Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

After delaying his ouster for two days, SOE Buddy Johnson finally got around to counting the early votes.

In the race for SOE, most of those early votes were cast for Phyllis Busansky, ending Buddy Johnson’s reign as Hillsborough County’s worst SOE ever.  The Times sums up Buddy’s five and a half years nicely:

His tenure included a host of complaints, errors and delays for nearly every election on his watch.

He still refuses to discuss this election day screw-ups, but at least Johnson came out of his cave to admit defeat.  Brian Blair has so far refused to concede, even after Kevin Beckner was confirmed the winner over Blair in countywide District 6.

In addition to wins by Phyllis Busansky and Kevin Beckner, congratulations are in store for other Hillsborough races.

Rob Turner remains as Property Appraiser, while Doug Belden will remain as Tax Collector.

It looks like Carol Kurdell will stay ahead of Stephen Gorham in the race for School Board District 7.

Quite the historic night last night.

Four years ago, I commented on the fact that Dallas County, Texas had elected a gay Hispanic female Democrat for Sheriff:

… change is measured in very small increments. Changes so small, you don’t even notice. But once in a while, something happens that makes you clearly see that progress being made.

And now we have elected a man of color to be our Commander in Chief.

Closer to home, it looks as if gay Democrat Kevin Beckner will beat conservative Republican Brian Blair in historically conservative Hillsborough County.

Forgive me for being redundant, but I’ll quote myself from 2004 again:

I don’t think it means that discrimination has been beaten or even that inclusion is the norm. But I do view it as one of the incremental steps toward that…  Take note… It’s not often you glance at the clock, and happen to catch the exact changing of the times.

Congratulations to America and Hillsborough County for electing people based largely on the content of their character, rather than some sort of prejudice.

Hooray us!

Maybe it should have been a dig on the local newspaper…

In their endorsement of Al Higginbotham, the Tampa Tribune had nothing to say about opponent Pete Gifford.  A google search suggests TBO.com has mentioned “Pete Gifford” exactly THREE times:

In a February 2008 list of BOCC primary candidates, 3 Hillsborough Commission Seats On Ballot In November; in a June 2008 list of candidates who qualified, Candidates Qualify For Elections; and in the endorsement of Al this week.

Did they attempt to interview him?  Did they even bother reading the Vote Pete Now website?  We have no idea - the Trib doesn’t say anything.

Let’s check Tampabay.com.  Google shows that “Pete Gifford” shows up three times on Tampabay.com:  in a June 2008 list of candidates who qualified, again in a list of general election candidates on the “Know Your Candidates” (ha!) page.  And he is included in the caption of a photo (not actually quoted in the story) at a meet the candidates event in Brandon in August 2008.

Did they attempt to interview him?  Did they even bother reading the Vote Pete Now website?  We have no idea - the St. Pete Times doesn’t say anything.

So, who is Pete Gifford?

We’ve already gone over the Tribune’s endorsements for BOCC - Hagan (District 2), Higginbotham (Dist 4), and Beckner (Dist 6).

The St. Pete Times echoes those endorsements, but in recommending the two incumbents, the Times whines a bit harder about the lack of viable choices:

District 2 (north Hillsborough)

Ken Hagan… has a sorry record on almost every issue, and he is inaccessible and arrogant. But his challenger is a mystery man who qualified as a write-in candidate and then disappeared. Voters have no real choice.

District 4 (east Hillsborough)

Challenger Pete Gifford, a 36-year-old electrical contractor, is right that the current commission offers no vision. But neither does this no-party candidate.

We also wish there were better choices in Districts 2 and 4, but are happy to cast a vote for Kevin Beckner in District 6.

You can find your district, and check out all the hc bocc candidates’ websites on an earlier article here at Sticks.

The local daily offered their suggestions for Hillsborough County Commission this past weekend.  Not surprisingly, the Tampa Tribune endorsed Kevin Beckner over Brian Blair.

Also not surprising was their endorsements of Ken Hagan and Al Higginbotham.  However, the reasons for these last two endorsements are quite disheartening.  There were simply no real choices, and the Trib says as much, calling both of them “token opposition.”

Hagan’s “opponent” is write-in candidate Harold “Bud” Gleason, and here are the kind words said about him:

… Hagan’s write-in opponent represents no credible alternative.

Higginbotham’s “opponent,” Pete Gifford (no party affiliation), was given even less:

…

It’s blank because the Trib said nothing about him.  They didn’t even feel it necessary to come up with another way to say “no credible alternative.”

And, no, this is not another dig on our newspaper.

There are two years before the next local elections.  I wonder if we’ll find a “credible alternative” by then.

We have the first fallout from HCBOCC’s decision to rename the county moral courage award.

The 1996 winner of the Hillsborough County Moral Courage Award gave her award back to the county.

“It’s pathetic that they would name an award for a person when it’s a nonpartisan award,” [Eileen] Hart said outside the commission chambers. “It should have nothing to do” with politics.

Alas, politics is all some BOCC members think about.

Wayne Garcia and the kids over at Creative Loafing were tipped off to some possible hanky-panky in Brian Blair’s campaign, including contributions seemingly from developer Steven Dibbs that may exceed state limits.

I’m sure there must be some mistake.

Update October 2, 10.45am:  Blair says there is no hanky-panky, and produced an invoice and check stub to the St. Pete Times.  Wayne reports that as well, and updated the big story on CL.com, but it seems it may be too late to pull the print edition.

I’m sure you’ve already heard that your Hillsborough County BOCC voted 5-2 to rename the county’s Moral Courage Award after long-time local activist and money man Ralph Hughes.

According to articles in both the Tribune and the Times, only one person showed up to support the renaming of the award.  Neither paper tells us how many people were opposed, but the Trib quotes three of them, and the Times talked to three others.  But even in the case of six (or more) to one against them, your Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners showed that they are going to do just what THEY want to do.

To be sure, this is not the greatest threat to our quality of life.  And in a county of 1,000,000 people, only a handful of citizens cared enough either way to show up.  But still, when there is no other gauge, shouldn’t those citizens who took time out of their busy schedules be given due consideration?

Not according to these “leaders.”

Maybe they got thousands of emails in support of the award. But most likely commissioners just heard the echoes of years of campaign contributions.

Sure wish there was something we could do about that.

Excerpt from Agenda for 9/17 Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners’ Meeting (page 14):

Commissioner Norman

[Item #] F-2:  Give authority to County Administrator to ask the Hughes family for permission to name the Moral Courage Award after Mr. Ralph Hughes and request a family member to participate in all future presentations.

Agenda Backup:

“Prior to meeting each commissioner was issued a DVD giving a few examples of Mr. Hughes’ twenty five years of thorough presentations. Mr. Hughes was an example of courage, hard work and dedication for our community.”

This will get local liberals’ knickers in a twist.