Sunday column: The case against Hometown Democracy

The argument being made against Florida Hometown Democracy by big-money groups translates to:

AAAAHH! AAAAH! AAAAH! If you vote for Hometown Democracy, your tongue will turn purple. Florida will sink into the sea. Evil people who smell bad are behind it. Only an IDIOT would vote for it.

One example of this rhetoric, as we saw recently, was the sleazy letter signed by John Thrasher, a Tallahassee lobbyist carrying water for the anti-Hometown crowd.

Thrasher's letter tried to drum up fear toward a mysterious group known as "electors" who would take over this state if Hometown Democracy passes.

"Electors," of course, means the voters. Thrasher was trying to demagogue voters into fearing themselves.

Yep, the big-money boys are being driven bug-eyed crazy at the thought of voters taking over control of growth in Florida. They can't mount a coherent campaign. All they can do is jabber threats and insults.

So, I thought I'd help out.

Even though I'm perfectly okay with Hometown Democracy, there are arguments against putting voters directly in control of growth decisions. Here are just a few... [rest of column]

The mail: the voting machines work, the problem is the voters

Most of this week's e-mail was about the new optical-scan voting machines that were demonstrated Tuesday in Pinellas County. I asked in a column and a blog post whether we were just trading one set of problems for another.

From a poll worker in a county that already uses them:

Your comment about the possibility of a bottleneck at the machine is unfounded.  I was required to be in constant attendance at the machine and never experienced a backup to use it.  It is easy to use and practically foolproof.  It gives the number of voters using the machine at all times and the best part is the paper backup in case of a recount.  All the paper ballots for that precinct are locked in a bag and kept locked in that bag until the count is verified and accepted.  The precinct captain is responsible for the delivery of the ballot bag to the precinct headquarters at the end of the day. -- Jeannine Seals

Thank you for being the voice of experience. I certainly agree about the advantage of having the paper ballot as a paper trail (although we haven't changed our law yet to allow them to be used in a recount). As for making sure there are not problems in the polling places, as always, it depends entirely on the training and procedures that each county's elections office puts in place, seems to me.

The vast majority of precinct poll workers are conscientious, hard working people.  However, to expect them to learn an entirely new system in the amount of time being made available, is not very realistic.  I predict that if the new systems are rushed into service and used in the 2008 presidential election, there will be many, many problems.  Then at the end of the day, the rest of the nation will once again be looking at Florida and shaking its head.  Who can blame them? -- Michael Ross

Thanks, Mr. Ross. See comment above on the importance of training and procedures.

Would a "none of the above" or "no vote by choice" selection solve the undervote problem? -- Kay

Kay is referring to the fact that the optical-scan machines will accept a ballot even when it is not marked in all races. The touch-screen machines at least ask the voter whether he or she intended to leave the ballot blank.

The optical-scan machines CAN be programmed to warn about undervotes. So you could include a "no vote by choice" option in every race, and then program it to reject a ballot where there wasn't something marked in every race. The tradeoff would be longer ballots and, I imagine, a lot more delays at the scanner, when voters didn't fill out every race and had their ballot spat back at them. But again, a friendly instruction by the poll worker when handing the voter a ballot would cut down on that as well, I suppose.

How does the scanner handle smudges or inadvertent pen marks on the ballot? And, like old paper ballots, can't these be purposely ( and fraudulently) marked in a recount? Or, would this be a scanned recount? Hate to say it, but punch ballots do work if officials clean out the bin. Also, isn't the under vote problem over-blown? I've used paper ballots, levered voting, punch cards, and touch screens. Got to rank punch and touchers as the best. -- Bill Northrop

What the scanner cares about is whether the little ovals are filled in, or (depending on the company) where the two halves of a broken arrow are connected. Other marks don't matter. (Of course, if your "stray mark" filled in an oval, it would count it as a vote.) Could they be marked fraudulently in a recount? To do that DURING a recount, you'd have to have a pretty massive conspiracy of everybody in the room and all the witnesses, seems to me. Otherwise the ballots are kept under seals with serial numbers, etc. from the time they are collected. As for whether it would be a scanned or manual recount of the paper ballots, that's up to the Legislature -- which, as I said, hasn't even passed a law saying they'll be USED in a recount yet!

The problems with voting in Fl is not with machines, it is with the loud mouthed people who complain but don't show up and vote. -- Lee Carlson, Spring Hill

You said it.

Lastly, this suggestion on a foolproof voting system:

Begin voting , by opening the booklet in front of you . Make your selection by using the serrated metal punch, which goes through a hole constructed of  plastic and metal the directs the stylus for your choice. Your only responsibility is to ensure a metal serrated stylus get through the piece of paper. What could be simpler? -- Sal Reale

Hah! Mr. Reale humorously describes the punch-card voting system that we used until 2000. In fact, the punch cards worked pretty well. We got into trouble only when we had an election where we were trying to measure just a few hundred votes cast out of many millions -- and NO elections system is going to give us that kind of perfection. Touch screens, optical scans, X-marked paper ballots -- if the difference is 537 votes out of 6-million, we'll have court fights, absentee fights, all the same stuff.

More mail: Not exactly full of sympathy

Here's an e-mail from a gentleman not impressed with the grant of clemency to Richard Paey, the guy sentenced as a drug trafficker because he had amassed a large number of pills for his own chronic pain:

At age 37 I had a vasectomy WITHOUT anesthesia and as I watched the procedure, the attending nurse said, "I have never deen anyone, even with anesthesia, so stoic during surgery." Now I am too old to be tough, but 14 months ago I checked into the hospital at 8AM and had 2 inguinal hernias repaired; at 2PM I was in my car headed home. . . . still untouched in my cabinet are the Oxycodone (pain) pills that were prescribed. What am I saying? Although I have used ittle medicine, I am aware that there is punishment for illegal use, sometimes quite severe if bad enough. Anyone who regularly gets queasy over a little pain should certainly know that. One should be able to manage with legally prescribed amounts, and I have never heard of any doctor prescribing 700 Percocet pills. Thus this @/#*% idiot got exactly what he deserved. . . . until the clemency! -- Ol' Miller

Holy cow! And did you walk 20 miles barefoot through the snow to school as well? Different people have different pain tolerances. As to what Paey went through because of crippling past injury and chronic disease, whether it was just "a little pain," as you put it, I can't say.

