Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

The Tribune editorial board makes some pretty good points with Wednesday’s editorial about St. Pete Beach’s voter-clogged growth approval process.

St. Pete Beach has become a living laboratory to study the statewide consequences of a proposed constitutional amendment called Hometown Democracy.

But regardless of how the town decides it wants to grow, the issues are bewildering. In an earlier vote on a plan, voters saw signs saying vote yes to save the hotels along with signs saying vote no to save the hotels.

Issues have been oversimplified in the campaigns as homeowners vs. developers, preservation vs. growth, low-rise vs. high-rise, tourist trap or serene residential retreat, decay vs. progress.

Voters could easily end up unknowingly voting against their own best interests. That’s no way to run a little city, and it’s certainly no way to run a state.

Go read the whole thing.

Back in the day, E-Systems produced electronic components for the defense and space industry at 1501 72nd St. N. in St. Pete. During the 1960’s, chemicals from the processing were deliberately disposed of in shallow pits. Raytheon now owns that property, and chemicals now showing up in nearby groundwater are products or byproducts of the work done by E-Systems.

The contamination was originally discovered at the plant in the early 1990s, while workers were building the Pinellas Trail recreation path. Residents west-southwest of the Tyrone Square mall area didn’t learn about the contaminated groundwater beneath their homes, parks and playgrounds until March 2008 from news reports. Since then, tests have shown eight homes near the Raytheon plant have contaminated irrigation wells.

Raytheon wants to be known as a good neighbor.  In fact, check the Raytheon Ethics page:

At Raytheon, all of our business relationships with customers, shareholders, employees, suppliers and host communities must rest on a foundation of integrity and trust. Our success is dependent on each individual’s commitment to these enduring values and no success is worth the expense of compromising ethical behavior.

So I’m sure they were up front about possible problems at the plant in St. Pete.  Or maybe not:

Both Raytheon and the state knew about the pollution for years, but did not warn homeowners about a spreading plume of industrial waste under their homes.

But wait!  They DID tell someone - back in 1995!:

Raytheon said in a news release Tuesday that it communicated as early as 1995, the year it bought the property, with two nearby apartment complexes.

I’m sure those apartment managers got right on that. So then what happened? Nothing. Nothing until 2005, when the Department of Environmental Protection decided they should remind some folks of contamination.

The Department of Environmental Protection began sending out notices of contamination in 2005 to two residential complexes: Brandywine Apartments and Stone’s Throw Condominiums. The agency also notified the city, but no homeowners.

Apartment complexes sure have more responsibility than I would have guessed.  And again, I’m sure those apartment managers got right on that. In addition, it turns out that DEP knew something was going on a little earlier than ’05:

A handwritten document from an Aug. 12, 1999, meeting between Department of Environmental Protection and Raytheon officials makes reference to chemicals, including 1,4-Dioxane, moving offsite to the west-southwest. By 2001, the pollution problem had concerned a Florida Department of Environmental Protection staff member enough that he prepared a letter for the agency’s district director, Deborah Getzoff. The 2001 letter instructed Raytheon Network Centric Systems, owner of the plant at 1501 72nd St. N., to reassess the risk to the public and to notify neighbors with irrigation wells. It was never sent.

Wait – the solution is to make Raytheon double-check and tell us what they find? Or put another way, “Hey Fox, are all the hens ok?” But all of that is in the past. Thanks to your local newspapers, the story came out, and all will be fixed, right?

Maybe not.

The state expects to receive a final assessment report from Raytheon on the extent of the groundwater pollution by May 30. A cleanup plan is due 90 days after that.

That’s right - Even with Gov. Crist demanding some action from his DEP staff, the DEP is still counting on Raytheon to police themselves on this matter.

I don’t think groundwater is the only thing contaminated in this mess.

Apparently, there is A Fine Mess Over Tolls For SunPass Users:

Growing numbers of SunPass users and a push by the state to improve its toll-collection rate have resulted in more people facing hefty fines and suspended licenses for seemingly minor violations. Sixty-six percent of all toll road users now have transponders.

Those transponders have batteries. Once they go dead, they become a paperweight. There is a light on the transponder letting you know when you need to replace the battery. But people think they are getting away without paying tolls, so they just let it go. But when it catches up with them, fines and penalties could cost over $3,000.

A judge over in Sanford slammed the expressway authorities over there for not trying hard enough to find the toll runners more quickly. The Sentinel ran a story telling you how to avoid being “victimized” by the toll collectors. The article in the Tribune is written much the same way, beginning with an outrageous anecdote of a $3,000 tab.

But once again, the judge, and these stories don’t put much emphasis on the idiots who could have avoided all the trouble by simply following the rules:

• Let ‘em know if you move.
• Let ‘em know if you change license plates.
• CHANGE THE FREAKIN’ BATTERY.

Seriously, I don’t know how some of these people make it through the day.

Verizon is making a killing on this FiOS gimmick. The demand for FiOs is so overwhelming, that at the beginning of this year, the company moved a bunch of repair technicians away from fixing landline telephone service in order to install service for those new hungry FiOS customers. 

Because of that, some landline customers have had to wait up to a week for phone repair.  But that’s a problem. The State of Florida wants to make sure that your phone works if you have to call 911, so they require phone companies to repair service within 24 hours at least 95 percent of the time in any given area. 

