Category: Tampa Bay

Call it giving back. Call it helping out the environment. Call it enlightened self interest. But also call it a really good idea.

That’s the Mayor’s Beautification Program that enlists businesses to help spiff up parts of the city through civic adoption projects. Currently 40 companies participate by signing a one-year contract to keep a designated public area — from shorelines and parks to median strips — looking good. That can range from picking up litter to picking up a paint brush.

Company employees are deployed quarterly. In their wake, they leave behind a cleaner public area and a company sign that amounts to free advertising in a high-visibility venue. They also leave behind a reminder that we’re all stakeholders. It’s everybody’s public areas.

The bad news is that there are some residents in SkyPoint, the downtown, high-rise condo, who say it’s getting a little too noisy when there are concerts at the new Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park. Even though they end by 10 p.m. Even though police say the noise was within acceptable decibel levels. The point is it was loud enough to be close. And loud enough to annoy. These were not the sounds of big band favorites or symphonic classics.

The good news? There are enough people who care. There are enough residents in SkyPoint for some to be bothered. There’s enough inducement to draw the sort of crowds to Curtis Hixon that will produce some serious decibels.

For a city too long associated with a lifeless downtown, one with no “there” there and nothing even approaching a critical mass, this is a welcome growing pain. One that city officials and urban pioneers will easily reach an accommodation on. That’s because noise is part of the fabric of a vibrant downtown. It comes with the territory. Finally.

To the surprise of no one, Bob Buckhorn, who formally entered Tampa’s mayoral race a few weeks ago, has already landed a certain, high-profile endorsement. It’s the Tampa Fire Department. It underscores his organizational jumpstart — and early front-runner — status.

Recall his unsuccessful run for the mayor’s office in 2003. No one was going to beat Pam Iorio, including Buckhorn, Frank Sanchez and Charlie Miranda, but no one had a more detailed, smart-growth game plan for Tampa than Buckhorn. He will be formidable, no matter who else jumps in — and the wings are still crowded with those in waiting.

When Judy Genshaft was chosen USF president a decade ago, a strong selling point was her focus on partnerships. USF was neither commuter warehouse nor ivory tower. It was a key catalytic partner for the area. She has become a prominent, go-to player in regional economic development.

The most recent example: the hiring of former St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker for the newly-created position of director of innovation partnerships. Notably, the research variety. It is USF’s gain–and St. Petersburg College’s loss, where Baker’s bid for the presidency was rejected in the spring. But more importantly it is a win-win for the area.

Baker, 53, is business smart, well-connected, affable and an astute choice for a job that will put a premium on building relationships with the business communities on both sides of Tampa Bay. As mayor, he collaborated with Genshaft in recruiting the defense contractor SRI International and Charles Stark Draper Laboratories, an M.I.T. spinoff.

He is by training a business attorney and by predisposition a chamber of commerce sort. In fact, he’s a former chairman of the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce.

Although these are challenging times, it is no time to be less than aggressive when it comes to recruiting,  retaining and expanding businesses. USF is in a prime synergistic position to help itself while helping regional economic development. Baker, whose position will be funded by the USF Research Foundation, is an enlightened, pragmatic hire.

Plaudits to Parade Magazine, which regularly highlights high school All-American teams ranging across the spectrum of sports. Now it has added an “All-American Service Team.” As in economics, education, health, environment and community.

And congratulations to one of our own, Blake O’Connor of Freedom HS, for earning All-American honors in education. O’Connor organized a children’s-book drive and recruited classmates to read to second-graders at low-income Tampa schools. The 18-year-old also hosted a Dr. Seuss-themed festival–with hopes that it could become a literacy-promoting model for other communities.

Better late than even later.

Plaudits to City Council for showing common sense and enlightened self-interest by formally agreeing (5-0) to be the catalyst for bringing together local and national officials to brainstorm on a plan for improving Tampa-Cuban relations. Imagine, pursuing any and all opportunities for trade during a recession! But it’s a start, however belated.

The good news is that an all-call will go out to key players: from Mayor Pam Iorio to representatives of the Hillsborough County Commission, Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, the Tampa Port Authority and Tampa-area congressional delegation. The flip side: these are the same players who have been initiative-challenged forever on this subject. At best, settling for incremental progress, such as pushing — without result yet — for direct Tampa-to-Havana flights.

Moreover, there is the ever-possible scenario that anything to do with Cuba — an incongruous  relic of American Cold War foreign policy — is still an intimidating, political hot potato to some. And consequently these well-intentioned plans could easily get “committeed” to death.

