When we started Bill Foster Watch last year, it was out of frustration with the Mayor, and the media's lack of coverage of his many stumbles. Earlier this year, the Tampa Bay Times shifted away from supporting Mayor Foster on most issues and they began to openly attack him. The Times has done such a good job of covering the Mayor recently and holding his feet to the fire on so many issues like the reimbursement for the RNC pre-party and the lack of leadership on the budget, that we at BillFosterWatch are just left in awe of how well the Times is doing our job for us. We counted no less than 12 articles exposing Bill Foster's stumbles in the last month alone, with the last being this editorial published on Saturday entitled "Poor leadership at budget crunch time". The Times places blame on both council and the Mayor, but other recent columns and articles make it clear that they blame Foster much more than council.
We hope that the Times keeps this up through the election next year, because if they do, we might be Foster-free in 2013!
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Friday, September 14, 2012
Mayor Foster's Parents "Hate Everything About" The Lens Pier
Yesterday afternoon, architect Michael Maltzan came to present an update to City Council about the progress being made on the new Lens pier project. Not much has changed in the last few months: still no new pictures, they are still using images of clear water in the "reef" area of the pier, they are still using generic images to describe features they are thinking about putting in the Lens pier. We counted over a dozen non-committal responses to questions asked by council members, including: "still under consideration", "to be determined", "we're studying that", "it is a topic of research of things to be looked at", "we are looking into that", and on and on.
Only a few new pieces of information came out at this 2-hour meeting. The first is that the bids came in to demolish the existing pier, they were between $2.9 - $6.8 million, within the budgeted $4.5 million amount, but WAY below the city-estimated $13 million figure that convinced city council to vote to destroy the inverted pyramid pier two years ago(we would think this big of a mistake by a city employee would result in some kind of disciplinary action, but disciplinary action doesn't appear to exist in Bill Foster's city administration).
The next new piece of information was about the expected subsidy for the new Lens pier. In response to Councilman Kennedy's decrying the lack of any kind of business plan, we found out that the subsidy will be "a third to a half" of the current operating subsidy. That puts it at a $500,000 to $750,000 per year net loss to the city to operate the giant toilet bowl of the Lens pier. This would still make the Lens pier the most expensive city subsidy aside from Tropicana Field. So the pier subsidy gets cut in half, and the number of jobs related to the pier will be cut by 80-90%(from 500 to 300 jobs now, to about 50 jobs with the Lens pier). This is a good time to mention one of our favorite Foster quotes: "Jobs is the biggest indicator of economic vitality and growth of a city. If you're not creating jobs, and growing, you're dying".
Another new piece of information was just how much the Lens pier itself has shrunk since its first presentation. The Lens pier plan entered into the design contest was about 1450 feet long. Then, to come in under budget, Maltzan had to shrink the "tiara" portion of the Lens and move the whole structure 100 feet closer to shore. Yesterday we found out that the Lens has shrunk even more. In response to a question about this from Councilman Nurse, Maltzan admitted that the Lens pier was now down to "1100 feet right now". If we keep going at this rate, the pier will be only 200 feet long by the time it is built.
The last new piece of information came from Mayor Bill Foster himself. The Mayor, who was dressed in a fashionable matching legal-pad-yellow shirt and tie, revealed that his parents "hate everything about" the Lens pier, and that the new Lens pier is about the future, not the older generation, saying "my parents will not be excited, I have written them off". Writing off an entire generation of people is pretty harsh Mr. Mayor.
Nothing else new was revealed, another meeting is scheduled "about 60 days from now" that is supposed to have more answers. Speaking of questions and answers, over a month ago, we submitted a list of 15 questions to Councilman Kornell to ask the Maltzan group, he never got back to us, but after this meeting, only 3 of those questions have been answered. We will be posting an updated list of "unanswered questions about the Lens pier" in the next few days.
Only a few new pieces of information came out at this 2-hour meeting. The first is that the bids came in to demolish the existing pier, they were between $2.9 - $6.8 million, within the budgeted $4.5 million amount, but WAY below the city-estimated $13 million figure that convinced city council to vote to destroy the inverted pyramid pier two years ago(we would think this big of a mistake by a city employee would result in some kind of disciplinary action, but disciplinary action doesn't appear to exist in Bill Foster's city administration).
The next new piece of information was about the expected subsidy for the new Lens pier. In response to Councilman Kennedy's decrying the lack of any kind of business plan, we found out that the subsidy will be "a third to a half" of the current operating subsidy. That puts it at a $500,000 to $750,000 per year net loss to the city to operate the giant toilet bowl of the Lens pier. This would still make the Lens pier the most expensive city subsidy aside from Tropicana Field. So the pier subsidy gets cut in half, and the number of jobs related to the pier will be cut by 80-90%(from 500 to 300 jobs now, to about 50 jobs with the Lens pier). This is a good time to mention one of our favorite Foster quotes: "Jobs is the biggest indicator of economic vitality and growth of a city. If you're not creating jobs, and growing, you're dying".
Another new piece of information was just how much the Lens pier itself has shrunk since its first presentation. The Lens pier plan entered into the design contest was about 1450 feet long. Then, to come in under budget, Maltzan had to shrink the "tiara" portion of the Lens and move the whole structure 100 feet closer to shore. Yesterday we found out that the Lens has shrunk even more. In response to a question about this from Councilman Nurse, Maltzan admitted that the Lens pier was now down to "1100 feet right now". If we keep going at this rate, the pier will be only 200 feet long by the time it is built.
The last new piece of information came from Mayor Bill Foster himself. The Mayor, who was dressed in a fashionable matching legal-pad-yellow shirt and tie, revealed that his parents "hate everything about" the Lens pier, and that the new Lens pier is about the future, not the older generation, saying "my parents will not be excited, I have written them off". Writing off an entire generation of people is pretty harsh Mr. Mayor.
Nothing else new was revealed, another meeting is scheduled "about 60 days from now" that is supposed to have more answers. Speaking of questions and answers, over a month ago, we submitted a list of 15 questions to Councilman Kornell to ask the Maltzan group, he never got back to us, but after this meeting, only 3 of those questions have been answered. We will be posting an updated list of "unanswered questions about the Lens pier" in the next few days.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Did Mayor Foster Laugh At Falling Graduation Rate?
Last week Mayor Bill Foster was the guest contestant on WQYK's radio question and answer contest "Veronica's College of Hollywood Knowledge"(audio link). Mayor Foster lost against Veronica and "flunked out" of her College of Hollywood Knowledge(which is actually a good thing in our opinion), but what really caught our attention was the banter with the Mayor before the questions started. He mentioned that he graduated from Northeast High School in the beautiful city of St. Petersburg, Veronica said she went to Osceola High School, to which the Mayor responded "Oh, I'm sorry", and then one of the hosts said "The Mayor went when there was a 90% graduation rate, it's a little different now" (We checked, and the 2012 graduation rate at Northeast High School was 62.4%). Then you can clearly hear Foster's jovial laughter in the background as he says "Yeah", and no other response is heard from him. Even though it didn't sound like it, we are hoping that was just uncomfortable laughter from the Mayor, but for a Mayor that has been named an "Education Mold Breaker", to make light of a 27% drop in graduation rate, his actions were just plain horrible.
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.
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.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Former Foster Foe Ford Files Suit on Future of the Pier
Mayor Foster will be squaring off in court against his former rival Kathleen Ford. Earlier this week, Ford filed the lawsuit on behalf of herself and the thousands of other St. Petersburg voters that signed petitions to have the question of the future of the municipal Pier put on the ballot. The suit calls the city out on it's refusal to allow the referendum on renovating the Pier, as well as the city's ignoring of the charter requirement to hold a referendum on significantly altering city-owned waterfront property.
