Tribune takes on Times editorial on…postmarks?

On Sunday Tim Nickens, the editor of editorials for the Tampa Bay Times, wrote a blistering take-down of St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster.

The piece started out by mocking St.Pete's leaders, none bigger than the mayor, for celebrating the saving of the St. Petersburg postmark. But Nickens wrote that the whole battle showed that officials at City Hall are "often quick to feel slighted, slow to think big and wary of looking beyond the city limits."

The piece goes on to blast Foster for his leadership in dealing with the Tampa Bay Rays, the EMS situation, mass transit, public education and other issues.

But it's not that editorial, but one from a week before, that ignites the fires of the Tampa Tribune's editorial page this Monday. That's the editorial where the Times wrote that the St.Petersburg postmark wasn't that big of a deal, and that just postmarking it "Tampa Bay" was all good.

This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2012.