Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Investigative journalism is crucial.  In addition to exposing unethical immoral and illegal behavior, sometimes those journalists find simple (but expensive) stupidity and laziness.

Back in 2004, Greg Neal of Keystone Ventures envisioned a Tampa Sports Centre near Raymond James Stadium.  A couple of months later, HCC envisioned a retail complex including a hotel, conference center, restaurant, medical complex, public pool and sports facility in their “Front Yard” facing Dale Mabry.

In early 2005, Neal approached HCC, and suggested he could build the world-class sports-medicine destination with a luxury hotel and a culinary institute.  Four hundred jobs would be created, and students could learn from sports nutrition experts and hotel management programs.  In return, HCC would guarantee low rental rates on 40+ acres to Keystone for fifty years.

HCC was rightly intrigued, and asked for a proposal with details.

After collecting proposals from them and other parties in 2006, evaluators for HCC placed Keystone fourth behind Cheeseburger in Paradise, Steak N Shake, and a hotel from a George Steinbrenner company.  Although they found problems with the Keystone proposal, those top three did not include using the facilities for education, and HCC leaders kept Keystone on the short list. 

HCC then paid $768,000 to a real estate firm to oversee the project, and that firm gave HCC more specific reasons for denying Keystone’s proposal, such as a lack of experience and unfavorable lease terms.

In an email sent in May 2007, HCC VP Ron Wolf suggested they look out for “smoke and mirrors” from Keystone at a scheduled meeting.  They met with Greg Neal again, and were again blown away by his excitement and vision.  Seems they forgot about the smoke and mirrors, and were still talking about the grandiose opportunities in March of this year.

Luckily, the St. Pete Times took an interest in the story.  Doing the job that HCC leaders, HCC evaluators, and an $768,000 hired gun should have done, SPTimes reporter Thomas Lake has found that Greg Neal is full of sh*t. 

A St. Petersburg Times investigation of Neal’s claims and credentials found nearly 20 statements that were exaggerated, misleading, disputed, or downright false. And public administrators repeated some of those claims in official documents without independently confirming them.

What an outrage!  You would think that these basic background checks would be PART OF THE PROCESS by those entrusted to evaluate the proposal, yet none of it was discovered until the paper got involved.

Of course, in an attempt to save face, HCC plans to give Greg Neal an opportunity to address these new concerns in a meeting next month.

Thanks to Thomas Lake and the St. Pete Times for uncovering this nonsense.  It’s a damn shame we must have journalists doing the job of lazy, uninspired “leadership.”

Please tell me why the person used to demonstrate the new body scanning machines at Tampa International Airport - as seen on the Metro front in Friday’s St. Petersburg Times -

Why not an old fat guy?

is a buff young woman and not a fat old man?

Whomever she is - let’s call her Big Boobs Girl - certainly does not represent most of the people I see at TIA or at the mall or at the grocery store or in the mirror or at just about anyplace in America. Aren’t we having an epidemic of obesity?

But the larger question - not boobwise, but otherwise - is regarding the technology.  Is it an invasion of privacy?

Does it smack of Big Brother?

And who really believes that those images can’t be saved, reproduced, e-mailed around the world?

The tough economy is getting to everyone.  We are all trying to keep costs to a minimum, and come up with money-saving ideas.  Of course, as goes your economy, so goes the entire economy, including non-profits.  For instance, you did not buy enough Girl Scout Cookies last season:

While your support and enthusiasm drives us to provide outstanding service to girls, we’ve been notified that we’ll receive approximately $45,000 less than we budgeted from our United Ways, and our cookie program came in approximately $300,000 under budget. We also know the mileage reimbursement rate will increase again shortly and we can expect that other expenses will follow. We must now identify tangible ways to reduce expenses to make up for the known shortfalls.

After careful consideration and a cost-savings analysis, Girl Scouts of West Central Florida will be closing the service center and branch offices one day a week resulting in most full-time staff moving to a four-day work week.

A four day work week!!!?  From the Girl Scouts!!?!!??

“Thank God it’s Thursday!!”  … just doesn’t sound right.  But it is…

CEO Jody Johnston says the organization expects to save about $200 each day the office is closed, and employees will save about 20% on fuel costs by driving one less day per week. 