This shouldn't be a surprise for Mayor Bill Foster, he and his staff had pushed hard for the demolition of the Pier and they tried to craft legal language to avoid the charter referendum requirements. They also gave city council a slanted view of the Pier's ability to be renovated, resulting in all renovation proposals being excluded from the rushed pier design competition. Now the people of St. Petersburg will have to pay for Foster's actions. Even though the majority of people don't want the new Lens pier, our tax dollars will be used to defend it in court.
This shouldn't be a surprise for Mayor Bill Foster, he and his staff had pushed hard for the demolition of the Pier and they tried to craft legal language to avoid the charter referendum requirements. They also gave city council a slanted view of the Pier's ability to be renovated, resulting in all renovation proposals being excluded from the rushed pier design competition. Now the people of St. Petersburg will have to pay for Foster's actions. Even though the majority of people don't want the new Lens pier, our tax dollars will be used to defend it in court.
Mayor Foster's Ever-Changing Fire Fee
It started as a rather generic concept, charge every property owner in the city a flat fee for "fire readiness" as a way to generate revenue to fill the city's budget gap. Calling it a "fire fee" is about as true as saying lottery money goes to education, its just a way of shifting money around within the budget, there will be no budget increases or added funding stability for the fire department if this fire fee is enacted. Nobody but virtual-co-Mayor Kennedy would admit to understanding it at first, and it has been changed at least a dozen times since it was first proposed.
First it was going to be a flat fee, then Foster talked about making it a graduated fee, bigger for expensive properties than lower appraised ones(although nowhere near as graduated as the general property tax is).
The Mayor started by saying that non-profits would not be exempt, and then he came out this week saying that they would be exempt.
He was against offering exemptions for the poor, then came up with a complex "deferral" idea that would involve putting a lien on the property and charging interest and recording fees on top of it. Maybe the Mayor should get into the car-title-loan business too, it's not much of a leap from there, and we are unsure how deferring a tax payment can help the yearly budget if you don't see the money for years, or even decades.
City Council has gone along for the ride, voting for approval of the fire fee along with the large payments for legal services to try to get approval for it without even knowing the specifics of how the fire fee would be implemented. It's time for them to stop the wobbling fire-fee-train and pin Foster down on the specifics before they allow it to move any further.
First it was going to be a flat fee, then Foster talked about making it a graduated fee, bigger for expensive properties than lower appraised ones(although nowhere near as graduated as the general property tax is).
The Mayor started by saying that non-profits would not be exempt, and then he came out this week saying that they would be exempt.
He was against offering exemptions for the poor, then came up with a complex "deferral" idea that would involve putting a lien on the property and charging interest and recording fees on top of it. Maybe the Mayor should get into the car-title-loan business too, it's not much of a leap from there, and we are unsure how deferring a tax payment can help the yearly budget if you don't see the money for years, or even decades.
City Council has gone along for the ride, voting for approval of the fire fee along with the large payments for legal services to try to get approval for it without even knowing the specifics of how the fire fee would be implemented. It's time for them to stop the wobbling fire-fee-train and pin Foster down on the specifics before they allow it to move any further.
Former Foster Target For Closure, Historic Jennie Hall Pool Dedicated Last Weekend
In an update to a subject that we've covered before, the Jennie Hall Pool was dedicated as a historic landmark last weekend. Just last year, the pool was on Mayor Bill Foster's chopping block, then City Council decided to save the historic pool last year, in a rejection of Foster's attempts to delay its historic designation process and close the pool down as a cost saving measure. Thanks again to city council for preserving our city's history.
Update on Foster's Party's Party
Mayor Foster's gamble paid off, but it came down to the wire, last week Tampa's City Council approved the transfer of almost $1 million(out of the $50 million that they received) to St. Petersburg for security-related costs associated with hosting the RNC pre-conference party. So Foster gets a big piece of government cheese(our federal tax dollars) to host a private party for his political buddies. He doesn't even try to hide the fact that this party won't generate immediate benefits to the city the night everyone is in town."Hopefully they will come back to the city of St. Petersburg," Foster said. "The welcome mat is up and we are open for business." Of course if you look at the pictures in that article, all the party-goers will see of St. Petersburg is the highway and a whole lot of barricades around the Trop. Heck, they can't even walk across the street to Ferg's where Ron Paul's after-party there had to be canceled and moved across the bay to Tampa. So the net loss of an entire weekend's worth of business for a good portion of downtown St. Petersburg's businesses, and a whole lot of city employee overtime, is about all we will be getting out of this event.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Who Will Pay For Foster's Party's Party?
There have been several articles over the last few days about Mayor Bill Foster asking Tampa to pay for some of the costs for the Republican party's party at Tropicana field later this month. We've covered it twice before, and Mayor Foster has said a few conflicting things about who is paying for it over the last nine months. Back in January, Foster said the costs could run "well into six-figures". Then in March he said that "he expected that the city would end up covering some of the costs", yet in June he said "There won't be any general-operating funds used for this event." So which is it Mr. Mayor, who is going to pay for your party's party at the Trop?
He sent a letter to Tampa's Mayor Bob Buckhorn earlier last month asking for some money, and has yet to receive any kind of response. Foster's backup plan is to ask the host committee for money, although the Trop party is not actually part of the convention.
Another expense that is overlooked in this is the $270,000 that Foster pushed through City Council for security cameras for the event, again he had no guarantees on outside money to cover those costs either. To get approval for that expense, City Council had also been told that the cameras could be moved after the event, but after the vote Foster then said they couldn't.
Why is the Mayor gambling with our money? He has bet that he can get someone else to pay for these expenses, without any kind of contract or assurance from these outside organizations that they will pay, and in the process he has played fast-and-loose with the facts to the city council and people of St. Petersburg.
The worst-case scenario is that the people of St. Petersburg will spend a half-million dollars on this one-day closed party for Republican delegates and the press. And Mayor Foster will have lied to the people once again, to get what he wants.
He sent a letter to Tampa's Mayor Bob Buckhorn earlier last month asking for some money, and has yet to receive any kind of response. Foster's backup plan is to ask the host committee for money, although the Trop party is not actually part of the convention.
Another expense that is overlooked in this is the $270,000 that Foster pushed through City Council for security cameras for the event, again he had no guarantees on outside money to cover those costs either. To get approval for that expense, City Council had also been told that the cameras could be moved after the event, but after the vote Foster then said they couldn't.
Why is the Mayor gambling with our money? He has bet that he can get someone else to pay for these expenses, without any kind of contract or assurance from these outside organizations that they will pay, and in the process he has played fast-and-loose with the facts to the city council and people of St. Petersburg.
The worst-case scenario is that the people of St. Petersburg will spend a half-million dollars on this one-day closed party for Republican delegates and the press. And Mayor Foster will have lied to the people once again, to get what he wants.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Mayor Foster And Police Chases
We were going to post a story last week about the Gulfport police chase, the resulting crash with a bus and a building, and Mayor Foster's criticism of it. But right before we did, there was a similar crash after a police chase, which was started right here in St. Petersburg. Both police chases were of stolen vehicles, the St. Petersburg initiated crash was related to string of burglaries in an upper-class area of the city, but the results were the same, a lot of twisted metal, and several people going to the hospital.
We are conflicted with the debate about police chases, offenders need to be caught, but is the collateral damage too high a price to pay when the suspects are almost always repeat offenders that we would have caught soon anyway? Is it worth sending innocent people to the hospital when the police or a criminal crashes into them because of the chase?
We went back to the horrific case of innocent driver Thomas Atherton, who was killed during a high speed police chase, his car was cut in two by a police cruiser chasing a man fleeing north in the southbound lanes of I-275. This is one of the cases that helped to change the police chase policy in the first place, the thinking was that the collateral damage is not worth chasing a non-violent offender. So the policy was changed to only allow chases when the offender was involved in a violent felony. That policy was then changed when Bill Foster became Mayor in 2009, allowing police chases in more cases.
