Several members of the Tampa City Council defended themselves today on why they don't support an ordinance that would ban panhandling at city intersections. The issue has become one of the hottest in city politics since the noticeable increase in such solicitations this year, in part some say because of the city of St. Petersburg's ban on such activities earlier this year. The fact that Tampa Bay has been among the metro areas hit hardest by the continuing recession certainly doesn't help.
The issue resurfaced Thursday after neighborhood activist Spencer Kass complained that he wouldn't have to go through the arduous process of trying to collect 18,000 signatures by December 26 to get the issue on the March ballot. "Regardless of whether my time expires to get the signatures or don't," Kass said, "we still will have January and February to come down here to Council, and request continuously that you put it on the ballot, or that you adopt the ordinance on its own."
Although the council previously rejected a proposal by Councilman Joseph Caetano to enact a ban on panhandling in October, he opted to try to persuade his colleagues to do so again, but again failed to gain a second vote in favor. "It is devastating to our industry out there," he said. "People don't want to come here and buy homes," he added, basing that questionable rationale on Tampa's glut of housing. "I was at a a dinner the other night at the Tampa Bay Builders Association. It was brought up that people don't want to come here when they see 10-15 people waiting at a corner of Fowler Avenue."
But City Council Chair Thomas Scott vehemently disagreed with Caetano's analysis. "I think we'll all agree that it's an issue that's affecting all of us….I said 4 years ago when I came on this board, I said 'Watch what happens, the economy's going to get worse, and I guaranteed there would be more people on the streets, and that's exactly what happened."
This article appears in Dec 16-22, 2010.