Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

110 years ago…

August 28, 1896 – Tampa’s baseball team arrives home from a road trip in Gainesville, Florida. The teams split the two game series, with Tampa winning 4-3 in five innings on August 26th and Gainesville coming out on top the following day. The second game was not without controversy, with some of Tampa’s players claiming that one of the umpires, who was from Ocala, cost them the game through his “unfair decisions.”

Courtesy of the Tampa Bay History Center.

Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson fired PR director Steve Holub, which in itself is no big deal. However (according to the St. Pete Times), Johnson gave Holub a severance check of over $24,000 – if Holub agreed not to sue the office and “keep his mouth shut” about anything he observed at the SOE offices. Now THAT is curious. 

Times reporter Jeff Testerman told us of the agreement on Thursday. But Buddy Johnson wouldn’t talk to him, and SOE attorney Kathy Harris said nobody would comment on the severance.

Reporters from the Tribune read the St. Pete Times story, and followed up on it Friday. Buddy Johnson told them “I don’t know what the big deal is.” 

To Johnson and the rest of Hillsborough County officials it really is no big deal, because apparently it’s happening all the time:

• Last fall, former Assistant County Attorney Ray Allen left with $40,007 severance payment and agreed to keep quiet about the details.
• Upon resigning in May 2005, Stan Motley (former director of Parks, Recreation and Conservation) got $81,840, and Daryl Smith (former director of Solid Waste) got $125,900.
• Previously mentioned SOE attorney Kathy Harris is new at that position. Just last month, the previous legal counsel, Helene Marks resigned, was paid a severance, and had no comment about the separation. 

There’s all kinds of changes happening at the Supervisor of Elections office:

• Assistant SOE James Reed was promoted to that position in May, and received his fifth raise within 19 months. That works out to one raise or promotion every 4 months.
• In March, Johnson moved much of his legal business from the county attorney’s office to the Broad and Cassel law firm in Tampa. Steven Burton, the managing partner of the firm, was regional co-chairman of the Bush-Cheney legal team formed to address any voting concerns during the 2004 presidential election.
• Kathy Harris was hired to take Marks’ place - at $50,000 more a year.

Most interesting is that reporter Testerman had found that Kathy Harris had previously worked for Hillsborough County (human services), but left in 2001 (emphasis mine):

Calling it “probably the hardest decision I have ever made,” Harris said in a resignation letter, “I am unable to support our continued practices, particularly when asked not to question those practices.”

Now she is back with the county, defending Buddy Johnson’s silence.

Could be that this is no big deal. Maybe Holub spotted Johnson using county computers to, uh, play solitaire or something. But all the secrecy is certainly peculiar. Even Clerk of the Circuit Court Pat Frank says “It’s very extraordinary.”

I think we ought to know what this is all about.

Slow down there is a cop.. wait a sec is that a cop?

The TPD is getting new cars. I saw the first one a few weeks back on I-275 and today I saw another on Dale Mabry. You aren’t going to be able to miss them, the problem is they look like some of the cheesier security company cars out there. The new cars are white with large black block letters reading POLICE on the sides and back, remember to drive within the speed limit or you might get to see one of them up close.

Hey that tower is not on Bayshore!

If you have driven down Bayshore in the past year you have been watching the construction of the “Alagon” condo tower. If you have thought, “Gee they are building another condo tower on Bayshore” you were sorely mistaken! That tower is clearly not on Bayshore, as evidenced by the construction now taking place in front of it. What I at first took to be a parking garage of some type is in fact a row of townhouses (yes smarty pants I suppose I would have known that if I had read the Times). The story I heard is that the developer couldn’t get approval for another tower right on Bayshore so they came up with the idea of sitting the tower back enough that they could say it wasn’t “on” Bayshore and put a row of three enormous townhomes in front. Maybe that was enough to satisfy the City council but you can bet the Toni Everett Company won’t advertise the condos as being, “near Bayshore” but instead they will certainly make sure you know they are ON Bayshore.

Charlie Crist has a shop on Dale Mabry

A few weeks ago I was going north on Dale Mabry and noticed a sign in front of a row of shops somewhere near Neptune. The sign appears to be advertising space for lease in the building but the owners have put a Charlie Crist banner on it that is so big it obscures the sign. My question, and it is really kind of inane so don’t get your hopes up; is the donation of the sign space, which has some monetary value, a violation of campaign finance laws? I wouldn’t have thought about it except for reading this which indicates that, at least in a Federal campaign, it may be illegal. If anybody has a clue about this please let us know, I will pay you $3 for your answer.

50 years ago…

August 27, 1956 – The Tampa Tribune learns that more dynamite is shipped through the Port of Tampa than any other port in the nation. This alarming news came on the heals of a blast in Cali, Columbia that killed 2,000 people. The Tribune connected the dynamite which exploded in Columbia was shipped through Tampa’s port. Tampa’s fire marshal was aware of the dangers, explaining that permits are issued for every shipment, and that trucks handling the explosive are escorted through the city.

