Did Wetlands Controversy Create A Tipping Point?

The Tampa Tribune

http://southshore2.tbo.com/content/2007/aug/29/
ss-did-wetlands-controversy-create-a-tipping-point/

Published: August 29, 2007

First, the bad news.

We're stuck with a dysfunctional Hillsborough County Commission that can wax blissful over a sports complex but grow combative over the relevance of mass transit and wetlands protection.

Still stuck with a faction that treats public input as a gadfly infestation.

Still stuck with an element that seems clueless about the inherent synergy of the county and its economic hub, the city of Tampa.

Still stuck with a clique that prompts nostalgia for Joe Kotvas.

And still stuck with the hapless Brian Blair as chairman of the Environmental Protection Commission, which is roughly analogous to Josef Mengele as surgeon general. First, do no good.

Now the good news.

Thanks, ironically, to the publicity magnet that was the wetlands division debacle and ultimate compromise, a lot more folks seem to be paying attention. And in the process, they are asking themselves: Who are these people - and whose priorities and values do they really represent?

Perhaps a tipping point has been reached in this reign of error. Perhaps Blair, Ken Hagan, Jim Norman and Kevin White have - by outing themselves as renegades and then disingenuously claiming they were catalysts for compromise - will have greased the skids for their eventual ouster. Perhaps enough voters may have recognized that Blair, for example, has the skill sets - and credibility - of a professional wrestler.

Once you have turned a sprinkling of environmentalists into an angry constituency armed with rhetorical pitchforks, anything is possible.

And thank you, Al Higginbotham, the increasingly assertive Mark Sharpe and the feisty Rose Ferlita. Being outnumbered is never at odds with being right.

A Sobering Welcome

Kudos to the University of Tampa for getting out in front of a serious undergraduate issue - student drinking - that is too often dismissed as a rite of collegiate passage.

UT requires its first-year students to complete an online alcohol-prevention program, AlcoholEdu for College, upon arrival.

Some sobering statistics underscore the need.

According to the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, there were more than 1,700 alcohol-related deaths and 2.1 million cases of student DUIs in 2002. The institute also estimates nearly 600,000 injuries, 97,000 sexual assaults and 159,000 first-year dropouts attributable to alcohol and other drugs every year.

Sports Shorts

• The preseason college football rankings of The Associated Press have USF in the top 35. That's higher than Notre Dame. Who would have thought?

• Devil Rays principal owner Stuart Sternberg will make the official call regarding manager Joe Maddon's status in September. It's expected that Maddon, a refreshingly nice guy whose team has the worst record in baseball, will be retained. Here's Sternberg's rationale: 'Joe has done everything that we've asked, and as long as we're continuing to progress and change and we're on the same page, everything's fine.'

Putting aside meaningful definitions of 'progress,' 'change,' 'fine' and exactly what that 'page' is, here's a question: Do you think you didn't ask enough of Joe?

Graceless Rhetoric

The death of Hillsborough County sheriff's Sgt. Ron Harrison was tragic.

With the aid of perfect hindsight and common sense, a case can be made that it was preventable. An out-on-bail mutant was the accused killer.

Among the outraged: Fox News Channel's 'The O'Reilly Factor.' It sent a news crew to ambush Circuit Judge Manuel Lopez, who had granted the bail.

Also among the affronted: CNN's Nancy Grace, who hosts a stridency forum called 'Headline Prime.'

Her take: 'If I was in Tampa tonight, I'd be hiding under my bed with a shotgun.'

Even for amazing Grace, that was a new low in network hyperbole.

Joe O'Neill is a South Tampa writer who can be contacted at www.OpinionsToGoOnLine.com.