Is it Tuesday? I feel like it's Tuesday, but I also feel like I haven't been able to pin time down to more than "after Irma and almost Best of the Bay" for about a thousand years now.
The Pinellas County Commission approved St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman's request to augment the new pier's budget by an additional $14 million in discretionary funding, bringing the price tag for the structure and surrounding area downtown — The Pier District! — to $76 million. The mayor said the money will be used primarily for enhancements to the approach to the pier itself, but we've got a feeling the money will actually be used primarily as a Baker mayoral campaign talking point.
The Florida Keys will re-open to tourism on October 1. "Yay," said some former residents who live with their cousin's ex and kids in a flooded trailer in Hialeah now.
Speaking of continued Irma fallout, a controversy has emerged over four voicemails left on — and since deleted from — Governor Rick Scott's personal phone by the south Florida nursing home where 11 people died after the facility lost power during the storm. The home says the voicemails contained pleas for immediate assistance; the Scott camp says they "never indicated an emergency," and that the information was relayed to the proper agencies. Investigators want to know why the voicemails were deleted; we suppose they're looking for a less obvious reason than, well, the obvious reason.
Some scumbags broke into, trashed and stole from a St. Pete youth baseball league's concession stand. It was almost certainly some of the kids the program tries to teach teamwork, discipline and responsibility — you know, so they don't go out and fuck somebody else's shit up just because they can't think of anything better to do.
And finally, somebody punched one of the Siesta Key cast members in the face outside of MacDinton's in Tampa's SoHo district. Has an occurrence ever seemed more engineered specifically to inspire the reaction "yeah, that sounds about right"? Yeah, that sounds about right.
This article appears in Sep 21-28, 2017.
