Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

As much as I worry about the integrity of electronic voting machines, a story in the Miami Herald gives me chills.  Six years after the 2000 election we still can’t get it right.  Apparently Davis voters are seeing Crist pop up on their vote confirmation screens:

[Gary Rudolf] touched the screen for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, a Democrat, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican, Charlie Crist.

And it’s not an isolated incident.  From the same story:

Mauricio Raponi wanted to vote for Democrats across the board at the Lemon City Library in Miami on Thursday. But each time he hit the button next to the candidate, the Republican choice showed up.

Regardless of party affiliation, vote flipping should be a major concern to everyone in Florida.  Write the Times and the Tribune and let them know this is something they need to investigate.  Don’t lose your vote.

TBBJ reports that Florida added 230,500 jobs since September 2005:

Professional and business services and leisure and hospitality accounted for 41.8 percent of the new jobs in the state over the year. All of Florida’s major industry sectors added jobs over the year, except manufacturing, which lost 1,700 jobs. Professional and business services led Florida’s industry sectors in employment growth over the year, adding 62,800 jobs (+4.7 percent). Employment services (+27,900 jobs, +5.9 percent) continued to lead job growth in this industry sector.

Leisure and hospitality, gaining second highest number of new jobs, continued to exhibit steady over-the-year job gains (+32,400 jobs, +3.7 percent). That industry has exhibited positive growth since mid-2002. Most of the job gains were in food services and drinking places (+22,600 jobs, +4.1 percent).

The construction industry was the third highest in number of new jobs and was the fastest growing industry in the state. The industry continued to exhibit strong growth over the year (+32,300 jobs, +5.5 percent), with 76 percent of the job gains in specialty trade contractors (+24,600 jobs, +6.3 percent). Heavy and civil engineering construction (+4,700, +6.8 percent) was the fastest growing sub sector in the construction industry. The job growth rate in construction of buildings peaked at more than 18 percent in late 2004, but has slowed to a rate of 2.3 percent, reflecting a leveling off of the housing market, the release said.

The education and health services sector ranked fourth and grew by 32,100 jobs (+3.4 percent) over the year. Health care and social assistance added the most jobs (+27,900 jobs, +3.4 percent) in this industry sector. The strongest growth within health care and social assistance was in ambulatory health care services (+11,800 jobs, +3.5 percent). Health care and social assistance has been growing steadily since the period of slow growth in 1999.

It seems that almost nothing can slow the growth in Florida.

50 years ago…

October 29, 1956 – Tampa’s Al Lopez accepts the job of manager of the Chicago White Sox. The post is his second as a major league manager. Previously Lopez served as the skipper of the Cleveland Indians, which he led to the 1954 American League Pennant. Lopez would also find success in Chicago, and later the Tampa native would be elected to Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame.

Courtesy of the Tampa Bay History Center.

85 years ago…

October 28, 1921 – An interesting discovery is made in hurricane-ravaged Palmetto Beach, were dozens of hollowed-out logs are found strewn all over the community south of Ybor City. The logs were almost certainly employed in the illicit trade of trafficking liquor – outlawed in the US since 1919 – into the country from Cuba.

Courtesy of the Tampa Bay History Center.

Tommy previously wrote about the developing story with Doug Belden and his making unwanted adavances upon on a woman at a bar. 

On Thursday Mr. Belden admitted the incident did occur and apologized.  He blamed a drinking problem.

What I found interesting in this incident was the following comment, made when the story initially broke, by one of his employees, a supervisor named Preston Trigg. 

“I got a call Friday from the boyfriend who said Doug was hitting on his friend,” Trigg said. “I said, ‘That’s kind of funny, because I was there, I was watching Doug the whole time and didn’t see anything.”

“Going out with Doug is like going out with a professional athlete,” said Trigg. “You watch him to make sure nothing happens.”"

1. In light of the admission by Mr. Belden, was Preston Trigg mistaken or lying? If he was lying could he face charges of lying to investigators?

2. The tax collector compared to a professional athlete? Excuse me? How many of you have to watch your boss to make sure nothing happens?  Did Trigg know Belden had an alcohol problem and was trying to keep him out of trouble?

The “stand your ground” defense did not work for James Behanna. Jurors found Behanna guilty of manslaughter.

My first couple readings of the story on the St Pete Times site by Colleen Jenkins leaves me a little confused on one point. 