Verizon knew they were not quite meeting that goal, so they went to the Public Service Commission in March to ask for an exemption.  Thankfully, the PSC said no, and in fact began a probe to see just how bad Verizon was performing.

Turns out that over the past 6 years, Verizon’s record declined steadily, and failed to meet the standards 262 times in 2007, compared with five times in 2001.  What was their excuse?

Verizon officials traveled to Tallahassee in April to tell regulators that the company was simply overwhelmed with demand for the FiOS service…

Attorney General Bill McCollum is not impressed, and asked the PSC to open a formal case, and begin piling on the fines.  At $25,000 per violation in 2007, the petition calls for over $6.5 million in fines.

Go Florida!

We told you about the south Florida governments clamoring to cut the state in two to form a 51st state, but we did not realize that this happens all the time, all over the country.

Oh, we know that in talks of adding states, Puerto Rico sometimes is mentioned, as is the District of Columbia.  But the talk of states splitting is apparently all the rage.

We were surprised to hear that just this year, an Athens columnist suggested splitting Georgia in two in order to solve the Atlanta-Alabama-Georgia-Florida water wars, which was seconded by a Valdosta newspaper.

We also hadn’t heard about an effort for northern California and southern Oregon to quit their respective states, creating the new State of Jefferson.  That effort has been going on since 1941.

Over the years, U.S. state secession proposals have come from more than 30 of the 50 states, including parts of tiny, tiny Rhode Island.

The only people who succeeded in seceding from a state to become their own state was Maine - they used be part of Massachusetts.

So I guess if you South Floridians wanna leave the rest of your state, you better get in line.

After listening to the Florida Legislature debate ridiculous laws (such as the necessity of Truck Nutz), North Lauderdale and the City of Margate are beginning a push to split Florida and establish a new, 51st State:

25. RESOLUTION – SUPPORTING SEVERING THE TIES OF MIAMI-DADE, BROWARD, AND PALM BEACH COUNTIES FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA AND ESTABLISHING THEIR OWN 51ST STATE OF THE FEDERAL UNION OF THE UNITED STATES; PROVIDING FOR CONFLICTS; PROVIDING FOR SEVERABILITY; AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE. (Requested by the Mayor)

Yep, they want to secede and become South Florida.

Check out radio WIOD and listen to interviews of South Florida officials who have had enough with Tallahassee.

The subhed in this morning’s headline in the St. Pete Times provides a perfect example of the stuff that bugs me about the boneheads in Tallahassee working hard to destroy what’s left of this wonderful state.

The hed:

“Budget gets final slicing“

Subhed:

“The deal cuts money to classrooms and nursing homes. Only state troopers get raises.”

Kinda says it all. You cut money for education, you’d better increase money for police.

I love and respect cops, glad we’ve got em, believe they deserve more money and bennies than they currently get to do a damn tough job. However, I honestly believe that if we took better care of our kids, we would need fewer troopers and prisons. As for cutting aid to nursing homes, remember that old saying about the measure of a civilization being the way it treats its most vulnerable members? What’s next, are we gonna launch the elderly into the Gulf on rickety rafts to we don’t have to bother with them anymore? Maybe we can put them to work selling lottery tickets to support our schools.

Senator Bob Graham was making the rounds recently, pushing his newly formed Center for Public Service, created partially to bring civics education back to public schools.  Which is sort of funny, because back in 1953, educational philosopher Robert Maynard Hutchins said that is the whole point: 

"The object of the educational system, taken as a whole, is not to produce hands for industry or to teach the young how to make a living. It is to produce responsible citizens."

To improve the performance of schools in the USA, No Child Left Behind went into effect in 2002. The Center for Education Policy says that since that mandated emphasis on reading and math, many schools have cut back on other classes.  That has led to some folks crying that your kids need more physical education, more art education, more music education and band practice, and that current science standards are not enough.  And that’s not all.

Eighty-eight percent of voters say they believe that schools can and should incorporate 21st century skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving skills, computer and technology skills, and communication and self-direction skills into their curriculum.  Some schools now offer career academies, and career training.  

Don’t forget about sex education.  And driver’s education.  And home economics.  Or foreign languages. 

Not everyone is happy with the basics, either. Some people say today’s students need more core math skills, while others want them to Just Read, Florida. 

So with all that learnin’ to do, your children will have to stay in school all day long or all year long or both.  Florida has added Pre-K classes, but it’s not good enough for some people.  Still others say we need more relevant and rigorous courses for all students.

But along with all of that pushing and pulling of students in different educational directions, school teachers and administrators still have so much more to do.  First the schools have to make sure there is a way to get the kids to school, and feed them healthy food.  Then they must make sure kids pull up their pants, keep an eye out for suicide prevention, perform random steroid testing on the athletes, may soon have to enforce an anti-bullying law winding through the legislature, and hundreds of other non-educational pursuits that have been (or are being) forced onto the school system.

Meanwhile, kids are really learning less and less.  They have no clue what’s going on with current events.  And Mom and Dad are so busy looking for ways to lower their taxes, they can’t help with the parenting, and they can’t even afford lottery tickets anymore to help with the costs.

I don’t know if forcing all that stuff into classrooms will help produce better citizens.  But without question, there sure is a need for some common sense in the educational system.