Earlier this year there was the case of purse-snatcher Kenneth Gordon Davis Jr. who died after he crashed while being chased by police. The crash also sent six other people to the hospital. Davis was known to police, and he was unarmed, but because purse snatching is classified as a violent felony they decided to chase him, and a half-dozen people ended up paying the price for that decision.
As for last week's police chase crash, it came out that the suspects in the fleeing vehicle were all wanted for questioning in several burglaries, and one had already been positively identified by fingerprints, they were also not armed. This crash sent four other people to the hospital.
So we have 10 innocent people hospitalized(with several critically injured) in just these two St. Petersburg initiated crashes, to catch known suspects that were unarmed. In these cases, the human cost was too high, the suspects should not have been chased.
Back to the recent Gulfport-initiated crash, Mayor Foster immediately had some harsh words for the Gulfport police saying "They got to own this one... That pursuit wouldn't have been authorized by the St. Petersburg Police Department.". Yet when asked about the Davis police chase a few months ago he was much more reserved, "I'm waiting for the facts and the investigation to be concluded before I can comment... With any authorized pursuit there are a number of conditions that must be weighed." He is reserved when it could be his fault, but quick to place blame when he's in the clear.
The Gulfport Gabber had some criticism of it's own for Foster, saying "Mr. Foster, an attorney specializing in real estate, probate and corporate law, lists no law enforcement experience on his resume." Suggesting that Mayor Foster should stop arm-chair quarterbacking, and stick to things that he knows about.
Earlier this year, a Tampa Bay Times editorial called for a review of police chase policy in St. Petersburg. We agree with the Times, we think that in cases where the suspect is unarmed, and known to police, that the chase should be called off immediately, the human cost has proven to be too high.
We are conflicted with the debate about police chases, offenders need to be caught, but is the collateral damage too high a price to pay when the suspects are almost always repeat offenders that we would have caught soon anyway? Is it worth sending innocent people to the hospital when the police or a criminal crashes into them because of the chase?
We went back to the horrific case of innocent driver Thomas Atherton, who was killed during a high speed police chase, his car was cut in two by a police cruiser chasing a man fleeing north in the southbound lanes of I-275. This is one of the cases that helped to change the police chase policy in the first place, the thinking was that the collateral damage is not worth chasing a non-violent offender. So the policy was changed to only allow chases when the offender was involved in a violent felony. That policy was then changed when Bill Foster became Mayor in 2009, allowing police chases in more cases.
Earlier this year there was the case of purse-snatcher Kenneth Gordon Davis Jr. who died after he crashed while being chased by police. The crash also sent six other people to the hospital. Davis was known to police, and he was unarmed, but because purse snatching is classified as a violent felony they decided to chase him, and a half-dozen people ended up paying the price for that decision.
As for last week's police chase crash, it came out that the suspects in the fleeing vehicle were all wanted for questioning in several burglaries, and one had already been positively identified by fingerprints, they were also not armed. This crash sent four other people to the hospital.
So we have 10 innocent people hospitalized(with several critically injured) in just these two St. Petersburg initiated crashes, to catch known suspects that were unarmed. In these cases, the human cost was too high, the suspects should not have been chased.
Back to the recent Gulfport-initiated crash, Mayor Foster immediately had some harsh words for the Gulfport police saying "They got to own this one... That pursuit wouldn't have been authorized by the St. Petersburg Police Department.". Yet when asked about the Davis police chase a few months ago he was much more reserved, "I'm waiting for the facts and the investigation to be concluded before I can comment... With any authorized pursuit there are a number of conditions that must be weighed." He is reserved when it could be his fault, but quick to place blame when he's in the clear.
The Gulfport Gabber had some criticism of it's own for Foster, saying "Mr. Foster, an attorney specializing in real estate, probate and corporate law, lists no law enforcement experience on his resume." Suggesting that Mayor Foster should stop arm-chair quarterbacking, and stick to things that he knows about.
Earlier this year, a Tampa Bay Times editorial called for a review of police chase policy in St. Petersburg. We agree with the Times, we think that in cases where the suspect is unarmed, and known to police, that the chase should be called off immediately, the human cost has proven to be too high.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
The "New Pier" Presentation by Lisa Wannemacher
A couple of weeks ago, we posted our top ten list for things to do out on the new Lens pier. Now Mayor Foster has taken to calling it "The New Pier" instead of the Lens, because he says the competition is over, and we need to brand this as the new pier instead of just some design concept. In furtherance of that goal, he got Lisa Wannemacher from the local architectural firm that is working with Michael Maltzan Architecture on the Lens pier to make a presentation right before the successful referendum vote at last Thursday's city council meeting.
First, some notes about Lisa Wannemacher herself. She was present at many of the pier task force meetings, often advocating for the demolishing of the existing pier and the building of a new pier structure, even claiming that "renovating pier approach would cost most or all of $50M and public wouldn't like that since nothing changed". Of course she offered no evidence of this, no study was done to back up her claims of no public support, but this statement she made was taken as fact by the task force and included in several of their notes and recommendation drafts.
Also, voteonthepier.com found out that Wannemacher and her husband own Cassis American Brasserie, a restaurant on 2nd Avenue North, right on the approach to the Pier. It might seem to some like a conflict of interest for the owner of a restaurant that would benefit significantly from the demolition of several competing restaurants on the Pier, to be advocating for the demolition of those restaurants, and the building of a pier that could not house any significant retail or restaurant space. Here is a link from Philippe Berriot's Linked-in page, that shows one of his "Company website" links as Wannamaker's architectural firm, as well as the pair owning several "BW"(Berriot-Wannemacher) businesses together.
Now on to the "New Pier" presentation itself.
It started with the list of things to do out on the pier, this list had a lot of small print, and it was only on the screen for a few seconds for the day and night lists, we had to pause the video to write the list down, and here is the list of the 27 activities out on the new Lens pier(with land-side activities and duplicates removed):
Casual dining, Bayside fishing, Refreshments, Gelato shop, Spectacular view, Reef viewing and education, Dockside fishing, Pelican feeding, Electric boat rentals, Transient boating, Kayak rentals, Dockside drinks, Concessions, Water taxi, Pier walks, Shaded balconies, Biking, Roller Blading, Walking, Live music, Light shows, Movie projections, Boat drive-in movies, Evening walks, Intimate balconies, Family outings, Night fishing, Skyline views.
The problem is that several of these seem to be duplicates, like "casual dining, refreshments, gelato shop, concessions, dockside drinks", so we just grouped these all under the heading of "Food & Drink". We also condensed the several "Views" activities into "Signtseeing". There are several separate activities related to "Boating", and "Walking, Evening walks, Biking and Roller Blading" are all listed separately as well.
We aren't too sure what exactly "Reef viewing and education" means, since the reef won't really be viewable in the murky water so we'll remove that one.
Next was "Water taxi", which is a bit confusing, since the inner harbor of the Lens pier won't allow for boats larger than 20 or so feet, and any viable water taxi would need to be twice that size, which wouldn't fit, so we'll remove that one.
"Live music" is mentioned, but as much as we've looked, we can't seem to find a reference to how many people can safely gather out on the Lens pier to watch the live music.
"Light shows" are listed, but those didn't seem to last too long when they were tried in the 80s.
"Movie projections" and "Boat-in movies" are also listed separately, but are really the same thing.
We were also wondering how "Shaded balconies" was an activity, then we saw what that changed into at night: "Intimate balconies". Burst of laughter at that point, those must be SOME balconies they are planning on building if you can get "intimate" on them at night. Do you think the city would exempt those balconies from the public exposure ordinances?
In the end, we arrive at only 10 unique activities, and even some of those are pretty weak "Food & Drink, Fishing, Sight-seeing, Pelican feeding, Boating, Pier walks, Biking and Roller Blading, Live music, Light shows, Movie projections"
After showing the activities lists, Lisa Wannemacher says "over 30 activities one can do at the new pier... there will be plenty to do". Just because you list the same things multiple times, doesn't mean you get to count them multiple times Ms. Wannemacher.
