Several dozen Tampa Bay area residents will be hopping on a plane today for a trip to Cuba organized by the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce. It's a huge step, if perhaps mostly symbolic, for the organization to begin a relationship with their counterparts in Havana.
We call it symbolic because this is really a tourist trip, with lots of scheduled appointments to museums, cigar factories and famed properties (such as Ernest Hemingway's Cuban home, Finca La Vigia). Chamber head Bob Rohrlack has called the trip a "first chapter" in what he and other Chamber officials hope is part of a longer narrative, particularly if the economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. against the communist island are ever ultimately repealed. Certainly conditions on the ground here in Tampa make this a less controversial trip than when Dick Greco or even Jim Davis journeyed there back in the aughts. Whether it's the start of something truly significant will be something we won't know about for awhile.
Meanwhile this reporter journeyed down to St. Petersburg yesterday afternoon to observe a meeting between the NAACP, the ACLU and other groups sitting down with Mayor Bill Foster and Police Chief Chuck Harmon about some discontent in the black community. Though the mayor banned reporters from attending the meeting, we did get to hear directly of some of the issues concerning the Reverend Manuel Sykes, NAACP chair in St.Pete.
Although housing (finally) is picking up in the Tampa Bay area and Florida, it's been in the doldrums for years, leading to a lot of what are called short sales, or people selling their homes for less than what they originally purchased them for. Unfortunately for them, such sales have been erroneously classified as foreclosures, wreaking havoc on their credit scores. Florida Senator Bill Nelson wants the practice ended, pronto, or he threatens to call for the firing of officials at a couple of federal agencies.
And speaking of Nelson, we couldn't help but inquire about what the 70-year-old Senator thinks of fact that some Democrats in Florida are begging him to get into the gubernatorial race, though he consistently has said no, but thanks for asking. Yesterday we asked him if this was a "hell,no" declaration? Read his response here.
This article appears in May 23-29, 2013.