Category: Tampa Bay

Surely there was a time when people didn’t have to be bribed and congratulated for doing the right thing. For doing a thing that was so right that to not do it would be an exercise in humanitarian ignominy. Surely.

Of course, this is about the strife and times of Dontae Morris and the dysfunctional sub-culture that he inhabited and seemingly embodied.

That all-too-familiar chronology: A predator kills. Again. A person, make that the “associate” who was the predator’s driver, witnesses it all and then drives off leaving behind two mortally wounded — that is, still alive — police officers. She says nothing to anybody in authority. Including those who would necessarily be involved in any life-and-death rescue response. Forget the legalities about misprision of a felony and self-incrimination protections. You leave like that, you lose your lease on humanity.

If not caught, the cold-blooded predator is likely to kill again. The community, in effect, is held hostage. But chronically complicating matters is a “snitch” proscription that’s all too prevalent in too many African-American neighborhoods. No meaningful help is initially forthcoming, including any from Morris’ TPD-employed aunt, except that which is prompted by a reward.  

But the bottom line is served. However it happened, Morris is persuaded to surrender. No one else dies. The reward is rewarded.

But it goes to an informant. Hold on. Isn’t that what informants do? Isn’t there an ongoing quid-pro-quo — including legal deals — for those who are systemic informers?

Then we had the honoring of those — in the absence of that “associate” — who actually responded to the sight of two human beings dying in a ditch in the middle of the night. The three women, two of whom were fortuitously headed to a store at 2:15 a.m., were lauded by the Hillsborough County Commission and given certificates of commendation.

Critical context: the “no snitch” zone. It is an us-vs.-them mindset, one typically enforced by intimidation. It’s also a perverse, parallel universe.  Such that it makes it understandable that a meaningful honor can be legitimately bestowed, even when the only alternative is to do the dishonorable. Normally, what else would anyone do upon happening on dying police officers? This should be stimulus-response stuff.

But not in Dontae’s inferno. Now at least two of those women are afraid for their safety. They’ve received phone calls from those who see them as traitors. For not ignoring the dying and then calling 911.

Given the “no snitch” bylaws of a dysfunctional sub-culture, the praise and certificates were merited. And the reward worked and no one else died. And we are reminded that this is Tampa, not the tribal territories of Pakistan. But it induced the comparison.

So much has now been written about the life and strife and times of George Steinbrenner that it is impossible to not court redundancy. I’ll be brief. He was George Patton the philanthropist. Bill Gates with personality and a pathological vision for success. He was outrageous, shrewd, ego-driven and tender-hearted.

But two recently-recalled, vintage Steinbrenner acts notably underscored who he was when he wasn’t being a bombastic caricature or the patron saint of locals in need.

His well-chronicled, hands-on modus operandi included the literal. Beyond firings. Beyond check writing. It was the time he personally intervened when Hurricane Andrew hit Miami in 1992. He showed up at the Salvation Army in Tampa and drove a truck with bottled water overnight to the ravaged area. Most pop-culture icons wouldn’t do that.

The other instance was a reminder of how important his Palma Ceia-based life was to him. He once regaled a Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce luncheon with what he would tell those who chronically wondered how a man who so embodied all that was the clout and cachet of New York could have any other civic allegiance.

“I tell them until they’re tired of hearing it,” he said in 1997. “I don’t live in New York. I live in Tampa, Florida.”

Indeed, he did.

It was the week from hell. The shock. The outrage. The tragedy. The grief. It’s what happens when the horrific occurs. It’s what happens when two of your police officers are murdered. Executed, actually.

Life can never be the same for the bereaved families of slain officers David Curtis and Jeffrey Kocab. And the intensity of a round-the-clock manhunt and the emotion-depleting loss of one of their own will long linger with members of the Tampa Police Department.

As for the community at large, it is reminded of a sobering reality known all too intimately by TPD officers and their extended families. There are no “routine” traffic stops. There is no such thing as “another day at the office.”

And who among us hasn’t mulled over this hypothetical? At that hour? In that part of town? For that violation? Who would blame the police for saying, in effect: “The hell with it.” For thinking: “A traffic stop at 2 a.m. in East Tampa. Are you kidding me?”

