Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Hillsborough County employs about 10,000 people, but, blaming budget cuts, county commissioners are poised to lay off the ONE guy responsible for protecting our wildlife from the bulldozers. If they adopt the budget with this proposed cutback, they will gut our upland habitat protection program, just like they tried to gut our wetland protection program last summer.

We have only one wildlife biologist who manages and enforces our Upland Habitat Ordinance. The Environmental Scientist II position reviews development proposals to ensure that areas designated as “Significant Wildlife Habitat” are protected. He decides whether a site qualifies as “Significant” or “Essential” habitat. And if you want to report someone who is bulldozing gopher tortoise habitat or cutting down Scrub Jay nests, he’s the guy you call.

Without this single wildlife biologist in the Planning & Growth Management (PGM) department, we would have no one qualified to handle your habitat protection program. PGM director Peter Aluotto says one of his staff’s urban foresters could try to take on these responsibilities, but foresters are not qualified for this job, and he knows it. Urban foresters are tree specialists, qualified for overseeing our tree ordinances, and deciding whether a tree can legally be cut down. The work requires a biologist, trained to evaluate habitat for various animal & plant species, assess damage to a whole ecological system and prescribe mitigation.

When a developer’s attorneys and their hired biologists testify at a zoning hearing about what type of ecosystem is on their site, and whether their project will impact this animal or that, they will claim our forester lacks the credentials to dispute their biologists — and they will be right. They will sue the county if our forester dares to restrict their development without adequate expert review — and they will win. Meanwhile, environmental groups could also sue the county for abandoning its responsibility to uphold our laws protecting our natural resources.

At the July 29 budget workshop, Commissioner Rose Ferlita responded to Aluotto’s idea of using a forester to do a biologist’s job:

“Well, pretty soon — and I’m being funny — we can have — because he may be not busy that afternoon — we can have an electrical inspector looking at it and see if maybe he thinks that we’re taking care of gopher turtles. I mean, then it becomes just a train wreck.”

Aluotto admitted his foresters are “not specifically trained” for this, offering,

“in those cases where they couldn’t — if they couldn’t get that job done, we would defer to state and federal agencies like Fish & Wildlife and DEP and those folks.”

Please. State agencies can not enforce Hillsborough County’s environmental standards. (Even if they could, they don’t have extra staff to lend us to do our work!) Aluotto’s suggestion that we “defer to state and federal agencies” is simply suggesting that we abandon our local rules protecting our wildlife habitat.

So why are we even thinking of eliminating our one and only wildlife biologist?

Good question - I’m glad you asked.

Some county commissioners have found the tanking housing market to be a good excuse to financially hamstring the agencies that regulate their developer buddies. Commissioner Jim Norman falsely claimed building had dropped 80% – 90%, arguing that we should cut these agencies by a similar percentage. After he was slammed by the Times’ Truth-O-Meter, Norman backed down from the 80% “off with their heads” stand, but still led the board to direct the Environmental Protection Commission (EPC), and the Planning Commission to cut their budgets off at the knees — and PGM too, although they don’t want PGM cutting too many from their permitting staff, as that would inconvenience developers. (Heaven forbid we should slow down the process by which subdivisions and condos get built, because we don’t have nearly enough of that stuff laying around vacant driving down our home values.)

And so we find PGM’s Peter Aluotto offering to eliminate those positions that service small homeowners who want to add a room to the home they can’t sell in this market, and doing away with the one position that developers would most like to see eliminated: the one biologist qualified to handle wildlife habitat reviews.

Finally, at the July 31 workshop, the administration decided they need to meet with their “customers” to see how they want this handled. And by “customers” they do not mean us taxpaying residents of the county, they are talking about developers. That’s right, they want the regulated community to help decide which regulators they should fire.

But since it’s our money paying everyone’s salary, shouldn’t we tell them who to hire and fire?

If, somewhere between the subdivisions and strip plazas, you’d like to see some natural spaces left green and alive with the wild magic of bobcats, foxes & otters — places where the woodpecker hammers out a staccato beat, and the Chuck-will’s-widow still sings, backed by a symphony of frogs — write your commissioners and tell them to keep the Environmental Scientist II in PGM’s budget. Here’s my letter. You can also speak to them at the public budget hearings, September 9 & 18, 6:00 p.m. at county center.

