Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

From the City of Tampa:

 NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

For additional information, contact:
Liana Lopez
Public Affairs Director
(813) 274-8251
Liana.Lopez@tampagov.net

Mayor Signs Executive Order
to Increase Opportunity for Small Businesses
to Compete for City Contracts

Tampa, Fla. (May 3, 2007) – Mayor Pam Iorio signed an Executive Order today expanding opportunities for small businesses to better compete for city projects. The new approach utilizes a sheltered market for certified small businesses and includes other initiatives. The sheltered market means that only city-certified small businesses are eligible to compete for projects that have an estimated cost of $200,000 or less.

The new Executive Order is a result of the Disparity Study conducted in 2006 that addressed the availability and utilization of women and minority owned businesses for City of Tampa contracting and procurement activities. The Disparity Study showed no disparity with regard to the city’s utilization of subcontractors. Consequently, the Executive Order encourages the continued use of women and minority subcontractors, but does not require this utilization.

The study did show a disparity with prime contractors and the issuance of the Executive Order is considered an interim measure to address the deficiencies until the mayor recommends an ordinance to the Tampa City Council. The draft ordinance is expected to be submitted to Council later this month.

For additional information, please contact Minority Business Development Manager Gregory Hart at (813) 274-5522.

# # #

One of the traditions in Tallahassee are “Days”… Groups all over the state organize specific days during the annual legislative session where members and affiliates will travel to Tallahassee to lobby the Legislature. Groups used to give out some cool chotchkes… I still have some mugs, pens, keychains, umbrellas, totebags, etc from my days as a Legislative Aide.

These things are usually designed to reinforce the issues during the visit… so legislators and/or their staff will remember why a group came to talk to them.

Alas, with the gift ban, the chotchkes are gone… but many groups still have their “Days”… including my alma mater, the illustrious and proud University of South Florida is still holding theirs:

Here’s a schedule of USF Day events for Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni & Friends of USF:

• Monday, April 9, 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. – Student Government dinner event on the 22nd floor of the Capitol hosting USF Legislators and USF Council of 100 members (ticketed event);
• Tuesday, April 10, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. – USF displays and tables representing colleges and campuses on the 2nd Floor Rotunda of the Capitol;
• Tuesday, April 10, 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. – Student Government lunch event on the 22nd floor of the Capitol hosting USFers taking part in USF Day (ticketed event); and
• Tuesday, April 10, 12:00 p.m. to 1 p.m. – USF Pep Rally on the House side of Capitol Courtyard, for every USF Bull in Tallahassee (Hosted by USF Student Government); The USF Herd of Thunder Band, Cheerleaders & Rocky D. Bull will be in attendance.

We hope to see all of our USF alumni out helping paint the Capitol Green & Gold!

(Then, make sure you show your support of the “Flavors of Hillsborough” event in the Senate Portico on Wednesday, April 11, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.)

Please tell your USF Bull friends & co-workers to start off their lunch hour at the Pep Rally in the Courtyard at 12:00 noon!

So, if you are in the capitol on April 10th, check out USF Day.

Go Bulls!!
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I’d like to learn more about this “Internet” thing.

There is no year, but it’s gotta be early 80’s at best.

I was sitting at my favorite coffee location this morning reading an actual paper version of the Tampa Tribune - yes, I am still sans laptop - when I saw a GREAT headline:

Miller Wants Fall Elections

It seems she wasn’t happy that only 1 in 6 registered voters in Tampa bothered to show up on election day. Finally, she has a chance to lead on an issue. And it’s a good idea to boot.

The article goes in to some detail about the history of why Tampa votes in the Spring. It seems that then-Councilwoman Jan Platt thought it would be a good idea because “few people paid attention to council races.” Oh, it’s so MUCH better now.

Now, there are some challenges with moving the election. First, the voters would have to approve it. Second, they would have to lengthen or shorten the current terms to make the shift to the fall.

However, Mayor Iorio thinks it should be held in off-years. That is a bad idea. The problem is that no one pays attention when there isn’t a broad general election involving races at all levels of government. Moving it to fall of odd years won’t increase voter participation THAT much. (Besides, Madam Mayor, you’re going to run for County Mayor in 2010 anyway - so the next City Mayor’s term should coincide with that election anyway.)

