Conventional Thinking

As decision day approaches for the Republican National Committee to decide where to put its 2012 national convention, the usual economic-windfall touts and the usual naysayers are having at it. Tampa remains in a very strong position versus its competition — Phoenix and Salt Lake City.

But can’t we at least agree on this: If Tampa is awarded the GOP convention, wouldn’t an influx of some 50,000 visitors — in late AUGUST — be welcome? Especially with the city being contractually free from out-of-pocket expenses and overtime. Especially with signs of the Great Recession still lingering.

A big game or any big gathering doesn’t mean as much to a New York, Chicago, Las Vegas or OrlandoWorld — which are year-round visitor magnets. But Tampa in AUGUST?

Vinik Adds To Credibility

Jeff Vinik incurred instant credibility when he bought the Tampa Bay Lightning last month. He paid cash. The previous owners were highly leveraged and needed NHL payroll advances.  Vinik’s net worth is in the $800-million range. He is also a sole owner. No partners for subplots.

Vinik just reinforced that first impression by cleaning house. A third straight non-playoff season — in a sport where virtually every team qualifies — called for no less. Well-liked but underachieving head coach Rick Tocchet was let go as well as disliked and underachieving general manager Brian Lawton.

Vinik’s game plan going forward will begin with the hiring of a CEO within 30 to 60 days. That person will hire Lawton’s replacement, who will, in turn, hire a coach. Vinik knows enough to know that he’s not the hockey expert. The financial maven will invest in the right people.

That’s also a big part of his credibility — and a major contrast with his “cowboy” predecessors.

Real Safety: A Vested Interest

The First Amendment.

The embodiment of our freedoms.  It’s what separates us from the Visigoths and the North Koreans. Religion, speech, press, assembly, petition. Our underpinnings.

None, of course, are absolute. All, of course, imply responsibilities as well as rights. Some, of course, will necessarily be confrontational and controversial. A few, of course, will seem incompatible with the common good, if not common sense.

To wit: the disgusting Terri Schaivo TV parody. Or the unconscionable, anti-gay protestors unfurling “Thank God For Dead Soldiers” signage at a Marine’s funeral service. Or “adult” entertainment that demeans meaningful definitions of freedom of expression. It’s part of our American, societal fabric — and legal support system.   

Now another problematic, albeit much more pedestrian, First Amendment application.

Tampa recently refined its street solicitor code. Used to be that those soliciting for charities and selling newspapers in the medians of busy intersections had to be a certain age (18), operate only during daylight hours and not linger when the light turned green. Now such individuals must also sport a safety vest.

And add this subplot: such individuals now include panhandlers — once they’ve been vested in neon orange, yellow or lime green.

No one intended this as a panhandler-helper act, but that’s the upshot. But what can a free-speech venerating municipality do? Accommodate those asking for charitable donations but not those asking for a spare-change handout? Hardly. Abridge no one’s rights. Apparently City Hall’s legal department has tied City Council’s collective hands and manacled its minds.

The code update comes from a good place: safety. A more visible, Home Depo-tized solicitor is a safer solicitor. But it comes — ironically — at the expense of, well, safety. What is needed is not a marginally less-dangerous scenario for all roadside solicitors. That, in effect, only perpetuates an inherently unsafe scenario. What is needed is the removal of ALL such solicitors. That’s safety we can believe in.

Whether they are booted firefighters, garden-variety panhandlers or Philly-style soft pretzel hawkers, nobody belongs in the middle of the street transacting anything. That’s why St. Petersburg banned such accidents-in-the-offing two years ago.

This is no time to go all ACLU about the First Amendment. It’s a time for common sense. It speaks volumes when the City Council member most outspoken on this issue is Joseph Caetano, hardly its most insightful member.

In a refreshingly nuance-free rationale, Caetano said the city should just flat-out ban anybody peddling anything in the middle of the street. What a concept.

The alternative is to continue to ban common sense and traffic in misapplied legal rationales.

Gasparilla Post-Mortem: Congrats

Recent Gasparilla Parade post-mortems have featured plenty of criticism as Hyde Park residents  shared tales of out-of-control revelers in their midst.