… Arthur C. Hayhoe, who watched Behanna’s trial, said attorneys on both sides failed to fully explain the new law.

Hayhoe, executive director of The Florida Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Inc., opposes the law because he thinks it gives people a license to kill. Jurors just didn’t understand it, he said, or they would have acquitted Behanna.

“I don’t think this law got a fair hearing,” he said.

The story fails to elaborate on this point. Why does the opponent of the law say the man should have been aquitted?  How does he feel the attorneys should have explained the new law?  I don’t know if this was edited out of the piece for some reason but it is left unexplored.

Related to the story, there is an interesting conversation cropping up on our original post as people give their viewpoints on the case.  You may also want to check both of my previous posts regarding the so called “stand your ground” law:

• February 2006: Think first law
• June 2006: Shoot first, ask questions later

You’ve got to hand it to the Big Apple, they have Jedi mind-tricked the rest of the nation into thinking New York teams have the best fans. But would real fans boo their best baseball player (A-Rod) when it’s clear the booing is only going to make him worse? Would the best fans mock New Orleans fans about Hurricane Katrina? Let’s face it New Yorkers are the worst kind of fans, over-opinionated bandwagon fans.

Nothing against the Big Apple, it’s a great city and everyone has (or should have) a New York story (mine involves a cab ride/puke/climbing a fence). But New Yorkers are some of the worst people you will ever meet.

Giant to watch: Tiki Barber
Did you know, that Tiki and Ronde are brothers? And not just brothers but twins? And not just twins but identical twins? Yeah, expect to have this fact drilled into your skull by the second quarter. But did you know Ronde is the older of the two, by seven minutes? Which conveniently enough leads us to our next subject….

Buc to watch: Ronde Barber

If Ronde Barber can return two interceptions for touchdowns (and Bryant kicks a 62 yarder) this guy will have the old Bucs logo tatooed on his left buttock. More importantly Ronde stepped up and carried the team last week when Brooks and Rice failed to do so. There are not a lot of play-makers left on this defense which used to be stacked with them. I still believe Rice will close the season strong (although if he doesn’t he’s gone) but Barber will need another outstanding game for the Bucs to win.

The Tampa Tribune and Shannon Behnken set the local real estate community buzzing on Sunday with the story of Dawn Mohen.

Dawn appears to either be a great Realtor or a really bad criminal, maybe a bit of both. For the past couple of days the Trib has published follow up pieces detailing the widespread fraud that Mohen seems to have been at the center of and the pathetic excuses that her accomplices have said while trying to scramble out from under possible indictments.

“As long as I got my $180,000, I didn’t care what they were doing,” said John Dieumegarde [seller]

and then,

One listing agent sold two homes to the group. Jennifer Gay of Shirley International Realty in St. Petersburg said her primary responsibility was to represent the sellers and get the price they wanted.

“These are the first two deals I’ve encountered that were structured this way,” Gay said. “It was unusual, but my sellers were happy.”

Although a residential seller can claim protection from fault since they were represented by a professional and can’t be expected to be familiar with real estate transactions the Realtor herself should have known that this was illegal.

J.T. Pelt, company president and chief executive [of Linsky Title], said the two men told him about their business strategy, and he told them he would work with them “as long as the lender knows and the seller knows and the buyer knows.”

Yeah… no. The article then quotes other professional real estate folks who were involved with the transactions and claimed that they thought everything was on the up and up while every thing that they were asked to do violated very basic principles and customs of real estate. Even if they were not directly involved with the fraud this makes clear that they had to know what was happening.

You do not increase the price of your listing by tens of thousands of dollars to the price. Other than fraudulently getting money from the lender there is no other reason for this. Lenders cap “concessions” (money returned to the buyer to help with closing costs) at 6% of the sales price.

By custom the seller always picks the title company. It is so ingrained that many real estate brokers own title companies for their agents to use, making a nice source of revenue since sellers rarely care who the title company is the agent can direct the business to the in house company.

Monday morning I got a frantic email from my own Broker (who is a pretty straight arrow):

“IF YOU HAD ANY CLOSINGS INVOLVED THESE INDIVIDUALS, OR IF YOU HAVE A CONTRACT PENDING THAT IS DELAYED BECAUSE OF THE SITUATION, PLEASE CALL ME ASAP!”

That is good advice for anybody who has had a real estate transaction lately, check your settlement statements (provided at your closing) and make sure that none of the people involved have been named in these articles.