Here's a reader's comment on the recent traffic deaths involving teenagers:

What in the world is it going to take to get parents to do their job?  How can they let their kids drive when they're certainly not being responsible?  If the parents don't know their kids have taken "their" car without their permission...well, duh, then maybe somebody should step up to the bat. -- Bonnie C.

Seems harsh to me, Ms. C. Even the "good" kids of "normal" parents sometimes do things they shouldn't. I am trying to think of any of my friends with teenagers who HAVEN'T been panicked or frustrated when their kid stayed out too late, didn't come home, rode with somebody they shouldn't, took a risk they knew they weren't supposed to ... I agree that some parents are irresponsible, but tragic accidents involving bad decisions by kids are not an automatic indictment of their parenting. I say this as a former idiot kid who spent a certain amount of time joyriding with equally idiot friends who liked to drive in the left lane around blind curves yelling, "Wheeee!"

Are the new voting machines worse?

"Turn Ballot Over To Continue Voting."

I gotta tell you, those words send a little shiver down my spine, as I think of Florida's ghosts of undervotes past. And yet, after watching four companies demonstrate their optical-scan ballot systems on Tuesday at the Pinellas Supervisor of Elections Office, I can see how we are going to be trading one set of problems for another.

Don't get me wrong. I understand the key and fatal flaw of touch-screen voting machines: There is no physical record of the ballot -- no complete "paper trail." In the end, there was enough agreement from most parties that a democracy ought to have that kind of permanent record. So our Legislature has ordered the touch screens replaced.

With each of the four optical-scan systems demonstrated (the only four to be certified by the state, or in the process of being certified) voters are handed a paper ballot. They go to a row of privacy booths (like we have now, and we had with the old punch cards) and they mark their ballot with a dark pen or special marker provided. Then they take their ballot to a central scanner and stick it in, like feeding a piece of paper into a printer or fax. The scanner rejects their ballot if they haven't filled out any races correctly (say, circling names instead of filling out the circles) or have voted twice in the same race; otherwise it accepts it and dumps it into a secure bin beneath.

Yet our touch-screen machines also had certain virtues that the optical-scan ballots can't match. Here are some potential problems:

* Two-sided paper ballots that will again make the ballot layout (remember the butterfly!) and the placement of a race on the ballot critical factors. Not to mention the fact that voters have to remember to turn the page.

* No undervote warning. The touch-screens remind you that you haven't cast a ballot in all races and give you a second chance to change your mind. The optical scanners CAN be programmed to reject ballots with undervotes, but since undervotes are so common, and there would usually be only one scanner in each precinct, there's a potential for backups and frustration.

* No ballot review. Unlike touch-screens, only one of the four systems provides a visual review of the ballot after it's been scanned. The one system that allows a visual review brings us back to the same problem of long lines -- imagine a busy precinct with only one scanner, and each voter standing there poring over his or her ballot after feeding it into the scanner!

* The same security issues. As with touch screens, we still come down to a computer in each precinct scanning the ballots and reporting a claimed result. And with all four systems, we're talking about telephone modems phoning in the results to a central headquarters. The presentations Tuesday were too brief to get into all the security measures; I'm sure they have them. But in the end, voting is still an act of faith that the precinct scanner has done its job. For the conspiracy theorists out there, there's still the possibility that the machines could be programmed internally to monkey around. We still haven't standardized our laws for who gets access to the machines and the relationships between vendors and each county elections office. But the one sure-fire advantage is that we have paper ballots to double-check; we just need to make sure that our laws let us take full advantage of them.

Sorry to sound like a naysayer. Remember that of Florida's 67 counties, only 15 have been using touch-screens since the Big Switch after the 2000 elections; the rest are already using some variety of optical-scan with generally good results. On the other hand, we are talking about yet another new voting system for Florida's largest 15 counties, for the most part. It is hard to imagine a future without controversies over undervotes, ballot layout and so forth.

Here's the transcript of the Sept. 25 chat

In today's weekly live chat here on TroxBlog we covered a pretty good range of topics, including:

* Whether the optical-scan voting machines that I saw demonstrated this morning are an improvement over touch screens. We had some comments from counties that already use them and like them.

* What's going to happen now that a judge has thrown the "super homestead" amendment off the ballot. The news today is that the Legislature is going to appeal.

* Whether the Legislature will include no-fault auto insurance in its upcoming special session. Looks like the answer is yes, since there's a preliminary deal in place to extend it.

* Whether this Democratic election mess shows that we need a single, national primary election.

To read the transcript of today's chat, click on the "Comments" link a few lines below. You'll see what folks had to say, and a space for you to add your own question or comments.

As always, thanks to everyone who took part in today's chat or who stopped by just to take a look. I hope you'll come back for the next one...

Revenge of the weekly live chat, noon Tuesday

Okay, so there's no real reason to run a picture of Godzilla, but I just felt like it. I hope you can join me for our weekly live chat here on TroxBlog from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday. Feel free to bring up any topic you'd like about current events in Florida or the Tampa Bay area, or beyond.

I plan on chatting live from the offices of the Pinellas Supervisor of Elections, Deborah Clark, who's having an open house Tuesday for anybody who wants to watch the sales pitches for new optical-scan voting machines to replace Florida's touch-screen machines. Check out the details at www.votepinellas.com.

Let's hope that we can buy something we won't be throwing out in a few years...

To watch or take part in Tuesday's chat, come back to TroxBlog at noon Tuesday and look for a new announcement with the headline, "The Sept. 25 Chat Is Open." Click on the "comments" link of that item to see what's been said so far or to add your own comments.

As always, you can "pre-file" a question or comment to the comments of this item, and I'll work them in to tomorrow's chat. And if you can't be here live Tuesday, you can always come back after to read a transcript.

Hope to see you!

The mail

No single dominant theme in this week's e-mail -- here's a good mix.

I have an idea and want to run it by you. Being a Democrat, say we all vote like we’re supposed to on the 29 th , but Karen Thurman announces that she will hold secret the results until the morning of February 5 th .  This way she can appease the DNC and still have an edge by releasing the results in the morning of February 5 th .  Tuesday’s voters will know what Florida thinks while lining up for their own choice, and Florida will have abided by the rules but still have influence. What do you think? -- Brian Marc Schatz

Dear Mr. Schatz: That's a good try and it would work if the election were a private affair. But both the Democrats and the Republicans long ago co-opted the state election law and made primary elections a taxpayer-funded, official public matter. The party itself doesn't "own" the election; the taxpayers do. Still, maybe state law could be changed to allow it -- maybe the Democrats should ask their Republican friends in the Legislature (who, remember, voted for this early primary in the first place) to give them a helping hand!