It’s not perfect, of course.  Many workers have had to alter their families’ schedules for the switch.  Parents had to make arrangements for their kids’ summer programs, and come August, school routines will be different, too.  Still, the Girl Scouts are working with each employee individually to make sure these types of concerns are addressed.

Along with the logistics of such a change, staffers are not yet used to getting up so early, and find themselves a bit tired by the end of the day.  They expect that it is simply a matter of getting used to it. 

Some are still getting used to the idea of NOT working on Friday.  Chief Marketing Officer Kristin Whitaker says she found herself thinking about work, and has even been checking email from home those days.

But she also notes that a three-day weekend is nice, and that she finally has the time for personal business, such as making those doctor appointments she has been putting off.  The commute is more pleasant now, too.  “Traffic is better since we aren’t on the road for rush hour.”

It seems there is not much of a down side, and the two managers I talked to are quite optimistic.

Interesting that of all the places that you would think of testing this, the Girl Scouts of West Central Florida (GSWCF) just don’t come to mind.  Yet they are the ones moving setting the pace.  Pretty cool.

Oh, and all of this doesn’t mean you can get away without buying Girl Scout Cookies in January, either.

After the jump, find a list of other organizations discussing the option, and the email Q&A with GSWCF CEO Jody Johnston.

(more…)

I’m sure you heard about the Angel Flight pilot who’s plane crashed late last week at Vandenburg Airport. As part of the Angel Flight program, Sun City Center resident Harlan E. Northcott was preparing to fly a cancer patient and a teenage friend of her family to Suart on Thursday, when the plane hit an antenna and crashed on takeoff, killing all three.

A memorial service was held Sunday, and everyone had so many nice things to say about the man everyone called “Lanny.” We received this email from a friend of Harlan’s son-in-law:

I don’t know if you heard about the plane crash out at Vandenberg Airport
or not, but I just wanted to say, it was the father in law of a friend of
mine in New Orleans, he had this comment ….

“What a very sad day indeed. My FIL was a very special guy. He went from growing up in a cardboard house in Caifornia to a self made millionaire. He never frogot where he started out. He died flying a cancer patient and a 15 year old. He donated hi time, his plane, and a great deal of money to help sick people that lack the necessary funds to travel for treatment. He was in the Navy at the end of world war II and graduated from Old Miss. After his service he got into the oil business as a petrolium geologist. He sought out and found investors to back a company and Northcott Exploration was born. He would end up selling that company to Tidewater Marine where he bceame an Executive VP in charge of several operations. Even after retirement his ablity to do his job led him to a lot of work as a
consultant. He loved to fly and was one of the main people responsible for my Education and trainging as a professional pilot. Even though he was my wife’s stepfather, he treated us like family. Especially my boys. They loved their “paw-paw lanny” very much and it kills me to watch them break down about it. I’ll say this. The world has lost a truely uniqe man today. I
am……. very sad now…. “

Sounds like we all lost a great guy…

To any forebears of the Tocobaga,

Please check to make sure you have all your belongings. It looks like you may have dropped a knife some 6,000 years ago:

A city work crew installing a new shelter at a park unearthed an Indian knife blade estimated to be more than 6,000 years old.

The workers found the knife on Monday at Marshall Street Park, said city spokesman Brad Purdy. A curator of archaeology from the Safety Harbor Museum of Regional History is on the site continuing an examination of the artifact.

The blade is made of stone and is about 4 inches long.

You have 60 days to claim the lost knife, at which time it will likely end up in someone’s junk drawer.

Marshall Street Park is in Safety Harbor, less than a mile west of Phillipe Park, home to the Tampa Bay area’s largest Indian Mound.

Looks like another local media outlet is experimenting with citizen journalism.

Since 2005, the Tampa Tribune has offered you a chance for you to be one of their “Community Columnists” and write opinion pieces found on their op-ed page.  They also added “Reel People,” including the beautiful and talented Lisa Ciurro, to write movie reviews that show up in Friday Extra now and again.

A few months ago, Creative Loafing introduced their “Fix It Now” blog, and made the call for interested citizen journalists to contribute to the site.  Since then, a couple have added their voices to the blog.  I’m not sure if they have been published in the printed Loaf, though.