“The Pier” has been a landmark of downtown St. Petersburg since 1899 when Peter Demens connected the Orange Belt Railroad to a half-mile wharf. D. F. Brantley started the first Pier Pavilion in 1895, and a “Municipal Pier” debuted in 1913.  But it is the 1926 “Million Dollar Pier” (postcarded here) that long-time residents remember.

The Million Dollar Pier was the place to be - whether it was for a veteran’s meeting, a high school dance or a just getting a Coke at the drive-in. In the days before air conditioning, the way to cool off was to take a drive out to this community center pier. Cruise boats docked at the pier and during World War II so did the military ships.

The city began tearing down Million Dollar Pier in 1967, and opened today’s inverted pyramid structure in 1973.  In 1978, the city installed a laser on the third floor of the inverted pyramid, sending a “beam of green” up the pier to downtown.  It never really worked great, and was removed in the mid 80s.

The Pier got a $12 million makeover in 1988, with a lovely shade of turquoise contrasting the pale yellow building.

You may have noticed that The Pier Aquarium is looking to move off The Pier, and over to Baywalk.  It seems that after 35 years, The Pier and the building at the end of it are falling apart.  So now the city is looking for ideas on what to do with The Pier.

To do it right, some have suggested we look at other piers across the nation, such as Chicago’s Navy Pier (pictures), Santa Monica Pier (pics), and San Francisco’s Pier 39 (pics).

But maybe we ought to knock it down and replace it with a bridge to Ruskin.

You got any ideas?

Your Weekly Rays Update

Overall: 58-40
Last Week: AL Won All Star Game, Jays (2-1)
This Week: OAK, @ KC

Considering this was the first All Star game that had any real importance to the Rays (for obvious reasons), it was good to see the three Rays play well in it. Evan Longoria had a game tying RBI hit in the bottom of the 8th and Scott Kazmir picked up the win in one inning of relief work. Even Dioner Navarro helped turn a key double play in the 9th inning (although Navarro also gave up a run on an error the inning before). We all know the Rays are a young team but all three Rays who played in the All Star game were 24 or younger. That’s just the fifth time since 1963 a team has sent three players 24 or younger to the All Star game.

Tampa Bay…58—40 __ .592
Boston………….58—43 __ .574
New York……..54—45 __ .545
Baltimore…….48—50 __ .490
Toronto……….48—51 __ .485

The Rays probably don’t deserve to be in first in the division considering the seven games they dropped before the All Star break, yet there they are. We have three Red Sox losses to the Angels to thank for that. Of concern is the fact that the Rays play dreadful on the road (19-25). The Rays have been saved by their home record (41-15) but it’s difficult to consider the team a serious playoff contender unless they can improve their road record.

HERE WE GO AGAIN
A Commission has been formed as a joint effort between St Petersburg, Pinellas and the Rays to find a site for a new stadium. The Commission, called A Baseball Community, Inc. is looking for applications for the 9 member committee that will head this coalition. The Times Stadium blog, Ballpark Frankness, has a guess at the potential membership of this committee and the biggest question seems to be, will someone from the anti-stadium group, POWW, be allowed on the committee? Personally, I’m torn on the value of adding someone from POWW to this group.

LONGORIA HOT, UPTON NOT
Apologies for the uncreative headline but Longoria has been on fire since the All Star break with 3 homeruns in his last three games. On the flip side BJ Upton has played poorly lately and Joe Maddon has moved Upton around in the lineup to take pressure off of Upton until he finds his swing. Upton is not the only Ray struggling (Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena have as well) so you have to wonder how long can a rookie (i.e. Longoria) essentially carry the Rays offense?.

PERCIVAL BACK
Reliever Troy Percival returns from the 15 day DL and should pitch sometime this week. While the Rays bullpen as a whole is much improved from last season Percival seems to provide a calming influence for a young team.

PLAYOFF ODDS: 84%
(Courtesy Baseball Prospectus)

Despite a last-ditch effort by developer interests to weaken wetland protections last Thursday, interested citizens prevailed and your county commissioners adopted the final batch of wetland rule changes without any modifications.

Having failed to persuade EPC staff to agree to any weakening of the rules in this last part of the Hybrid, developers frantically lobbied county commissioners to stick last-minute changes into the proposal.

Speaking against those changes were representatives of the League of Women Voters, U-CAN, R-LAND, Sierra Club, Audubon, Tomorrow Matters!, Seffner Community Alliance, Taylor Road Civic Association, and several unaffiliated citizens. A few developers and agricultural interests spoke for looser regulations, but they were outnumbered and outmatched.