I just received the following email and am wondering if this is true... I am so sick and tired of refugee's receiving benefits without even trying to become a citizen let alone learn to speak our official language.  Since 1956 I have been paying into Social Security and I can tell you my benefits are no where near what this email says a 65 year old refugee is paid. -- Linda S.

The e-mail that Linda S. sends along is a well-worn Internet hoax about how a good, taxpaying America who pays into the system for decades doesn't get benefits as good as those given to a refugee newcomer. Actually, this hoax started in Canada but it was quickly adapted for the U.S. For the history and some facts, check out my favorite hoax-busting Web site. Here's the specific link:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/refugees.asp

Here's a followup from Ann Goldenberg of the educational channel consortium in Hillsborough County, trying to save that outfit from county budget cuts:

Tonight the BOCC voted 5-2 (Ferlita, White, Hagan, Sharp, and Higginbothan) to fund The Ed Channel at $250,000 for one year. This gives us a chance to broaden our support and keep on keeping on! I will give you more info later but I wanted to let you all know asap  what happened. My most grateful thanks to all of you - all of your hard work and  support paid off! -- Ann Goldenberg

More on the Jim Smith land scandal in Pinellas:

Can you help the people of Pinellas County and Clearwater get to the Governor to get him to get rid of Smith? He is a disgrace to his office and the people who voted him in office. He it the one that started this whole mess and he is getting off with a grin on his face saying he did not do anything wrong!!! -- Charlotte M.

Dear Charlotte M.: I don't think the governor has much taste for it and the moment has probably passed, politically speaking, unless something new comes out.... which leaves it up to the voters, if (1) Smith runs again, (2) somebody runs against him, and (3) the voters say so.

Mr. Troxler, we need a Harry update.  Some of us are worried about him. -- Jennifer

Well, thanks for asking. Harry the dog, diagnosed with cancer last fall, is still alive and still shows puppy-like enthusiasm in spurts, especially for treats, walks and doorbells. But he doesn't have much endurance and is short of breath. We think a lot about when the time will be right for the upcoming decision, believe me.

If you get a chance, please read Nelson's follow-up in the comments to my reply to his criticisms of my column on Hometown Democracy. I stand by my criticisms of the anti-HD letter that I wrote about in the column. I mention in the column a legendary speech in which one politician accuses his opponent of having a sister who was a "thespian," etc., which prompted this letter:

Great column!  I bet that vile Mr. Thasher masticates - particularly while eating meals!! I think the "speech" you reference is from an old, old MAD magazine I read as a kid.  I think it was called "The Non-Political Speech" or something like that which was excellent. -- Dave Seigworth

Dear Dave: Ah, another MAD reader! Yes, I remember when MAD printed that speech. But the magazine, in turn, took it from Florida political history dating back to 1950, the year that George Smathers defeated Claude Pepper in a race for the U.S. Senate. The "thespian" speech was a hoax attributed to Smathers that year. Smathers denied to his death that he actually gave it. With the usual Wikipedia caveats, here's a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Smathers

Thanks for all the e-mails and comments this week, and my best wishes to everyone for a great weekend!

Dr. Mormino

Here's more from Gary Mormino, the professor of history at USF-St. Petersburg, an authority on Florida history and author of Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams. He is an inveterate reader of old newspapers -- God bless the man! -- and is always dropping off ecletic clippings from the past. These are from the late 1950s:

Gender history: "And Just Why Shouldn't The City of Tampa Have A Woman Mayor?" asks a patronizing 1959 headline. But a 1959 news article claims that most young women wanted a career as a homemaker -- a rebellion against their World War II-era working mothers!

Sports history: A former governor causes quite a flap by calling the University of Florida football team a "disgrace" after a loss. Meanwhile, did you ever hear of Don Larsen's perfect game pitched in the 1957 World Series? Here was his reward: a $6,000 raise the next spring.

The more things change: One of my predecesors as a Times columnist, Dick Bothwell, tours the beaches and bemoans the conversion from old cottages to a street lined with motels. These days, we're nostalgic for the mom-and-pop motels and bemoan their conversion to condos! And on the right, the Times editorial page muses about whether Pinellas County needs a consolidated government. Hah!

How quaint: the Times seriously proposes using tunnels beneath Tampa Bay as fallout shelters. And on the right, we predict a booming future for the area of St. Petersburg now known as Midtown.

In Which I Am Called Out On Hometown Democracy...

Here's a good comment about yesterday's column on Hometown Democracy. I thought I'd re-post it here for everybody to see, along with my reply that follows in the post beneath this one.

Troxler writes: "Let's scare people instead. Let's tell 'em taxes will go up, their kids will hate them, and more hurricanes will hit. "Oh, and let's also tell 'em that an evil, mysterious group known as the "electors" will be running Florida. Surely they won't stand for that."

Which, Howard, is exactly what the pro-HD folks do to get signatures, only they use different bogeymen, different lies. They say evil developers are to blame (the same ones that built their homes when they invaded, but they were OK to move here). They say the state will be paved and there will be gridlock and no water and concrete canyons. Yet you don't seem to mind this hyperbole because it serves your purpose. Do you want to make a fair analysis of this issue, or do you just want to get the readers' blood up? We know, it's the latter.

Not to mention that you and the HD folks conveniently forget that cities and counties do not have the final say on comp plan changes, nor are their decisions simple one-off votes. There are at least two and often many more public hearings and those changes have to run a gantlet up to DCA and back down again and must meet approval at every step. Even after those approvals, citizens can still challenge such changes and can even appeal to the point of an administrative hearing. So it's not as simple as you'd like to make it.

Florida has a long history of bad planning. The GMA [Growth Management Act] was a valiant if underpowered effort to correct that, and even it has been hobbled since. But to say that the process is completely corrupt and only a plebiscite will fix it is just plain wrong. For you not to point out the subtleties is even more wrong because, wonder of hyphosis and ignorance, people believe what you write, rather than figure it out themselves. You have an even greater burden to tell the truth, since your career is founded on the conceit that you right wrongs and afflict the well off. Unless you don't really care and just want the blind adulation of your raving minions. And you clearly do.

Troxler writes:
"As I keep saying, there is an interesting debate to be had on Hometown Democracy.

"But I think that Associated Industries and other opponents don't want one."

You don't want one either, Howard. You don't want a solution, you want a drum to pound.

Finally: So your premise (don't pretend to be neutral) is that corrupt officials are to blame and instead the people must vote. If voters are so smart, why did they elect the bad officials in the first place?