Other than those efforts, not much has been done by local media to get regular citizens involved in the news gathering process.  But Tampa Bay’s 10 is gonna give it a try. 

They plan on handing out video cameras, and want to air your video reports on Tampa Bay’s 10. 

Tampa Bay’s 10 is looking for twenty people around the Bay area to help us with a special project. We will teach twenty lucky people how to shoot a video camera, and how to get the video to us here at the station.

… These clips can be about many different subjects. Things that happen in your community. Anything from bad weather to your childs play at school. Maybe your neighborhood meeting.

Not only that, but they are going to pay you and let you keep the camera (emphasis is theirs)!

Each time you send me a video story that either makes it on the news or on our web site, Tampa Bay’s 10 will pay you TWENTY DOLLARS!

If you hold up your end of the deal, after a year, you will KEEP the video camera we assign you.

In addition to the camera, you will get a tripod, a camera bag, a battery, and everything you need to download video into your computer. 

Former Tampa Bay reporter Amani Channel doesn’t think that’s enough:

I don’t think tampabay10’s “citizen journalism team” has taken the right approach. It’s great to encourage public participation, but this initiative sounds like a low paying job. Stringers can make up to $500.00 bucks for each piece of newsworthy content they capture, and sell.

We’ll be looking forward to the results.If you want to be one of Tampa Bay’s 10’s new Citizen Journalists, send Mitchell Wallace an e-mail mwallace@tampabays10.com.

PS:  Tampa Bay’s 10 is also running the new local Metromix website, as well as something called “Hey Juicy,” which defies explanation.

Have you been reading about the soap opera-like story of Winters & Yonker’s breakaway from long time bay area TV commercial lawyer Richard Mulholland?

The St. Pete Times points out it is “A case of money, deceit, sex and lawyers,” where W&Y were found liable for theft from their former boss. 

On the slow-loading Winters & Yonker website, you can find out that they are known for their “Attentive Personal Service,” their first priority is “Top-Quality Medical Evaluation and Care,” and they brag about their efficiency.

Nowhere does it mention that they would rip off their own mentor in order to increase the chance of business success.

But remember, not all attorneys are like this.  As the old saying goes, it’s that 99% of lawyers that give the profession a bad name.

No matter.  This isn’t really about Mulholland v. Winters & Yonker.  The real loser in all of this is Beltz & Ruth.  Well, them and Morgan & Morgan.  And Catania & Catania (no direct link, cuz Google don’t like the site).

With the wacky story being played out in the media, the names Winters, Yonker, and Mulholland have been all over the place, giving them all a bunch of free publicity. 

Now look for the others to counter with something just as crazy.  Come to think of it, forget the “soap opera” comment - this is more like rasslin’.  We ought to get Morgan, Ruth, Winters, Catania, Mulholland, Catania, Morgan, Beltz, & Yonker in a Battle Royal and crown one the King of Ambulance Chasers.

Was asked to do an interview Monday based on my post about Holly Benson.

The interview happened so fast I didn’t have time to do my hair or make-up so viewer discretion is advised.

I swear the camera adds twenty pounds, but yes, I recognize the fact that I made fun of Holly’s hair and then got on television with a brillo pad atop my own head.

Laugh it up, fuzzballs.

Thank God they didn’t mention my site - I’d like to charm my co-workers before I start alarming them.

I’ve only been back a month. That’s gotta be some kind of record.

Update 5pm: Commenter Lee Nelson noticed that the Buzz also picked up the story.

I’m sure you are well aware that mosquitoes are annoying. They also transmit diseases such as the West Nile virus and Eastern equine encephalitis virus, either of which you don’t want to contract.

Alas, the Florida Department of Health says the number of reported cases carried by mosquitoes are coming in earlier than normal. The reason is not clear.

In other news, many people are abandoning houses in droves because of foreclosures. Seems that some of those abandoned properties include mosquito-infested pools (and old tires, and toys left out, and other places where those critters can breed), now.

But do not despair! Scientists say that approximately one in ten of us is a super-magnet for mosquitoes. All you have to do is befriend one of these folks, and bring them to all of your barbeques, pool parties, and camping trips. While the bugs dine on your new friend, you can enjoy the outdoors with little worry!

See DOH arboviral data for yourself.