But they don’t say that, because it’s not their job to rationalize the risk of traffic stops. Their job as society’s front-line defenders doesn’t permit cherry picking at odd hours when nothing good happens. They check it out because it’s their job and because you never know. 

But now we do.

We also know that crisis leadership is not lacking around here. Mayor Pam Iorio and Police Chief Jane Castor answered the call. One that required a range of traits from competence and composure to sympathy and empathy.

Their job was keeping us informed, reassured and safe. They were proactive professionals and emotional surrogates. They were sleep-challenged and occasionally misty-eyed. They were what Officers Curtis and Kocab deserved and what the Tampa community needed.

Well done and thank you.

The county mayor question remains bizarrely muddled.

Recently terminated County Administrator Pat Bean’s tortuous relationship with the seven-headed dysfunctional body that is the County Commission had seemed an ongoing infomercial for the need for such an accountable chief executive. But first it has to get on the ballot. (A previous effort was nullified by a single-subject technicality.)

Right now the group campaigning — and signature gathering — in behalf of an elected county mayor is under-funded and under-signatured and seemingly overwhelmed. It’s looking increasingly like a long shot. Which is too bad. Not unlike the mass transit referendum, this is too important a decision to not expedite to the voters for the ultimate call.

But there is, as we know by now, another way to get it on the ballot so voters can weigh in. The county’s Charter Review Board could obviate the need for signature collection by just, well, putting it directly on the ballot itself.  But the 14-member board, one that is not so coincidentally appointed by county commissioners, is not about to.

As for the voters? They can weigh in on light rail. That’s enough direct democracy for now.

When news broke that two Tampa Police officers were tragically murdered in the line of duty, a community reacted viscerally. Not all of it visible.

What we saw via the media was an outpouring of public grief for those who made the ultimate sacrifice and for their devastated families as well as somber acknowledgement and gratitude for those who continue to put it all on the line at any time. What we didn’t see, but which we all also felt, was a sense of palpable fury. That which frankly needs to be sublimated if society is not to devolve into something even worse than a cowardly, nihilistic double murder. We all know there was some emotional venting off camera and off the record. Beyond “worst of the worst” and “cold-blood killer.”  Leave it at that.

But out of this awful crucible, we saw competence, discipline and empathy from our leaders. We also saw misty-eyed composure and steely resolve under excruciating pressure. No one wants to be tested in such a horrific fashion, but when it happens, it’s imperative for leaders to be up to it. For the sake of the fallen and their families, for the sake of fellow officers, for the sake of the community at large. 

Well done, Mayor Pam Iorio and Police Chief Jane Castor.

You were tasked with keeping us informed, keeping us composed, keeping us reassured and keeping us safe. You didn’t let us down. You also became de facto surrogates for all of us in expressing everything from shock to outrage to sorrow.

Thank you.

The connotations of “South Tampa” are as numerous as they are diverse. To some it conjures history: All those period-piece bungalows. To others, it’s leafy, affluent neighborhoods. Or urban elites. Or SoHo night life. Or a confluence of Irish pubs. Or political barometer. Or Gasparilla ground zero.

Now add “yoga hub.”

Within the last month, two studios and a nationally-known, yoga-oriented apparel show room  have opened. Evolation and Bella Prana are on South MacDill and the Lululemon Athletica Show Room is on South Howard. Moreover, Lululemon is currently scouting South Tampa for its retail outlet. (Also opening in the same time frame: Happy Buddha Yoga Lounge on Cass in downtown. And the new Tampa Museum of Art is offering yoga — included in the admission price — on Saturday mornings.)

The growing yoga presence is building on the burgeoning popularity of yoga, per se, as well as the success of two incumbent studios in South Tampa. The recently-expanded Yogani Studios on South Platt has been a yoga beacon for a decade. The Lotus Room opened its South Kennedy studio five years ago.