Steve Michelini, the managing director of Tampa’s World Trade Center, was direct in what this city’s agenda should be: “Tampa must be more active and more aggressive in becoming a trading partner with Cuba.” Added well-connected Tampa gadfly Al Fox: “This is a local issue. Cuba is open. We’re shutting ourselves out.”

Indeed, although the counterproductive federal embargo is now in its 48th year, U.S. law does permit exports of agricultural products and medicines as well as medical and telecommunications equipment to Cuba.

 And while officials gather and work on a plan that could benefit the state, the region, the port and the city, look who’s actually going to Cuba this month.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, it will be Georgia Gov. Sonny Purdue. He’ll be leading his state’s trade delegation. The free-market Republican wants a trade upgrade from Georgia’s approximately $42.5 million in farm-product exports (mostly frozen chicken) to Cuba.

“Georgia is strategically located to Cuba with Hartsfield Jackson International Airport and both of our ports,” pointed out Heidi Green, deputy commissioner for global commerce with the Georgia Department of Economic Development. She makes an excellent point. Why wouldn’t Florida’s northern neighbor want to take advantage of its “strategic location?” Who wouldn’t?

Here’s another version of the man-bites-dog syndrome.

We know that in this city you can’t open a bar within 1,000 feet of a church. Makes sense. There’s plenty of precedent and lots of obvious reasons.

But how about opening a church within 1,000 feet of a bar? Who would want to? Who cares?

Actually, some Ybor City property owners with wet zoning probably do care. That’s because the Church of Scientology, not to be confused with a cathedral of Christian convention, is greatly expanding its token presence — an 8th Avenue information center — in Ybor City. The COS recently purchased the Ybor Square complex.

It also bought some uncertainty, if not unease, among some bottom-line neighbors.

Will COS “parishioners” patronize local establishments? Will Scientology’s shear presence and proselytizing reputation amount to a stress-test for surrounding businesses?  Or will it amount to much ado about nothing — except for that matter of a city block coming off the tax rolls during a recession?

It wouldn’t pass legal muster and nuance, but wouldn’t it be fitting — and fair to taxpayers — if incompetence were sufficient reason to fire for “cause”? And, yes, I was thinking of this county’s vision-challenged, action-avoiding, soon-to-be-severanced administrator.

Teaching, as anyone who has ever been a teacher or a student knows, is a hybrid process, one not given easily to outcome quantification. So many variables. The classroom is not a widget shop.

And yet, kids, involved parents, fellow teachers, police resource officers, guidance counselors, administrators and probably school bus drivers and cafeteria personnel can tell you who the good teachers are. It’s that obvious; it’s that acknowledged. They’re tough; they’re demanding; they’re fair; they’re consistent; they’re funny; they’re creative; they’re spontaneous and they’re relevant and respected. Dedication is a given. Their reputations precede them. Class to class, year to year.

Everybody also knows who’s ineffective because they’re boring or discipline-challenged. They know who’s been using the same lesson plan from a generation ago. They also know who’s frazzled and hopes to escape to guidance counseling or administration.

I trust the county’s $200-million partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will validate these real-world verities through its various assessment and accountability tools. But I confess to being particularly skeptical of the district’s plan to hire a consultant whose job will be to measure the year-to-year, “value-added” contribution of every teacher to every student.

“We need formulas for every teacher of every subject,” explains David Steele, Hillsborough’s chief information and technology officer who has now added the title of project director, Empowering Effective Teachers Grant.

There’s value, to be sure, in fairly assessing teacher effectiveness and rewarding accordingly. Teachers and students deserve no less. But there’s also value in knowing what doesn’t lend itself to formulaic quantification. Anyone not think making a difference in a kid’s life is, by definition,  rife with subjectivity? Anyone not think coming up short may be attributable to factors beyond the teacher’s control?  Anyone not think this might be a formula for formula’s sake?

A fortnight ago, HGTV’s Battle on the Block featured three Ybor City couples — neighbors — competing against each other in a master bedroom redesign contest. Who won is not all that material — although the winners were the first gay couple to have their bedroom featured on an HGTV show. The biggest winner: Ybor City. The street car and streetscape shots never looked so hip. It’s nothing less than a marketing coup when the show’s host references Ybor as a “trendy hotspot for young, chic couples.”

“We love getting coverage of Ybor,” says Ybor City Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Tom Keating. It helps Tampa Bay.”

Keating is in a position to know a marketing coup when he sees one. He says a Southern Living spread on Ybor a while back was probably worth “several hundred thousand dollars.” The HGTV spotlight? “Well, this is national TV,” assesses Keating, “so I’d say this was certainly worth at least as much as Southern Living.” And, no, the budget would not have accommodated such an expense, assures Keating.