With his three minutes ticking down to zero, Tony Daniel's speech has become a cauldron of vitriol, his voice a bellow. He has ripped Tampa City Council for earlier honoring its police officer of the month ("[Cops] don't do nothin' for black people but harass us 24/7") and excoriated the council's two African-American members, Gwen Miller and Kevin White, for being pawns ("black people have absolutely, positively no representation in this city whatsoever"). He's in mid-sentence when the cut-off comes: "Thank you, next." Daniel bolts out the door.
Whether he was enraged or just being theatrical, Daniel was taking advantage of a right we all have – to speak directly to our elected officials during an open forum segment that's part of local government meetings. Sometimes it's scheduled early in the meeting, sometimes at the end (a few governments have one at the beginning and one at the end); some are televised, some are not; some restrict topics, others are wide open. Access is easy: Citizens sign up, or line up, and speak. And they're usually limited to a speaking time of three minutes a person.
The forums tend to draw different types:
• Individuals upset about something very specific (e.g. a dangerous intersection that needs a traffic light).
• Groups gathering to protest government policies (e.g. the Hillsborough County Commission's recent assault on gay pride).
• Regulars, often called gadflies, who religiously use their time to speak in front of elected officials, and in some cases have been doing so for decades.
The gadflies are a diverse lot. Some of them riff on topics that run far afield of local government business; some make speeches that can leave you befuddled. But others do their homework and submit valuable ideas, or point out malfeasance. They catalyze change.
And they're not wild about the term "gadfly," which is defined by dictionary.com as "a persistent irritating critic." Veteran Hillsborough County activist Marilyn Smith scoffs at the word. "We're really just concerned citizens who act on what we feel is important," she says.
The speeches they make are not, by and large, Mario Cuomo-esque – which is to say that their brief orations are seldom polished and on point. Certainly, some of the regulars are eccentric, even kooky. But there's reason to believe that, if suddenly they all stopped showing up, commissioners and council people might feel freer to play fast and loose with the public trust.
So who are these three-minute warriors? What axes do they grind, what agendas do they push, what successes have they enjoyed? What makes them tick? Meet a few of the most dedicated among their ranks.
-Eric Snider
Policy Wonk: Emily Rogers Coeyman Age: 84Main issue: TransportationStomping grounds: St. Petersburg City Council, Metropolitan Planning Organization, Pinellas County Commission, Pinellas Sports Authority"When it comes down to it," says Emily Rogers Coeyman, "I guess I'm willing to spend time at City Hall."
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the greatest understatement of all time.
Emily – everyone knows her only as Emily – has been keeping tabs on St. Pete City Council, Pinellas County Commission and any other government body that would let her in the door for the last 45 years. She is a staple, a constant, the absolute dean of local watchdogs. She's even got her own seat down at City Hall.
But Emily missed the last City Council meeting; the gentle gray-haired woman has been holed up in Edward White Hospital with circulation problems in her foot. Luckily, her mouth is working just fine.
Emily is a policy wonk; she speaks in codes like a councilwoman and evades questions as deftly as Scott McClellan. As I sit by her hospital bed, trying to get her to reminisce on her four decades in public life, she stays distinctly on message.
Public transportation, of course, is still messed up. Her bus home from downtown doesn't run after 8 p.m., so she can't make it to the night meetings. She's worried about the condos going up on the waterfront – "We don't want to look like Tampa" – and about a proposed development across from Bay Pines – "That's a lousy thing and I don't mind saying it."
There was a time, however, that Emily did stay quiet. It took her a year to get up the nerve to speak at a meeting. But as the years went by and her confidence grew, Emily began to make her voice heard more and more. Now, she usually runs over her allotted three minutes.
"I can't close my mouth until I finish my thought," she says. "They don't like that, but I think a person should be able to finish a sentence."
Even on her pet issues, Emily doesn't stick to a specific political or philosophical ideology. She was for the baseball stadium in the '80s, but is against the newest forms of downtown revitalization. She goes issue by issue, agenda by agenda. And she's always got an opinion.
"She's a bit of an icon," says City Councilman Jay Lasita. "I can't think of a meeting she's attended where she hasn't commented."
Lasita remembers one story in particular. In 1997, he and the rest of the council gave the go-ahead for Bayfront Medical Center to join the BayCare hospital consortium, a Catholic-based health care chain. Bayfront leases its land from the city, and when the decision to join was made, nobody considered the implications of having a Catholic hospital on public land.
Nobody except Emily.
