La Gaceta’s editor rips BOCC & state legislature over Brandon Regent funding

The controversy over the Brandon based community center named the Regent has been all over the local media since WFLA television's Steve Andrews broke the story for News Channel 8 and the Tampa Tribune.

In a nutshell, the nonprofit facility, which is supposed to be for the community and a hurricane shelter, has instead been anything but that, instead used as a home for lavish weddings, receptions and banquets, financed with $2.5 million of county money from the Community Investment Tax, as well as millions more from state taxpayers. County Chair Al Higginbotham has called for an investigation.

One Ybor City community activist, La Gaceta Editor and Publisher Patrick Manteiga, is outraged, and wrote a satirical public letter to state and local legislators last week, acknowledging that his bid over the years to secure public monies to preserve such Ybor City treasures such as the Cuban Club, the Italian Club and Centro Asturiano was obviously not the way to go about getting public funding.

This article appears in May 19-25, 2011.