Posted by: nelson | September 18, 2007 at 05:59 PM

... And My Reply

Here's my answer to the excellently stated criticisms by Nelson that I published in the previous item:

Dear nelson:

Thank you for the vigorous post. You reject criticism of misleading campaign material by the opponents of Hometown Democracy, on the grounds that the rhetoric in favor has been misleading as well. Now, I kind of think that their warnings that you cite are indeed true, but I suppose we will disagree on that.

Next, you cite the protections of Florida's state-level review as evidence of... of what? That things are working just fine? Procedure exists in Florida ultimately to enable growth. The state-level review that you mention is mostly a matter of henpecking -- and as you must know, it has just been "streamlined" by the Legislature even more. In the end of it, the forces of growth are able to say, "Everything is fine because we followed all the procedures."

You write:

You have an even greater burden to tell the truth, since your career is founded on the conceit that you right wrongs and afflict the well off. Unless you don't really care and just want the blind adulation of your raving minions. And you clearly do.... You don't want [a debate] either, Howard. You don't want a solution, you want a drum to pound.''

Actually, I want a debate. Here is the topic: Should voters, instead of local elected officials, be in charge of approving changes to local comprehensive plans in Florida? Of course, this is simply a re-statement of the Hometown Democracy proposal itself, but it has been kind of lost.

Off the top of my head I can think of many themes to explore on the "anti" side.
-- Voting on every little thing, especially in big communities, is cumbersome and unrealistic.
-- We live in a republic, not a democracy; we elect representatives. If we don't like their actions we should choose different representatives, not complain about the fact we have a republic and try to weaken its ability to govern.
-- Decisions about land use are not just political footballs to be decided on political whims. They involve many technical considerations and are best evaluated by professional staffs, who make recommendations to a board of responsible elected decision-makers.
-- All property owners are entitled to equal protection under the law in America. Subjecting each property owner to the whims of an election -- so that one might win approval, but another similar situated might be rejected by the voters -- is the very definition of unequal protection.

How'm I doin'? Feel free to chip in. But, now, isn't this better than screaming that meteors are going to fall out of the sky, orcs are going to emerge from the Earth, and anybody who likes Hometown Democracy is a fool, a sucker or a demagogue?

Interestingly, most of the anti-HD rhetoric has been based on the assumption -- this is a key point -- THAT VOTERS WILL REJECT ALL GROWTH in a knee-jerk fashion. I think that is wrong. If HD passed, I think we would see a whole new style of growth-related decision-making, in which landowners would have to engage their community up-front, rather than catering to the usual insider clique of land-use lawyers, staff and elected officials.

Lastly, you ask, why not just elect different politicians? 'Cause the folks with the money give more of it to the candidates they like, who get elected and approve their rezonings...

Best wishes,

Howard

Here's The Sept. 18 Chat -- Read A Transcript

[Click on the "Comments" link of this announcement to see what folks had to say in today's weekly online chat here on TroxBlog. The live portion of the chat is finished, but you can still add comments to the end of the list.]

Hello and welcome to this weekly's live online chat here on TroxBlog. For the next hour or so we'll be talking about current events in Florida and the Tampa Bay area. So, what do you feel like talking about? For starters, there's a touch of relief in the air today, and the Bucs won on Sunday... but of course there are Serious Things to discuss as well.

Come join me on the comments page...

Column: Hey, Buddy, Watch Who You Call An 'Elector'

Did you ever hear of the famous speech given by a Florida politician where he used a lot of big words to fool the ignorant voters?

Part of the speech supposedly went:

Are you aware that (my opponent) is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York.

Actually, the "speech" was a hoax and a parody. But it became a legend.

I thought of this as I read this letter being sent to Florida voters who signed the petition for the Hometown Democracy amendment.....

The letter in question tries to scare petition signers into changing their minds. It bears the letterhead and signature of John Thrasher, a former speaker of the state House.

As my colleague Steve Bousquet noted Saturday, Thrasher's letter fails to mention one teeny, tiny detail:

These days, he's a lobbyist with Southern Strategy Group, which represents pro-growth businesses such as Disney, Associated Industries of Florida (the outfit running this signature revocation drive) and the St. Joe Co.

                                  * * *

Finally, his letter reaches a point of classic, "thespian" absurdity:

If you read their proposed constitutional amendment ... you will also notice that it turns all power over use of Florida's land to certain "electors."

Guess who the "electors" will be. The "special interests" and their slick lawyers will rig the system to put our future in the hands of their cronies. Their "electors" will decide our fate and the fate of Florida.

Uh...

"Electors" means "the voters." [Entire column here]

Pssst! Live Chat Tuesday, Noon - 1 P.M.

I hope you'll come by between noon and 1 p.m. Tuesday for the weekly live chat here on TroxBlog. For an hour or so I'll be trading questions and comments with readers about current events in Florida and the Tampa Bay area.

To observe or take part in the chat, come back to TroxBlog at noon Tuesday and look for a new announcement with the headline, "The Sept. 18 Chat Is Open." Click on the "Comments" link of that announcement and you'll see everything that's been said so far, and a box for you to enter your own thoughts.

As always, if you can't be here live, you can click on the comments link afterward to read the transcript of the chat. If you'd like to "pre-file" a question or comment, add it to the comments of THIS item, and I'll move it over during the live chat thread.

There's plenty to talk about...

Hometown Democracy, Cable TV Channels

I said a couple of times last week that I figured on writing my Sunday column about the recent deceptive mailing being sent out by Florida's business groups fighting the Hometown Democracy movement.

But on Saturday, our Tallahassee bureau chief Steve Bousquet wrote an informative column on the same subject, making it clear where the mailing was coming from. The letter was signed by John Thrasher, former speaker of the state House, who claimed that Hometown Democracy (which seeks local voter control over growth in this state) was being backed by "big developers." Bousquet noted:

It's certainly worth debating whether Hometown Democracy will have a devastating effect on Florida's economy. But it's not pushed by "big developers."

Nowhere in his three-page letter did Thrasher find space to list his occupation.

He's a highly paid lobbyist for Southern Strategy Group, which represents progrowth businesses like Disney, Associated Industries of Florida, the firm directing the revocation drive, and St. Joe Co., a "big developer" if ever there was one.