During open forum, she said she was worried that the separation of church and state might be violated by such an arrangement. Three years later, Bayfront left the consortium after the St. Pete City Council sued the hospital for not performing most abortions. According to a 2000 St. Petersburg Times article, the city spent $420,000 in litigation.
"I don't know if she's pro-choice or pro-life," Lasita says now. "But it was a very logical thing to think about, and yet none of us did."
So why didn't Emily ever run for office herself?
"I'll tell you the truth," she says from her hospital bed. "In city council, you gotta know a lot about algebra, the money and percentages. And that's not exactly my best subject. Six percent of this and that and millions and so forth, when it comes to me I still use my fingers to count. But that's the only reason. If it wasn't for that, I would. I feel that I am capable of it, and I feel like I would've been successful."
Who says she hasn't been already?
-Max Linsky
Holding The Line: Tony DanielAge: 47Main issues: Racism, police oppressionStomping ground: Tampa City CouncilWhen Tony Daniel blasts Tampa City Council about what he sees as its abominable treatment of the African-American community, he looks for all the world like a man in a full-tilt rage.
But all is not as it seems. Sitting at a McDonald's on Martin Luther King Boulevard the day after a typical tirade, a calm and collected Daniel explains his oratory style. "It's not," he says, and then pauses for a bit, "anger. Anger isn't going to solve any problems. I wanna say it's a certain kind of passion. Yesterday, that was about 60 percent me. If I said what I really want to say, I'd be callin' 'em motherfuckers and Uncle Toms."
Daniel, who is a member of the Uhuru Movement and the African People's Socialist Party, has been arrested three times for unruly behavior and offensive language during public forum. He's learned how not to cross that sketchy rhetorical line that can get you handcuffed.
Daniel lives in South Tampa, which even he finds amusingly ironic. He grew up in various "'hoods" around Tampa and can't, or won't, say what caused him to take up political activism. He's been speaking in public forum for about a dozen years, and says former mayor Sandy Freedman's tenure is what lured him to the podium. "The police was out of control," he says. "There was a lot of police violence in the African community. They were driving African people off of certain properties and we were getting no services that were supposed to be rendered by city government."
Not much has changed, in Daniel's view.
"People who are the oppressors, they get to set the standard," he says. "'Why are you unhappy? You got television, you got MTV, you got these other things. All you got to do is accept it and everything is cool.'"
Daniel says that getting up and bludgeoning City Council doesn't make him special. "I think more people would be involved," he says, "but you have that divide: The people who feel intimidated – they don't know what's going to happen if they get involved – and other people who know something's wrong but feel there's nothing they can do to change it."
Although the firebrand can't point to a specific instance where he influenced a council decision, Daniel does not see his three-minute speeches as exercises in futility. "I wouldn't say I've gotten anything specific accomplished," he says, "but it helps hold the line."
-E.S.
Man With A Plan: Bob Wirengard Age: 59 Main issues: Universal health care; the plight of the poor Stomping ground: Hillsborough County CommissionYou could call Bob Wirengard a man with a plan, a big, complex, ambitious plan. He wants to institute – and this is an oversimplification – a universal health care model that would require businesses to provide the funding. "I want to do it on the county level," he says. "And if it works, it will quickly spread across the country."
It's no surprise that his three-minute speeches and private meetings with politicos haven't gotten him very far – local government bodies would sooner deal with potholes – but it's not for lack of trying. The quixotic crusader says he's spent $300,000 of his own money, nearly all of his early retirement package, on pushing his model. "I have to pay to work," he says with a laugh.
Wirengard says he also formed a one-man, Internet-based conglomerate that included a university, a church, a bank (he says he actually issued some "micro-loans") and a health care plan. The operation is dormant, he says, because the IRS nixed his tax-exempt status.
Wirengard is relatively new to political activism. His parents were circus entertainers in Sweden who moved their family to the States in 1959. He attended Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and earned a masters in finance at the University of Chicago. He watched his mother die of pancreatic cancer, and blamed it on bad health care. After retiring from a job as a corporate financial director in St. Louis, he moved to Hillsborough County in the late '90s.
The former bean counter now wears his hair in a long, grayish ponytail and sports an unruly goatee. Jeans and T-shirts are his attire of choice when he petitions his local elected officials.
If the commissioners don't view him as a quack, it's clear that they see his plan as a major reach. "Bob is very intelligent, very degreed," says fellow activist Marilyn Smith. "But Bob needs to focus. It's not what you say, it's how you say it."
There's no telling how long Wirengard will continue to peddle his plan – his fiancée is getting a little tired of his dogged pursuit. "I don't really enjoy the process," he says. "But it's unconscionable not to pursue what's right when the wrong has created so many struggles for people."
