Month: February 2003

There are mayoral endorsements and there are mayoral endorsements. From the Builders Association to the Sierra Club. It’s all fair game. The lone anomaly, however, is Bob Buckhorn’s formal support from the hard line, anti-Castro Cubans.

It’s certainly his prerogative to fundraise in Miami and to honor those who lost so much in the revolution. No one could doubt where he stands. He has even flown with Brothers To The Rescue.

But the atavistic, Cold War Cuban position has no place in this 2003 mayor’s race.

By stridently and effectively exercising its political leverage over the years, the anti-Castro, pro-embargo crowd has, in effect, worked at cross purposes with the best interests of U.S. foreign policy. Moreover, American business interests and luckless Cuban citizens would have benefited by a common sense, humanitarian approach to Cuban-American relations.

Until recently, the Port of Tampa has been deterred from looking into even legal opportunities in Cuba — let alone properly preparing for post-Castro Cuba. That obviously has not been in Tampa’s best interest.

Perhaps Ralph Fernandez can deliver some votes. Perhaps the rest of the voters will not notice. Or care.

Perhaps.

Al Austin was named Civitan’s Citizen of the Year. It could have been for any number of years. His impact has been as far-reaching as it’s been unremitting.

Austin was a visionary in developing the West Shore office district and a champion in standing tall for MacDill Air Force Base. He’s always been the proverbial busy guy who could get important things done — whether for the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, the Red Cross, the American Heart Association, the University of Tampa or the Tampa Bay Partnership.

He’s long been a major GOP player statewide and nationally. He has been at his partisan best, however, whenever it came to Tampa.

Al Austin is also the consummate gentleman.

Congratulations.

And thank you.

Imagine this.

After early reports were confirmed that there had, indeed, been a shuttle disaster, word went out to halt the Gasparilla parade. Whether it was canceled or just postponed, it was over. Please understand and go home.

Yes, there was a flotilla in the water, and hundreds of vendors and several hundred thousand spectators, a number from out of town, were already positioned. And many more visitors were flowing in — with still more on the way. Traffic, not yet clued in, was inexorably inching its way forward, as others were now looking for escape routes. The police were doing what they could. Still, it was an ad hoc mess, one that not all drivers handled with proper Columbia reverence.

In fact, some drivers, amid the near-chaotic dispersal, were as confused as they were imprudent behind the wheel. U-Turns and alley exits turned South Tampa into a labyrinthian nightmare. Barricaded exits on the Interstate resulted in several chain-reaction accidents.

Gridlock behavior was obviously incongruous with memorial deportment. And that, in itself, was sad — but all too human. And predictable. Some pedestrians and motorists were unluckier than most. A couple of accidents were beyond fender benders. One, alas, was fatal. A teenager was backed over by someone in a hurry to go nowhere.

Mayor Greco, we know you give more than a rat’s patootie about doing the right thing, but what were you thinking? Doesn’t point-of-no-return have any meaning to you? Had it been, say, the smaller, bawdy Night Parade, it might have been manageable. But doing a 180 on Gasparilla when so many and so much were already in place?

You were, we’ll acknowledge, faced with a no-win situation, but you didn’t have to add to the loss. We’ll concede that your heart was in the right place, but you issued an order that resulted in an eighth victim. Not an astronaut, mind you, and not a hero, just an otherwise anonymous kid who was merely very important to a lot of other anonymous people. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time because there were no right places in that fire-drill-gone-wrong of an exit.

It’s fitting, however, that there will be an inquiry into the resultant chaos. Next time there is an unexpected exodus of nearly a half million people, things should go better. There is at least one family, though, that will find that scant consolation.

Of course, there’s no denying that there’s precious little in a Gasparilla Parade that lends itself to proper respect for the Columbia 7. What would you have done? Periodically pause for a moment of silence? But, still, people — especially the ones with young children — would have understood — and agreed — had the parade gone on.

Admittedly, it’s easy to scare up a scenario like this. Maybe it’s a cheap shot.

And Mayor Greco certainly made it easier for armchair critics by saying that drive-by moments of silence “will honor them even more.” Hardly. That ill-phrased comment, however, was a function of wishful thinking and deliberation-challenged timing. It wasn’t “seedy,” as one pundit cynically characterized it.

Given the logistical fait accompli , proceeding with the parade was not “insanity.” It was the less worse option. However quick on his rhetorical feet, Greco isn’t a reincarnation of Ronald Reagan.

But, then, neither is anyone else, including cheap shot-delivering Sunday-morning quarterbacks.

