The billboard on Ehrlich Road in north Tampa touting the re-election of Hillsborough County Commissioner Brian Blair reads, in fine print at the bottom, "Political advertisement paid for and approved by Brian Blair, Republican for Hillsborough County Commission, District 6."
It appears, however, that his campaign did not pay for the billboard advertisement. Blair's campaign finance reports show no such expenditure. And according to an invoice obtained by Creative Loafing, the bill for the $2,500-a-month roadway sign was sent to North Dale Development, which is owned by Stephen Dibbs, a controversial and prominent developer who has supported Blair in the past.
Among Dibbs' various holdings is the Bourbon Street Plaza shopping strip center where the billboard is located. It is not clear from the invoice whether Dibbs paid for the board. The invoice was provided to CL by a source who requested anonymity because the source was not authorized to release the document.
The invoice, from CBS Outdoor, which sells the billboard's advertising space, was dated Aug. 20, 2008, for use of the billboard in the month of August. The 10-foot-by-36-foot sign is highly visible to anyone driving west on Ehrlich from North Dale Mabry Highway. It was still in place last week when CL visited the site.
If Dibbs had paid for the billboard, it would appear to exceed the limits in the state campaign finance law, which caps direct or in-kind contributions to candidate campaigns at $500 and requires disclosure of any contributions.
Neither Dibbs, Blair nor CBS Outdoor responded to numerous telephone and e-mailed requests for comment for this story. But after this story was initially published, Blair told the St. Petersburg Times that he paid for the billboard on Ehrlich Road. The newspaper said he produced a copy of a check for $2,500 for the billboard, dated Sept. 19.
Blair has sublet the billboard from the company that has a contract for it, North Dale Development, which is owned by developer and Blair supporter Dibbs.
Creative Loafing began calling Blair and Dibbs on Sept. 23 about the billboard after obtaining the invoice a few days earlier. The billboard itself makes reference to voting for Blair in the August primary but it was not clear how long the sign has been in place.
According to the Times:
Blair’s campaign produced a check stub showing a $2,500, first-month’s payment to CBS Outdoor, owner of the billboard. CBS also provided a computerized copy of the check, along with a copy of a mailing label from the DHL Express envelope in which it arrived.
CBS spokesman Jeremy Murphy said a company called North Dale Development has a contract to use the billboard, and that it has sublet the advertising space to Blair’s campaign. Blair has access to the billboard from the Aug. 26 to. Nov. 4, Murphy said. Those dates span the period from the primary to the general election.
“There was a letter of assignment, assigning it to the campaign,” Murphy said. “The campaign has paid for the billboard.”
The Blair campaign check has not shown up on a campaign finance report yet. Sept. 19, the date on the check, came after the deadline for the latest report. Blair told the Times it would be included on the report that is due in the mail on Friday.
Dibbs is the powerful influencer who was behind last year's County Commission push to do away with wetlands protections regulations and regulators in the Hillsborough Environmental Protection Commission. He builds homes and commercial centers in suburban Hillsborough and Pasco counties, and has said that the county's wetlands rules are duplicative, punitive and unnecessary. The developer maintains five pages of information about his alternate program for dealing with wetlands on his company website, dibbsonline.com.
"How can property owners and developers have the right to use their assets while we ensure the environment is protected?" he asks on his website wetlands mitigation pages. "For government to do well in this new, collaborative environment, they will have to think outside the traditional, regulatory mindset."
Dibbs' environmental record is mixed, as I wrote about in August 2007: "A decade ago, the EPC prevented him from paving over wetlands along Dale Mabry Highway so he could build a shopping center. He sued, starting a years-long struggle with the EPC. He won that battle out of court when the county settled the case and allowed him to build the center. On his website, Dibbs describes how he was able to mitigate the destruction of the swamp by creating another one at the back of the shopping center property. The [St. Petersburg] Times reported that the project won national awards and that 'even EPC officials acknowledged Dibbs did a terrific job.'
"He and the wetlands division battled twice again in the past three years: first, over the removal of cypress trees and associated wetlands, and second, over his plans to build two dozen homes in the Carrollwood neighborhood north of Tampa."
Last year, Blair took up Dibbs' cause. Blair was, at the time, chairman of the Environmental Protection Commission, an arm of county government whose board of directors are the seven county commissioners. (He is now vice chairman.) The Republican commissioner decried what he called a duplication of services already provided by three other government agencies — especially in tight budgetary times.
But environmental activists rose up and blocked the abolition of the EPC's wetlands division after rallying hundreds of residents in opposition to Blair's initiative at several public hearings. In the end, the rules and much of the wetlands division were saved, if weakened, in a compromise that was reached in the end. The dispute did claim at least one person's job: The head of the EPC's wetlands division, Jadel Kerr, resigned under pressure last year for criticizing county commissioners on Sticks of Fire, a local civic blog.
The assistance with the billboard would not be the first time Dibbs helped Blair's re-election effort. In October 2007, Dibbs served on the host committee for a fundraiser for Blair and Commissioner Ken Hagan. His company, North Dale Development LTD, wrote Blair's campaign a $500 check in September of that year, according to Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections records. Another Dibbs company, St. Stephens International, also contributed $500. Both of those contributions appear to meet the requirements of Florida's campaign finance laws.
In the 2006 election cycle, Dibbs, his related companies and people who do business with him contributed $11,500 total in county commission races to commissioners who later supported his EPC wetlands stance. (Blair was not on the ballot that year and didn't get any contributions.)
Blair's campaign finance reports show that he paid $14,661.82 to OAI, a Tampa outdoor advertising production company. OAI's marketing manager confirmed to CL that the company produced the vinyl sheets for the Blair billboard ads but did not install them or handle the media buy with CBS Outdoor. The commissioner's finance reports do not show how many billboards he currently has.
Blair faces a challenge in this year's election from Democrat Kevin Beckner, who has criticized Blair's handling of the EPC wetlands issue.
This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2008.