Scary Local Guys
By John F. Sugg
Who are the Scary White Guys (SWG) in the Tampa Bay area? Using the criteria of bullying and brute strength in the public arena in order to achieve personal power and wealth, here's our pick for the Top 13.
1. Ed Turanchik. Ed's a likable fellow who wants to bring the Olympic Games to Tampa in 2012. The plan has a few problems: His cheerfully optimistic budget projects profits far greater than any other competing city. That wouldn't be so bad, except that he has a record for making financial projections that turn out to be bogus — his proposed $350-million commuter rail would have actually cost $1.5-billion or so. Turanchik's "cushion" in case the Olympic Games are a bust wouldn't be his elite group of backers. Turanchik wants the citizens to guarantee billions of dollars of his budget. His Olympic scheme would also move thousands of poor and mostly minority Tampa residents to … well, to anywhere out of sight and outside the city's limits. Truly scary.
2. Richard Korpan, this year's poster child for screw-the-public, screw-the-empl-oyees golden parachutes. The former CEO of St. Petersburg-based Florida Progress — parent to Florida Power — negotiated the sale of the company to Carolina Power & Light. While thousands of our neighbors lost their livelihood in the deal, Korpan, who amassed what we're sure were 12 hard years (how much on the golf course isn't recorded) at Florida Progress, will collect about $70,000 a month (yes, each month) in retirement benefits. Meanwhile, as the Wall Street Journal reported recently, pensions are being squeezed for rank and file employees of companies such as Florida Progress. In the end, of course, the Florida Power ratepayers are the ones who will underwrite Korpan's regal retirement.
3. , St. Petersburg mayor. Hey, just a few small things wrong with the St. Pete election in March. Baker didn't tell voters that his family had been involved in one helluva of scummy scandal. Baker, aided by his string-pullers at the St. Petersburg Times, tried to brush off the whole thing by claiming he had no involvement of any significance in his family's Aerodyne Investment Castings. Baker's father and two brothers were found guilty in federal court about a decade ago of trying to defraud the government. But corporate documents show Mayor Baker was involved in a related family company — an acknowledgement he has never made, nor has the Times reported. The newspaper had the scandal information days before the election, but didn't print it and then misrepresented when the information had been sent to reporters. The law firm of which Baker was president also represented the newspaper and its parent, the Poynter Institute, at various times — more information denied the voters. Baker played race politics during the campaign, and then presided over the very deed he accused his opponent of plotting — ousting black Police Chief Go Davis.
4. Andy Barnes. As the Supreme Being of the St. Petersburg Times, Barnes is arguably the maximum corporate potentate in the Tampa Bay area, and he presides over an institution whose sole goal is raw power. It's journalism by vendetta — against political foes (such as Baker's opponent, Kathleen Ford), against other powerful organizations and people (the Scientologists), etc.
5. L. Ron Hubbard. It's not certain exactly which astral plane the founder of Scientology now calls home. His adherents still practice the bash-'em-and-break-'em school of dealing with opponents (the critics, truth be told, emulate the very church they criticize). In many ways, Scientology has been a boon to Clearwater, the church's spiritual home. Still, the Hubbardites have hardly achieved warm and cuddly status. And L. Ron's leer from countless portraits and book covers is downright unsettling.
6. Dick Greco, a.k.a. Dickie, Biggus Dickus, the Godfather. You knew he had to be somewhere on this list. It's not just that Greco has given new meaning to the term "strong mayor," turning Tampa into a giant real estate auction for the benefit of his developer pals. No, Greco is scary because when annoyed, he has a mean side. When his consigliore, City Attorney Jimmy Palermo, was turned down by state legislators for a incredibly offensive windfall pension plan — a scheme that riled thousands of hardworking city employees who were denied such perks, and equally angered taxpayers who pick up the tab for the mayor's gifts to his cronies — Greco began threatening Republican politicians, such as representatives Johnnie Byrd and Sandra Murman, and their supporters, such as Brandon businessman Sam Rashid. Not a cool use of power.
7. Ed Roberts. Although something of a social-climbing marshmallow, Roberts, The Tampa Tribune's editorial page editor rates the list due to his regressive 19th century agenda. His editorial page is homophobic, anti-woman, pro-neo-segregation in schools, and he favors communities planned in the style of 1800s urban anthills. Although the editorialist would like you to think his policy is orthodox Republicanism, when it comes to local government the Trib is heretically tax-and-spend, especially when the newspaper stands to gain financially. Worth noting, the Trib's Hillsborough daily home circulation has plunged about 40 percent in the last decade — during which time 75,000 new homes have been built in the county. Maybe ex-readers and never-will-be-readers are trying to tell Ed and his associates something.
8. Monsignor Laurence Higgins. Sure, it's a lot of blarney you must wade through when talking about Father Higgins. And it's not due to any spiritual failing that we include this true son of the Emerald Isle on this list. He's a saint, we're sure. No, it's because when those really nasty Scary White Guys — the owners of the local sports teams and other well-heeled insiders — need to cloak their sins, the Good Father's cassock comes in handy.
9. Malcolm Glazer, Vince Naimoli, George Steinbrenner. We pay and pay and pay to build sports palaces for these guys. They whine for more and more and more.
10. Bob Abberger. Not a household name, but you're helping make him rich. Abberger convinced Mayor Dick Greco to scuttle a level-playing-field contest to build a convention center hotel. Then Abberger moved in — it was very well scripted — and grabbed the deal for his Marriott group. In the next act, HARTline, for inexplicable reasons, decided it must swap a perfectly good piece of land for a half block adjacent to the Marriott. The ostensible reason is to build a trolley station; the reality is to protect the Marriott from competition. The added cost to the taxpayer is $7-million, most of the money from funds that should have gone to improving our woefully below-standard air quality. Abberger, meanwhile, testified at an eminent domain trial on the trolley property on behalf of HARTline — while not disclosing that he was seeking and had won a board seat with the agency. From whence he will be able to further enhance his hotel's fortunes at public expense. A true Tampa success story.
11. Air Force Gen. Charles Holland, Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base. Do you know what the fellows at Special Ops do as part of their mission? Do you really want to know? When America gets dirty, Special Ops is there. When we "outsource" warfare — provide mercenaries to our new Vietnams, countries such as Colombia — you'll find Special Ops (and ex-Special Ops guys playing private soldier).
12. Eddie DeBartolo. Life has been tough for Eddie in recent years. He got caught paying six-figure bribes to the governor of Louisiana. He was run out of the National Football League (he had owned the San Francisco 49ers). But with the help of friends — notably, several other guys on this list, such as Dick Greco and Monsignor Higgins — the disgraced developer found a soft landing in Tampa. Now we all wait to see which publicly funded plums the mayor will hand him. DeBartolo has been trying to buy his way into various elite business groups and into the local leadership of the Republican Party. The fact that he has been rebuffed shows some common sense on the part of local leaders.
13. Rose Ferlita. Yes, Rose isn't a guy. But the Tampa City Council member is certainly scary — to a degree that earns her a spot on this list. When informed two weeks ago that a man was committing the heinous crime of Being Black on Davis Islands, Ferlita swooped in, tailed the guy, called in the gendarmes — until it became painfully obvious that the bags the man had carried out of a Davis Islands house were merely his laundry. Was Ferlita repentant? Hell no. As befits the truly scary when they want to become mayor, she said she'd do it again.
Editor John Sugg, who pleaded with himself (without success) to be included on this list, can be reached at 813-248-8888, ext. 109, or at johnsugg@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Jun 28 – Jul 4, 2001.