Courtesy of the Tampa Bay History Center.

Just when I think that the last thing Tampa needs is another film festival, along comes the Gasparilla Film Festival to change my mind.  Scheduled for February 28 - March 4, 2007, this independent film festival will showcase more than 40 films in the following categories:

• Latin Panorama - films with a Cuban twist 
• New Horizons - films that more directly focus on the arts 
• Fun & Fear - a mix of comedies and horrors 
• Short Films - including family - friendly and music video 
• Special Screenings - Featured American indies 

Here’s part of the press release:

The 5-day competitive festival will be juried by reputable filmmakers and journalists who are industry professionals. Separate juries will be used for both the Latin Panorama section and the New Horizons section.   

Jury and Audience Awards will honor the following categories: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Picture -Short, Best Picture - Feature, Best Cinematography, Best Original Screenplay, Best Latin Film, Best Ensemble Cast, Best Homegrown Music Video, and the Young Filmmaker Award.  Other award categories will also be presented at the Cuban Club Theater on Sunday, March 4.

The festival will take place at venues in and surrounding Ybor City - Tampa’s National Historic District and Latin Quarter. The festival will begin its celebration of independent film with a VIP reception and “An Evening With…”, an intimate film screening and discussion with Special Guest at The Tampa Theatre. 

GFF Executive Director Sherri Simonetti, known locally for organizing the annual Back to School Bash, has hit the ground running. The film fest will soon be accepting submissions and they hope to have the film submission guidelines up on their website shortly. For more information, email info@gasparillafilmfest.com or visit http://www.gasparillafilmfest.com/. 

(cross-posted at Tampa Film Fan)

80 years ago…

August 26, 1926 – Construction work begins on a bridge spanning the Hillsborough River at Florida Avenue. The bridge was to be completed in ten weeks at a cost of $47,700 (a little more than $504,000 in today’s dollars). While the city and county split the cost of the bridge, a group of citizens, including B. L. Hamner, Milton Mabry and others, paid for the bridge themselves, expecting to be reimbursed by the City of Tampa and Hillsborough County.

Courtesy of the Tampa Bay History Center.

Forbess magazine says Tampa is only the 24th “Most Drunken City” in the nation. Not quite as drunken as Los Angeles, just as drunken as New Orleans, and a bit more wasted than Norfolk and Dallas.  (careful, that link above keeps moving on me)

Mostest Drunkest was Milwaukee. 

The 35 largest metropolitan areas were ranked in five crata… cartagro… kratgreies...  areas. Here are Tampa’s scores (lower numbers correlate to more drunker)

• State Laws 6 (score out of
• Drinkers 15 (rank out of 35) adults who have had a drink in the last month
• Heavy Drinkers 12 (rank out of 35)
• Binge Drinkers 31 (rank out of 35)
• Alcoholism 33 (rank out of 35)

Nashville, Tenn., is the least drunkestest of the 35.  Losers.

This past Saturday for lunch we decided to check out El Toro Negro in Kenneth City. I had previously read an online message board debating the best “real” Mexican restaurants (no Tex-Mex) in Tampa Bay and El Toro Negro was a consistent favorite. For those of you scratching your heads about Kenneth City, it’s a small town between St. Pete and Pinellas Park.

Let me say up front there is nothing fancy about El Toro Negro. It’s a no-frills neighborhood Mexican restaurant and grocery. After grabbing a booth, our server greeted us, took our drink order and invited us to help ourselves to the complimentary chips and salsa bar in the back. Traci and I are both fanatical about sauces so we were quickly in pig heaven at the bar trying the different salsas. While the salsa set-up at El Toro Negro is very humble, Tijuana Flats, Moe’s and Chipotle could all take lessons from El Toro’s great selection of flavors.

I ordered beef enchiladas in red sauce (each plate also comes with rice and refried beans) and Traci ordered three chicken gorditas (get the bastardized Taco Bell image of gorditas out of your head, read about the real deal here). We also shared chicken quesadillas as an appetizer. This ended up being more food than we could eat thanks to all the chips and salsa we scarfed up.

My enchiladas were very tasty and I had fun trying more of the different salsas on my rice and enchiladas (I told you I am a sauce junkie!). Traci’s gorditas came out piping hot and were delicious. Each gordita was stuffed with chicken, beans, lettuce, sour cream and cheese. I think the gorditas taste best when they’re still hot and before the corn tortilla has had a chance to cool.

Service was friendly and the owner checked on us after we were served to make sure that we were happy. Happy was an understatement. Great food and big portions for a small price in an authentic setting- what’s not to like. We’ll definitely be back. When I hear Kenneth City now I’ll think of El Toro Negro (before, all I thought of was Kenneth City’s notoriously ticket-happy cops).

Let me know what other Mexican joints in Tampa Bay you think I should check out.

Bottom-line: If you’re looking for authentic Mexican food made with lots of love in a no-frills setting that is light on the wallet and big on taste, check out El Toro Negro in Kenneth City.