Then she showed a picture of an old beer grotto complete with stone walls, we're not sure how you give the feeling of a beer grotto without ANY walls, especially when the sideways rain starts pouring in on a summer afternoon out on the Lens pier.
She did a comparison of the 1926 pier pilings to the new Lens pier design pilings. A bit unfair comparing almost 90 year old building techniques to today. If she was being fair she would compare it to the "Wave" pier design which is much closer to how a renovated pier approach would be constructed, with a lot fewer support pilings.
New features like inner-harbor water buffers, shaded walkway balconies, the expanded promontory area and several others are mentioned, but all of these new features cost money, and there is no money for these things in the Maltzan budget. As we have covered before, they already had to shrink the Lens, move it closer to the shore, remove the railings and replace them with concrete walls, remove the wood planking, the docent theater and over a dozen other features just to fit within the $45 million budget. No mention is made of how these new features will be paid for.
At the end, she tried to compare the Lens pier to the St. Louis Gateway Arch, which is a bit of a stretch since the Arch would cost more than double what the Lens is budgeted for if it was built today, and the Arch's design competition lasted for 3 years instead of only a few months like the Lens. "Functionally, it is an observatory" she said about the Lens, which just contradicted most of what she had said previously about there being "plenty to do" on the Lens pier.
The presentation itself was nice, but after analyzing the details in the presentation it is clear that it was all flash and very little substance. Not much at all has really changed after this presentation.
First, some notes about Lisa Wannemacher herself. She was present at many of the pier task force meetings, often advocating for the demolishing of the existing pier and the building of a new pier structure, even claiming that "renovating pier approach would cost most or all of $50M and public wouldn't like that since nothing changed". Of course she offered no evidence of this, no study was done to back up her claims of no public support, but this statement she made was taken as fact by the task force and included in several of their notes and recommendation drafts.
Also, voteonthepier.com found out that Wannemacher and her husband own Cassis American Brasserie, a restaurant on 2nd Avenue North, right on the approach to the Pier. It might seem to some like a conflict of interest for the owner of a restaurant that would benefit significantly from the demolition of several competing restaurants on the Pier, to be advocating for the demolition of those restaurants, and the building of a pier that could not house any significant retail or restaurant space. Here is a link from Philippe Berriot's Linked-in page, that shows one of his "Company website" links as Wannamaker's architectural firm, as well as the pair owning several "BW"(Berriot-Wannemacher) businesses together.
Now on to the "New Pier" presentation itself.
It started with the list of things to do out on the pier, this list had a lot of small print, and it was only on the screen for a few seconds for the day and night lists, we had to pause the video to write the list down, and here is the list of the 27 activities out on the new Lens pier(with land-side activities and duplicates removed):
Casual dining, Bayside fishing, Refreshments, Gelato shop, Spectacular view, Reef viewing and education, Dockside fishing, Pelican feeding, Electric boat rentals, Transient boating, Kayak rentals, Dockside drinks, Concessions, Water taxi, Pier walks, Shaded balconies, Biking, Roller Blading, Walking, Live music, Light shows, Movie projections, Boat drive-in movies, Evening walks, Intimate balconies, Family outings, Night fishing, Skyline views.
The problem is that several of these seem to be duplicates, like "casual dining, refreshments, gelato shop, concessions, dockside drinks", so we just grouped these all under the heading of "Food & Drink". We also condensed the several "Views" activities into "Signtseeing". There are several separate activities related to "Boating", and "Walking, Evening walks, Biking and Roller Blading" are all listed separately as well.
We aren't too sure what exactly "Reef viewing and education" means, since the reef won't really be viewable in the murky water so we'll remove that one.
Next was "Water taxi", which is a bit confusing, since the inner harbor of the Lens pier won't allow for boats larger than 20 or so feet, and any viable water taxi would need to be twice that size, which wouldn't fit, so we'll remove that one.
"Live music" is mentioned, but as much as we've looked, we can't seem to find a reference to how many people can safely gather out on the Lens pier to watch the live music.
"Light shows" are listed, but those didn't seem to last too long when they were tried in the 80s.
"Movie projections" and "Boat-in movies" are also listed separately, but are really the same thing.
We were also wondering how "Shaded balconies" was an activity, then we saw what that changed into at night: "Intimate balconies". Burst of laughter at that point, those must be SOME balconies they are planning on building if you can get "intimate" on them at night. Do you think the city would exempt those balconies from the public exposure ordinances?
In the end, we arrive at only 10 unique activities, and even some of those are pretty weak "Food & Drink, Fishing, Sight-seeing, Pelican feeding, Boating, Pier walks, Biking and Roller Blading, Live music, Light shows, Movie projections"
After showing the activities lists, Lisa Wannemacher says "over 30 activities one can do at the new pier... there will be plenty to do". Just because you list the same things multiple times, doesn't mean you get to count them multiple times Ms. Wannemacher.
Then she showed a picture of an old beer grotto complete with stone walls, we're not sure how you give the feeling of a beer grotto without ANY walls, especially when the sideways rain starts pouring in on a summer afternoon out on the Lens pier.
She did a comparison of the 1926 pier pilings to the new Lens pier design pilings. A bit unfair comparing almost 90 year old building techniques to today. If she was being fair she would compare it to the "Wave" pier design which is much closer to how a renovated pier approach would be constructed, with a lot fewer support pilings.
New features like inner-harbor water buffers, shaded walkway balconies, the expanded promontory area and several others are mentioned, but all of these new features cost money, and there is no money for these things in the Maltzan budget. As we have covered before, they already had to shrink the Lens, move it closer to the shore, remove the railings and replace them with concrete walls, remove the wood planking, the docent theater and over a dozen other features just to fit within the $45 million budget. No mention is made of how these new features will be paid for.
At the end, she tried to compare the Lens pier to the St. Louis Gateway Arch, which is a bit of a stretch since the Arch would cost more than double what the Lens is budgeted for if it was built today, and the Arch's design competition lasted for 3 years instead of only a few months like the Lens. "Functionally, it is an observatory" she said about the Lens, which just contradicted most of what she had said previously about there being "plenty to do" on the Lens pier.
The presentation itself was nice, but after analyzing the details in the presentation it is clear that it was all flash and very little substance. Not much at all has really changed after this presentation.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
The Pier Referendum Vote
The vote last Thursday was 5 to 3, in favor of putting "some kind of question" on the November general election ballot about the Pier. Curran, Danner and Kennedy were the "no" votes.
There was heated discussion for almost 2 hours amongst the council members about the ballot question issue and the Pier design process as a whole. Mayor Foster offered his own symbolic support for a referendum, saying: "They've been working on this for two years... The process was not designed to stop a referendum... If they get the signatures, they've earned it... now, the signatures have been verified... to me, I think they deserve something on the ballot."
We applaud Mayor Foster for his stance, even though it was an easy position for him to take, because he doesn't get to vote on the issue, and even if the referendum had not been approved he could have said he tried.
Council-chair Curran and councilman Danner(who have both been very vocal about their support for demolishing the Pier for over two years) got very upset that a referendum on the pier might be approved, they tried argument after argument to try to convince their fellow council members to not approve a referendum on the ballot. The desperate tone to their voices and poorly thought out arguments were really just sad to watch.
Here are some of Danner's points: Councilman Newton had many chances and nobody seconded his motions, the referendum question isn't valid, council should have started the referendum process earlier, the vote on the pier group has spread too much misinformation, we've already looked at ways to save the pier, if there is a referendum we can't advocate for the Lens pier.
Here are some of Curran's points: The people that signed these petitions only wanted this one question on the ballot not just some question, the people that went through the pier design process need to be represented too, the petition gathering was funded by someone who didn't like the Lens, the one thing that people don't like or understand is change, I do not feel that I am cutting anybody short by voting no, the petition is from Safety Harbor not St. Petersburg, nobody will want to go through a city design process again if we overthrow this one.
