Topping the news, does Ed Turanchik want to be Tampa's mayor? And, watch for the proposed history museum to go down in flames, as commissioners give the nod to fire stations over elitist corporate welfare.
Also in the headlines: We'll hear about how we're likely to choke on dirty air in the county, thanks to transportation planners.
Details in a minute. First, we'll look at a story about how those very same sneaky transit planners want to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to salvage their own futures from a train wreck.
Let's go to John, who's on the scene. John?
Yes, thank you, John. I have no idea why I'm talking to myself, but here's the story.
I love plain brown envelopes. Like little bits of info-manna, they rain on journalists' offices. The one that hit my desk recently was sweet. From deep within the bowels of the county bureaucracy, my source, a.k.a. Shallow Throat, ponied up some titillating evidence that our ill-run, profligate bus system, HARTline, is a rogue agency.
Inside the envelope was a nice four-color, eight-page brochure touting the wonders of the "Tampa Rail Project." It was dated April 2001 — just a few days ago.
What's stunning about the brochure isn't the train system it describes for Hillsborough County. Rather, what's significant about the literature is that it exists at all. There has never been a public mandate for rail in Hillsborough County. There is no "Tampa Rail Project" that voters, the County Commission or the City Council have ever endorsed.
The only action even approaching a community voice on rail was undertaken two years ago by a transportation-study panel, the Committee of 99. That group was the largest citizens panel ever assembled by county government; it was very representative of the community.
And the Committee of 99 turned thumbs down on trains. R-A-I-L was D-O-A.
After months of research, a train system was the only serious transportation mode to be rebuffed by the panel. In part, this stemmed from underhanded and deceitful actions by the rail promoters. For example, a covert plan by county planners to spend $115-million laying the groundwork for rail surfaced during the committee's deliberations. Many members were upset that HARTline would try to preempt the panel's mandate. And, when a committee member dug out one of the county's own studies that showed a mass transportation system would be less — repeat, less — effective with rail than without it, the only response was a bureaucratese version of "oops, we didn't mean for you to see that."
So, why is this lovely "Tampa Rail Project" brochure floating about? I ran it by some transit experts, and they said the system described in the literature would cost at least $2-billion and maybe more than $3-billion. That's more than loose change — except to people such as our transit planners who couldn't give a hoot (or, in train lingo, a toot) since it's our money they want to spend. (Keep in mind when we go to Turanchik's possible mayoral plans that he had claimed he could build this system for a mere $350-million.)
I called to ask HARTline's boss, the extraordinarily haughty Sharon Dent, but she doesn't return my messages. To her, the term "public servant" means that the public is her servant in funding grandiose and foolhardy plans.
But I bumped into County Commission Chairwoman Pat Frank and asked her if she knew about the "Tampa Rail Project" or that, as the brochure proclaims, "a 30-mile rail system is proposed in Tampa."
"You're kidding me," Frank said with a laugh. I shook my head. Frank responded: "There's no rail system proposed that I know about."
Well, I thought, maybe a county commissioner who is on the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), the group entrusted with planning transportation, would know about the brochure. I called Stacey Easterling. "No way," she said. "I've never heard of any such thing." She asked me to provide her with a copy of the brochure, and I did. Damn, I hate doing Dent's job for her.
Even staffers at the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission were unaware of the brochure or that a "Tampa Rail Project" was under a full head of steam.
The ploy is that the train buffs are trying to push their derailed plans back on the track. For them, it's quite important. As in most cities that have undertaken such projects, many of the bureaucrats who championed the plans were rewarded with jobs in the consortium of rail developers and consultants — at many multiples of their government salaries.
Train backers recoil from the idea of a referendum. Rather, they hope to manipulate the process behind closed doors to make rail a fait accompli.
The transportation planners didn't do too much trumpeting of a study released April 11 by the MPO. Normally, the officials skew questions in such studies to produce the desired results. However, the pollster on the recent survey must have been honest. The results showed:
… In ranking 17 transportation priorities, rail tied for last place in the number of people who felt that particular projects should have "strongest emphasis."
… Rail had the most number of respondents who felt it should receive "no emphasis" at all.
… Even in minority neighborhoods, rail enjoyed the weakest support among all of the projects.
… "Ways to improve traffic flow" — shoring up and expanding the road system — received the greatest support overall.
