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She can be evicted but not silenced
By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- Outside the Hillsborough courthouse Wednesday, minutes after her three-year legal battle to stay in public housing had ended in defeat, Connie Burton struck a customary pose: angry, defiant and bitterly accusatory. "This is not happening to Americans," Burton, 46, said of the "one-strike" law, which allowed the Tampa Housing Authority to evict her for her son's 1999 drug arrest. "This is happening to a target population that happens to be 99 percent black people." She blasted the authority, said the jurors that ruled against her were not her peers, and said the courthouse was no place for a poor black woman like herself to find justice. The tone of voice -- and the sentiments -- are familiar to those who listen to Straight Talk, Burton's Sunday morning radio call-in show on WMNF. Among her targets: Housing Authority president Jerome Ryans, whom she calls a "thin-skinned parasite" and accuses of ignoring the needs of public housing tenants. Another target is Tampa police Chief Bennie Holder, who Burton says suffers a disconnect with the black community that his officers patrol. On the air, Burton singles out police officers by name. Critics see Burton as a self-dramatizing martyr who is too cozy with criminals in public housing. Her supporters, some of whom sat through her three-day trial this week, say the president of the Robles Park tenants association is their only voice. Eula Jackson, 74, a longtime resident of the Robles Park public housing complex, calls Burton a community hero. She said Burton champions tenants' rights and demands better plumbing, screens and playground equipment. It's that advocacy, Burton contends, that prompted the Housing Authority to retaliate by trying to boot her out of the Robles Park complex, where she has lived since the mid 1980s. The authority began eviction proceedings against her in May 1999 after her son Narada was arrested for marijuana possession. Under the one-strike law, public housing tenants can be evicted if anyone on their lease is arrested. But even after Burton lost a constitutional challenge to the one-strike law in federal court, she was hard to dislodge. The Housing Authority has tried for three years to evict Burton from a concrete block apartment with peeling walls, a leaking roof, a rusty door jamb and no central air conditioning. Astrid Hapanowicz, a lawyer for the Tampa Housing Authority, said the agency has spent at least $100,000 in legal fees in its effort to oust Burton, which culminated in county Judge Eric Myers' courtroom Wednesday. Burton's lawyer Guy Burns, who estimates he has devoted $100,000 worth of pro bono work to her case, said it was too soon to say whether she would appeal. The authority can now evict her at any time. "I've been unmovable, because it's principle," said Burton, acknowledging that she is often called a troublemaker. "A critic is definitely not supposed to be someone who has no status," she said. "Economically, I'm poor. I'm black. I ain't never been to the well-kept homes of Tampa, unless I was cleaning them." Burton's public image suffered in May 1996, when she was accused of pushing a Tampa police officer and trying to incite a riot at a party she co-hosted with a convicted drug dealer. Prosecutors agreed to drop criminal charges against her if she would complete an 18-month pretrial intervention program, which included working to ease tensions between police and Robles Park residents. At the time, she was public housing manager of the 436-unit complex; some residents alleged that she protected drug dealers. Still, her supporters say her outspokenness lies at the heart of her recent troubles. "They say the squeaky wheel gets the grease," said Njemile Zakiya, 28, a former co-host of Burton's radio show. But in this case, "the squeaky wheel gets taken off the car and thrown in the Dumpster." -- Christopher Goffard can be reached at 226-3337 or goffard@sptimes.com
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