Buckhorn during the Republican National Convention (remember the gun-free zone request?) and he personally derailed Orlando-to-Tampa high-speed rail. But he’s also been helpful to TIA’s expansion and USF’s Medical School relo plans. He could help some more if he doesn’t overreact to Rohrlack’s letter.

That’s why the chamber’s board rebuked Rohrlack and fired off an apology to Scott. They know Rohrlack was channeling a lot of their sentiments–but this was all about CYA damage control.

Before long, Cuba will open a consulate in this country to complement its Washington embassy. That consulate should be in Tampa.

Given the politics, it’s not a match made in heaven. But given the reality of relevant historical roots, this is a match made in Havana–and Ybor City.

This consulate scenario should be Tampa’s to lose–and it could be lost if leadership isn’t pro-actively assertive and unified. And it could be lost if marginal but vocal political opposition–this is hardly the exile-community dynamic of Miami–is allowed to becloud priorities with its variations on a vendetta agenda.

If history matters–and the pre-Castro roots of Ybor City, the soul of Tampa, surely should–there is no place better suited than this city. The link is as literal as Cuban immigrant cigar makers and lectores–and the tobacco, itself, which came from Cuba.

José Martí, Cuba’s ultimate revolutionary hero, visited Tampa no less than 20 times in the late 1800s to champion the cause of Cuban freedom. Locals were ardent supporters of Cuba’s anti-colonial fight against Spain. He famously spoke from the iconic iron stairs of the Ybor-Manrara cigar factory.

In Martí’s memory, there are more than a dozen landmarks memorializing his presence in our familial midst. He mattered–and matters–that  much.

There’s even a small plot of land nearby–in Friends of José Martí Park on Eighth Avenue in Ybor–that is literally sovereign Cuban real estate. It’s hardly happenstance that when renowned Cuban historian/architect Eusebio Leal visited Tampa last month, he made a pilgrimage to the Park where he placed a flower–emblematic of the special Cuba-Ybor nexus–in front of a statue of José Martí.

The history of Tampa and Cuba is not rooted in exile flight and a Cold War-fed family feud. It’s rooted in an ancestral past as well as trade and travel and harkens to a time and places we can relate to–and build on. Tampa was once the American hub for Cuban artists. Back in the day, there was a ferry service between Tampa and Havana.

Moreover, it’s not only that it makes eminent historical sense for there to be a Cuban consulate in Tampa, it also makes pragmatic common sense. In short, it’s in the enlightened, 2015 self-interest of Tampa to be all in on this one.

To that end, it’s encouraging that the Tampa City Council, the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, the Ybor City Chamber of Commerce and the Hillsborough County Commission are on board. That sort of unanimity, although notably shy of support from City Hall, is rare and speaks volumes about the potential benefits of a consulate.

The advantages include a designated expediter of business- and visitor-related matters, not just a high-profile upgrade in our international bona fides. This matters most when other puzzle pieces are already present.

*Tampa is the closest U.S. full-service, deep-water port to Havana. A de facto role as America’s Havana gateway could beckon as U.S. businesses and industries look for post-embargo shipping opportunities. In short, Tampa could max out on its port wherewithal and location.

*Consulate clout and prestige would be well noted throughout Latin America. Gateway traction at the expense of Miami is a likely scenario.

As City Council member Yoli Capín has noted, “The world is paying attention to the improving relationship of the United States and Cuba. Tampa could become a focal point of it.”

*As a gateway, Tampa would be the most likely conduit for a Cuba needing to scramble to accommodate a surge in outside-world traffic and investment. Tampa would be in prime position to respond to across-the-board needs for goods and services.

Tampa–in addition to geography, history, transportation/trade infrastructure and 90,000 Cuban-Americans nearby–has one other relevant attribute. We would be a civic symbol for what the U.S. and Cuba have in common–not in conflict. Isn’t that what this is about?

In the wake of the exposé about those (five) rapidly-declining, predominantly black  neighborhood schools in St. Petersburg, we are confronted by the worrisome reality of “resegregation.” Who would have thought that the ultimate upshot of Brown v. Board of Education and court-ordered integration would be “resegregation”?

Is this the Dixiecrats ironic, Jim Crow revenge?

