A state appeals court has ordered Florida Power Corp. to the bargaining table; The Ice Palace's new $150-million name: the St. Pete Times Forum; kettle corn delivered straight to your desk; and the fate of Sam "The Fat Man" Cagnina.
Florida Power Loses Again
A state appeals court has ordered Florida Power Corp. to the bargaining table as Belleair officials try to figure the cost of taking over the electricity distribution system in their town.
The Second District Court of Appeal affirmed a trial court ruling that Florida Power must negotiate with Belleair officials, who want to know the price to buy the company's physical assets within the Pinellas County town.
Town officials believe they could supply electricity in Belleair more reliably and cheaply than Florida Power.
Florida Power, a St. Petersburg-based unit of North Carolina's Progress Energy Inc., has been fighting the town in and out of court. (See "Power Play" at www.weeklyplanet.com/ 2002-04-10/cover.html.) The company has refused even to talk about selling out in Belleair.
Town Manager Steve Cottrell says he would be surprised if Florida Power appeals the Aug. 30 ruling. Another Florida appellate court already has rendered a similar decision against Florida Power.
Florida Power's next chance to stop Belleair's municipalization of electric service may be the town's 2003 election. The company could try to defeat anti-Florida Power incumbents at the polls, as it has attempted elsewhere.
Mayor George E. Mariani and town commissioners have promised to put a takeover of Florida Power's assets to a referendum. But Cottrell isn't sure that Florida Power executives will name a price before next spring's election, when such a referendum could be held.
"It depends on how long they want to drag this out," Cottrell told Weekly Planet. "I guess you could throw them in jail for contempt of court. That has been suggested."
—Francis X. Gilpin
The Paper Palace
The Ice Palace, Tampa's very own $150-million albatross, has a new name: the St. Pete Times Forum.
The Sept. 3 deal with Palace Sports and Entertainment Inc., touted as the first time a newspaper has purchased exclusive naming rights to a stadium or entertainment complex, will set the St. Petersburg Times back almost $30-million over 12 years.
The newspaper will pay $2.1-million for the first year, with the fee increasing by 3 percent each additional year. After 12 years, the Times may renew for an additional 12 years at $3.5-million for the first year, with the fee increasing by 3 percent each additional year.
The Times will also pay a one-time fee of $129,897 to settle its previous sponsorship agreement with Palace Sports, as well as $500,000 to cover the costs of altering signage. In addition, Palace Sports will receive $250,000 in free advertising space per year.
Palace Sports manages the arena for the Tampa Sports Authority. The former Ice Palace, opened in 1996, was built with public money in hopes of sparking redevelopment in the surrounding Channel District, near downtown.
Palace Sports President Ronald J. Campbell is also chief executive of the Tampa Bay Lightning, the arena's principal occupant.
For the multimillion-dollar price tag, the Times receives brand awareness in the Tampa market and one hell of a spitball to fire at The Tampa Tribune. Taxpayers, who helped pay for the arena in a public-private partnership, receive, uh, well, bunk.
In fact, Palace Sports and the Times tried to keep the deal private in order to prevent the release of competitive information.
Not even Henry Saavedra, executive director of the sports authority, knew the details. "I'd certainly like to see the contract," he said when the deal was first announced.
So did the Planet, which was shocked — shocked! — that the Times did not make the contract public. After all, the Times sues for public records as often George W. Bush uses euphemisms.
Last month, the Times threatened to file suit against Bay Air Flying Service, which leases public land at Albert Whitted Municipal Airport in St. Petersburg, in order to obtain the company's customer records (see "800-Pound Gorilla on the Tarmac" on page 8). Because Bay Air leases public land, the Times argued, its customer records should be public.
Following that logic, the Planet filed public records requests with the Times and Palace Sports on Sept. 6, two days after Hillsborough County Commissioner Jan Platt announced her interest in having the contract made public.
Times attorney George Rahdert denied the Planet's request, but Campbell faxed the contract to local news media later the same day.
Despite the hype, the deal is not a marriage made in heaven. Even during the dot-com boom, the Ice Palace couldn't find a suitor. Today's naming-rights market is soft, at best.
The Times, a controversial partner for the arena, is a mail-order bride purchased at a moment of lusty desperation. Acquiring the naming rights raises questions about the newspaper's ability to cover objectively and aggressively an arena with a short and controversial history of red ink.
Times spokesperson Anthea Penrose denies that the reporting will be affected. "It's been the case with any of our marketing partnerships that there is no effect on our reporting and editorial writing," she said.
Even so, the deal puts Times reporters in an awkward position. Until Palace Sports released the contract, the Times had tried to conceal it. In 1998, the newspaper pursued the release of lease agreements at Raymond James Stadium and a joint-marketing agreement between the Tribune and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The courts forced the Bucs to release the information in 1999.
