Category: Tampa Bay

When about 50 Hyde Park residents gathered last week to hear back from city officials and event planners about changes in the Gasparilla Parade, they heard enough to feel that their voices of concern hadn’t been summarily dismissed. They had complained passionately, articulately — and often angrily — six weeks prior about anarchy in their midst.

 

They now heard about police re-deployment plans, more port-o-lets, additional water-side viewing areas, educational initiatives and an extended parade route down Ashley Drive for Gasparilla 2010. They also listened as Tampa Police Major Marc Hamlin informed the gathering that TPD will be enforcing a “no tolerance” policy for the day’s traditional outrages: ranging from underage drinking and private-property trespissing to assaultive behavior and public sex.

 

Two points.

 

First, the city and (promoter) EventFest should be commended for having made a good faith effort to make next year’s Gasparilla Parade better – as in safer. For attendees and for residents.

 

Deploying more officers into the alleys and using remote booking facilities to expedite arrests will help. As will signage that underscores the message that TPD is serious about enforcing a “no tolerance” policy for underage drinking and the usual variations on an uncivilized-conduct theme.

 

Second. In reality, Gasparilla 2010 may be merely less anarchic, hardly a standard to aspire to. That’s because some 1,400 police, including Florida State Beverage Division personnel, will still be overwhelmingly outnumbered by hordes in excess of 350,000. Extending the parade route and carving out public-viewing access on the Hillsborough Bay side of Bayshore Boulevard will only impact those who actually care about viewing a parade. More port-o-lets might be a moot point for most of the bladder-challenged fueled on something other than bottled water. And those who face legal extortion each year will still have to fence off their properties and hire private security.

 

That’s why a change of venue was — and remains — necessary. Not just some highly publicized, well-intentioned “tweaks,” as characterized by Santiago Corrada, Tampa’s Neighborhood Services Coordinator.

 

A neighborhood adjacent to a jumbo parade, signature status notwithstanding, is, by definition, an unsuitable venue. It can’t be “tweaked” into suitability. That’s why big, prominent parades – from Carnival in Rio to Macy’s in New York to the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena – are held in downtowns – not next to somebody’s front lawn.

 

That’s why, for example, the Chicago neighborhood of Beverly, which had been hosting a South Side Irish St. Patrick’s Parade for years, finally canceled theirs after the 2009 version. Something about crowd management and public safety as oxymorons. Drunks and punks were overwhelming the police and the neighborhood, and the luck of the Irish — but not their common sense — had run out.

No Vigilante

One final note. For those who may have seen my cameo sound bites last Thursday evening or Friday morning on WFLA, Channel 8 or WFTS, Channel 28, let me supply some context. No, I wasn’t trying to channel a Charles Bronson vigilante character. But, yes, I was trying to clarify a couple of points. And, yes, I do live near “ground zero.”

 

First, I had wanted to respond publicly to someone who had asked me if I were one of the “complainers.” My response:

 

“For the record, we Hyde Park residents are not chronic complainers and whiney elites who resent being ‘inconvenienced’ by the Gasparilla Parade Pirate Fest. In reality, we don’t mind ‘taking one for the team,’ when the team is Tampa and its signature parade. We’re no less proud of our traditions than anyone else. But we are outraged when they are perverted. And largely at our expense. We don’t think it’s a character flaw to be intolerant of those at odds with civilizational norms.

 

“What we specifically mind is being subjected to an invasion. The use of euphemisms has worked to our detriment. So let’s not traffic in terms such as ‘rowdy’ or even ‘bawdy.’ That sounds like a Bucs game. This is way beyond that. 

 

“Absent a change of venue, we would certainly want a no-nonsense message sent by the City and the Tampa Police Department — in the run-up to Gasparilla 2010 — to teens, their parents and others to whom this applies. The message, in effect, should be this:

 

            ‘Your one-day exemption from legal and societal responsibilities has been revoked. If you break the law, you will be arrested. And neither you nor your enabling parents are going to like it and how it will look. We frankly don’t care. Trespassing, drunken disorderly, assault, underage consumption and indecent exposure charges await.

 

‘You’ve been fully warned. There will be consequences. We don’t care who you are or who you know or who your parents know.

 

‘If we have anything to say about it, no longer will the Gasparilla Parade be synonymous with the ‘Street Party From Hell.’ And we do, indeed, have something to say about it.’”

Anybody else feel this way?

 

Take the case of that woman who was arrested on animal cruelty charges for leaving her puppy in her car while she went IKEAing. The puppy survived, but it wasn’t the first time she had been so cluelessly cruel. Wouldn’t the most appropriate punishment – and the one most likely to impact future conduct – be to lock her in her car for an hour or two? Good for the pores too.

When it comes to architecture, Hillsborough Community College has proven to be an institution of higher loathing in Ybor City. Historic integrity? Doesn’t apply to them. The Barrio Latino Commission? Go away; they’re exempt.

