A good man was lost last week to political forces beyond his control, the forces of Hillsborough County government. It was County Administrator Dan Kleman.
He resigned one step ahead of the County Commission, in which the collective great minds of a 4-3 majority was poised to fire him.
This would be merely political news of interest chiefly to bay area power junkies who keep track of who's up, down, in and out.
But Kleman is the 10th man in the county administrator's job in 30 years.
Something is wrong here. The top of Hillsborough County government looks to be the Bermuda Triangle of bay area politics.
By comparison, Fred Marquis had racked up 22 years as Pinellas County administrator by the time he left in 2000. Pasco County Administrator John Gallagher has been in his job for more than 21 years.
I put the question about Kleman, and the county's history of running through administrators, to another experienced Hillsborough political figure: Commissioner Pat Frank.
Frank was among Kleman's critics. She has wanted to dump him for the past two years. Frank said my cross-county comparison is, heaven forbid, unfair. She said Hillsborough is just plain bigger than Pinellas and Pasco. That makes it harder to govern, Frank said.
Then I put Frank's answer to a commissioner on the other side of the bay: Pinellas County's Susan Latvala.
First, she laughed. Then Latvala said, "If some of the shenanigans that go on with elected officials (in Hillsborough) were going on here, we'd be run out of office. They get re-elected."
Hillsborough's internal political games brought down Kleman, she said. While commission members tended to think Kleman had made mistake after mistake, to the point of questioning his competence, Latvala said the problem was the other way around.
"He took crap from them too well. He sat there, very professionally. He needed to defend his position," Latvala said.
In other words, Kleman didn't fight back.
"I think that was part of his demise," Latvala said.
Latvala is a Republican, but this isn't some party-motivated shot across the bow at Democrats such as Frank. Latvala blames what goes on within the Hillsborough County Commission on a small group of hard-right Republican businessmen - among them, Sam Rashid - who have heavy influence with some members.
Rashid has never called me back to comment for a column. This time was no different.
Pinellas County Administrator Steve Spratt and Gallagher were careful not to go as far as Latvala.
They didn't criticize the Hillsborough County Commission. Instead, they described the way a commission and administrator need to work to succeed.
"You need latitude to administer well and to support management as much as you can," Spratt said. "One of the things that will interfere with that (is) if there's a lot of second guessing and a constant critical view of everything."
That's exactly what has happened in Hillsborough. Gallagher has been following events in the news and has concluded, plain and simple, that the commission "doesn't get along so well."
"I can tell you that on my commission, the reputation is very professional," Gallagher said. "We work as a team."
And that's exactly what hasn't happened in Hillsborough.
Kleman's critics on the commission chose to overlook what the public always was bound to like about him: Year after year, he managed to lower property tax rates.
Instead, they focused on disputes within upper management. They complained that he told them only what he thought they wanted to hear, not what he believed was the best thing to do.
But how else would a smart man survive nine years - longer than any of his predecessors as county administrator - in the Bermuda Triangle?