Last week’s post-Gasparilla 2010 gathering at Kate Jackson Recreation Center in South Tampa had a different vibe. Gratitude reigned. “And this was not a one-year crackdown,” underscored Santiago Corrada, Tampa’s Convention Center, Tourism, Recreation and Cultural Arts Administrator. “There won’t be any backing down from us.”

Indeed, year one of changing the punks-and-drunks culture was a success. Not seamless, but certainly successful.

Sure the weather was a factor — but half as many people and three times as many arrests still meant a message had been sent. Via the traditional media, public-service announcements, billboards and school assemblies. And it was reinforced on game day by a Tampa Police Department with a long overdue, coordinated agenda to push back. Logistical changes, such as more port-a-lets, a longer parade route and a new party venue at Curtis Hixon Park obviously helped.

One change for next year: look for more emphasis on the proximity between the Bayshore wet-zone and adjacent areas subject to the open-container laws. Look for high-profile, well-advertised maps highlighting the impacted areas.

And there were a few grumblings about better officer discretion when it comes to imbibing residents who obviously weren’t party to mayhem or underage drinking. To some, it seemed almost arbitrary as to what was and what wasn’t legal quaffing of alcoholic beverages. 

“We will make that crystal clear,” noted TPD Assistant Chief of Police Marc Hamlin. “We thought it was. But we have to change the culture.”

One final note. Corrada, who until recently had been the city Administrator of Neighborhood Services, played a part in Tampa’s official pitch for the GOP convention in 2012. He was still waxing euphoric. “If we don’t get it this time, well, we never will,” he said.

Transit Movement

This much we know. There’s probably no changing the dissenting minds of County Commissioners Jim Norman and Al Higginbotham on the transit-referendum issue.  And a tax for anything is now a tougher slog than ever — even if this hub city’s economic viability is ultimately at stake.

But it has to help that the Commission has now approved a list of road projects that would complement new rail lines and bus service. This is no big-ticket abstraction. For many of those not on board for rail, it’s hardly irrelevant that most of the asphalt money will go toward county-owned roads. Projects such as the widening of Lithia Pinecrest Road from State Road 60 to Fishhawk Trails Drive.

Can’t hurt to actually see such a list published. This region’s future is no abstraction.

Steele’s Deal

Michael Steele, the black chairman of the Republican National Committee who’s now presiding over Gaffe-gate, acknowledges that as an African-American he does, indeed, have a “slimmer margin of error.” Probably so. “Post-racial” America is obviously not yet colorblind.

But Steele should also concede that he was the beneficiary of the RNC’s devious race card. His strongest asset was that he was a media savvy African-American who could more credibly help the GOP counter and criticize the agenda of America’s first African-American president. 

Can’t have it both ways.

Tiger Tale

We can all probably agree on this: What Tiger Woods did is none of our business. It’s between Woods and his wife, conscience and sponsors. Possibly in that order.

As to this week’s much-ballyhooed press conference in Augusta, it was a couple of answers shy of clearing the air. Still unknown: What exactly did Woods do? How did one of the most recognizable people on the planet manage to live that lie for so long? Why should he be believed now?

But, then again, it’s none of our business.

Quoteworthy

* “After a first year in office that promised consequence but never quite delivered on it, he had done something huge. The comparisons with Jimmy Carter would abruptly come to an end. He was now a president who didn’t back down, who could herd cats, who was not merely intellectual and idealistic but tough enough to force his way.” — Joe Klein, Time magazine, on the implications of President Obama’s orchestration of health care reform legislation.

* “In view of the influx of 30 million more insured patients into our health care system, how will there be enough doctors available to take care of everyone?” — Louis J. Goodman and Timothy B. Norbeck, president and executive director, respectively, The Physicians Foundation.

* “If you don’t get governance right, it is very hard to get anything else right that government needs to deal with. We have to rethink in some basic ways how our political institutions work, because they are increasingly incapable of delivering effective solutions any longer.” — Larry Diamond, senior fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University and founding co-editor, Journal of Democracy.

* “If he’s going to announce he’s for drilling, he should announce that we’re drilling now.” — Newt Gingrich on President Obama’s plan to open up some 24 million acres of the eastern Gulf of Mexico to offshore drilling.