So, here is how I would do it:

1. The City Council should vote to put a referendum on the November 2008 ballot to change the election from the Spring to the Fall. The referendum would shorten the terms from Spring 2011 to Fall 2010, and elections would be held in even-numbered years.
2. The “primary” election would be held with the primary in September, just like ALL of the other non-partisan races (judge, school board, special districts, etc). [With the caveat that if there are only two candidates for an office, like the Mulhern-Harrison race - that race would be on the general election ballot. And in this case, write-ins would not count.]

3. The “runoff” would be held with the general election in November, just like the runoff for ALL of the other non-partisan races.

There you have it. Increased turnout. Saving taxpayers money. Win-Win.

Not sure what PoHo thinks about it, tho. A link to the story was listed in today’s Morning Roundup - in which he is “trembling, trembling, trembling….”

[Cross posted on State of Sunshine]

This is a press release from my day job. If you know any nonprofit organizations in the Tampa Bay area, please feel free to forward the information to them. (Thanks Tommy for letting me post it here!)

Affari Edge Announces
Grant Program for Non-Profits:
$5,000 to Enter Social Media

TAMPA, Florida – Affari Edge, a local authority on using social media, announced today a grant for Tampa Bay area non-profit organizations, offering up to $5,000 in social media consulting and training services. “Giving back to the community is a core principle at Affari Edge,” said Dave Sizemore, one of two partners at Affari. “Because of our expertise with social media, we felt we could help a local organization explore this new technology.”

Social media is a name attributed to a collection of technologies including but not limited to blogs, podcasts, virtual communities, wikis, and virtual worlds that enable people to communicate with each other online in ways that mirror offline interpersonal interaction. Prominent examples of social media also include sites such as MySpace, Flickr, Twitter, Wikipedia, Digg, and many more.

“It’s a natural extension of any organization’s marketing and public relations efforts,” said Wendy Robbins, the second partner with Affari Edge. “By using these new technologies, we can help any organization build a close-knit community.”

Applications will be accepted until May 15, 2007 and will be judged based on a number of criteria. More information is available on the Affari Blog on the Affari Edge website.

Affari Edge is a full-service advertising agency offering a comprehensive range of advertising and public relations services. Affari Edge is made up of creative gurus, with extensive business experience, from small business ownership to leading different aspects of some of the largest empires in corporate America. The mix of business background with creative expertise leads to superior results. Affari means business.

# # #

At the end of a recent blog post by Brett McMurphy, who covers the University of South Florida sports for the Tampa Tribune, was the following paragraph:

I’ve been told by the higher ups we’re doing away with the comments portion of the blog. Instead, you can go to the Forum: Talk Bulls link at the top of this page. We’ve created the Forum as a place for Bulls fans to gather and discuss various topics.

A quick peek a the TBO.com Bulls forum shows very little activity, except for recently. One poster asked why the switch to the forum. Brett posted the official reason:

“While we’ve generated a very good amount of traffic to the sports blogs, and have seen a spike in the number of comments being posted, we’ve begun to migrate the discussion away from the blogs and into our TBO Discussion Forums.

We encourage the interactivity, but this is a site-wide attempt (not just Sports) to make our Forums the gathering place for a lot of the back-and-forth discussion we’re seeing in the blogs. The hope is that the users themselves will initiate a lot of the discussion, rather than just reacting to your blog posts.”

Ah. Well, there is one problem. You see, USF fans have three major discussion forums already:

• The Bulls Pen - An independent website owned by USF alumn Brad Meyer.
• USFNation - Part of the Scout.com network.
• USFBullsEye.com - Part of the Rivals.com network.

These are in addition to the forums on media sites like ESPN, CBS, and CSTV

On many of these sites, fans talk about what Brett (and other Tampa Tribune reporters/columnists) write about USF. So why does TBO.com feel the need to create yet another message board?

Yes, I know - blogs and forums are both social media. By using forums, TBO.com is trying to fit into the new communications model. For this, they are to be commended. They are doing something that their main competitor, the St. Petersburg Times, is not doing.
However, I don’t believe substituting forums for blog comments is the right way to go.

Forums are great when there are a number of die-hard posters willing to engage in dialogue about a topic. That’s why the USF forums listed above do so well. They each have a siginificant number of Bulls fans postingon a large range of topics every day. The media-based forums don’t draw the same number or intensity of fans.

