The city of New Port Richey needs to trim its holiday shopping list.
Specifically, the city needs to get rid of the freebies it is seeking for its employees' party. Ditto for Dade City, which also solicits donations from area businesses for its employees' yuletide gatherings.
If the cities want to reward their workers, they shouldn't be squeezing local merchants for donations. The requests, no matter how well intentioned, create dilemmas for small-business owners. There is the suggestion of a quid pro quo when public entities accept gifts from the private companies with which they do business.
Consider the sentiments of Charlotte Webb, owner of the Flower Shoppe, who donated a centerpiece to New Port Richey last year. "I thought I was getting business from them, and I didn't want them to stop," she told Times staff writer Melia Bowie.
(Webb said she discovered later she wasn't receiving city business, but she had sent the arrangement already.)
Therein lies the problem: Even if no payback exists, there is the perception that one does and a business owner might be timid about rejecting the city's overtures.
There are right and wrong examples around Pasco County on dealing with donations.
Look at how they do things in Port Richey. In 1999, a City Council majority approved a request from the former SunCruz gambling ship to hoist a holiday banner atop a city sewage lift station. The decision opened the door for other companies to ask for city space for its advertising. The approval, coincidentally, came after SunCruz donated $250 to Pride in Port Richey for the committee's children's Christmas party.
The procedure flip-flopped three years later when the principals behind the rechristened Paradise of Port Richey donated $10,000 to dredge city canals and $4,000 to Pride in Port Richey, and volunteered to underwrite the cost of the city newsletter after the company's lobbyist successfully pushed a new ordinance paving the way for nearly round-the-clock, for-profit bingo.
At least smarter heads prevailed in the end. The holiday banner never went up and the council reversed its bingo ordinance this year. But, both instances created the reinforced public suspicions that the gambling ship company could buy its legislative intentions from city leaders willing to oblige.
A smarter role model on ethics can be found in Pasco County government, where county Administrator John Gallagher's one-sentence directive has been in force for 21 years.
"No county employee shall accept any gratuity - whether it is material or edible - from anyone doing business with the county," the policy states. Gallagher wrote it in 1982 after building industry representatives sent Christmas gifts of wine and chateaubriand to employees in the county Building Department.
We don't believe New Port Richey and Dade City are looking to follow Port Richey's rather dubious government ethics. They just want door prizes for their employees. Regardless, they should stop the solicitations.
Holiday parties and other morale-building efforts are a normal part of doing business, but they should be budgeted for internally. It will be money well spent if it helps to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