“Resegregation” is the seeming new normal at certain schools since the Pinellas County School District abandoned its mandatory student-busing-for-racial-quotas policy in 2007 and returned to neighborhood schools. Among those weighing in: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who flew in to personally rebuke the school district for enabling “education malpractice.”

Some additional context.

Strictly speaking, this shouldn’t be labeled “resegregation.” It’s connotation challenged. This is not a return to Jim Crow when students were actually assigned to schools by virtue of their race. Back in the racist day you could forget about neighborhood boundaries; there were black schools and white schools, and that was that. Just like with restrooms, drinking fountains and lunch counters.

It was de jure racial segregation. Plessy v. Ferguson, as well as George Wallace, still ruled.

Ironically, the eponymous subject of Brown v. Board was Linda Brown, a Topeka, Kansas, third-grader whose parents wanted her to go to the nearest school. They didn’t want her to have to walk six blocks to take a bus to a designated black school. But because the closest school was for whites only, she was not allowed to attend.

Unconscionable.

Schools, as we know, are not mere incubators and pivot points for formal learning. They are, not unlike churches, recreation centers and local businesses, part of a community’s–and neighborhood’s–fabric and synergy and identity.

Where possible, neighborhood schools should be the first option. We’ve already tried the en masse funneling of black and white students into schools miles away, dropping them off for a diversity show-and-tell and then redepositing them in their communities and comfort zones. A yellow Potemkin Village on wheels.

No, this is manifestly still not post-racial America. But before we revisit the usual integration vehicles–from targeted busing to dubious magnets–let’s finally double down on the 14th Amendment, in all of its equal-protection-clause intent. To do any less is to help foster the implicit, insidious stereotype that schools have a critical-mass color quotient. In effect, too many black students is incompatible with academic progress. That’s the societal elephant in the classroom.

That means school districts can’t give platitudinous lip service to schools in poor, black neighborhoods. It means equal-opportunity wherewithal in the form of staff-administration-curriculum-equipment-and-physical-facility quality. It takes, frankly, whatever it takes, to expedite it–from teacher incentives and recruitment bonuses to classroom aides and after-school services to mental health counselors and proper use of federal dollars earmarked for poor children.

It means no unbroken promises and no let-up in maintaining a sense of urgency. Years of negligence aren’t compensated for by a quick pivot after a newspaper’s exposé and an education secretary’s outrage.

And one more variable. This can’t be solely a top-down effort.

Equal opportunity won’t beget equal results unless learning is a community effort. What happens when students–however better taught, motivated, protected and related to at school–leave to spend the majority of their time elsewhere will ultimately be determinative.

The school’s task is undermined if its efforts are not supported beyond its boundary. Strong, dedicated educators can’t ultimately succeed if the work ethic, discipline and dynamics of the classroom are at odds with out-of-school cultural values. Nothing changes, regardless of federal dollars and an influx of seasoned, motivated teachers and administrators, without reinforcement at home and in the community.

The 14th Amendment has its limits.

We all know how assertive and pro-active Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn is.

He’s the city’s CEO, chief recruiter and head cheerleader. By charter and persona, he’s the strong mayor of the largest city in the Tampa Bay metro market. He knows his way around a bully pulpit. He’s been to Washington to lobby for Riverwalk grants, to talk trade issues with President Obama and to meet the Pope. The last Republican National Convention and the initial visit of the Bollywood Oscars were on his watch. Gubernatorial speculation is still a given.

However, check out his counterpart in St. Petersburg, Rick Kriseman. He has to contend with a minor league city council, doesn’t always talk in sound bites, and doesn’t preside over this region’s business hub. Nobody thinks the governor’s mansion will beckon. But, then, most observers didn’t think this Jewish Democrat would knock off the incumbent Republican Bill Foster less than two years ago.

But above the fold and behind the scenes, Kriseman is showing that he is a player. It’s more than appointing a new police chief and moving through the arduous Pier process.

Kriseman, 53, has been the voice of pragmatic reason in negotiating with the Rays over new stadium scenarios. He thinks regionally as well as locally and knows the area can’t afford to lose Major League Baseball. He doesn’t see Tampa as a threat. He knows the real adversaries are short-sightedness, provincialism and an out-of-market suitor.

He’s also been part of a contingent to visit Cuba, and he’s very much behind the pitch to bring a Cuban consulate to St. Petersburg–even though it arguably belongs in Tampa. It matters if the mayor is the point man, and he–as well as vested Tampa interests–know it.