No, they won’t transform downtown Tampa overnight.  But, yes, they are key catalytic developments with classic win-win upsides.  Plans for USF’s Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation and more progress on the Encore mixed-use project are a welcome tandem of good news, one that more than offsets the sobering reality of the upcoming Maas Bros. parking lot.

For too long the Tampa Convention Center sat diagonally across from a nightclub better know for mayhem than music. Franklin Street booty calls and police calls — not exactly the highest and best use of prime, downtown real estate. And a convention-visitor juxtaposition to cringe at: Welcome to Tampa.

Now, thanks to a $3.5 million deal between the city and USF, the raised lot at 102 S. Franklin will become a  high-tech training facility for surgeons from around the world. The $20 million, 60,000-square-foot CAMLS should break ground by January. It’s expected to bring in as many as 40 jobs and attract other businesses to downtown.

It also puts Tampa squarely on the international map when it comes to cutting-edge, robotic surgical training. CAMLS will include an advanced surgical skills laboratory, a simulation center and virtual hospital, an auditorium and a research lab. The surrounding hotels and other amenities are convenient, complementary pieces.

And when the GOP convention rolls into town in two years, the media can reference that Tampa is the international hub of something other than lap-dancing.  

As for Encore, the public-private project planned for the 28 acres that previously housed the demolished Central Park Village, it received an important nod in the approval process from Tampa City Council. (The Council still needs to formally sign the development agreement among the city, the Tampa Housing Authority and Bank of America.) Earlier in the year Encore scored a $38 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to pay for infrastructure needs.

Plans for the area between downtown and Ybor City include building as many as 1,500 affordable- and -market-rate housing units plus shops, offices, a hotel, a middle school, a museum and a renovated park. Proponents estimate it could mean as many as 4,000 short-term construction jobs and 1,000 permanent ones.

But the long-term benefits are the real priority.  For too long downtown Tampa has been residentially challenged. And that included the unsightly, public-housing complex that was CPV.  Encore is a legacy project and an urban reset-button opportunity. One that can connect downtown and Ybor while providing homes — not just housing — to those who want to be part of a viable, vibrant, inner-city community.

In some quarters, the Tampa Bay Rays are being criticized for not publicly responding to that high-profile, stadium-agenda letter the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce sent to Mayor Bill Foster. Well, this isn’t one of those quarters.

The Chamber advised that the construction of a new (retractable-roof) Rays’ facility could (conceivably) begin by 2017 — with the provision that the Rays remain within city limits.  But should the Rays want to position themselves somewhere else in St. Pete other than downtown, the Chamber would understand — but would then want the Rays to bring back spring training from its current venue in Charlotte County.

Just a guess, but here’s a reason why the Rays’ haven’t immediately responded to this stadium-negotiations “kick start” missive, as it was termed by Chamber President John Long.

A much nicer, potentially more revenue-stream friendly facility in a geographically and demographically bad part of this non-traditional, asymmetrical market is still nothing to write home about.

And as for spring training, the Rays signed a 20-year agreement with Charlotte County two years ago. That was the quid-pro-quo for Rays-wooing Charlotte spending about $20 million in public money on a renovated stadium.

How ironic that St. Pete has often taken umbrage at any intimation that the Rays won’t be around for the entirety of their Trop lease, one that expires in 2027. But it has the civic chutzpah to suggest a bail-out scenario with Charlotte County.

The Rays no comment to these self-serving, parochial overtures speaks volumes.

The subplots surrounding the imminent departure of Hillsborough County Administrator Pat Bean continue to play out. These include an ongoing, de facto endorsement of the county-mayor concept.  

Bean has been the wrong person at the wrong time for too long a time. Even a dysfunctional body such as the county commission deserves better than a reactive leader without vision and sans creativity. Too bad being ineffective and incompetent are not sufficient cause for firing.   

But whatever the final timing — and severance details — this much seems obvious. Regardless of what the FDLE finds or doesn’t find, Bean will not leave “with dignity” — as some editorialists have framed it. That scenario is foreclosed.

Once Bean declined to step down and opted to accept humiliation in the public dock as a tradeoff  for that six-figure severance package, departing with dignity was no longer an operative option.

She obviously has her price — with the cost of dignity factored in.