* “The federal government should tax  college athletics programs in proportion to the total compensation packages they pay to their coaching staffs…Programs that pay coaches outsized compensation are in the entertainment business.”  — Richard Hain, math professor, Duke University.

* “Journalism used to be the preserve of working class stiffs who filed stories and hit the bars. Now it is the preserve of cultured analysts who file stories and hit the water bottle. Is the media overall more reputable now than it was then?” — David Brooks, New York Times News Service.

* “It is well past time for Florida’s government officials to protect citizens and visitors and ban people from driving on its beaches.” — Bron Taylor, professor of religion and environmental ethics, University of Florida, in the aftermath of a recent tragedy at Daytona Beach.

* “It accomplished nothing. In 90 days we’ll be right back where we were.” — Hillsborough County Commissioner Rose Ferlita on the suspension of County Administrator Pat Bean and County Attorney Renee Lee.

* “The African-American community has a tremendous amount of respect for this commission and for the county attorney, Renee Lee. We love her. We respect her. And we want her to continue as our county attorney.” — Gerald White, black community activist.

Not Good (Enough) Friday

Good Friday is not a school holiday in Hillsborough County.

Could have fooled us. More than two out of every five students stayed away in droves, including about 70 percent of high schoolers. In addition, nearly 20 percent of bus drivers and 10 percent of teachers took the day off.  There weren’t enough substitutes to go around.  

Those showing up had to feel the sham-school-day joke was on them. Same thing — actually worse — happened in 2008, the last time a school day fell on Good Friday.

It’s expected that the School Board will take up the controversial calendar issue at its upcoming meeting later this month. It’s likely that it will decide to relent and make Good Friday an official holiday again. FCAT schedules, the cost of Good Friday substitute teachers ($68,000) and the avoidance of another busy-work, educational travesty point in that direction.

It’s disheartening. Such a non-secular holiday designation will encourage, for example, more Jewish and Muslim lobbying for holidays aligned with their religions. And why not? Good Friday is not a de facto secular holiday such as Christmas. It’s religiously specific.

Board member Doretha Edgecomb is right when she noted that the student absentee rate is reflective of family choices. Even the president of the Hillsborough County PTA pulled her 7th grade son early to attend a religious service.  

Two other points. Let’s not kid ourselves. While some adults might be responding or rationalizing religiously, a lot of students are using Good Friday as a beach day.

One other thing. This was not a good time to remind the Legislature, seemingly hell-bent on  teacher-unfriendly “accountability” bills,  that one of the state’s largest school districts is still grappling with the separation of church and state.  And just spent $68,000 for one day of busy-work substitutes.

Baseball’s Foster Care

Talk about mixed signals. Or misplaced  priorities. Or perverse irony.

St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster is forming a “Mayor’s Sports Council.” Ostensibly, it will help him market the city as a sports venue, a laudable idea. The efforts would range from wooing spring training back to Al Lang Field and pitching St. Pete as a host for the World Baseball Championship in 2013 to bringing back the Final Four and recruiting some USF football games.

Good. Pro-active is always the way to go. Especially in this economy. And St. Pete has marketable assets.

But here’s a suggestion. Before convening the MSC, why not invite the ABC Coalition in for their first-hand take on St. Petersburg’s uber sports concern: keeping the Tampa Bay Rays. If not in St. Petersburg, at least in the region. The Rays’ economic impact is more than $100 million.

The ABC (A Baseball Community), a business coalition initiated by former St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker, has made the regional rounds and made it clear that the Rays can’t make it at the Trop — and will be long gone by the time their lease is up in 2027. Everyone else — from Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to Rays’ owner Stu Sternberg  to anyone not in City Hall’s inner circles — also knows that. Foster and the St. Pete City Council remain, seemingly, in dumbfounding denial.

The reasons why the Rays need out of the ill-suited, poorly-located Trop are well documented and need not be repeated here. At this level, leases are broken as the cost of doing business elsewhere. The question is timing.

The new facility/new venue clock is ticking and other suitors — from Charlotte to San Antonio to Portland are watching and calculating.  And doubtless hoping that myopic St. Pete officials remain counterproductively provincial and stay focused on wooing spring training and the World Baseball Championships.