Councilman Kennedy also ended up voting "no" because he said a vote won't make the pier pilings stable and it won't change the subsidy, he ignored any options for reinforcing the caissons and he also completely missed the point that the people don't want the Lens.
All three of the "no" voters ignored the spirit of the verified referendum petitions, that people don't feel like they have been heard in this "open" process, and that the majority of people don't like the Lens.
We have covered this process before in quite a few postings here on BillFosterWatch, and it is clear that there is a big divide in the city on this issue, and ignoring the referendum petitions would have only made that divide worse. We would like to thank the 5 councilmen who did the right thing and voted "yes", especially Councilman Newton who was the lone voice of the people for these last 20 months after council voted to demolish the Pier(at Mayor Foster's urging) at an unannounced meeting with no public input allowed.
Hopefully city council will put some unbiased questions on the ballot, and will follow through with what the people vote for in November.
Up next, an analysis of the "New Pier Presentation" that Lisa Wannemacher gave at the same meeting last Thursday...
There was heated discussion for almost 2 hours amongst the council members about the ballot question issue and the Pier design process as a whole. Mayor Foster offered his own symbolic support for a referendum, saying: "They've been working on this for two years... The process was not designed to stop a referendum... If they get the signatures, they've earned it... now, the signatures have been verified... to me, I think they deserve something on the ballot."
We applaud Mayor Foster for his stance, even though it was an easy position for him to take, because he doesn't get to vote on the issue, and even if the referendum had not been approved he could have said he tried.
Council-chair Curran and councilman Danner(who have both been very vocal about their support for demolishing the Pier for over two years) got very upset that a referendum on the pier might be approved, they tried argument after argument to try to convince their fellow council members to not approve a referendum on the ballot. The desperate tone to their voices and poorly thought out arguments were really just sad to watch.
Here are some of Danner's points: Councilman Newton had many chances and nobody seconded his motions, the referendum question isn't valid, council should have started the referendum process earlier, the vote on the pier group has spread too much misinformation, we've already looked at ways to save the pier, if there is a referendum we can't advocate for the Lens pier.
Here are some of Curran's points: The people that signed these petitions only wanted this one question on the ballot not just some question, the people that went through the pier design process need to be represented too, the petition gathering was funded by someone who didn't like the Lens, the one thing that people don't like or understand is change, I do not feel that I am cutting anybody short by voting no, the petition is from Safety Harbor not St. Petersburg, nobody will want to go through a city design process again if we overthrow this one.
Councilman Kennedy also ended up voting "no" because he said a vote won't make the pier pilings stable and it won't change the subsidy, he ignored any options for reinforcing the caissons and he also completely missed the point that the people don't want the Lens.
All three of the "no" voters ignored the spirit of the verified referendum petitions, that people don't feel like they have been heard in this "open" process, and that the majority of people don't like the Lens.
We have covered this process before in quite a few postings here on BillFosterWatch, and it is clear that there is a big divide in the city on this issue, and ignoring the referendum petitions would have only made that divide worse. We would like to thank the 5 councilmen who did the right thing and voted "yes", especially Councilman Newton who was the lone voice of the people for these last 20 months after council voted to demolish the Pier(at Mayor Foster's urging) at an unannounced meeting with no public input allowed.
Hopefully city council will put some unbiased questions on the ballot, and will follow through with what the people vote for in November.
Up next, an analysis of the "New Pier Presentation" that Lisa Wannemacher gave at the same meeting last Thursday...
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Mayor Bill Foster Sets A New Fee-Raising Record
Today the Patch reported that Mayor Foster will be proposing later this month to raise 60 existing fees and add 29 new fees, most of them aimed at St. Petersburg businesses. It seems that Foster has gone "fee-crazy" while he is also pushing for a massive new "fire readiness fee", and less than a year after raising dozens of permitting related fees as well as adding new ones. Add on to this the hundreds of new parking meters he added, as well as his doubling of the parking meter rates and the raised parking fines he pushed for to punish the "spoiled" residents of St. Petersburg.
This latest fee assault is mostly aimed at businesses, but it also targets the city's dog-friendly restaurants. Yes, you read that correctly, one of the new fees is going to be a "Dog Dining Permit" that any restaurant which allows outside dining will have to pay for to allow patrons to eat with their dogs while outside. This will affect hundreds of businesses around the city with outside seating, and if a restaurant doesn't pay for the new permit, they are subject to up to a $1000 fine if a dog is seen in their outside dining area.
For a full list of the proposed new and raised fees, here is a link to the city website.
This latest fee assault is mostly aimed at businesses, but it also targets the city's dog-friendly restaurants. Yes, you read that correctly, one of the new fees is going to be a "Dog Dining Permit" that any restaurant which allows outside dining will have to pay for to allow patrons to eat with their dogs while outside. This will affect hundreds of businesses around the city with outside seating, and if a restaurant doesn't pay for the new permit, they are subject to up to a $1000 fine if a dog is seen in their outside dining area.
For a full list of the proposed new and raised fees, here is a link to the city website.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Foster's Top Ten Reasons To Constantly Go Out To The Lens Pier
This piece on Fox13 about the voteonthepier.com group turning in 15,000 petitions on Friday had a great quote from Mayor Bill Foster about him sending two staff members to Maltzan's office to meet with the architect about the Lens pier design:
"My instructions to my staff: don't come back from California without ten visuals, the top ten reasons why [we] are going to constantly go out to the new St. Pete Pier"
We initially thought this might be another Foster cost-cutting measure, a way for him to get rid of two staff members by giving them an impossible task and telling them that they can't come back until they complete it. But then we thought of ten ways all by ourselves to get people to "constantly" go out to the new Lens pier.
So in the David Letterman tradition, here are the top ten ways to get the citizens of St Petersburg to keep going out to the pier:
Number 10: Put a parking ticket payment booth out at the end of the pier, and offer a 10% discount on your bill if you pay out there
Mayor Foster has doubled the price of parking meters and added hundreds of new parking meters around downtown just in the last two years, causing a lot more parking tickets to be issued. Putting a parking ticket booth at the end of the Lens pier won't take up much space, and it will force people in search of a discount out on to the Lens pier.
Number 9: Promote the "Manatee vs. Speed Boat Destruction Derby" shown in the Lens pier marketing materials
Boats and Manatees together at last, what could go wrong? How about we outfit the manatees with armor, and boat-piercing flipper gloves, then they would have a fighting chance. The city could even sell it as the latest reality show, complete with underwater cameras to showcase that crystal-clear water around the Lens pier.
Number 8: The end of the Lens pier will be the only private place in downtown
With Mayor Foster spending another $270,000 to put more surveillance cameras all over downtown, the Lens pier will be the only place to get some privacy away from Big Brother Foster's prying eyes.
Number 7: Make visiting the Lens pier count as community service for school children and non-violent offenders
If you can't get people out there voluntarily, then force them out there. Many school kids need community service to graduate, and there are always non-violent offenders in need of community service hours. So what better community service than helping the city to justify it's $50 million boondoggle by making it seem popular? All you would have to do is walk out to the end of the Lens pier, and the parking ticket booth attendant, from Number 10, can sign the community service forms.
Number 6: Scrub your own name into the algae on the Lens pier
Give people the chance to scrub their own name in the the algae that will grow on the constantly wet concrete at the end of the Lens pier. It will help to keep them less slippery, and people can have a temporary graffiti picture memento of their trip to the Lens pier. It will always grow back, so they have to keep coming back to do it again.
Number 5: Scrub your own name into the bird droppings on the Lens pier
See Number 6 above, except with the bird guano that will be all over the Lens pier.
Number 4: Get St. Petersburg College to offer an Underwater Basket Weaving course out on the Lens pier
Every college kid needs an easy-credit course, so why not the perennial favorite, underwater basket weaving out at the end of the Lens pier.