A key to the success of the conservationists was that many of their email and letters showed commissioners that they clearly understood the key points included in the changes.  Developers’ demands were couched in harmless-sounding doublespeak like “net environmental benefits” or “classification of wetlands,” but citizens pointed out how those innocent-sounding buzzwords would weaken wetland protections.

Still, Commissioner Jim Norman pushed hard for the “classification of wetlands” modification, which would have made it easier to destroy some wetlands deemed “low class.” This idea was opposed by EPC staff, all 3 advisory committees and the non-developer citizens involved.

Commissioner Brian Blair tried to lend support to Norman, but Blair didn’t seem to understand the issues well enough to do more than flail about, finally resorting to reading a letter out loud.  Blair wrongly claimed the letter was written by a member of the EPC’s Technical Advisory Group (TAG). In fact, the letter was written by Mike Peterson, speaking for the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors, not TAG.  Peterson is also known as a lawyer for developers.

(Side note - I wonder if Tampa Realtors approve of their spokesperson calling for weaker wetland protections?  He previously led Tampa Realtors to call for the total elimination of EPC wetland protections, and this letter reiterates that position.  It’s obvious how it would benefit Peterson’s developer-clients to be allowed to destroy wetlands to build more houses, but how would it benefit Realtors to have neighborhoods flooded by wetland destruction just so their market could also be flooded with more houses for sale, depressing prices?)

Thankfully, Commissioner Mark Sharpe argued firmly against Norman’s pitch for the requests for modifications, noting some of the economic benefits of strong environmental protections. 

Likewise, Commissioner Rose Ferlita moved to adopt the rules as proposed, and flatly refused to allow Blair & Norman to pollute her motion with any language that would direct EPC to weaken wetland protections.

If not for the concerted efforts of those above-mentioned groups and other interested parties, it is my belief that the already compromised rules would have been put off again, eventually leading to further weakening of wetlands rules. Instead, the concerns of citizens were heard by your county commissioners, and Mark Sharpe’s compelling arguments thwarted attempts to delay. With no commissioner wanting to be singled out as voting against wetlands (given all the heat the public & press has directed at them on this issue), the motion passed unanimously.

For more, see the Times and Tribune on the hearing, and the Times’ preview. The Tribune also printed an editorial and Denise Layne’s Op Ed before the hearing, both calling on commissioners to approve EPC staff’s proposal as is. At the hearing, all 3 of Blair’s Democratic opponents spoke in favor of EPC’s staff recommendation. Hear them all on this audio clip of WMNF’s excellent coverage. Full captioning of the hearing is here.

If you’re not already depressed about the state of our state, don’t read the story in Time magazine that seems to suggest that the Sunshine State is crashing and burning.

Writer Michael Grunwald, who lives in Miami, says there is trouble in paradise.

“We’re facing our worst real estate meltdown since the Depression. We’ve got a water crisis, insurance crisis, environmental crisis and budget crisis to go with our housing crisis,” he writes.

“We’re first in the nation in mortgage fraud, second in foreclosures, last in high school graduation rates.”

Population is also stagnant and the Florida Legislature would rather focus on the State song than more substantive issues.

There’s more, but read it for yourself. You’ll also see a familiar name quoted in the story: USF historian, Gary Mormino.

He says to Grunwald, “The dream is fading. People think Florida is too crowded, too expensive, too crazy, too many immigrants - name your malady.”

We have a lot of maladies - far too many to list here.

But is the dream really dead? Has Sunshine State really lost its luster?

What do you think?

Everybody is happy!

Last summer, citizens stood strongly against the attempt by four county commissioners to eliminate our wetlands protections, so the commissioners backed down and accepted the “Hybrid” proposal offered by EPC director Dr. Garrity as a solution to the criticisms leveled against the agency.

Commissioners promised at that hearing that the Hybrid would not weaken our wetland protections. Later, in a letter to the Tampa Tribune, EPC chair Al Higginbotham promised the Hybrid would “maintain the strong protections our wetlands enjoy.”

Keeping all of that in mind, the EPC has followed up on those promises and has proposed rule changes that do what commissioners said the Hybrid was supposed to do: builders get a streamlined process (one-stop permitting in many cases!) without weakening our wetland protections.

Your County Commissioners will discuss the proposed rules at a public hearing next Thursday, and I am hoping they pass it as is. Although I have had concerns about some parts of the Hybrid passed earlier, this batch of rule changes accomplishes what our commissioners said they wanted, and we can all be done with this whole Hybrid business.

