Tampa officials finally admit that GOP gets first dibs on city parks during convention

Perhaps if the city had been up front months ago on this issue, that response wouldn't appear so disingenuous.

The ACLU's John Dingfelder calls it bad public policy.

"We have such limited park space in downtown to start with. The last thing you should be doing is giving up what limiting park space you have, " he told CL Thursday morning. Dingfelder, who is working currently with the Buckhorn administration on the "event zone" now, stressed that in fact the contract allowing the Republicans free reign over city parks during the convention was part of the contract negotiations that did not involve Buckhorn, City Attorney Jim Shimberg, or anyone else in the current administration.

Meanwhile the Times editorial page weighs in on the Buckhorn administration's new "event zone" rules for protesters at the RNC.

The paper calls the new version released earlier this week to have "significant improvements" from the draft released last month, but cautions that it "still needs much work," questioning the size of the clean, er, event zone, and cogently zeroes in on the latitude for law enforcement to "make arrests in questionable circumstances."

Some officials that we've spoken to in Ybor City question why the entertainment district remains inside the Event Zone. We're talking a distance of more than 2 miles away in the district, not really that close to the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

The City Council will take up the revised ordinance a week from today. In the immortal words of Bob Buckhorn, he needs only four votes. But for the good of the city, it'd be much better if the ordinance passed by a larger than 4-3 margin. The city's legal staff was accommodating to council's objections last time around (not that they had much choice). Will they be as flexible this time around?