Number 3: Hand out virtual reality glasses, so you can pretend you are somewhere other than the Lens pier
Since the Lens pier itself will get kind of boring after the first time you visit, the city should lend visitors virtual reality glasses so they can pretend they are somewhere else every time they go to the Lens pier.
Number 2: Put some of those Redbox and Blockbuster DVD rental vending machines out there
We always see people at those DVD vending machines at Publix and Walgreens, but there aren't many in downtown, so to get the residents of downtown to go to the Lens pier, just put a bunch of those at the end. Like the parking ticket booth, they won't take up much space, and you are guaranteed repeat visitors.
And The Number 1 Way To Keep People Going To The Lens Pier.... GELATO!
We must have heard the word "Gelato" hundreds of times in reference to the Lens Pier and what is out at the end waiting for us. It is the only thing that all city staff members can think of when asked what there is to do out there, it's their go-to answer, so we had to make the undeniable lure of this magical frozen wonder treat number 1 on the countdown.
There you go Mayor Foster, we came up with your ten ways to get people to constantly go out to the Lens pier, no need to spend thousands of taxpayer dollars to send city employees on a week-long California vacation now.
"My instructions to my staff: don't come back from California without ten visuals, the top ten reasons why [we] are going to constantly go out to the new St. Pete Pier"
We initially thought this might be another Foster cost-cutting measure, a way for him to get rid of two staff members by giving them an impossible task and telling them that they can't come back until they complete it. But then we thought of ten ways all by ourselves to get people to "constantly" go out to the new Lens pier.
So in the David Letterman tradition, here are the top ten ways to get the citizens of St Petersburg to keep going out to the pier:
Number 10: Put a parking ticket payment booth out at the end of the pier, and offer a 10% discount on your bill if you pay out there
Mayor Foster has doubled the price of parking meters and added hundreds of new parking meters around downtown just in the last two years, causing a lot more parking tickets to be issued. Putting a parking ticket booth at the end of the Lens pier won't take up much space, and it will force people in search of a discount out on to the Lens pier.
Number 9: Promote the "Manatee vs. Speed Boat Destruction Derby" shown in the Lens pier marketing materials
Boats and Manatees together at last, what could go wrong? How about we outfit the manatees with armor, and boat-piercing flipper gloves, then they would have a fighting chance. The city could even sell it as the latest reality show, complete with underwater cameras to showcase that crystal-clear water around the Lens pier.
Number 8: The end of the Lens pier will be the only private place in downtown
With Mayor Foster spending another $270,000 to put more surveillance cameras all over downtown, the Lens pier will be the only place to get some privacy away from Big Brother Foster's prying eyes.
Number 7: Make visiting the Lens pier count as community service for school children and non-violent offenders
If you can't get people out there voluntarily, then force them out there. Many school kids need community service to graduate, and there are always non-violent offenders in need of community service hours. So what better community service than helping the city to justify it's $50 million boondoggle by making it seem popular? All you would have to do is walk out to the end of the Lens pier, and the parking ticket booth attendant, from Number 10, can sign the community service forms.
Number 6: Scrub your own name into the algae on the Lens pier
Give people the chance to scrub their own name in the the algae that will grow on the constantly wet concrete at the end of the Lens pier. It will help to keep them less slippery, and people can have a temporary graffiti picture memento of their trip to the Lens pier. It will always grow back, so they have to keep coming back to do it again.
Number 5: Scrub your own name into the bird droppings on the Lens pier
See Number 6 above, except with the bird guano that will be all over the Lens pier.
Number 4: Get St. Petersburg College to offer an Underwater Basket Weaving course out on the Lens pier
Every college kid needs an easy-credit course, so why not the perennial favorite, underwater basket weaving out at the end of the Lens pier.
Number 3: Hand out virtual reality glasses, so you can pretend you are somewhere other than the Lens pier
Since the Lens pier itself will get kind of boring after the first time you visit, the city should lend visitors virtual reality glasses so they can pretend they are somewhere else every time they go to the Lens pier.
Number 2: Put some of those Redbox and Blockbuster DVD rental vending machines out there
We always see people at those DVD vending machines at Publix and Walgreens, but there aren't many in downtown, so to get the residents of downtown to go to the Lens pier, just put a bunch of those at the end. Like the parking ticket booth, they won't take up much space, and you are guaranteed repeat visitors.
And The Number 1 Way To Keep People Going To The Lens Pier.... GELATO!
We must have heard the word "Gelato" hundreds of times in reference to the Lens Pier and what is out at the end waiting for us. It is the only thing that all city staff members can think of when asked what there is to do out there, it's their go-to answer, so we had to make the undeniable lure of this magical frozen wonder treat number 1 on the countdown.
There you go Mayor Foster, we came up with your ten ways to get people to constantly go out to the Lens pier, no need to spend thousands of taxpayer dollars to send city employees on a week-long California vacation now.
Monday, July 2, 2012
What If Foster's Pier Thinking Were Applied To Tropicana Field?
We ran across this article from last year in the St. Petersburg Times about the rising subsidy that the city has to pay to keep Tropicana Field running and the Rays playing games there, and this sentence really stood out for us:
"Costs usually outpace revenues $1 million to $2 million a year, creating an operating subsidy on top of St. Petersburg's annual $6 million debt service on the Trop construction bonds."
So, lets just average that out and say there is a $1.5 million net operating subsidy each year on the Trop and the Rays(exactly the same as the subsidy on the Pier), and added to that there is another $6 million the city pays each year on the debt for the costs to build the Trop. The Pier generates $74 million in economic impact to the city each year on $1.5 million in net costs, and the Trop and the Rays generate a $92.5 million economic impact to the city each year on $7.5 million in net costs(of course this doesn't include the "little" expenses that the city has spent on both structures over the last several years either, just the fixed yearly costs.)
<abacus clattering>
For more than a decade, for each dollar the city has spent on the Trop and Rays we got $12.33 back, and for each city dollar spent on the Pier we got $49.33 back. Which one seems like a better business model to you?
The answer is that both are worth keeping, they are both strong assets for the city of St. Petersburg, and you can't find their equals across the bay in Tampa. They both generate many times more dollars in economic impact than they cost to maintain, and they are both icons of our city.
So why is Mayor Bill Foster determined to destroy a city icon that has a much better economic rate of return than Rays Baseball?
It may be because Foster is a "sports guy", he goes to Rays games all the time, and he almost never goes to the Pier, so it could be a simple personal preference.
But maybe he is really laser-focused on reducing all city subsidies(like the Pier, the Coliseum and Mahaffey Theater), and if the Rays weren't under contract he would do the same thing to Tropicana Field as he is trying to do the the Pier, tear it down and build a cheaper stadium with one-third the size of the current yearly subsidy.
Imagine a smaller(but very artsy), minor-league baseball stadium sitting where Tropicana Field is now. No dome or air-conditioning to keep spectators dry and cool. No in-stadium restaurants. No events other than baseball games taking place, and a much much smaller economic impact. That could be the future for the Trop under a Foster "subsidy reduction at all costs" plan like the one he is pushing with the Lens Pier. And as for the Rays, they would go the way of the pelicans that have called the Pier home for generations, off to a better roost, where they are wanted, perhaps in Hillsborough County close to the water somewhere.
"Costs usually outpace revenues $1 million to $2 million a year, creating an operating subsidy on top of St. Petersburg's annual $6 million debt service on the Trop construction bonds."
So, lets just average that out and say there is a $1.5 million net operating subsidy each year on the Trop and the Rays(exactly the same as the subsidy on the Pier), and added to that there is another $6 million the city pays each year on the debt for the costs to build the Trop. The Pier generates $74 million in economic impact to the city each year on $1.5 million in net costs, and the Trop and the Rays generate a $92.5 million economic impact to the city each year on $7.5 million in net costs(of course this doesn't include the "little" expenses that the city has spent on both structures over the last several years either, just the fixed yearly costs.)
