Bay Walk and the Two Bills

There is no doubt that Bill Edwards has a plan for Bay Walk. If you have any doubt drive by and note the construction. Recent history would indicate that Mr. Edwards approaches all of his projects with a plan in place and with well defined goals and objectives.
With renovation of the facility, a strong marketing campaign and Bill Edward's reputation, new vendors and retailers should be easy to find. Bill Edwards is setting the stage to move the much touted downtown renaissance at least a block or two to the West.
The much bigger question is what is the other Bill, Bill Foster doing? The Edwards design is configured to address some of the public traffic/protester issues but only the truly naive would believe that those who used Bay Walk as a stage for protest will not return. Then there is the whole issue of the sidewalk that the City deeded to the property.
The key to Bay Walk, or whatever Bill Edwards decides to name it, is public safety. The list of retailers, bars or restaurants, can be award winning, but if the public does not feel safe they simply will not patronize the facility. Only the City can provide that feeling of personal safety.
It would be nice to pass the buck on this one to the Bill Edwards team. Passing the buck is something this administration seems to be good at. Any security force the facility fields must be backed up by a City plan to protect the public.
Mayor Bill Foster should begin now developing a plan. It is not too early. The current Police Department administration will trot out every excuse they can conjure up to limit their accountability for Bay Walk Security.
The Mayor should pull together public safety people, parking, public works, sanitation and include the Bill Edwards people to look at the design and begin to develop a strategy that can be implemented with the grand opening and going forward. Forcing Bill Edwards to hire off duty police officers is not the answer.
It might also be a good idea to talk to some of those who were the most vocal protesters at Bay Walk in the past and get their input and perhaps cooperation. Sticking your head in the sand and thinking these people do not have a stake in what happens at Bay Walk would be a big mistake.
Bill Edwards has stepped up and is making a big investment and taking an even bigger risk. Mayor Foster needs to be proactive on this one. The City's record dealing with protesters and public safety at Bay Walk is questionable at best.
With all of the other issues downtown, adding the new Bay Walk is going to be a public safety challenge. Mayor Foster needs to get a plan developed, bring it to City Council so they can provide for the cost now rather than later.
One bad night, one event that scares the public and all of Bill Edward's money and effort can go right down the drain.
Mayor Bill Foster needs to provide the leadership on this one.
Good luck Mr. Edwards.
e-mail doc at: dr.webb@verizon.net, or send me a friend request (Gene Webb) on Facebook

Is anyone watching the St. Pete PD Driving habits?

The public has raised concerns about St. Petersburg police officers speeding and driving recklessly.

During my five years as PD IT manager there were only two people authorized to access the GPS records for investigative data. Me and one of my supervisors. I did most of the data forensics including looking for officers or cruisers reported by the public for exceeding the speed limit.

Speed data was fairly regular request. To get an idea of how many, I sent the following public records request to the Eva Andujar, City Clerk.

Eva:

Please provide the following information in electronic format:

All of the following incidents reported to The Police Department Internal Affairs Division in 2011 and 2012 and their disposition. (Sustained, Not sustained): Officer or patrol car speeding, Officer or patrol car driving at high rate of speed, Officer driving recklessly

Here is the reply from the City Clerk:

Gene,
The Internal Affairs cases are not classified by the breakdown listed in the request, but by allegation types to include as a sample Crash, Discourtesy, Discharge of Weapon, etc.. The information requested should fall under the allegation of Improper Procedures. To fulfill the request, a review of each case with an allegation of Improper Procedures would have to be completed to determine if the case was inclusive of the information requested.
Staff has indicated there were 29 Improper Procedure cases in 2011 and 6 from January 1 - May 1, 2012. It is estimated that it will take approximately three hours to review the cases at a cost of $59.13. If you wish us to proceed, please make your check payable to the City of St. Petersburg and send to my attention at the address listed below. Please note that the cost of $59.13 is staff cost for review only and does not include redaction/duplication cost (a PDF copy can be created for the summary, but a request of the complete file would be in paper and possibly CDs if there were associated 911 calls/photos).
Please contact me if you have any questions.


Apparently the PD has no formal management report that details specific driving/speeding incidents, no formal reports detailing officer speeding, even though there are a number of complaints from citizens. Instead the information is buried in some broad report classification.

