Thursday, August 30, 2012

Mayor Bill Foster Spent Like A Drunken Sailor On His Party's Party

Last week we covered how Mayor Foster's bet paid off for a piece of Tampa's RNC security federal tax money, but an article in the Tampa Bay Times today exposes how the preparations for that 4-hour private party ended up costing almost $600,000 more than Foster had budgeted, and that cost overrun will most likely have to be paid by the people of St. Petersburg.

Let's add up the costs of Sunday's private party for 8,000 Republican delegates and low-level members of the press. Pinellas county contributed $600,000 from tourist development funds, Hillsborough county contributed $400,000 from their tourist development funds, St. Petersburg received $1 million from the city of Tampa out of their $50 million allotment from federal tax funds, and on top of all of that, the city spent another $600,000 they didn't have on preparations for the pre-conference party. Grand total: $2.6 million dollars.

Breaking that down, we spent $325 on each delegate and member of the press that attended. Or to put it in other terms, that 4-hour private party cost as much as the entire operating subsidies for both Tropicana Field and the Pier, combined, for the whole year of 2012.

Earlier this month, Mayor Foster was quoted as saying, "I will not do anything that causes the city of St. Petersburg taxpayers to bear the costs of a private party." We would like to thank Bill Foster for his generous contribution, you can make your $600,000 personal check out to the City of St. Petersburg Mr. Mayor.


6 comments:

  1. The Mayor says the bill will be covered by the RNC, not the residents. http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Foster-s-Weekly-Forecast.html?soid=1101482931208&aid=gnmrnB8rT0o

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    1. In the Mayor's forecast message, he says "It will be weeks before the final costs related to the RNC are tallied and submitted for reimbursement."

      City beautification is not a security expense. It will be interesting to see where those expenditures show up in the end.

      Are you Bill Foster by chance?

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    2. No, not every Bill is Bill Foster.

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  2. And why the need for the "Drunken Sailor" description???

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    1. From urban dictionary,

      spend like a drunken sailor on shore leave:

      To spend a lot of money at any one given time; taken from the fact that sailors, while on shore leave, used to spend all of their money on whores and alcoholic beverages

      http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=spend%20like%20a%20drunken%20sailor%20on%20shore%20leave


      We used that phrase because we thought spending $2.6 million in taxpayer money on a private 4-hour party is horribly wasteful and irresponsible.

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    2. I didn't need a definition. Whether such "tourist" events are good for the local economy or a proper use of funds is up for debate, but I just didn't see the need for the negative conotation. Guess I should have expected it from here.

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