Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Disney’s Wide World of Sports complex is undergoing a change, and will soon bear the name of ESPN.  Makes sense since most kids these days have never heard of the long running “Wide World of Sports” brand and television show on ABC.

But anyway, in regards to that subject, Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer Scott Powers interviewed the senior vice president of global sports enterprises for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Ken Potrock.  The Q&A is mostly uninteresting drivel about how ESPN and Disney are going to take over the amateur sporting tournaments away from the rest of the country, and blah, blah, blah.  But there was one exchange that caught our eye:

Q: Any possibility that the Tampa Bay Rays’ schedule might be expanded at Champion Stadium?

A: We love having the Tampa Bay Rays play here. I would love to have them make a longer-term commitment to play here, and to play as many games here as they would like to play.

That sure is an interesting comment, given that the Rays are in the midst of trying to get St. Pete to build a new stadium.

Then again, I may be reading too much into it.  Champion Stadium holds less than 10,000 spectators.

Thanks to Mr. Media Bob Andelman, who originally found the quote at Mickey News, and passed it on to us.

PS:  Don’t look now, but exactly half way through the season, the Rays once again wake up this morning with the best record in baseball.

I honestly don’t understand how anybody who lives here can ever be bored unless they’re really going out of their way to make an effort. There is always something going on and whenever you think you’ve done everything there is to do, you’ll come across something new.

For example, this past Saturday night I found myself in an art gallery in downtown St. Pete listening to chamber music. Believe it or not, that’s actually not how I spend every Saturday night.

Studio@620 was hosting a performance of chamber music by the FloriMezzo Music Festival. It was very casual (nobody was wearing a tux) and entertaining. The musicians experimented with the music and bantered with the audience, explaining things and soliciting feedback. The gallery staff was very friendly and accommodating. Not at all the stuffy, intimidating atmosphere that your average ham-and-egger (like me) might expect. In fact, the exhibit on display “Purses and Passions” featured photos of some of the beloved Tampa Bay Derby Darlins!

It was there (Studio@620, not the roller derby) I had the opportunity to speak with Eryn Bauer. She is from Tampa (a 2006 graduate of Chamberlain High School) and is currently a Bassoon Performance Major at the Eastman School of Music in New York. She has soloed with the Tampa Bay Symphony. and is a member of the “Arabesque Winds” woodwind quintet, who recently won the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition which was held in Carnegie Hall. That means she’s talented and stuff. I asked her a few questions:

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Do you remember the Fronton down on Dale Mabry just south of Gandy?  Tampa Jai Alai opened there in 1953.  But in 1979, the Seminole tribe began bingo operations, which began the decline of Jai Alai in Florida.  Strikes by the players, and rumors of fixing games didn’t help the sport, and by 1998, the Tampa Jai Alai was losing big money, and it closed on July 4 of that year.

But Jai Alai is once again being played in Tampa Bay.

The National Jai Alai Association is based in St. Petersburg.  In April, they opened the world’s first publicly supported Jai Alai cancha (court).

St. Petersburg Cancha at Puryear Park includes a main court and three practice courts, and was approved by St. Pete City Council last year. 

You might also like:  The Outback Bowl (formerly the Hall of Fame Bowl), had an annual invitational at the Tampa Fronton from 1992-1997.

Yep.

Why you can even go surfing at St. Pete Beach.

Feel free to check surf conditions at Gulfster.com

Dr. Beach came out with his top beaches for this year, and the Tampa Bay area can once again claim the best beach in the United States.  Fort DeSoto was named the top beach in the US for 2005, and this year Caladesi Island ranks as America’s Best Beach.  Caladesi Island is just off the coast of Dunedin.

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Not only that, but Sarasota’s Siesta Public Beach ranked number three in the nation for 2008.  You can find that beach on Siesta Key, just an hour south of Tampa or St. Pete.

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They both look pretty good, huh?

Past Florida winners of Dr. Beach’s list include:

• 2005 Fort DeSoto Park - North Beach, St Petersburg, Florida
• 2002 St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, Florida
• 1995 St. Andrews SRA, Florida
• 1994 Grayton Beach SRA, Florida
• 1992 Bahia Honda SRA, Florida

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could grab a spare bicycle at The Pier in St. Pete, and ride it to Tropicana Field for a ballgame, where someone else could use that same bike to get to the Dali Museum?  Once the Rays finish beating the Yankees, you could pick up another spare bicycle outside, and ride over to Baywalk, and put it in the bike rack with a handful of other bikes available to anyone to use for free.

Awesome idea, huh?  And the (turn down audio before clicking!) Green Bike Initiative wants to do just that:

Seeking to fill a niche need within our community, St. Pete’s Bike GREEN initiative was launched in March 2008 by cycling enthusiasts around Pinellas County. Having seen successful Public Utility Bike (PUB) programs in a number of European and American cities, founders Andrew Blikken and Brent Bruns decided the time had come for their own community to benefit from such an initiative.

It will never work.

The Tampa Downtown Partnership tried a similar program 10 years ago.  All 50 of the hideous orange bikes were stolen within a week.

Even Bike GREEN knows it.  In an interview with Big 13, BikeGreen.info founder Brent Bruns expects problems:

“We’re anticipating a thousand bikes to be stolen each month for six months, which is why we are launching with 8,000.”

Holy cow! - You’re telling me that you are going to flood downtown St. Pete with 8,000 green bicycles?  Imagine that for a second.  And then you expect 1,000 to be stolen each month for six months!  What happens in month 7?  Do people get bored with stealing bicycles every day?

And just how on earth are they raising money for 8,000 bicycles?  The obvious - they are selling handfuls of Altoids for $.25 each from vending machines.

This has success written all over it.

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.

The Rays want St. Petersburg to build a $450 million ballfield on the waterfront in downtown St. Pete.  They have come up with a financing plan for Waterfront Stadium that they say doesn’t include any new taxes.  Here’s where the money comes from:

• $150-million up front from the team.
• $100-million from extending a 1 percent tax on Pinellas County hotel stays for an additional 25 to 30 years. That tax is now paying for Tropicana Field.
• $75-million from extending the city’s contribution to Tropicana Field for another 25 to 30 years.
• $70-million from the developer buying Tropicana Field.
• And $55-million in guaranteed parking revenue associated with the 34,000-seat ballpark.

There are supporters.  Fans for a Waterfront Stadium is a “citizen’s coalition made up of lifelong St Petersburg residents, downtown visionaries, teachers, baseball fans, business owners, parents and neighbors” who are pushing for Major League Downtown.  But St. Petersblog says the list of business supporters is suspect.

Meanwhile, Preserve Our Wallets and Waterfront (POWW) is a “group of concerned St Petersburg residents from all walks of life (and from all parts of town) who have decided to work together to provide the community with information regarding the proposed development of the Tropicana site and new baseball stadium at the current Al Lang Field.”  They want to “preserve our world-famous downtown waterfront for generations to come…”

POWW says sports stadiums don’t help local merchants, and instead those stores would see a “sharp decline in business.”

Meanwhile, Rays Managing General Partner Stuart Sternberg made it clear that the stadium would either be open by 2012 or it will not happen. If the referendum does not pass this fall, there will not be another attempt to get it passed.

Perhaps St. Pete doesn’t even need a baseball team.  The team is winning, and they couldn’t get 21,000 to show up for the Yankees.  Times Sports Columnist John Romano says that maybe “St. Petersburg has neither the wealth nor the civic roots to support major-league baseball.”