Ybor City advocates are citing the furor regarding The Regent, the $7 million community center that opened near Brandon earlier this year, as a key factor in the Hillsborough County Commission suddenly seeing the light and voting on Wednesday to allocate $2 million for repairs and upkeep of three historic buildings in Ybor City (You can read CL's Monica Torres story on the vote here).
But the County Commissioners 6-0 unanimous vote (Les Miller was absent) to support those cultural buildings cannot be attributed solely to the negative fallout from the public's distaste for The Regent, the opulent building that was supposedly to be used as a hurricane shelter/community center, but until News Channel shined the light on their activities, was being utilized more for weddings, sweet 16 parties and other swank events.
But it played a big part in the BOCC's change of course – that, and the relentless actions of Ybor activist and newspaper columnist Patrick Mantegia, who used his weekly column in La Gaceta to embarrass the commissioners, juxtaposing their support for the Regent, while ignoring the concerns of Ybor preservationists.
This article appears in Jul 14-20, 2011.