Doesn't sound like a guy apt to walk away from the podium any time soon.
-E.S.
The Grandmother with the Hat: Marilyn SmithAge: 64Main issue: Good governmentStomping ground: Hillsborough County Commission"I'll be the good-looking grandmother with the hat," Marilyn Smith says in a raspy chirp, as we finalize our appointment on the phone. The next day, the petite woman strolls into Pane Rustica on MacDill Avenue, her signature straw hat perched on her head. She wears a big, bright green ring that matches her shawl.
Her voice is faint, mostly because she has to cover the tracheotomy hole in her throat every time she talks. But that doesn't slow her down. For an hour, she lets loose with a torrent of words, some of them pointed, some clever, accented with frequent laughter.
This plucky straight shooter has been Hillsborough County's most effective watchdog and critic over the last three decades. Rather than just take to the podium and spew, or bludgeon a single issue, Smith is well versed on the entire Commission agenda. She is prepared, eloquent and persuasive. And also connected.
"I've got a colony of Deep Throats," she says. "If you've been around long enough, you reach a level where – there are people who work in that [county] building who want good government, and they will come to you." Then with a cocked eyebrow and a grin, she adds, "And I will never tell you who they are."
She has managed to put the kibosh on a few of the county's proposed land acquisitions.
In the early '90s, Smith's opposition to a land deal on Falkenberg Road convinced commissioner Phyllis Busansky to withdraw her approval and the measure was defeated. "Marilyn generally understands the issues; she's researched them," Busansky says. "Her real strength is that she's incredibly persistent. As a commissioner, when you see Marilyn on your case, you have to make some decisions. Do you disagree with her so strongly that you're going to continue with this, or do you drop it? You make a big mistake dismissing her without listening."
Smith was raised in San Diego, where her father, a naturalized citizen, encouraged her to vote. She got involved in government as a single mom living near Dallas. After discovering that her daughter had to share a math book with another student, she took on the local school board.
Smith worked her way through the ranks of the insurance business and moved to the Tampa area in '82. It was around 1985 that she first stepped to the podium. Her initial concern was land use in the county's comprehensive plan. She then formed a group called Yard Guard and worked closely with code enforcement.
Smith ran for the commission in '88, but lost to an incumbent. During the race, she suffered an aneurism and nearly died. In the early '90s she had a throat biopsy and "everything became occluded. My breathing shut down." The grandmother has lived with the tracheotomy ever since. "I don't cater to the disability," she says.
Even though Smith has no plans to run for office again, she says, "I'm probably a good politician – if you care about people. I'm a good activist, and I'm a good ombudsman. I don't do it for the money."
-E.S.
Fed Up: Mike AllenAge: 63Issue: Public financesStomping ground: Pinellas Park City CouncilMike Allen is comfortable being angry. The staunch conservative in the tortoise shell glasses has been publicly pissed off for more than two decades. His bad mood started in St. Pete, and followed him to Pinellas Park when he moved there 10 years ago.
His philosophy is simple.
"I don't think a locally run, locally grown city council and staff oughta be as indifferent to the public as the people are up here," he says about the Pinellas Park City Council, his voice beginning to crack. "And I just hate that callous attitude, where the city staff is better than the city residents. Bullshit."
A former real estate agent from St. Louis, Allen began his "public career" as president of Pinellas County Concerned Taxpayers, a small community group based in St. Pete. He left the position in 1982 to run for city council (he lost), and published a short-lived monthly newspaper, The Tattler, in 1990. He didn't mince words then – he called the St. Petersburg Times "a socialist rag"- and he doesn't now.
According to Allen, local government is full of "slugs" and "idiots" out to steal as much as they can. "The only thing they're up there to do – the staff and the council – is to figure out how to screw you out of more money. Somebody needs to go up there and remind them that the people know how stupid and foolish they're being."
And in Pinellas Park, that person is Mike Allen. There aren't any specific accomplishments he can point to, but that doesn't mean he's going to stop going to meetings.
"[The Council's] there, as far as I'm concerned, to listen," he says. "I'm the voter, I'm the guy who pays the taxes. I expect to go up there and be heard, and be listened to. And buddy, they better not treat me condescendingly. Not one of them up there is smarter than me, not by any stretch of the imagination."
Allen is so fed up that he's considering running for Council himself in March. He's still unsure about his exact platform (you can assume the words "fiscal responsibility" will be thrown in there somewhere), but he knows exactly why he'll be in the race. "Just to piss 'em off," he says. "Just to maybe get heard by people smart enough to make a difference.