Last week, Times executives made their corporate stance clear: At 490 First Ave. S. in St. Petersburg, the Sunshine Law shines out but not in.
"Publisher pressure on reporters works in weird ways," said Neil deMause, a sports journalist and co-author of Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit. "I'm sure they could spend the (naming-rights) money more wisely. I'm sure they could buy an awful lot of billboard space instead. Or they could do something crazy, like invest in good reporting."
Media coverage of the issue was almost as humorous as the Ice Palace's new name, which sounds like it should be a conference room at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, the paper's owner.
The Tribune buried its initial story in the business section, while the Times seemed to work awfully hard to bolster the newsroom firewall — from leading with the contract's dollar amount in the Sept. 7 metro section to columnist Mary Jo Melone commenting on the death of Nelson Poynter's tradition of not truncating the newspaper's name.
But isn't anyone curious why the Times — newspaper war or not — paid millions of dollars for a white elephant?
"It surprises me they're able to get that much (money)," deMause said of Palace Sports. "But you only need one sucker."
—Trevor Aaronson
Kettle Corn To Go
Tired of having to haul your ass out of your comfy workstation chair and down the hall to the snack machine for a little something of dubious nutritional value?
In an era of specialization, partners Mark Wilson and Fran Sindoni have taken target marketing to new heights — they deliver freshly popped kettle corn to north Pinellas County businesses. Long a carnival favorite, kettle corn is popcorn topped with sugar as well as salt, and has lately surfaced as a household indulgence via the microwave- popcorn pantheon.
"People love it," says Sindoni. "People are stuck in the office, and nobody delivers fun snacks."
Mookie's Marvelous Kettle Korn was originally conceived as a concessionaire for weekend shows and festivals. But, when Wilson and Sindoni introduced the product to their client list from a previous corporate gift business (specializing in coffee) that "went south" in the economy's post-9/11 doldrums, they discovered a whole new niche.
"We just started a couple of weeks ago, and we probably have 50 (regulars)," Sindoni says. "What's happening is, they're telling two friends who are telling two friends, and it's just grown really quickly."
The company delivers two sizes of the snack, medium ($4) and large ($6), to corporate offices from Ulmerton Road to Tarpon Springs. Free samples are being offered to prospective new subscribers through the end of September, and various promotional touches, such as custom labeling, are available as well.
The Mookie's press release seems to tout kettle corn as an alternative to the spectrum of energy-restoring "power bars," which are likewise high in fiber and sugar. "There's no junk in our food," the release boasts, ostensibly referring to junk other than vegetable oil, sugar and salt. A similar kettle corn recipe at http://appetizerrecipe.com has 2.4 grams of protein, 11.8 grams of total fat and 209 calories per serving, while PowerBar's Malt Nut offering has 10 grams of protein, 2 grams of total fat and 225 calories.
"Not more healthy," corrects Sindoni, "but it's made out of the same basic ingredients — you've got your sugars and your carbs. I'm not a nutritionist, so I can't really state for sure (about nutritional content)."
Mookie's Marvelous Kettle Korn is free of additives and preservatives, though, and is delivered straight from the cooker to the client. A growing list of recipients speaks for the product's flavor.
It remains to be seen how many bags of kettle corn corporate Clearwater can consume before burning out on the tasty snack. We hope Wilson and Sindoni will broaden their menu in anticipation of saturation. But for now, Mookie and company seem to have hit upon tidy niche market.
For more information, call 727-723-0445, or e-mail MookiesKK@aol.com.
—Scott Harrell
Fat Man Beats Rap
Back in the 1970s, Sam "The Fat Man" Cagnina III was one of Tampa's biggest mobsters — literally.
The 5-foot-9, 250-plus-pound Cagnina ran with drug dealers, extortionists, bookmakers and arsonists who had ties to the Trafficante crime family and Harlan Blackburn's cracker mob, according to state and local authorities.
By 1981, The Fat Man's antics caught up with him. He was convicted of racketeering and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Cagnina, now 66 and an invalid in a federal prison hospital, was charged last year with conspiring with another wheelchair-bound mobster, Gambino crime family captain Greg DePalma, to kill a recalcitrant debtor who owed DePalma money.
According to federal prosecutors, they went to their nearest source, a third wheelchair-bound inmate who is a reputed Dominican drug lord, to solicit an outside hit man for the job. Unbeknownst to the gangsters, Reyes had cut a deal with the feds and they wired his wheelchair with a recording device. The whole plot was caught on tape.
But, last month in New York City, Cagnina and DePalma were acquitted of conspiracy to commit murder. It seemed the jury did not find the tapes compelling enough and seriously doubted the credibility of the drug lord.
DePalma and Cagnina cried with happiness. Unfortunately for Cagnina, he still has nine years left on his sentence and won't be out until he's 75 years old. It's unknown whether he'll return to Tampa upon his release.
—Scott Deitche
This article appears in Sep 11-17, 2002.