Congratulations are certainly in order to Debbie Gill Leslie, Hillsborough County’s Teacher of the Year. Good — let alone exceptional — teachers certainly don’t get enough recognition. And reward. In this case, the Pride Elementary School kindergarten teacher received $2,000, a ring, round-trip airline tickets, a crystal apple, tickets to various sporting and entertainment events and more. By all accounts, she was still under-rewarded.

As admirable — and fitting — as such an honor is, the selection process needs improvement. It needs to be fair. Hillsborough County selects its Teacher of the Year from its total ranks, K-12.

The comparisons are challenging enough when comparing elementary teachers to each other — or secondary teachers to each other. To choose one winner among all the elementary and secondary teachers, however, is beyond challenging. It’s impossible — if fairness is to be more than a nominal consideration.

Call it the pedagogic equivalent of the apples-to-oranges metaphor. Only here it’s the more child-oriented, patience-of-Job elementary teacher incongruously compared to the more subject-oriented, adolescent-relating secondary instructor.

Surely, what’s worth rewarding is worth rewarding fairly.

Every Monday night since the beginning of the year, a dozen or so women gather at Sanchez headquarters on Kennedy Boulevard to brainstorm ways to help their candidate. They look for means, from mixers to backyard proselytizing, to network the Sanchez message. The genesis goes back to the fall, when target niches were evolving into entities such as “Artists for Sanchez.” The re-emergence of candidate Pam Iorio — formidable and female — accelerated the evolution of what is now “Women for Sanchez.”

“Yes, Pam entering the race made it more critical,” acknowledges Joli Cooper, who’s responsible for the Sanchez campaign’s outreach to women. “Women otherwise uninformed about the candidates might possibly vote for Pam. Being the only female candidate can still be very much of an advantage. The ‘We’ve-come-a-long-way-baby’ stuff still applies. Women like to see other women succeed and support each other.

“Our message is economic development first and personal and neighborhood safety,” says Cooper, who’s also president and chief operating officer of Cooper Nelson & Associates, a Tampa-based business and marketing consultant firm. “And as a woman and an African American, I want a candidate who stands behind inclusion.”

The mix on a recent Monday night ranged from 20-something to 50-something and was dotted with professional women.

“Frank wants Tampa to be more than just the hospitality and customer service capital,” explained Susan Jacobs, a single mom and businesswoman. “Women care about this, especially a lot of single moms.”

To Anneliese Meier, a businesswoman and the lone Republican in the group, Sanchez’s sense of ethics was determinative. “I don’t want to see Tampa become another Miami-Dade,” she said. “Very corrupt. They get away with it. But don’t forget. We also want what everybody wants: a healthy, safe place to live.”

But what of the flip-flop-flip flap over Sanchez’s stand on Ye Mystic Krewe’s all-male membership?

“This group is not a reaction to the Ye Mystic Krewe issue,” pointed out Maryann Ferenc Blitz, the Sanchez campaign manager. “If you want to call it a matter of ‘political inexperience’, we can live with that. We know what Frank Sanchez stands for. Diversity is a real piece of Frank’s life. This outreach is real. We’re not conceding any constituency. Diversity is important to building our economy.”

“School choice.” By now, it’s become a shibboleth of modern education. It’s also a euphemism for “make sure there aren’t schools with too many black kids.” The unspoken, (otherwise) politically incorrect rationale: too many blacks together just doesn’t make for a good learning environment. In any other context, this would be abhorrently racist thinking. But not with the “school choice” crowd.

Instead of, say, assuring that all schools have parity when it comes to physical plants, curricular materials, course offerings and instructional staff, the aim is to insure that housing patterns don’t re-segregate our schools. Hence various kinds of “magnets” and “attractor programs” for students to attend a school other than the one that is closest — the one that just might foster a sense of community identity. And parental involvement. Remember those days?

Anyhow, this county is now throwing brochures, color-coded maps, resource centers and public meetings at parents to help them navigate the tricky shoals of “school choice” and make informed decisions.

Which brings us to parents from the Hunter’s Green area of North Tampa. Their kids go to Hunter’s Green Elementary, a school with a healthy sense of community and parental involvement. It’s also earned a nationally recognized academic reputation. For obvious reasons, the parents like it that way.

That school, however, is slated to become an attractor program. Apparently, it’s not attractive enough as is — merely an academic exemplar. The attractor program will be in sports.

Now that’s an interesting priority; there was certainly no Hunter’s Green groundswell for it. Perhaps it’s because we, as a society, are already saturated in sports — as well as the dysfunctional role models they too frequently yield.

So there is some skepticism from Hunter Green parents.

It just might be that they see right through this game of social engineering.