Since I was going to say exactly the same thing, and I think it will have more impact if I wait briefly before saying it again, I switched gears on Friday. I wrote for Sunday about the fate of access channels on Bright House Networks, the biggest cable company in the Tampa Bay area. I said it was a shame that Bright House wants to move our democracy to a higher digital tier of channels that will cost more to view. At the same time, I criticized local governments for trying to get rid of public access channels. Here's the column.

The Last Word

In case you missed it, here was one reader's comment added to the post earlier this week about Steve Spratt's resignation:

So, the all knowing, obnoxious, perfect, holier than thou Howard Troxler finally has his pound of flesh.

Posted by: Judge | September 11, 2007 at 08:16 PM

And on that note...

The Readers: John Bryan, Australian Pines, Hometown Democracy, 9/11, Steve Spratt

Here's part of an e-mail that represents several more I got this week about the John Bryan case:

I'm not asking that you try to assassinate his character at all.  I'm just asking that you ALSO don't try to deify someone who was clearly abusing children, and who didn't kill himself because of his regret in his crimes - or to shelter his family from public disgrace, but killed himself because he FINALLY got busted and knew he would be ruined financially, and would go to prison where he would be the target of other inmates who hate child molesters .  He killed himself because he was the ultimate selfish coward - a master manipulator who laughed and bragged about his crimes to others, and thought he was above the law.  -- Christopher Still

Thanks for the comment. I talked about this some in yesterday's post. Yours was one the milder ones along these lines, with others basically saying that his name must be reviled forever, that we should never speak of his public deeds, etc. etc. -- reminded me a little of ancient times in Egypt or Rome where they would go back and eradicate a disgraced guy's name from all the monuments. The sexual abuse of minors is a despicable and awful thing, but in no way does discussing these other things, or even finding some good in his other deeds, condone such awfulness, seems to me.

Now, for something entirely different, this exchange of e-mails from the past week from a reader objecting to the removal of Australian pines from Fort De Soto Park in Pinellas County:

Now I know these trees are non-native trees and are being chaainsawed all over the county but the main reason you might be interested is that these trees are the main shade trees on the North Beach.  Cut them all down and without shade trees in the summer, I'll guarantee it'll be many years before this
beach is voted #1 again. -- Don Eaton

I am sorry, but I can't agree with you here. The Australian pine is not just "non-native." It is a harmful, terrible, terrible invasive species that has been a curse ever since settlers brought it here. It drives out native habitat. It actually sterilizes the soil and blocks native plant species. It provides no food source for species and it displaces other plant food sources. It does nothing except provide shade -- and that, generally in places that ought not have shade, blocking the light for the natural habitat. Along with Brazilian pepper, it is the enemy of the natural mangrove ecosystem that is typical of our inshore areas. I hope that Joyce Kilmer will forgive me -- she wrote that only God can make a tree -- but the same must go for mangroves too, I think....

Are you aware of a group calling themselves "Save Our Constitution" which is sending "Urgent" letters to those who have signed a petition put forth by Hometown Democracy (to put a motion on the ballot to restrict the wholesale use of land by developers)  telling them things which are not true about the petition? -- J. Sanders

Yessir, yes m'aam as the case may be. The letter is outrageous. It is wicked. It is dishonest. It is over the top. It also pretty much insults voters by calling them stupid for signing the petition in the first place. I figure on writing my Sunday column about it.

Next, here's a reaction to my column that ran on Tuesday, Sept. 11:

I am concerned about your statement that we all have "inalienable rights.  They cannot be taken away by any government, etc"  Tell that to the people being held in Guantanamo without being charged or provided with attorneys.  Tell that to the USF professor.  Tell that  to the two USF students being held.  We have lost so many of our "rights" guaranteed by our Constitution that we no longer seem to care.  Making the excuse of "9/11" for everything, our government has used "national security" to keep from telling us who sat on the  Energy Commission headed up by Cheney, hide people in other countries and tortured them, abused prisoners in Iraq, the list is endless. Our country has never witnessed such abuses.  People are actually afraid to speak out against the government because of their threats 
"you're either with us or against us".  When have our leaders ever threatened us like this?
-- Margaret Hyde

Dear Ms. Hyde, I hope you do not mind if I agree and disagree point by point. Guantanamo: agreed. USF professor: disagreed. USF students: As I keep saying over and over, we don't know yet. Cheney's energy commission: It is ridiculous that the gov't claimed it should be secret. I believe it was more on the grounds of executive privilege than national security, for what that's worth. Re: "rendition" of people to other countries, agreed. Re: people afraid to speak out: Well, I haven't noticed any shortage of folks criticizing the war...

Finally, a couple more about the Jim Smith land scandal in Pinellas County (check out his interview today where he remains totally defiant -- apparently getting the county to rush through a deal to buy his land at 4x his office's last appraised value is just peachy keen by him).

What gives with Spratt's severance pay?  Rewarding a public official who committed malfeasance with a gift almost a quarter of a million dollars?  It's more money than I will make in 7.5 years!  This is obscene. At least with Jim Smith, the taxpayers got something for their money. -- Chris Petty

Hah! Good line. I haven't researched it but I bet that kind of severance deal is kind of standard going for top-gun government executives. And if you think, well, Spratt wasn't one of 'em who deserves such a thing -- you can take it up with the folks who said he was, the Pinellas County Commission.

Since it seems Mr. Smith is not going to resign, can any of you shed some light on how we may rid ourselves of this man prior to the next election.  Can he be impeached, or could a petition drive to our Gov. allow him (C. Crist) to fire him? Might as well add how to dispose of the council as well.
After paying the county atty. all her wages etc, and now paying Spratt severance, can't see paying Smith for another year, since he was/is the focal point of this whole mess, and it appears he will be escaping scratch free after all of his influence peddling for his personal gain. -- G. Troyan,
Clearwater

Only the governor, state Cabinet and judges are subject to impeachment in Florida. However, the the Florida Constitution gives the governor the power to remove any state or county officer for "malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty, drunkenness, incompetence, permanent inability to perform official duties, or commission of a felony." The gov could come up with grounds if he were willing. If an official is suspended, the Florida Senate then investigates and decides whether to reinstate the officer or remove him/her permanently. -- Article IV, Sec. 7, Fla Const.

Thanks for the e-mails! I try to answer as many as I can, but there are too many -- I do read every one. My best wishes to all for a good weekend.