<abacus clattering>
For more than a decade, for each dollar the city has spent on the Trop and Rays we got $12.33 back, and for each city dollar spent on the Pier we got $49.33 back. Which one seems like a better business model to you?
The answer is that both are worth keeping, they are both strong assets for the city of St. Petersburg, and you can't find their equals across the bay in Tampa. They both generate many times more dollars in economic impact than they cost to maintain, and they are both icons of our city.
So why is Mayor Bill Foster determined to destroy a city icon that has a much better economic rate of return than Rays Baseball?
It may be because Foster is a "sports guy", he goes to Rays games all the time, and he almost never goes to the Pier, so it could be a simple personal preference.
But maybe he is really laser-focused on reducing all city subsidies(like the Pier, the Coliseum and Mahaffey Theater), and if the Rays weren't under contract he would do the same thing to Tropicana Field as he is trying to do the the Pier, tear it down and build a cheaper stadium with one-third the size of the current yearly subsidy.
Imagine a smaller(but very artsy), minor-league baseball stadium sitting where Tropicana Field is now. No dome or air-conditioning to keep spectators dry and cool. No in-stadium restaurants. No events other than baseball games taking place, and a much much smaller economic impact. That could be the future for the Trop under a Foster "subsidy reduction at all costs" plan like the one he is pushing with the Lens Pier. And as for the Rays, they would go the way of the pelicans that have called the Pier home for generations, off to a better roost, where they are wanted, perhaps in Hillsborough County close to the water somewhere.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Breakfast With The Mayor At Bob Evans... Again
Mayor Bill Foster is having his next "Breakfast with the Mayor" event at Bob Evans restaurant, again. Although this one will be at a different branch of the Ohio-based, billion-dollar, 570 location restaurant chain's stores than Mayor Foster held his Breakfast event at just two months ago. What does it say about the Mayor that less than a week before "Independents Week" he is holding yet another event at a major chain restaurant? In fact, half of Foster's Breakfast events this year have been held at major chain restaurants instead of the dozens of local restaurants that offer breakfast.
Looking back at the last two years, Mayor Foster chose to hold these informal Breakfast events almost exclusively at locally owned restaurants or institutions, so what changed this year? The answer may lie in what kind of effect having the Mayor over for breakfast has on the host restaurant. We talked to a couple of employees at one of the restaurants that hosted a Breakfast with the Mayor a while back, and were told that "all of our regulars stayed away when they heard that the Mayor was going to be here, we were less than half full until after he left, then things returned to normal". Or maybe it has more to do with Mayor Foster's recent revelation at a Lens Pier visioning meeting that he encourages people to shop at large corporate-owned stores instead of locally owned establishments. Either way, it's another slap in the face of the whole "shop local" movement, just a week after he posed for a picture at the proclamation ceremony for Independents Week.
Just a side note while we are on the subject of the Mayor promoting things from outside of the city, can someone tell the person in charge of the City of St. Petersburg's facebook page that the picture taken from the Sunshine Skyway Bridge looking up at the support cables, which is currently set as the main background picture on the city's page, was taken in Hillsborough County, not St. Petersburg? We have enough problems being confused with Tampa, and that doesn't help.
Looking back at the last two years, Mayor Foster chose to hold these informal Breakfast events almost exclusively at locally owned restaurants or institutions, so what changed this year? The answer may lie in what kind of effect having the Mayor over for breakfast has on the host restaurant. We talked to a couple of employees at one of the restaurants that hosted a Breakfast with the Mayor a while back, and were told that "all of our regulars stayed away when they heard that the Mayor was going to be here, we were less than half full until after he left, then things returned to normal". Or maybe it has more to do with Mayor Foster's recent revelation at a Lens Pier visioning meeting that he encourages people to shop at large corporate-owned stores instead of locally owned establishments. Either way, it's another slap in the face of the whole "shop local" movement, just a week after he posed for a picture at the proclamation ceremony for Independents Week.
Just a side note while we are on the subject of the Mayor promoting things from outside of the city, can someone tell the person in charge of the City of St. Petersburg's facebook page that the picture taken from the Sunshine Skyway Bridge looking up at the support cables, which is currently set as the main background picture on the city's page, was taken in Hillsborough County, not St. Petersburg? We have enough problems being confused with Tampa, and that doesn't help.
Monday, June 18, 2012
The Foster, The Baker, The Candlestick-maker...
Sorry, we couldn't resist the reference, especially given what Mayor Bill Foster said at the last Lens Pier meeting on Thursday:
"If you want to buy a candle, if you want to buy a t-shirt, you can go anywhere, you can buy that at Target, at Steinmart, Bealls, you can do that."
This was clearly a shot across the bow at Nicolas Weathersbee, one of the people behind VoteOnThePier.com, who also works at the candle shop on the Pier. Nicolas has been an outspoken proponent for allowing people to vote on the Pier's future since the unannounced vote by city council to tear down the inverted pyramid pier almost two years ago. In response to Foster's statement, Nicolas had this to say:
"So our mayor is suggesting that people DON'T BUY LOCAL. BUY CHINESE. Too bad our company has been resisting Chinese manufacturers for 15 years, our products can only be bought in two stores in all of Florida... And by the way, the candles are ONLY made at The Pier, and John's pass. They are unique to St.Pete, and absolutely CANNOT BE BOUGHT ANYWHERE ELSE, AND DEFINITELY NOT TARGET! The candle company at The Pier is proud that they can say "Made in America". They have been hiring artists for 15 years locally, and have never sold out to the Chinese manufacturers, who have been after them for years."
It is ironic, to say the least, that Foster's insistence that people shop at major corporate retail stores instead of locally-owned businesses comes just a couple weeks before Independents Week, an event geared toward getting people to shop more at local independent shops in St. Petersburg. In fact, the proclamation for Independents Week happened at City Hall only hours before Mayor Foster spoke the above quote. Can you say "awkward..."?
So that's the "Foster" and the "Candlestick-maker" parts of the headline(yes, technically he doesn't make "stick" candles, but "round ball" candles), but what about the "Baker" part? Well, that part just fits nicely into everything we've been posting about recently related to former-Mayor Rick Baker and how he is different(better) than our current-Mayor Bill Foster. Here is what Mr. Weathersbee had to say,
"Baker used to come in the front door of the pier and look you in the eye and ask how things are going... Baker was quoted as saying my candle shop was his favorite shop at the pier. That was nice..."
Just one more in the long list of reasons why we miss Mayor Rick Baker.
"If you want to buy a candle, if you want to buy a t-shirt, you can go anywhere, you can buy that at Target, at Steinmart, Bealls, you can do that."
This was clearly a shot across the bow at Nicolas Weathersbee, one of the people behind VoteOnThePier.com, who also works at the candle shop on the Pier. Nicolas has been an outspoken proponent for allowing people to vote on the Pier's future since the unannounced vote by city council to tear down the inverted pyramid pier almost two years ago. In response to Foster's statement, Nicolas had this to say:
"So our mayor is suggesting that people DON'T BUY LOCAL. BUY CHINESE. Too bad our company has been resisting Chinese manufacturers for 15 years, our products can only be bought in two stores in all of Florida... And by the way, the candles are ONLY made at The Pier, and John's pass. They are unique to St.Pete, and absolutely CANNOT BE BOUGHT ANYWHERE ELSE, AND DEFINITELY NOT TARGET! The candle company at The Pier is proud that they can say "Made in America". They have been hiring artists for 15 years locally, and have never sold out to the Chinese manufacturers, who have been after them for years."
It is ironic, to say the least, that Foster's insistence that people shop at major corporate retail stores instead of locally-owned businesses comes just a couple weeks before Independents Week, an event geared toward getting people to shop more at local independent shops in St. Petersburg. In fact, the proclamation for Independents Week happened at City Hall only hours before Mayor Foster spoke the above quote. Can you say "awkward..."?