But it’s not that simple.

Not everybody is happy.

As predictable as death and taxes, developers are once again attempting to make last minute changes, which will weaken wetlands protection. They have plans to show up at the hearing with four main arguments.

I have posted a detailed analysis of the four major demands developers are making, and why commissioners should not cave to them. Go to that page to check out all the details, but here they are in a nutshell:

1. Eliminate EPC review from the zoning stage. - It makes no sense to allow builders an initial go-ahead if they will later be denied. EPC should be involved from the beginning.
2. Classification of wetlands to allow “low-class” wetlands to be damaged more easily than “high-class” wetlands. - Human regulators at EPC already consider how pristine and ecologically valuable a wetland is. Giving an official classification adds unnecessary red tape and invites lawsuits.
3. “Net Environmental Benefit” considered to allow more wetland impacts. - this one has a great title, but is no more than a shell game.
4. Expand the “Reasonable Use” criteria to include “Future Land Use.” - Our local wetland rule is stronger than the state’s because it only allows wetlands to be damaged if necessary for “Reasonable Use” of the land. Developers are demanding that we broaden the definition of “Reasonable Use” to include the “Future Land Use” designation, in order to allow more wetland damage.

For more detail on these four demands — especially that last one — please take a look at my full analysis. If no one but developers speaks to our commissioners nor attends this hearing, you can be sure commissioners will try to stick these in. Citizens are strongly encouraged to show up at the hearing to let your commissioners know how you feel.

Again, your Commissioners will decide the matter at a public hearing on Thursday, July 17, 9:00 a.m., at County Center. You can speak if you want, but your presence alone would speak volumes. You can also write your commissioners ahead of the hearing. (Here is a sample letter for those of you who want to keep wetlands protection in place.)

Back in April 2005, the TBBJ told us that the Hotel Floridan was purchased with plans for renovations. We too were excited about Tampa’s long dormant historic landmark getting fixed up, too.

But some people have remained skeptical that the Hotel Floridan would truly be renovated and restored to former glory. Even after renovation started, some of the readers here said they didn’t believe it would happen unless they saw dumpsters outside filling up with debris.

To be sure, other than Fox 13 airing a video report of the internal work ongoing at the Floridan in August of 2007, there has not been many tell tale signs of the reconstruction under way at the Hotel Floridan. Though you may or may not have noticed the facade and window restorations/repairs from the last few months, besides that, there hasn’t been much of anything..

We now, however, submit to you Exhibit C of the restoration in progress: The sign atop the old building identifying it as HOTEL FLORIDAN has once again been erected on the southwest corner of the hotel.

A bunch of local fans of urban development and architecture hang out at Skyscraper City’s Tampa/St. Petersburg forums, and have been watching exterior renovations through the Skypoint construction webcam. Forum contributor and all-around good guy Cavernw works nearby, and took this fantastic photo of the completed sign. Nice shot, Cavernw!

You can also see the completed sign and watch other ongoing exterior renovations by visiting the Skypoint webcam and zooming in on the Floridan building in the upper right portion of the camera’s viewing range.

For further discussion on the restoration of the Floridan, come hang out with us at SKyscrapercity.com.

Your afternoon daily news:

Tribune Front: 

• Remember nearly a year ago when there was concern about the C.W. Bill Young Regional Reservoir having cracks?  TBO’s Mike Salinero and Steve Andrews follow up and finds that some of the cement walls are only 3 inches thick when they should be a foot.  The worst part?  Tampa Bay Water knew about this in November, and are just now getting around to telling folks - 6 months later.  TBW Executive Director Gerald Seeber says everything is fine, and there is nothing to worry about.  I wonder if Gerry lives next door to the thing.

Times Front:

• Red Sox fans in Tampa Bay are starting to root for the Rays.
• Like the airlines, local restaurants are beginning to nickel and dime their customers, adding fees for lettuce, extra sauce, and other stuff.  Some have created new lower-priced menus.

Tribune Metro:

• The 93 year old elevator at Tampa City Hall is getting electricity.
• Pinellas County commissioners approved an agreement with a development group that plans to build a massive town center-type project on the 240-acre former Toytown landfill in northeast St. Petersburg.  Might they work with the Rays on a new stadium?  They might.

Times Local:

• Former Miss Georgia Jennifer Holloway is leaving Bay News 9 to focus on promoting the exercise machine she invented, the Workout 180.