That being said, why not marry blog comments with forums? If a TBO.com blog generates a large response via comments, the blogger (be it McMurphy or any of the other Trib bloggers) should shift the discussion to the forum by starting and maintaining a thread there. Then s/he could simply post a blog entry that asks readers to join the discussion on the forum. TBO.com bloggers could even “break” stories on their forum, and drive traffic with a blog post indicating “breaking news on the … forum.” There are a number of ways that forums can be used that will work far better than saying “Want to comment? Go to our fourm and…”

TBO.com needs to understand that it’s not about forcing their readers into avenues that “Mother Trib” (as Steve Otto calls it) wants. It’s about giving the readers as many options to communicate as possible. It’s far easier to comment at the bottom of the post than to find a link to the forum, register for the forum (or log in), find the thread on which they want to share their thoughts (or start a new post), and then comment. One step is replaced by four.

As an avid reader of several TBO.com blogs, I hope they reconsider this decision.

UPDATE 11am:Rusty Coats, Vice President and General Manager at TBO.com, replied via my work blog:

rcoats Says:
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:16 am

Thanks for sharing this via email.

We’re not migrating away from comments - they are active on most breaking-news stories and blogs. However, a limitation to the “comment on this story” feature is that these comments don’t have the cohesion of an ongoing discussion. We’re looking to strike a balance between forums (topics that are evergreen) and one-off stories.

In other words, we’re not substituting one for the other; we’re doing both. What that balance looks like depends a lot on the feedback of users - like this. That, to me, is what social media is all about.

Rusty Coats
VP & GM, TBO.com

[Cross posted on my work blog: www.AffariBlog.com.]

NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

For additional information, contact:
Liana Lopez, Director
Public Affairs Division
(813) 274-8497
liana.lopez@tampagov.net

Mayor to Take Oath of Office
Ceremony to Mark Start of Second Term

Tampa, Fla. (March 29, 2007) – The City of Tampa will swear in Mayor Pam Iorio and members of Tampa City Council on Sunday, April 1, 2007 during the city’s Oath of Office Ceremony. The event will take place at 2 p.m. at the Tampa Convention Center in Ballroom A, located at 333 South Franklin Street.

Immediately following the ceremony, Tampa City Council will hold an organizational meeting to elect the chair and chair pro-tem. The meeting will take place in Room 13.

This event is free and open to the public. Parking is available for a fee in the Tampa Convention Center Parking Garage.

City of Tampa Television, Channel 15 on Bright House Networks and Verizon cable systems, will be on hand to cover the event live. The ceremony will be replayed on Sundays at 9 p.m., Mondays at 1 p.m., Fridays at 8 a.m., and Saturdays at 5 p.m. throughout the month of April.

###

9:02 pm - The results are in. Gwen Miller has won re-election to the City Council. There were 297 more votes cast in this election than the total cast in District 1’s primary. Almost as many as were cast in the Mayoral election (91 votes short).

Turnout was indeed higher.

City Council, District 1
112 of 112 Precincts Completely Reporting
		Percent	Votes
Gwendolyn ”Gwen” Miller		56.47%	15,383
Joe Redner		43.53%	11,587
			27,240
City Council, District 7
19 of 19 Precincts Completely Reporting
		Percent	Votes
Joseph P. Caetano		59.54%	2,589
Frank J. Margarella		40.46%	1,759
			4,348

Congratulations to Councilman-elect Joseph Caetano and Councilwoman Gwen Miller.

I decided to live blog the runoff election results - mostly because it was so much fun to do the first time.

PoHo has a report that turnout would be around 14% - about the same as for the primary.

7:07 pm - Miller takes the early lead with the early voters, by an almost two-to-one margin: 61.4% to 38.6%. Caetano has a slightly larger lead at 66% to 34%. More than 4,700 votes were cast city-wide, almost 800 of them in District 7.

City Council, District 1
0 of 112 Precincts Completely Reporting
		Percent	Votes
Gwendolyn ”Gwen” Miller		61.42%	2,891
Joe Redner		38.58%	1,816
			4,707
City Council, District 7
0 of 19 Precincts Completely Reporting
		Percent	Votes
Joseph P. Caetano		65.97%	508
Frank J. Margarella		34.03%	262
			770

7:19 pm - The votes get closer. Miller’s lead down to just 57.3% to 43.7% over Redner. Caetano is down to 59% to 41% over Margarella.

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