 

HCC has shown over the years – and recently again – that it need pay less than lip service to the history and aesthetics of Ybor. Its regional Ybor campus is a paean to all that is contemporary – and its student services building, currently under construction, is similarly ill-suited. Along the way, it has made clear that it does what it wants and answers only to its own designs. That’s HCC’s history.

 

And then in mid-arrogance, HCC learned that its $14-million, 63,000-square-foot student services building was going to be too tall. It would exceed the 45-foot limit (for YC-3 zoning) by more some 18 feet.

 

It was too late to turn back and too high to put on a mansard roof and call it a day. Now HCC needs an exemption. And it needs it from the Barrio Latino Commission, of all entities.

 

So HCC has to take its thumb from its nose and make architectural concessions. It says it will do some retrofitting that includes pained windows instead of a glass wall façade and the use of beige brick on the building’s exterior, which will match the color of the nearby Cuban Club.

 

HCC hopes these and some other architectural accommodations will offset the height variance it needs. The BLC will formally hear the request next month.  

 

Word is the BLC will enforce a no-gloat zone, but who would blame them if they didn’t? What goes around comes around. Not just in architecture styles.

Last month’s re-arrest of Youssef Megahed still has the local Muslim community simmering – and a lot of other folks still shaking their heads about the feds seemingly coming down with a classic case of vindictiveness. Recall that three days after the former USF student was found not guilty of explosives possession he was arrested again – this time by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. A deportation hearing is still pending.

 

The rationale for the immigration charges, upon further reflection, still seems like a legal system temper tantrum. To many observers, most of them non-Muslims, this is how, in effect, it must have played out:

 

“We have a 2 ½ -week trial with a bunch of witnesses and more than 100 pieces of evidence. This is after this guy’s USF pal, Ahmed Mohamed, pleads guilty to providing material support to terrorists and gets 15 years in a plea deal. But Megahed? Oh, he was just cruising aimlessly and cluelessly in South Carolina with his Muslim buddy, the convicted terrorist wannabe! And a jury buys that? You gotta be kidding! Let’s go the civil route this time. He’s over at Wal-Mart. ICE him.”

How coincidental that the area’s two dailies both did prominent Sunday features this week on the same successful, brash, Lamborghini-driving real estate agent who bills himself as “The Short Sale Kid.” It’s about foreclosures and same-day flips and lots of lawyers – all in the context of finding profit amid the housing bust. It’s legal and entrepreneurial and, according to some real estate professionals, fraught with red flags over transparency and ethics.

 

We won’t get any more specific and add to this guy’s publicity coup, but you can’t help wondering: Isn’t this an ironic variation on a theme that got us into this mess in the first place?

Tragically, it has happened yet again. Amid all the awful, sordid news stories out there, is there anything worse than the ones that chronicle the arrest of those accused of killing – and sometimes sexually assaulting – little children? Sometimes babies.

 

This is something that is beyond psychopathic and perverted. Maybe it’s the manifestation of evil. But one thing is certain. Those who would do such despicable things — regardless of their inner demons and addictions — had access. We don’t know the why, but that’s the how.

 

Live-in boyfriends, including the unconscionably creepy ones, are a societal norm. Even society’s old-schoolers acknowledge as much. But all bets are off and the dynamics are different where little children are involved. Sharing a bed is not the same as sharing a household that includes the innocent.

 

These women, making unilateral decisions that impact their children, are not just pitiful,  tragic figures. They are negligent, enabling accomplices in a tragedy — and a crime.

The upshot of the Brian Blair libel suit against Kevin Beckner might be this: A landmark, stop-the-presses case that radically alters how far political campaigns can go in the down- and-dirty, rough-and-tumble give-and-take that is candidate bashing.

 

But chances are, it will be this: Absent convincing proof that statements made against a public official were both defamatory and made with reckless disregard for the truth, the core of First Amendment protections – political speech – will be upheld.

 

Two points.

 

Beckner has fired back with a legal filing that seeks to get Blair’s suit tossed out of court. The filing itself is a veritable laundry list of the considerable public criticism incurred by the ex-wrestler and former county commissioner over the years. Ouch. How ironic that the process of reputation reclamation initiates another rehash of “Blair’s Greatest (Reputation) Hits.”

 

In response to Blair’s contention that “his good name and reputation” have been damaged and need to be restored, the filing — by Beckner attorneys Barry Cohen and Gregg Thomas — countered sardonically that the motion to dismiss does indeed “join in that endeavor.” It said it seeks “to clarify that Blair’s reputation is, in actuality, one that is a discredit to him personally and to the Tampa Bay community.” Double ouch.

 

Second. If you’re retaining Barry Cohen, you’re serious. You may say the suit is frivolous, but you’re not taking any chances.

In less than two months, we’ll know if Tampa is an All-American City. Again. Last time this city was so designated by the National Civic League was 1990.

Now Tampa is among 32 cities — from Phoenix, Arizona to Providence, Rhode Island — vying for the honor. It will be bestowed on 10 of them at the 60^th anniversary awards ceremony on Friday, June 19 right here at the Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel. Tampa is the only Florida city represented. The key criterion: How well a city has done creating partnerships with elements of their communities to address local challenges.

