Category: Tampa Bay

Here’s a quote I still can’t reconcile. It comes from Julie Weintraub, who does good work running the Hands Across Tampa Bay non-profit that goes to schools and helps address teen dating violence. She talks to both the girls and the guys. “Beating her, punching her, kicking her or shooting her should never be an option after a break up or because they turn down your sexual advances,” says Weintraub. “We have to say that, because they don’t know.”

We’ve all been teens. We’ve all experienced the hormonal rushes and dynamics of dating–from first kiss to final rejection. It’s a parallel psychological universe. But no one ever had to actually lay it out that you couldn’t beat up or shoot somebody you were involved with or wanted to be involved with. Of course, you couldn’t! It’s not what civilized primates do. As a society, have we devolved that much–such that “they don’t know”?

We have a winner. And it’s obviously not “Vinikville.”

After more than two years of working on developmental details around Amalie Arena, Jeff Vinik and partners no longer have to work around the lack of an official name for their imposing, $3 billion, 50-plus-acre revitalization project. It’s officially “Water Street Tampa.”

Personally, I liked the working appellation of “Waterfront District,” although I would concede it had its generic downside. Then there was “Channelside,” which had already been taken. And then “LoDo,” (for Lower Downtown,) a cute riff on SoHo, but not to be taken seriously.

“Water Street Tampa” works. It connotes what needs to be connoted when you are near water. It also has the cachet of history. There actually is a Water Street, and it dates back to the 1800s. Now it will become the “main spine” of the new neighborhood, according to James Nozar, the CEO of Strategic Properties Partners, the real estate firm backed by Vinik in tandem with Bill Gates’ Cascade Investment.

Not to rain on the Water Street parade, but I do detect an ample measure of marketing hyperbole. It’s understandable that what Vinik & Co. want to do is evoke the sort of connection we have long seen between certain iconic streets and their famous host cities. So why not think big? Indeed. As in Bourbon Street, Michigan Avenue and Broadway. Some day.

When it comes to Cuba, nothing is assumed. It can still be a sovereign square peg for certain American officials with allegiance issues. To wit: Tampa. Still.

Recently the Cuban ambassador to the U.S. issued an invitation to Tampa City Council to visit as a delegation. José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez specifically mentioned issues of mutual interest, including drug interdiction, illegal immigration, marine biology and tourism.

It just makes sense. We’re neighbors with a lot in common–from heritage to trade to security. But this is Cuba, and this is Tampa. And what makes good sense, especially of the self-serving sort for Tampa, is still not a good enough rationale for all concerned principals.

So, some council members will be going–but they won’t actually represent the city, the one that is a historic soul mate of Havana. Just the council. Only the mayor can officially represent the city, and Bob Buckhorn, as we know, would sooner visit Trump Tower than Raúl’s realm. As long as the embargo remains, as long as human rights, however cherry-picked, remains an issue. Yada, yada. Otra vez, otra vez.

“It’s not about helping Cuba, it’s about helping us,” underscored City Council Chairwoman Yolie Capín.

Ay, Dios. Dick Greco, please call your old office.

As we know, Mayor Bob Buckhorn doesn’t always see eye to eye with the county. The fact that it has exercised a de facto veto over Tampa-friendly, transit referenda speaks for itself. But when the County Commission voted to leave that Confederate monument outside the old County Courthouse, the mayor pulled no rhetorical punches. “There is no honor in treason, and there is no valor in enslaving people because of their race,” he declared. “That statue represents the worst of humanity, not the Tampa that we aspire to be.”

To Buckhorn, this had to be the equivalent of spiking the football. This is a gut issue, and it’s his back yard. The world, he fears, won’t view this as a controversial Hillsborough County monument, but as a monumental black eye on the image of Tampa.

Best emblazoned cap at the St. Pete Pride Festival: “Yes, your gaydar is accurate.”

It’s progress, and we’ll take it. But we still need to recognize context.

Several local struggling schools showed encouraging improvement on state examinations. But there was also this: In language arts, just 6 percent of fifth-graders at Tampa’s B.T. Washington Elementary tested at their grade level, while at Potter Elementary it was 10 percent among fourth-graders.

The reasons are myriad, as we know all too well. But this is 2017–not 1954. Sobering.

Looks like Dick Greco may become a Tampa resident again. He and his wife, Linda McClintock,  recently bought a condo at the 24-story Virage on Bayshore Boulevard. Given the construction schedule, they could be back within two years.

Good. This is where the iconic, Tampa native belongs. And chances are the former four-time Tampa mayor wouldn’t disagree.

First the good news. The Downtowner shuttle rides are getting an upgrade. The Tampa Downtown Partnership is going to expand the free, app-based service by adding four electric–air-conditioned–Chevy Bolts to the dozen golf cart-like vehicles called GEMS already in service.

Now the other news take. This, alas, could qualify as mass transit around here.

Developer Larry Feldman talks about Tampa’s Riverwalk promenade morphing into something akin to what has been happening along St. Petersburg’s Beach Drive. He calls it “Beach Driveification.” He also labels the way companies keep squeezing more employees into less work space as the “sardine-ization of America.” He talks like thatification.

Well, here’s one business affix that we never needed around here–and Feldman is in a position to underscore it: the “Trumpification” of Tampa. Later this summer he’ll be opening a sales office for his 53-story Riverfront Place project on South Ashley Drive. A site that was, yes, once designated for Trump Tower Tampa. Talk about an ironically dodged bullet. Construction should begin next year.

When it comes to taking a stand against something harmful to the Tampa Bay area, the state of Florida, the United States and planet Earth, all leverage should be exercised. Politics be damned.

So, it’s totally appropriate for America’s mayors–from Pittsburgh to Plant City–to join the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda that prioritizes upholding “the commitments to the goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement.” Both Tampa’s Bob Buckhorn and St. Petersburg’s Rick Kriseman have joined more than 200 other mayors in formally pledging to support the Paris Agreement– regardless of what the U.S. is officially doing in the wake of President Donald Trump’s announced withdrawal from the global agreement. The other major Tampa Bay mayor, Clearwater’s George Cretekos, has declined. “I want to lead by example, not by criticism,” he explained.

Well, two out of three is not good enough in underscoring Tampa Bay’s concern and commitment.

Even though Clearwater has some green bona fides, Cretekos misses the point. All tools, including symbolic ones that are inevitably political, are to be utilized when the cause warrants. This one does. It’s that existentially important, even for a Republican.