Citizens intuitively know the fatal fault of rail. As proposed here, a train system would suck up a third or more of transportation dollars yet account for less than 2 percent of the passenger trips in the county. Instead of improving congestion, rail would financially doom us to more clogged highways. (Hint: The solution to sprawl and easing congestion is slowing or stopping growth for a while.)
The MPO study also showed citizens put great emphasis on combating pollution and noise — that ranked third among all respondents in the 17 categories.
As is typical for HARTline, the agency totally disregarded such citizen concern and two weeks ago opted to use $5-million in federal clean-air grants to bail itself out of a mess caused by its own arrogance and mismanagement.
The Weekly Planet in March reported how HARTline had squandered $6-million by selling land it owned adjacent to the Fort Brooke Parking Garage for a loss, and then buying property a few feet away on what is called Block 107. The difference in the land parcels is negligible, so why the swap? There's substantial reason to believe HARTline engaged in the risky speculation at the behest of the city, which apparently promised the developers of the Marriott Waterside that no competitive hotel would be built on Block 107.
The owners of Block 107 fought HARTline's condemnation of the property and won big — $9.5-million, or $4-million more than the transportation agency had anticipated.
HARTline's solution? Use federal dollars designated to clean up the air — despite warnings from environmental officials that such an action isn't proper.
Don't we have a State Attorney or U.S. Attorney around here who cares about such things?
The HARTline land deals and the rail scheme are tools to enhance the development plans of favored businesses and landowners. So too was the plan to build a history museum on part of Mayor Dick Greco's "arts district" along the Hillsborough River. (See cover story.)
That deal involved a promise by the county to fund $17-million for the museum if the promoters could keep a vow to raise $11-million in private funds. That goal has yet to be met, and much of what has been raised is money from another government entity — the University of South Florida. The promoters, who now claim that "private" means only "non-county" dollars, adamantly refuse to consider an alternative site. Why? Developers and architects associated with the museum drive have business plans hinging on the museum being built downtown.
Here's what is likely to happen, beginning with a commission budget workshop May 9. The county's fire department is in dire need of new stations, which cost about $3.2-million each. Look for five commissioners to say, "Enough!" to the museum promoters, and use $14-million for fire and rescue services. The remaining $3-million would be offered to the history center to renovate a historic building (what a masterstroke of logic), possibly Ybor City's Cuban Club.
Now the news you've been waiting for. The downtown buzz, particularly among Chamber of Commerce honchos, is that Turanchik is eyeing a race for mayor in the March 2003 election.
The timing would be perfect. The chairman of the Chamber in 2002 will be Sandy MacKinnon, who also chairs the Florida 2012 Olympic Games drive. Turanchik is the Olympic committee's top paid cheerleader.
The U.S. Olympic Committee will choose its candidate city in October 2002. Turanchik will be assured of constant publicity, and with the Chamber behind him, he'll be the candidate of "business."
Other likely contenders — City Council members Bob Buckhorn, Rose Ferlita and Charlie Miranda; Elections Supervisor Pam Iorio; County Commissioner Chris Hart, among others — will find it hard to compete with the Olympic propaganda machine.
If Tampa fails to get the USOC's nod, Turanchik will say he's pursuing his "vision" via the mayor's office. If Tampa should be the USOC's designated city, Turanchik will say we need a mayor to make things happen so we can win the contest at the next level, the International Olympic Committee.
Turanchik will have a few questions to answer. Why did he quit his County Commission seat in midterm? Why didn't he alert taxpayers that his $350-million train would really cost billions? Considering his train budgeting, why should we believe his claims that the Olympics would generate $670-million in profits (far more than estimated by any of the seven other U.S. cities seeking the games)? Won't his plans for an Olympic stadium and village downtown further the class cleansing of poor and minority people from Tampa's core?
Turanchik, when asked about is plans, said: "I don't want to be mayor. I'm not planning to be mayor."
To be fair, Turanchik is bright, charming, creative and has vision. Whether he's just being coy, or protecting his role with the Olympic committee remains to be seen.
What is certain: He'll ask you to pick up the tab.
For the complete story on HARTline's bungled downtown real estate ventures, see http://www.weeklyplanet.com/2001-03-14/notebook.html.
Editor John F. Sugg, who favors a return to horses, with elected officials designated to clean the streets, can be reached at 813-248-8888, ext. 109, or at johnsugg@weeklyplanet.com. Disclaimer: Sugg served on the Committee of 99.
This article appears in May 10-16, 2001.