In Tampa’s case, Exhibits A, B and C are:

*The 6-year East Tampa Initiative that has worked to help revitalize a neighborhood with recreational, social and cultural activities.

*The 40^th Street Enhancement Project, the nearly finished $106-million improvement of 4.2 miles of roadway on 40^th Street from Hillsborough to Fowler Avenue. It includes a new bridge – conceptually designed by a local King High School student. It features multiple partnerships as well as a citizen task force.

*The annual Sulphur Springs Children’s Holiday Event, which provides local children with gifts and food – as well as care and attention. Sulphur Springs, which has a median income of $10,592, also has the highest population of children of all Tampa neighborhoods. The key partner: the Tampa Police Department.

“I am really excited for the people in these communities,” says Shannon Edge, the director of Tampa’s Office of Neighborhood & Community Relations. “They felt like they never had a voice. Especially the 40^th Street task force. To get this designation would validate all the time and effort put in. It will demonstrate that all the hard work paid off.”

It would also be a major, one-year, marketing coup, adds Edge, who can envision more than “All-American City” signage around town. Think official letterheads and web sites to city car magnets and t-shirts.

“It’s huge,” she underscores. “Especially for economic development. We’re talking the Chamber of Commerce, Tampa Bay & Company, the Convention Center, the Committee of 100. And in this crazy economic time, to have this boost in pride!”

So, is Tampa confident? Yes – but anxious too, according to Edge. She’s concerned that there might be, ironically, a bit of a home-venue disadvantage in being the host. It could mean that judges will cut extra slack to those who had to mix in more travel expenses and logistical inconveniences.

“We can’t think we’re a shoo-in because we’re hosting,” says Edge. “We have to knock their socks off. If anything, there’s more pressure because it’s here. We have to keep it tight, on point and enthusiastic.”

Starting with the Middleton High drum line to fire everyone up. 

I think we can all agree that the death of 8-year-old Paris Whitehead-Hamilton of St. Petersburg was a tragedy. One that warranted as much grief as outrage, because it was so senseless and so eminently preventable.

What I won’t concur with, however, is the sense of societal guilt that some have been parceling out. In effect, “we are all at fault.” In an utterly imperfect world, we lack, among other things, idealized nuclear families and a perfect criminal justice system. As a result, we should hardly be surprised when all kinds of anti-social behavior, including anarchy and iniquity, result. It’s a societal failing.

This sort of rush-to-collective-culpability is, itself, an outrage. When you mis-assign indictment, you mis-apportion responsibility and accountability.

You want fault? Try this: Despite what President Obama and prominent African-Americans such as Bill Cosby have stood for, have said and have done, there can not be a “post-racial” America until a still-too-prevalent, dysfunctional black culture has been dismantled. St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker alluded to as much with a benignly nuanced statement about music and other cultural elements that promote violence. Others have noted the “no snitch” ethic all too prominent in many minority neighborhoods.

As a result of rival gangs “warring,” an innocent 8-year-old, known affectionately as “Princess Paris,” was killed because she was in the wrong place – her home – doing the wrong thing – seeing what caused the noise that woke her up — at the wrong time – 2:20 a.m. Three of the 50 bullets from semi-automatic rifles hit and killed her. They were actually meant for another member of her household.

You want further fault?  Try those who continue to pervert the Second Amendment with specious reasoning that manages to equate assault weapons with Founding Fathers’ intent in the era of musketry and well-regulated militias. Yes, we’re talking the National Rifle Association, its Mephistophelean lobbyists, all the craven legislators they intimidate —  and all the malefic, gun show subplots and loopholes that necessarily result.

You want to assign blame? Those who pull the triggers. Those who accommodate the trigger happy. And those who want to blame everybody.

Tampa’s Frank Sanchez, a Barack Obama insider since early in the presidential primary and a key operative in various vetting scenarios since the election, has now been appointed to an important administration position of his own. Pending Senate confirmation, Sanchez, 49, will become undersecretary of commerce for international trade.

Advising a candidate is obviously different from advising an elected president, but here are some insights and observations from a July 2007 interview with Sanchez.

Trade: “Obama’s hardly for reversing globalization, but he doesn’t want to give lip service to labor issues and environmental concerns.”

Latin America: “For starters, we need to re-engage with Latin America. Brazil and Chile come readily to mind. For the last six years we’ve ignored Latin America – much to our detriment.”

Cuba: Sanchez underscored Obama’s priority of reversing the travel-and-remittance restrictions on the estimated 1.5 million Cuba-Americans living in the U.S. Indeed, President Obama just ordered that done.

As to the (then 45-year-old) economic embargo, Sanchez said Obama was not inclined to rush into any bold initiatives – preferring to use the embargo as “leverage” for changes on the island. The operative word was “incremental,” underscored Sanchez. Do not expect a diplomatic stroke that would “turn on a dime,” he emphasized.

Barack Obama: “He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. A defining characteristic is that he’s an amazing listener. He’s not some superficial glad-hander. He’s perfect for a time when people are genuinely sick of Washington politics.”