It was always interesting to me that even though each cruiser is equipped with a GPS package that records all driving activity of every officer on every shift, the data was not routinely reviewed by any member of PD management for driving performance.

It is going to be difficult to manage a problem like this if there is no detailed information going to the management chain. But then, if they don't ask for it they don't have to act on it.

e-mail me at: dr.webb@verizon.net, send me (Gene Webb) a friend request on FaceBook

 

Here a Tax, There a Tax, Everywhere a Tax

Work on the City Budget drones on as various groups stoke up on how they will try to affect the process. The Peoples Budget Review seems to be off to a good start. They are collecting a lot of information in their survey, and I am sure as long as the information backs up the City administration's plan it will be considered valuable.

The special interest groups, like the arts council, the social service groups and neighborhoods are just staring to ramp up. So things are moving along at about the anticipated speed. The real yelling and screaming will start in a few weeks.

It seems for the moment that the Mayor's center piece to solve the budget dilemma, is to raise the millage rate. Preliminary results from the Peoples Budget Review Survey seem to indicate that the people are ready to consider a tax increase to stop the erosion of services. I think they are just tired of listing to the Mayor and council members whine.

The tendency in government is make the cuts where they have the most direct affect on the public. The theory is "let's put the pain where THEY feel it". You know, stop mowing the grass in the park, reduce the library hours, cut back on senior services... the stuff the public really feels. Share the pain. Problem is the only people who get a share of that pain are you.

Before you whiz through that survey magnanimously offering to have your millage rate increased to "save" the City, think about this: the County wants to increase the EMS tax, the School Board is trying with all their might to hold on to an outdated property tax, St. Pete wants to raise your property tax, and there are probably a few others we haven't heard from yet. You could get a real surprise in the mail come September.

One more thing. Never in the history of this County has a City government willing reduced its size or limited its spending. That is until the recession came along and the money dried up. Oh sure they want you to feel the cuts so you will do just what you're doing, agree to give them more money to spend.

Try getting them to tie that millage increase to specifically keeping the libraries open, all the pools open, arts fully funded and some other specifics and see where that goes.

It might not be that bad an idea to just let the boys at City Hall work this little budget problem out on their own. First, there is all that money in those reserve funds they are carefully protecting. For what?

Then, there is still some room to cut over at Engineering, out at Storm Water, Economic Development, Business Assistance, we could use a little less management at PD, and the list goes on.

But then YOU probably won't feel much of that pain.

The opportunity to get City government downsized is right now. As the economy improves the opportunity will be lost. If you're willing to throw some more money at the current system, they are more than willing to take it and spend it.

e-mail doc at: dr.webb@verizon.net

Four St. Pete Budget Cuts that Don't' Touch the Parks, Libraries or other City Amenities

 
The Mayor is trying to drum up support for a millage increase. Before we do that let's take a look at some possible budget reduction opportunities.

Here are four specific budget cut suggestions:

The Business Assistance Services Department
The 2012 Budget is $880,000. Eliminate Business Assistance completely and pass responsibility to the Chamber of Commerce.

The Economic Development Department
The 2012 Budget is $684,000. Eliminate Economic Development completely and pass responsibility to Chamber of Commerce or a citizens committee

Engineering Department
If you look at the detailed budget for the Engineering Department, you will see millions of dollars in salaries and other costs offset by something called "Burden Capital Costs". This approach is a clever way of hiding costs in an over bloated less than effective department by getting the revenue from capital projects. It just shifts the cost from one bucket to another. Let's get $750,000 to $1 million dollars out of the Engineering department by reducing costs and staff. Trust me as one who has been a recipient of their services, no one will miss what's cut and we can out source what may be needed.

The Police Communications Center
The 2012 budget is about $ 6.8 Million. Outsource this effort to Sheriff, eliminate one assistant chief, put the remaining civilians under Chief's office. Conservative estimate of the actual annual savings would be $2.75 to $3.25 million.
Using the conservative numbers, right there in four City departments is over $5 million dollars in savings or almost half of the short fall and we have not touched a library, park, pool or other amenity. In fact we have probably improved service to the organization and the public in several areas.