Other Thursday Topics

* I've been hearing quite a bit from readers about the coverage of the John Bryan scandal in St. Petersburg, such as today's report of his funeral. Most of the criticism has been that it is too sympathetic -- that the accusations of sexual abuse are far too monstrous to say anything good about him. It is a tough subject. It shows how well this evil can be hidden behind a facade of respectability. As for whether his friends and family should turn their backs on his grave, I think that is up to them. If I had been closer to him I would have attended his funeral. It would not have been a sign of condoning his actions. [Times photo | Edmund D. Fountain]

* I also have been getting a lot of e-mails about the letter being mailed by business groups opposed to the Florida Hometown Democracy movement. I have a copy and need to scan it in and publish it for folks who haven't seen it. The letter tries to capitalize on a provision in the new elections law passed by our Legislature that makes it possible for voters to revoke signatures on petitions they have signed. It also employs ridiculous scare tactics and statements. Unless breaking news interferes, I hope to take a closer look at it in my upcoming Sunday column.

* So many things deserve comment that it's hard to keep up. I nearly physically stood up and cheered the other day when I read this news item, about a Pinellas School Board member questioning the fine print in a contract -- the vendor wanted to do business with the public without the slightest guarantee that its product would work! Here was the fine print in the contract:

MetaMetrics does not warrant that the product will meet your requirements or that the operation of the software will be uninterrupted or error-free or that the software contains no defects or other errors.

I was impressed that board member Janet R. Clark objected to this, even though the staff had recommended it for approval. One small step toward having more active and engaged public officials...

A Note To Tuesday's Chat Participants

In Tuesday's weekly live online chat, we talked a lot about Sept. 11 and the war in Iraq. I made reference to reading a recent article by a group of sergeants writing about the war from a first-hand perspective. The article was an op-ed piece that appeared in the New York Times on Aug. 19.

Here is a news story that appeared in the Times yesterday and in our newspaper today:

By DAVID STOUT
Published: September 12, 2007

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 — “Engaging in the banalties of life has become a death-defying act,” the seven soldiers wrote of the war they had seen in Iraq.

They were referring to the ordeals of Iraqi citizens, trying to go about their lives with death and suffering all around them. They did not know it at the time, but they might almost have been referring to themselves.

Two of the soldiers who wrote of their pessimism about the war, in an Op-Ed article that appeared in The New York Times on Aug. 19, were killed in Baghdad on Monday. They were not killed in combat, nor on a daring mission. They died when the five-ton cargo truck they were riding in overturned.

The victims, Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, 26, and Sgt. Omar Mora, 28, were among the authors of “The War as We Saw It,” in which they expressed doubts about reports of progress....

The Spratt Aftermath

Two points about Steve Spratt's resignation as the Pinellas County administrator on Tuesday, in the wake of the Jim Smith land scandal. [Times photo | Jim Damaske]

(1) First, although Spratt's resignation was appropriate, it isn't a magic wand that takes care of everything in the immediate little scandal.

The taxpayers don't get back the $225,000 that the county paid  to Smith, the county's elected property appraiser, for a small piece of land that Smith owned personally. In fact, between six months' severance for County Attorney Susan Churuti and a year's severance for Spratt, the taxpayers are on the hook for well more than they paid for Smith's land.

Smith, the last time he said anything publicly, said he hasn't done anything wrong and intends to run for re-election. And the ultimate responsible party -- the County Commission, which voted 7-0 to buy Smith's land -- is intact. A couple of times, commissioners have bandied about the idea of resigning, but only in a rhetorical context, musing aloud as they pushed Churuti and Spratt out the door.

I am not making these points to be vindictive or ungracious the next day after a traumatic upheaval in the county government. I'm just saying that any rhetoric about "putting this behind us now" or "beginning the healing process" seems to connote that it's all over now, and it isn't.

(2) The second point is much bigger and longer-term in scope. The Pinellas County Commission now has to begin the process of choosing a new administrator. This is a chance for a clean slate and a break from the past in the way that this large, urban county has been governed.

For many years, the Pinellas administrator was a strong, military-style leader named Fred Marquis (the Pinellas Trail is named in his honor). Marquis ran things his way, he ran them behind closed doors, and he ran the County Commission as well. This was "efficient," and the county had a reputation for running "smoothly," but there was never much public discussion or input. Marquis was a bridge between older, small-town way of doing business and the modern world.

That meek deference by the County Commission to the administrator carried over to Spratt's six-year tenure, but Spratt was not Marquis. Ironically, I think, Spratt suffered because he was NOT the heavy-handed top dog that Marquis was. Spratt was bureaucrat-in-chief, and the commission never stepped up and filled the policy and political vacuum that Marquis had left. Spratt by default was expected to play Marquis' role as "county mayor,'' requiring political as well as bureaucratic skills, but he never mastered them.

This is the same situation that the County Commission faces looking ahead. The commission can choose a dynamic, go-getting leader with both political and administrative skills -- a new, de facto "county mayor'' -- and continue in its fairly passive role as the rubber stamp. Or the commission can choose someone in the Spratt mold, more comfortable as more-or-less chief secretary to the board. But in that case, either the commission has to evolve, becoming more of a policy engine and a provider of aggressive oversight to the administration -- or else we will repeat the cycle.

Spratt worked incredibly hard as the county administrator. I disagreed with his approach on several issues but have to give him that. As for his faults, they would have been balanced by a more aggressive commission. In the end, even the fact he had to resign is the County Commission's responsibility.

More in tomorrow's column.

Steve Spratt Resigns

Pinellas County Administrator Steve Spratt resigned this afternoon, effective Sept. 30. Here's the link to the breaking news. The county government had been criticized in a recent grand jury report concerning the Jim Smith land deal.

So much for our speculation in today's weekly live chat as to whether he would stay through the county budget process or even longer. More on Mr. Spratt soon.

Here's The Sept. 11 Chat -- Read A Transcript

The anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks set the stage for today's weekly live chat here on TroxBlog. We talked about the war in Iraq, whether we are safer than we were six years ago, and the tradeoff between freedom and security. We heard from a soldier on active duty who wanted to know what Americans were thinking.

But the chat ran the gamut from world affairs to local and state matters as well, and we talked about the Pinellas County scandal, taxes, insurance, public-access television, the USF students/South Carolina case and a lot more.

To read the transcript of today's chat, just click on the "Comments" link of this item a few lines below. You'll see what everyone had to say, and you can still add your own thoughts after the fact.

Thank you to everyone who took part or stopped by today -- I hope you will consider coming back for the next chat as well.

Reminder: Live Chat Tuesday, Noon - 1 P.M.

[TUESDAY UPDATE: The live chat is under way. I've made a new post above with the headline, "The Sept. 11 Chat Is OPEN." Go there and click on the "Comments" link to see what folks are saying. I've closed commens on this pre-chat announcement.]

