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Fire, Ready, Aim

By: Owen Whitman

5.6.99

 

The Tampa Tribune's mindless, self-serving obsession with commuter rail is finally out of the closet. In a bizarre journalistic gaffe reminiscent of Ed Turanchik's infamous insult of Bill Poe during the bitterly contested, Tribune championed, Glazer Stadium tax controversy, the paper's editorial staff recently directed an unusually public  "Correspondence..." to Florida Governor Jeb Bush. The Trib's bizarre "Correspondence" imperiously instructed the Governor to usurp the democratic process by disregarding the request of a bipartisan majority of Hillsborough county's elected county officials to cease spending additional millions of taxpayer's dollars on more studies for a discredited light rail system.

In addition to publicly undermining and insulting commissioners Hart, Norman, Storms and Frank by instructing the Governor to "...please ignore them...” and openly characterizing the commissioners as "...imbeciles..." and "... mean, silly and unwedded to the truth...” the Tribune's unprecedented "Correspondence..." reading as though it had been petulantly penned over too many late-night cocktails, amateurishly sought to instigate false controversy between the Governor and the Hillsborough County Commissioners.

Ironically, it was Eddie "Choo-Choo" Turanchik's political marionette and the Tribune's "anointed," hand-picked, philosophical "yes man" and un-elected, stealth commission appointee, Ben Wacksman, who made one of the few accurate observations contained in the Tribune's childish diatribe:  said Waxman, "The governor is not a stupid man." Amen Ben, amen – pathetic Tribune, truly pathetic.

Tampa Tribune home page

Correspondence for the governor
5/6/99 -- 7:40 PM

Dear Gov. Bush:

You will be receiving an official letter soon from the government of Hillsborough County saying the county doesn't want some of the transportation money you requested and the Legislature appropriated. The county asks that you veto these funds. Please don't do it.

You were right to kill the high-speed rail project and redirect substantial sums to more useful transportation projects such as the Tampa rail proposal and Interstate 4 improvements.

You no doubt wonder why the commission would vote 4-3 to reject $1.5 million that the Hillsborough legislative delegation and the Tampa mayor tell you we want. The board acted either in bad faith or on bad information - it's hard to tell.

Commissioner Chris Hart described three of your budget items as turkeys. One provides $1 million to find ways to move people between Tampa and Orlando in preparation for possibly hosting the 2012 Olympics.

HART SAID THAT Ed Turanchik, a former commission colleague who now heads the Olympic effort, does not want the money. That's not true.

Turanchik said three months ago that the money would come too late to do any good because the deadline for applying for the games is March of 2000 and the study couldn't be finished in time. But about two months ago, the Olympic deadline was moved back to December 2000. The state Department of Transportation does need the money for a regional study that, among other things, could lead to a quicker completion of I-4 improvements.

Of course you know this, and so does the DOT. Turanchik, whose office is about 30 seconds away from the commission chamber, could have explained it to the commission, but he wasn't invited to the meeting.

Hart also said that $750,000 for a greenway in east Tampa was a ruse to get money to study a rail line to the University of South Florida. Sen. James Hargrett used his clout to make sure the greenway survived the budget process. It's part of the Tampa mayor's effort to economically revitalize that part of town.

The plan is to link parks with sidewalks and bikeways to make it safer and easier to get to bus stops and to rail stations, should a rail line ever be built. Hart announced at the meeting that Steve Carroll of the county bus line said the money was going to be diverted to rail. Carroll tells us he never said that.

``It's the mayor's initiative,'' Carroll said. ``It's to create a greenway with pedestrian amenities. We can't use that money for studying rail.''

Hart called it money down the drain.

He also told the board that the federal government has denied funding to the Tampa rail project, which means that the county can't count on 50 percent of the cost of a rail line to be covered by federal sources.

His point was that it makes no sense to study something that the local governments cannot afford to build on their own. Federal officials have ruled that the Tampa rail project is ``not recommended'' for construction money this year because not all necessary studies have been completed and local officials and voters lack the information they need to make a decision. It would be crazy for Congress to send Hillsborough County money to build something that might not be built.

The majority of the board agreed with Hart that you should veto the money to fund the study to find the answers that could qualify the area for federal funds. It could be that they didn't know what they were doing; more likely they were grandstanding.

Certainly it would be foolish to study a project on which all necessary studies have already been done and that cannot win federal approval anyway. It shouldn't be hard for your office to discover that the studies are in fact incomplete and that the project is very much eligible for a fair share of federal support.

While Hart was misinforming his colleagues, a delegation of federal transit officials was in town reviewing progress on the Tampa rail proposal, and we understand that those officials spoke highly of work done so far.

Commissioner Ronda Storms, after listening to Hart, declared that the county has ``studied this thing to death'' and that all the studies are biased in favor of rail and are not to be trusted.

You might be interested to know that the only people who spoke up for you and your office on this issue were Democrats.

``The governor is not a stupid man,'' said Commissioner Ben Wacksman.

The governor is no fool, said Commission Chairwoman Jan Platt. ``We look foolish to ask him to take out of the budget what he put in.''

SO, GOVERNOR, WE KNOW you understand these budget issues far better than do the commissioners asking for your veto, Republicans Hart, Storms and Jim Norman and Democrat Pat Frank.

The discussion, led by Hart, was illogical in the extreme, and it constituted a civic embarrassment.

Anyone who listened to Hart, Storms and the others would think a conspiracy is afoot, involving you, the bus line, the Legislature, the Olympic committee, the mayor and untold others, to trick the county into building a boondoggle project.

Governor, we have a few county commissioners who are mean, silly and unwedded to truth. Please ignore them, especially when they vote to send imbecile letters to you.