"I don't care about being recognized. I don't give a damn if I'm on TV or any of that crap. The only thing I care about is trying to get a spark of common sense in that bundle of hay and start a fire."
-M.L.
Don't Trust ÔEm: Moses Knott Jr.Age: 68Main issues: The plight of poor people, property rightsStomping ground: Tampa City CouncilTwo years ago, the Tampa City Council presented Moses Knott Jr. with a plaque honoring him for 27 years of involvement in city government. Standing in front of his small house near Busch Boulevard on a toasty afternoon, he shows off his award with pride.
Knott clearly has affection for the government body he's been speaking to for nearly three decades, but that won't stop him from ragging on its members, or chastising a bonehead decision, or invoking the word of God, all peppered with down-home-isms like "HoooooWEEEEEE."
"There are two things in this world I refuse to be," he testified at a recent council meeting, "a preacher and a politician."
His comment drew a chuckle from those on the dais and in the audience. He says of the council people he's developed a bond with, "I loves 'em but I don't trust 'em."
Knott grew up in rural Mississippi. "It was back in them MLK days," he says. "Me and my mama used to go to those parades. I was one of Dr. Martin Luther King's followers."
At 17, he rode on the back of a "hobo truck" to Haines City and shortly after found his way to Tampa, where he worked on the docks. He says he acquired a sizeable property tract in Belmont Heights and ran a demolition and salvage business. In a convoluted zoning and tax dispute, Knott lost most of his land, which is what first drew him to the podium at city council meetings.
"But I didn't really bust loose until Sandy Freedman got in," he says. "When she got elected, the main thing she was gon' do was build a whole new city. She went right after them wood-framed houses. I became a property rights man, representin' the po' people."
When asked if he can claim any victories during his time speaking to council, he promptly responds, "They was always talking about getting rid of them wood-frame houses, callin' 'em crack houses. I told 'em, 'Y'all say 'crack house' you call me a nigger.' They quit sayin' crack house."
On Thursdays, Knott drives his van to a supermarket parking lot downtown, then jumps on a bus (he has a free pass due to a disability) to City Hall for the 9 a.m. council meeting. "I'm goin' there 'til the day I die," he says. "I'll go there in a wheelchair."
-E.S.
The Ungratefullest Job: Gonzales "Joe" OrtezAge: 76Main issue: Essential servicesStomping ground: St. Pete City CouncilIt's Thursday, St. Pete Council meeting day, and Joe Ortez is stationed by the elevator. He's waiting for Emily Rogers Coeyman – like him, a longtime council watchdog. But she's not coming today. So Ortez, in his dark green aviators and hiked-up slacks, heads into the chamber alone.
When he started coming to meetings 17 years ago, there was a small army of "concerned citizens," Ortez says. He was living on the south side then, and was fed up with the lack of essential services his neighborhood was receiving. He came to City Council, and he never really left.
He's fought a lot of battles over the years. In the early '80s, he spoke out against the proposed stadium – "The White Elephant," as he calls it – and takes pride in having delayed its construction. In 1987, he and a group of citizens fought successfully for the right to wave political signs in the streets – a right the council was trying to take away. And in 1999, Ortez was a leader in a highly publicized fight against confusing and costly phone bills.
"I've won a lot of cases," he says. "And I've lost a lot of cases."
A tireless pack rat, Ortez has hundreds of files, which he keeps in plastic bags in his apartment. He focuses on one or two issues at a time, building up his knowledge, doing his homework. His latest causes are detainee abuse at Guantanamo and the Patriot Act, which he says is taking effect even in St. Pete.
You didn't used to get searched before going to a city council meeting, Ortez says, but now there's a metal detector and your bag gets looked through. "I think it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States," he says, each syllable punctuated with disdain for perceived injustice.
He speaks the same way to the council during his three minutes in open forum, though he knows his complaints will fall on deaf ears. "Even though they don't pay attention," he says, "I'm not going to give them the satisfaction of leaving. I'll come here, whether they hear me or they don't. Believe me, to be a concerned citizen is the most ungratefullest job there is.
"But I'm not giving up, I'm going to keep coming back until I retire from this job. Sooner or later they're gonna listen. When you get someone like me who's harping and harping on the same subject … I don't give up when I have a problem. I bring it up every time I come to the council, over and over and over."
That's his job.
-M.L.
eric.snider@weeklyplanet.commax.linsky@weeklyplanet.com
This article appears in Jul 6-12, 2005.