I hope you can stop by during Tuesday's weekly live chat here on TroxBlog. From noon to 1 p.m. or so, I'll be here live, responding to reader comments and questions about current events in the Tampa Bay area and across Florida.

To take part or observe Tuesday's chat, come back to TroxBlog at noon. I'll post a new item with the headline, "The Sept. 11 Chat Is Open." Click on the "Comments" link of that item to see what folks are saying or to add your own thoughts. Keep refreshing the comments page to see the latest.

As always, if you can't be here during the live chat, you can come back later to check out a transcript of the chat. And if you'd like to "pre-file" a question or comment, feel free to use the Comments link of THIS announcement. I hope to see you at noon Tuesday!

Well? What Was In The Trunk?

All I want to know, in the case of the two University of South Florida students being held on federal explosives charges, is what was in the trunk. Everybody else is just talk.

The authorities have described it as "pipe bombs" and a box of bullets. Well, that sounds awfully bad. Especially since they were arrested near a South Carolina naval base. If we're talking about a casing capable of throwing shrapnel, an explosive with some punch to it, that sort of thing, well, then we're in business.

But we still have too general a description. Authorities can overreact. Remember that a couple of other USF students also were arrested on a charge involving "detonating an explosive device'' back in April. Holy cow, an explosive device on a university campus! But -- their "explosive device" was dry ice and water in plastic soda bottles that they were blowing up for fun. So I want to know if we're talking about firecrackers or dynamite.

For exactly the same reason, seems to me we are in no position to conclude whether, as the defense lawyer said in the paper this morning, this is "clearly" a case of "racial profiling" and that an "Irish-American kid" would never have been arrested.

Tell me what was in the trunk, and I will think about whether I agree. In the meantime, the young men are entitled to be presumed innocent and entitled to the rights of all accused persons under the U.S. Constitution.

Column: A Life Built Upon All The Right Trappings

It seems easier to start with the public life of John Bryan.

There have not been many people who wanted so badly, and so specifically, to be a member of the St. Petersburg City Council.

Bryan thought about the council years in advance. He arranged his life accordingly, shutting down his business to make time, touring other cities to observe their workings.

He spent dutiful years on various city committees. He tried to get appointed to a vacant seat in 1998, and was finally elected in 2001.

In 2005, even against a long-shot opponent, Bryan was consumed by the prospect of not being re-elected.

"The fear of losing eats me up," Bryan told a reporter then. "I love this city and I love my job and I don't want to take any chance of losing it."

So I wonder what was going through his mind on Aug. 20, the first date on his letter of resignation from the job that was so much of his identity... [rest of column]

The Mail, Part I: The Legislature, Library Closings, Income Tax Myths, U.S. Sen. Larry Craig And Burning Garbage, And I Am Out Of Breath Now

Please press the sptimes to to research and describe the process of selecting the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House.  This could be the most fascinating expose' ever published. Why a  Speaker-designate when it hasn't even been elected for the designated term?. What does the candidate have to give in money, pork, and power  for a vote? What prompts the support for a candidate? I would like to know. -- Hal Seckinger, Homosassa

Dear Mr. Seckinger: Great observation by you! As soon as a new Legislature's freshman class is elected every two years, the jockeying begins for who is going to be in power six years down the road. This process has accelerated under 8-year term limits. You are quite right -- the contenders court money and power from lobbying groups, typically involving business interests (for some reason they rarely court, say, Common Cause). We end up with a "winner" who is guaranteed power long before he or she demonstrates the ability to wield it well, the classic example being the speaker before last, Johnnie Byrd. The "official" speaker designation does not occur until the last cycle beforehand. I suppose there is some value in having that designation, since it allows for a smooth transfer of leadership.

Your column today about reductions in hours for the St. Petersburg main library was right on the mark.  Also Saturday's and Sundays receive very heavy use because those are the rare days parents and kids have time to visit libraries together.  Your point about how the public relies on libraries and library computers so that they can conduct their business was perfect and particularly well nuanced.  In the past some may have considered libraries nice amenities, but today there is not doubt that they are essential services. -- Charlie Parker, President, Florida Library Association

Dear Mr. Parker: Thanks! Here's another library comment:

If the amount to keep the main library open on Saturdays for a year would be $80,000, I believe there must be 80,000 people who'd contribute a dollar each to do that. And there would be more than one who'd contribute more than a dollar - me for one! Your column really touched me - a life long library patron whose love of books has made a difference in my life. -- Mary Cross, St. Petersburg

Dear Ms. Cross: Double thanks! I am hopeful the city will find an alternative to the Saturday closing. The City Council is having its final public hearing on the budget at 6 p.m. Sept. 13 at City Hall, 175 Fifth St. North in downtown St. Petersburg.

You had indicated in your article that the people balking about the Income Tax Law were perpetrating a hoax.  Can you please provide the law where it states a Federal Income Tax can be charged?  I know there have been many people who have sued and requested the actual law referring to income tax and it has not been provided.  Maybe you have access to that information. -- Marsha Wojewnik

Dear Ms. Wojewnik: Here's a great link to a web page about all the myths and half-truths on the claim that we aren't legally obligated to pay a federal income tax. The bottom line is that if you try it and get caught, you will be convicted. The federal tax code -- which is, by golly, a real law -- is contained in Title 26 of the United States Code. The relevant portion begins: "There is hereby imposed on the taxable income of every individual..."

A regular TroxBlogger, Schauer, points out this interesting potential defense for U.S. Sen. Larry Craig:

Article 1 Section 6 of the US Constitution reads as follows: The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place. The senator was arrested while traveling to his home state in order to conduct the business of the senate on the same day that he cast a vote on a cloture motion in the United States Senate.

Dear Schauer: You know, I kind of like this. Have you pointed it out to Craig's folks?

This has always ticked me off, but now that St. Petersburg is designated a "Green City" and our mayor is the green guru it would be nice if our city was honest about those recycling bins around town...It is bad enough that we are a green loser for not having curbside recycling. But, for years the city has lied to us.  We rinse our plastic juice bottles and detergent bottles and dutifully save them up and tote
them down to the recycling center thinking we are doing a good thing for our community and our children's future.  Don't we feel like dopes when we learn that all that is a big lie.  The plastic just goes to the incinerator. -- Robin Peacock

Dear Ms. Peacock: Oh, so you don't buy the city's explanation that burning garbage is a form of "recycling," since it converts it into energy? Me neither. There might be economic advantages to waste-to-energy, but it is NOT recycling. BTW, on my long, long list of Things I Ought To Do is to look at Mayor Baker's numbers on why a curbside recycling program would actually put more hydrocarbons into the air (garbage trucks, diesel fuel, etc.) than it would save.

