Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin White is in the news in both local dailies this morning.
The Tampa Tribune reports on a relationship that some people have wondered about for a while — that is, the fact that the Hillsborough County Public Transportation Commission, or PTC, which is chaired by White, has been paying Vic DiMaio to be its lobbyist in Tallahassee the past couple of years.
DiMaio is White's campaign manager.
Reporter Mike Salinero details how DiMaio was on the verge of being let go by the PTC earlier this year, simply because it had been determined that the agency couldn't afford a full-time lobbyist.
Instead, DiMaio and White announced that they had reduced Victor's salary from $60 K to $36K. The story goes on to report that when it was determined in 2007 by White that the agency needed a 'player' in Tallahassee, PTC member and Tampa City Councilman Tom Scott suggested the agency could use Hillsborough's fulltime lobbyist Edith Stewart. That didn't happen.
Despite White's recent troubles in the courtroom, he's still doing okay in campaign fundraising. The St. Pete Times reports that White pulled in more than $9,000 more than the amount raised by his chief rival in his re-election campaign next year, former State Senator Les Miller.
Local political observers have viewed the White/Miller race even before White's recent legal problems as potentially one of the more competitive in 2010. Who knows how the Alyssa Ogden affair affects it at all? There are certainly some in the community who believe (like the Commissioner himself) that White got a raw deal in court, but whether that translates to strong support next year is (obviously) uncertain.
Meanwhile, the Hillsborough County Commission's rejection of a homeless Tent City is making national news, with a story in today's NY Times co-written by former CL (back when it was the Weekly Planet) reporter Lynn Waddell.
The story depicts some of the critics of the plan as being pretty cold-hearted.
Four commissioners — Al Higginbotham, Kevin White, Mark Sharpe and Ken Hagen — voted to deny the re-zoning.
The impression Mr. Higginbotham and opponents created was that of a lawless shantytown where the homeless would benefit from programs paid for with tax money — an idea many saw as unfair. As Mr. Woosely’s stepfather, William Aguiar, put it: “I’ve gotten by. If I can manage that, so can anybody else.”
And then there's this:
Linda Hinson, 61, a retiree in East Lake, said defeat of the camp plan meant “I don’t have to go out and get a gun.” She declared that there were already enough shelters.
The St. Pete Times editorializes this morning that:
The four commissioners who killed this project as inadequate have a responsibility now to suggest other options. And they better be prepared to go it alone without much help. The county jerked Catholic Charities around for a year, and now there is nothing to show for it. What charity in this recession can waste its time and resources on such a fickle partner?
The board surprised some observers earlier this year when they strongly endorsed the concept. Then their Zoning Hearing Master reversed himself on the matter as well.
But the opponents were noisy and well-organized. Also alarmist. It would have taken guts to go up against those folks yesterday, but that wasn't in the cards.
This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.