Trash, Lies and Videotape

There are those people. And Gordon Comme' is one. He can infuriate a county commissioner or irritate a city council member by doing little more than just showing his face at a meeting. Comme''s cause is property rights, defined in the arcane, near-religious tones of fringe politics. Disagree with the frothing-over-with-paranoid-anger Comme', and you're dismissed as part of the black-helicopter-New-World-Order conspiracy.

Two words that never apply to Comme' are tactful and diplomatic. When asked a few years ago how to get the attention of Hillsborough County commissioners, the in-your-face Comme' allowed: When you get belligerent, they put some water on the fire. Just last week, he related with considerable glee how he really bothered the hell out of Tampa City Council member Rose Ferlita. He is urging that Mayor Dick Greco be investigated, convicted and fined two-thirds of his net worth (not necessarily in that order) for offenses real or imagined. That's the only way to teach these fellows what's right and wrong, he barks.

Still, Comme' often has a point. Armed with a camcorder, he has a documented, illustrated point. Dangerous stuff. Like, are people doing the city's bidding by intentionally dumping trash in Tampa Heights so that code inspectors can cite and fine the homeowners, ultimately running them off their property? Or, is the dumping a sneaky plot to depress land values so the city can snap up properties at fire-sale prices?

Sputtering officials are shocked, absolutely shocked, at the suggestions. Then again, Comme' has some very interesting videotape, although he's still a long mile or two from proving his most sinister suggestions. Comme' buys and sells real estate; he's a buy-low-sell-high speculator, a.k.a. a bottom feeder, and he has a real gripe over the city's land banking of property in Tampa Heights. Greco's administration, through a complicated scheme of using nonprofit groups to do what federal law would forbid a city, controlled about 400 parcels in Tampa Heights. Most of those properties have been sold off to developers. One might call the developers politically connected. The Weekly Planet's Fran Gilpin disclosed last June how some questionable city-related deals were put together. A real estate broker, Johnny N. Redondo Sr., snapped up properties from mostly poor owners in Tampa Heights. Redondo was ostensibly acting on behalf of a buyer called Wide Spread Inc., which just happened to be owned by his girlfriend. Yet, the real deal was for Wide Spread to quickly flip the properties, at huge profits, to one of a handful of nonprofit organizations backed by city funds. The city had to launder federal dollars through bank loans to make the whole thing legal. Or appear legal.

The original owners got screwed; obviously their properties were worth at least what the nonprofits paid Wide Spread. Redondo and Wide Spread made out like bandits. The city skirted federal restrictions and created a land empire, which it then flipped to favored builders.

That the city can be deceptive — even ruthless — is a matter of record. In 1997, Tampa needed to buy some Ybor City homes in order to build a parking garage for the swank Centro Ybor retail development. Officials dispatched one of the city's nonprofit surrogates, Tampa United Methodist Centers, to call on two elderly, poor women. The nonprofit told the women it wanted to build homes for the poor. How sweet and nice. Who would doubt a church-related group? The women were originally offered about $17,000 each for their homes. But they spotted the scam, held out and eventually settled for more than $75,000 each. Against that backdrop, here comes Comme' and his cameras. In late February, at the intersection of Palm and Ola avenues, he spied a white truck belonging to Tampa-Hillsborough Action Plan (THAP), another of the nonprofits that acquires properties and that also is paid by the city to clean up lots in Tampa Heights.

Comme' has still pictures showing THAP employees taking trash from their trucks and dumping it on a vacant lot. They're seeding the neighborhood with trash, he says. A few days later, the pile they left was four times bigger. They want the neighborhood blighted out so they can grab the properties at not much more than a dollar a foot. (That would work out to $10,000 for a 100-by-100-foot lot, much less for many of the small Tampa Heights properties.)

Comme', with all of the aplomb of Mike Wallace exposing culprits on 60 Minutes, does a stand-up in front of a betrashed back yard he owns. After he started negotiating to sell his house to a city-linked agency, he found a huge pile of trash dumped in the yard. I think I found the location where this came from, Comme' deadpans to the camera. It's one of the nonprofits.

Back to the pile he photographed THAP employees dumping, Comme' found some truly amazing trash. We got a little gold mine here, he says. He does a bargain-basement imitation of a TV news reporter, taking viewers on a tour of the lot.

The trash is from the Tampa Police Department. That gets a big oops from city officials. The police are investigating, says Steve LaBrake, who oversees city building projects. Copshop spokesman Joe Durkin says: It concerns us.

When told that the trash came from a Howard Avenue substation, LaBrake sighs in relief. Now I understand; now I see the picture. We had asked THAP to clean out that building and cart away the trash.

Cart away is exactly what THAP did. Right to Tampa Heights, where the agency dumped it on a vacant lot. Among the scattered garbage are names and addresses of police officers — potentially putting their lives at risk had the trash fallen into the wrong hands. Confidential documents. New keys that still open the old police headquarters. Business cards from code enforcement officers. Bullets. Witness affidavits.

There are also three valid drivers licenses, apparently stolen from their owners. With the licenses, identity thieves could have found out the owners' most personal information. Some smart people could really have messed me up, one of the stolen license victims, Dinesta Foxworth, told WFTS-Ch. 28 reporter Bob Kendrick.

THAP President Chester Luney says he has an explanation. The nonprofit is paid to pick up trash for the city. Workers pile it on lots owned by THAP for later transshipment to the dump. It's not a mystery, he says. There's really very little illegal dumping in Tampa Heights since we began.

Luney knows Comme' well and has heard the conspiracy suggestions. I said to Mr. Comme', Man, I don't know what you're talking about.'

Palm and Ola are only a few blocks from the Weekly Planet offices, and since early March, when Comme' first declared war, I've been frequently driving by the area. The lots Comme' cited haven't been cleared of trash apparently dumped by THAP. What's painfully obvious is that other dumpers have seen the piles and added their own trash.

What's also clear is that Tampa officials have launched a crusade of class purging, ridding Tampa Heights and public housing areas of poor people to make way for tony yuppie enclaves. We've been reporting that story for two years.

So, while Comme' has no proof that, as he says, the city is blighting out Tampa Heights to run off poor homeowners, he does have some disturbing videotape.

And, if it's such a good idea for city nonprofits to pick up trash and then pile it onto lots for later removal, and if the mayor really wants to do something to immediately improve Tampa Heights, here's a suggestion.

Let's collect the trash and dump it near the mayor's home on Harbour Island, or in Palma Ceia or Hyde Park. Then the city honchos will really hear from people concerned about their property values.

Editor John F. Sugg ain't talkin' no trash. He can be reached at 813-248-8888, extension 109, or at johnsugg@weeklyplanet.com.

This article appears in Apr 26 – May 3, 2001.