Can you explain to me what the big deal is about the Democratic Primary? Why did they move it and why is the DNC p----d? -- Dwayne Mayo

Sure. The Florida Legislature voted to move our primary earlier, to Jan. 29, hoping that we would be a bigger deal in the campaign. Both Republicans and many Democrats voted for it. But the NATIONAL parties don't like it. The traditional early states, such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina have a LOT of clout and power -- especially since their votes can knock candidates out of the race early.

So, the national parties cracked down on Florida. The Republicans will punish Florida by taking away half of our delegates to their convention. The Democrats will punish Florida by taking away ALL our delegates. This is a much bigger deal for the Democrats than the Republicans, looks like. Most of the leading Democratic candidates have taken a pledge to stay away from Florida. It is a blatant suck-up to the early states.

Lastly, if the Dem candidates aren't here and the Republicans are, there's some worry that Democrats in general might not turn out to vote as much in January. If the Republicans are campaigning here from early on, maybe that gives them an advantage and a head start in winning the state in November. Meanwhile, we're also voting on Jan. 29 on that big "super homestead" tax exemption, and if Republicans turn out more than Democrats (think public employee unions, teachers, etc.), does that make the big tax cut more likely to pass?

Whew! Thanks for all the e-mails. My apology for not answering them all individually -- I try to acknowledge as many as I can... have a great weekend, everybody!

The Mail, Part II: The Pinellas Scandal

Again, by far most of this week's mail has been about the Pinellas-Jim Smith land scandal. Several readers found the County Commission's barrage of unsuccessful motions not very convincing:

Let me see if I understand this. 1) Commissioner Susan Latvala moves to reinstate suspended Susan Churuti; it doesn't get a second. 2) Commissioner Calvin Harris makes a motion to get rid of both Susan Churuti and Steve Spratt; it doesn't get a second. 3) Commissioner Ken Welch moves to fire Churuti; gets a second. 4) Latvala says she supports firing both Spratt and Churuti [wait....didn't she just make a motion to reinstate Churuti and now she wants to fire her?!] 5) Commission votes unanimously to fire Churuti. 6) Latvala makes a motion to fire Spratt; it doesn't get a second [wait...didn't Harris just make a motion to get rid of Spratt -- why didn't he second Latvala's motion?!] Well, maybe I can hurry up and watch this session re-broadcast on my Bright House cable before they move it to channel 953 when I won't be able to watch it. -- Rick

If Susan Latvala made a motion to dismiss Spratt, and 4 other commissioners were for the action, why did not Calvin Harris second the motion? Or Karen?  Ronnie could have passed the gavel also.Was this merely a show of authority without teeth? Showtime for the citizenry?  --  john

I don't think it was staged, but just typical dithering. They couldn't get their motions in sync, since Latvala didn't want to fire Churuti without Spratt. It is puzzling why Harris didn't go along with Latvala's Spratt-motion, which would have solved the dilemma. When Latvala had no other choice, she went along with just firing Churuti. Duncan's COMMENTS made it sound like he was willing to fire Spratt, but he was holding the gavel... but I think you are right, he could have passed the gavel if he wanted to. Bottom line is, THEY DIDN'T WANT TO FIRE SPRATT. They were willing to scapegoat Churuti immediately but did not have the ... whatever noun you want to insert here... to fire Spratt. To me, this HAS to be considered an affirmative, deliberate decision by the board to keep Spratt for now -- for which the commissioners should continue to be held accountable by the voters. He is their man. They affirmatively decided to keep him on the job.

And here's a letter about keeping our eye on the real ball here:

Wasn't it the Commission that actually voted to buy the land? Do they just simply do whatever Steve Spratt or the County Attorney tell them to do? Without investigating on their own? They should be held accountable. They act as though it was none of their doing. And what about Spratt? Did he just sort of muscle this deal along? My biggest question is what about the man that made out in the deal, Jim Smith? He's the one that pocketed 5 times the assesed value of his property. I wish the County would buy my property for 5 times the assessment, I'd sell it in a heartbeat. According to Spratt, this was a good deal. Then buy my property, please! -- Greg F., Largo

Dear Greg F., I heartily agree. They sat there and voted for it 7-0 without saying boo, and all their protestations do not change the fact that they did it. As for Smith (by the way, the sales price was not quite 4x the previous year's appraisal by Smith's office), last I heard he still is running for re-election and is not resigning.

Issues, Issues

The most common question I get is, "How do you decide what to write about?" The trouble is deciding what NOT to write about. There are lots of deserving topics and I get just three print columns a week. That's been one helpful thing about this blog -- I can at least work in a mention of other issues, and it's been great for getting in a lot more reaction, criticism and comments from readers.

This morning's news serves as an example. I went through all the editions of the newspaper and jotted down my own list of things to learn more about. I usually keep a little "hot list" of short-term topics in my notebook. (I have another list of longer-term, big-issue topics that deserve more attention, too, and try to weave them into the mix.)

* There are various things going on locally related to the overall topic of government television channels. Bright House wants to move them to a higher tier of cable channels, which I think is awful and speaks poorly about that company's role in the community. Citizens ought to be able to see the government process at the lowest and most widely seen tier of channels. At the same time, I've been awfully critical of government channels that produce multimillion-dollar propaganda shows that glorify politicians. Just show the meetings. Meanwhlie, both Pinellas and Hillsborough have proposals to eliminate public-access programming.

* The Legislature just canceled its special budget-cutting session, so our state's budget problems and the inevitable cuts have just been delayed. Meanwhile, I'd like to write a "shopping list" of Other Things They Ought to Fix in a special session. That includes: auto insurance/no-fault/personal injury protection, the loophole that spared Miami a property tax cut, and compensation for wrongfully imprisoned Alan Crotzer. Feel free to chip in suggestions for the special session -- now that there's a delay, maybe there's a little more chance to get other things on the agenda.

* Bill Richardson jokes that God doesn't want Florida to have an early presidential primary.  I think it's fascinating that the Democratic candidates so far have banded together to say they will NOT honor Florida's primary. Will they all be able to resist, or will someone break the deal? Hard to imagine that a big, early score in one of the nation's biggest states would