There is more to be found, a lot more.

These must be genuine budget cuts where the people are removed from the payroll and costs eliminated. No changing titles, no shuffling around no cutting unfilled positions, real cuts that produce real recurring savings.

These are tough decisions and they require courage and leadership, things that are in short supply at City Hall.

e-mail doc at: dr.webb@verizon.net





 

Is Light Rail Really the Answer?

What we are now calling Light Rail has a rich history in the United states dating back to 1832.

The basic form is a small gauge railway, placed in public right of way and on private property often by easement. The Light Rail system runs from point A to point B often with branches and numerous stops along the way.

The question coming to the table is simply "is Light Rail a viable mass transit alternative for Pinellas County"?

Let's look at some issues. First, Light rail is big business. What is big about it is its design, procurement, right of way deals and construction. Looking around, you find that the only people who ever got rich from Light Rail were the realtors who cut the land deals, the politicians who helped them, the company who sold the train and track and the construction company that installed the system.

Notice who is missing here? The government or authority that is stuck running the system. That government by the way is you.

Politicians love Light Rail. It is a one stop simple answer to all of those complaints about roads and traffic. It provides a lot of places for plaques with their names on them, and a good source of campaign contributions while the thing is being approved and built. And if they or someone close to them just happens to have property along the right of way, then that's just gravy.

Pinellas County is the most densely populated County in Florida. We are built low, dense and spread out with multiple concentrations of commerce, retail, tourism and entertainment. Light Rail cannot directly serve all of those centers of interest, so by default the system becomes intermodal. That means we must use busses or some form of ground transportation to feed the Light Rail system.

So ask yourself this question. Will you go somewhere to get on buss, to ride to a train, to take you to some station, where you will in all likelihood have to get on another buss to get where you want to go? Then repeat that process to get back home? People do it every day in New York, Atlanta and Chicago, but the real question is will they do it in Pinellas County? It will take some serious retraining, and the reason a lot of people retire here is to get away from just that kind of hassle.

Once built there will be never ending pressure to acquire more property, build more miles expanding cost and operating expenses.

The politicians and Light Rail supporters say commerce will redevelop around the Light Rail routes and stations. That will take decades to happen in this County, and if your business is not located on or near the rail line how does that work for you?

The proponents say we are building for the future, the problem is we have to pay for Light Rail in the present, and it is a long shot at best. Before we start a tax that will never end and spend a lot of time and money studying, analyzing and trying to sell Light Rail to the public, we should look at some alternatives.

Hillsboro County got it right.



e-mail Doc at: dr.webb@verizon.net

Where was the St. Pete PD Command Staff

Sunday, Bubba the Love Sponge and his foundation hosted their 4th motorcycle ride to support law enforcement injured or killed in the line of duty. The event started and ended at Jim's Harley Davison in St. Petersburg.

Over 600 hundred or so riders showed up, the Pinellas County Sheriff showed up, couple of the surrounding County Sheriffs had staff representatives there, the Lakeland Police Chief was there, even Mayor Foster showed up.

Who did not show up? Not a single command staff representative of the St. Petersburg Police Department. Not the Chief, not an assistant Chief, not a Major, no one.

The Motorcycle Unit was there along with several others to lead the ride. Patrol helped with traffic, a couple of officers who regularly ride in these events were there as was one guy from the PD building maintenance Department.

I don't know about everyone else, but as someone who just retired from the PD, and was there when we lost three officers, I thought it was a bit of a snub, and downright embarrassing.

The boys on the third floor at the PD didn't have any trouble snuggling up to Bubba a couple of years ago when they had a need, but now not so much. Let's hope they don't need Bubba's help any time soon, but then I think Bubba's heart is a lot bigger than his memory is long.

This is typical of the Harmon, Williams, Gordon, DeKay mentality, it's all about me and the moment. Nice day for golf, church, hanging with some friends, who would want to hang around with a bunch of bikers when you don't need them?

Alone on the stage Mayor Foster made some very appropriate comments, but did not once mention the St. Petersburg Police Department by name. If it bothered him it did not show, but he has been covering for the poor leadership at the PD for a while now. It has to be wearing thin.

e-mail doc at: dr.webb@verizon.net