He’s also made it a point to confront wastewater issues and get out in front of climate-change implications with money from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil-spill settlement.  And he’s proposed $1 million for an arts endowment and $350,000 toward a pilot program that would run a ferry service–for tourists, snowbirds and residents–between downtown St. Petersburg and downtown Tampa through the winter months. Kriseman will be formally pitching the ferry idea to Buckhorn, among others, this week–after he returns from Toronto, where he (and Buckhorn) were part of the Tampa Bay Export Alliance meetings.

So far, Kriseman is proving to be exactly what this area has always needed. Major-city mayors who can take care of the home front while working as a regional partner with other key players. And who cares if there’s no hint of swagger.

We’re well into that season. Note the flags–UF, FSU, USF, Auburn, Georgia, LSU, et al–flying from porches. Notice how many conversations begin with the less-than-grammatical, rhetorical question: “How ’bout them …?”

We really are the South each fall.

But college football season is a double-edged sword. When your team is on a roll, your step is a bit livelier, your small talk more animated. When your team is on a downward spiral, your job is more taxing, your take on politics more cynical. Plus, the sports page morphs into taunting antagonist.

That said, I’m a USF alum and fan. Win or lose, the Bulls have impact. Frustrating losses. Encouraging wins. Celebratory, post-game arrests.

It’s almost enough to distract us from focusing on what else is going on with the Bulls. As it turns out, a lot. None of which concerns untimely turnovers, dumb penalties or a problematic passing game.

Recently USF researchers–after spending a year studying the Orlando Police Department–made public their significant findings about how body cameras assist police. Serious drops in complaints and the use of force were notable.

Within the same time frame, two anthropologists at USF St. Petersburg made history with the discovery of a 4,500-year old skeleton that contained the first complete ancient African genome. And, BTW, USFSP is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary. Not your basic regional university–as oceanographers already know.

Earlier this month Paul Sanberg, who discovered cell therapies that treat stroke and brain diseases, became the second USF faculty member admitted into the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame. And speaking of inventions, the most recent report by the National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association ranks USF first in Florida, 10th in the U.S. and 15th in the world for the number of patents secured. Most were attributed to USF’s medical school and civil engineering department.

No, it’s not the headline fodder that would have accompanied an upset win over FSU last month, but arguably a bit more important to mankind. And while USF isn’t ranked in either the AP or the Coaches Poll, it has now been ranked in the top 15 in worldwide patents for five straight years. More than a consolation prize.

In fact, these are just the sort of high-profile achievements that induce philanthropists to dig deeper. To wit: Within the last year, USF has had an unprecedented run of particularly notable donations: Jordan Zimmerman, College of Arts and Sciences ($10 million); Lynn Pippinger, School of Accountancy, ($10 million); Jeff Vinik, downtown, medical school real estate ($12 million); Les and Pam Muma, College of Business ($25 million); Kate Tiedemann, College of Business ($10 million); and Frank and Carol Morsani, College of Medicine ($20 million).

And when smart, successful people dig this deep, it’s more than a donation. It’s also an investment and de facto vote of confidence. Just ask Vinik, whose 10-figure downtown makeover would lose luster, allure and its centerpiece without the planned presence of the USF Morsani College of Medicine and USF Health Heart Institute.

And let’s not forget this: USF brought in a record $441 million in research dollars during the 2014-15 academic year. That contrasts to $171.3 million in 2000, President Judy Genshaft’s first year. Three-campus USF, now nearing an overall enrollment of 50,000, is solidly in the top 50 for research grants among public and private U.S. universities.

The Genshaft tenure has also seen an increased partnership profile for USF in its regional community. It’s underscored in the president’s roles as past chair of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce and the Tampa Bay Partnership. It’s also manifested in economic-impact data. The annual budget of the USF System is $1.5 billion; its annual economic impact is $4.4 billion.

Yes, it would help if USF would return to a bowl game for the first time since 2010. But in the context that means the most, there’s ample reason to be bullish on USF and its commitment and complement to Team Tampa Bay.

As President Genshaft put it in her annual fall address: “In a world where the single most important asset any community has is talent, any and all things you do to cultivate, grow, support and expand talents leads to a brighter future for people far beyond our campus boundaries.”

Amen. And go, Bulls. Beat Navy.