So that's the "Foster" and the "Candlestick-maker" parts of the headline(yes, technically he doesn't make "stick" candles, but "round ball" candles), but what about the "Baker" part? Well, that part just fits nicely into everything we've been posting about recently related to former-Mayor Rick Baker and how he is different(better) than our current-Mayor Bill Foster. Here is what Mr. Weathersbee had to say,
"Baker used to come in the front door of the pier and look you in the eye and ask how things are going... Baker was quoted as saying my candle shop was his favorite shop at the pier. That was nice..."
Just one more in the long list of reasons why we miss Mayor Rick Baker.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Mayor Bill Foster Using Evolution Arguments For The Lens Pier
We couldn't make this up if we tried, but the arguments Mayor Foster is using in favor of the scaled-back Lens pier design mirror those of the "Foster's rule" of evolutionary biology which states that,
"members of a species get smaller or bigger depending on the resources available in the environment. This is the core of the study of island biogeography. For example, it is known that pygmy mammoths evolved from normal mammoths on small islands. Similar evolutionary paths have been observed in elephants, hippopotamuses, boas, deer, and humans"
Mayor Foster keeps arguing that the current inverted pyramid doesn't have the resources(subsidy) to stay as big as it is and with all of the buildings and some of the parking over water, so it should change(or evolve) to be much smaller and have no buildings or parking over water so it can fit his planned smaller subsidy from the city, the exact same argument as Foster's rule for evolution. The irony of course is that Bill Foster is very much against the idea of evolution(which we've covered before), saying in a letter to the Pinellas School Board that it lead to Nazism and the Columbine massacre, so why is he pushing so hard in favor of evolution for the Pier? Maybe the VoteOnThePier.com folks need to speak the Mayor's language and say that the inverted pyramid is an "Intelligent Design", that might just win the Mayor over.
"members of a species get smaller or bigger depending on the resources available in the environment. This is the core of the study of island biogeography. For example, it is known that pygmy mammoths evolved from normal mammoths on small islands. Similar evolutionary paths have been observed in elephants, hippopotamuses, boas, deer, and humans"
Mayor Foster keeps arguing that the current inverted pyramid doesn't have the resources(subsidy) to stay as big as it is and with all of the buildings and some of the parking over water, so it should change(or evolve) to be much smaller and have no buildings or parking over water so it can fit his planned smaller subsidy from the city, the exact same argument as Foster's rule for evolution. The irony of course is that Bill Foster is very much against the idea of evolution(which we've covered before), saying in a letter to the Pinellas School Board that it lead to Nazism and the Columbine massacre, so why is he pushing so hard in favor of evolution for the Pier? Maybe the VoteOnThePier.com folks need to speak the Mayor's language and say that the inverted pyramid is an "Intelligent Design", that might just win the Mayor over.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Mayor Foster's Staff Issues Sloppy Response To Pier Renovation Estimate, And VOTP Fires Back
Mayor Bill Foster again used his sometimes-weekly Weekly Forecast email last Friday to lob a fourth round of propaganda at the VoteOnThePier.com group, this time in the form of a critique of the Archer Western proposal to remodel the inverted pyramid building and rebuild the pier approach.
Today, VoteOnThePier.com fired back with a well written response to the city's critique of the estimate, which amounted to them trying to educate the city on the details of which elements from the estimate would be included, why they were included, and why the second largest bridge builder in the country doesn't need to be told it isn't charging enough money for concrete.
The response addresses every point of the city's critique, sometimes with stinging critiques of it's own toward the city, which clearly only put out the quickly-written critique to try to cover it's bases as a way to dismiss the Archer Western pier renovation proposal since the opposition to the Lens design only appears to be growing and not diminishing as the city had hoped.
First Public Input Forum
At the first Public Input Session held last week, the city presented the same inaccurate depictions of the Lens pier with all of the optional features that won't be included, like the towers, reef, docent theater and so on. As the majority of people came forward to speak about how they didn't want the Lens design for one reason or another, Council-chair Leslie Curran stated that the Lens design had been decided upon, and that people would only be allowed to speak about the Lens at the next public input meetings. It looks like according to the Mayor's Friday email, only people with "programming ideas about our new Pier" will be welcome at the rest of these "public input" meetings. So when the majority of the public input isn't to the Mayor's liking, just prevent the opposition from attending. Way to be open to public input there Mr. Mayor.
Also in pier referendum news today, several news organizations pointed out that the Mayor's made-up pier petition deadline means nothing because he can't legally set restrictions on petition drives, since those are governed by the state and county only.
Yet again, the Mayor ends up as the loser of this round. At some point you would hope that he and council will eventually get it, and let the people vote.
Today, VoteOnThePier.com fired back with a well written response to the city's critique of the estimate, which amounted to them trying to educate the city on the details of which elements from the estimate would be included, why they were included, and why the second largest bridge builder in the country doesn't need to be told it isn't charging enough money for concrete.
The response addresses every point of the city's critique, sometimes with stinging critiques of it's own toward the city, which clearly only put out the quickly-written critique to try to cover it's bases as a way to dismiss the Archer Western pier renovation proposal since the opposition to the Lens design only appears to be growing and not diminishing as the city had hoped.
First Public Input Forum
At the first Public Input Session held last week, the city presented the same inaccurate depictions of the Lens pier with all of the optional features that won't be included, like the towers, reef, docent theater and so on. As the majority of people came forward to speak about how they didn't want the Lens design for one reason or another, Council-chair Leslie Curran stated that the Lens design had been decided upon, and that people would only be allowed to speak about the Lens at the next public input meetings. It looks like according to the Mayor's Friday email, only people with "programming ideas about our new Pier" will be welcome at the rest of these "public input" meetings. So when the majority of the public input isn't to the Mayor's liking, just prevent the opposition from attending. Way to be open to public input there Mr. Mayor.
Also in pier referendum news today, several news organizations pointed out that the Mayor's made-up pier petition deadline means nothing because he can't legally set restrictions on petition drives, since those are governed by the state and county only.
Yet again, the Mayor ends up as the loser of this round. At some point you would hope that he and council will eventually get it, and let the people vote.
Mayor Bill Foster's Growing "Big Brother Machine"
Last week, Mayor Foster and his staff convinced City Council to approve spending $270,000 on security cameras to be put in place before the RNC party that is scheduled for the end of August at Tropicana Field.
We've covered Foster's aspirations to become the Big Brother of St. Petersburg, as well as his early failures, but now he is spending over a quarter-million dollars on security cameras for a one-day event, without any guarantee of being reimbursed for the expense. How is it that in the fifth year of budget cuts Council-chair Curran was the only one to vote against this waste of money?
Worse still, we don't know where these cameras will be placed, or how many there will be, all in the name of "security".
And in a slap to the face of city council, after the vote Mayor Foster says the cameras will not be moved to neighborhoods(the opposite of what the City Administrator had said), and if council wants neighborhood crime hot spot cameras it is "up to them to figure out a way to pay for them". With that, Mayor Foster showed just how much of a jerk he can be, especially since the funding source for his new cameras isn't guaranteed.
We've covered Foster's aspirations to become the Big Brother of St. Petersburg, as well as his early failures, but now he is spending over a quarter-million dollars on security cameras for a one-day event, without any guarantee of being reimbursed for the expense. How is it that in the fifth year of budget cuts Council-chair Curran was the only one to vote against this waste of money?
Worse still, we don't know where these cameras will be placed, or how many there will be, all in the name of "security".
And in a slap to the face of city council, after the vote Mayor Foster says the cameras will not be moved to neighborhoods(the opposite of what the City Administrator had said), and if council wants neighborhood crime hot spot cameras it is "up to them to figure out a way to pay for them". With that, Mayor Foster showed just how much of a jerk he can be, especially since the funding source for his new cameras isn't guaranteed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)