He remembers growing up with 10 brothers and sisters in a shotgun house in the black section of Macon, Ga.
He remembers that the house had no living or dining rooms, how the roof leaked in the rain. He remembers where the bathroom was: on the back porch.
He remembers how lunch in his house was a mayonnaise sandwich, and how his mother raised her children alone.
The political is always personal: Those memories were never far from his mind when Scott, the chairman of the Hillsborough County Commission, spoke about Civitas. The privately driven redevelopment project was meant to transform part of Tampa's most distressed landscape, around the Central Park public housing complex near downtown.
Scott saw in the project something he had never had as a child: a chance to live in a better place. He was solidly for Civitas. He still is, even though the commission acted last month to kill it.
Developers had done much to make the skeptical more so.
So maybe it's no wonder I doubt the project is dead - or that I question Scott's support for it.
It was the dream of a group of very rich white men not in the business of losing on investments, a dream meant to remake neighborhoods where hundreds of mostly black families live. The plan was to mix high-end housing with housing for the poor. Everyone would live happily ever after. Together.
It sounded like another case of the powerful telling the powerless what was best.
Under the circumstances, I couldn't see why Scott, a church pastor in the rest of his life, would favor Civitas. But it wasn't solely a matter of memories. Scott's support was the result of his relationship with the man who leads Civitas, Ed Turanchik. The two had served together on the commission.
Months before Civitas became public, Turanchik took Scott on a driving tour of the neighborhood. He did it once, twice, and again, Scott said. Scott was sold.
"I don't remember any other Caucasian male saying, "Let's go driving and look at this,' or saying, "This is terrible. I want to make a difference,' " Scott said.
The bond between Scott and Turanchik was strengthened. Turanchik was able to discuss his plans. Scott was able to admonish him about past mistakes, particularly his previous idea for Central Park. When Turanchik tried to bring the Olympics to Tampa, he proposed simply demolishing the neighborhood and replacing it with a stadium, without much regard for the people who live there.
Now the relationship between the two men transcends race. It is based on trust.
"For the first time in this community," Scott said of Civitas, "I thought, here is a genuine plan to help poor people."
Scott's faith is undeterred by history.
This is the fourth time since the 1920s that attempts have been made to relocate people who live in the Central Park area, a place once known as "the Scrub." Faces have changed, but not the circumstances. The district draws people too poor to live elsewhere.
In the 1920s, the plan was to move them to the rural east side of the county. In the '50s, the plan resurfaced, when a public housing development called Progress Village was built in the county. Later came urban renewal and the interstate. The landmarks of the Scrub were destroyed.
Turanchik has made certain promises that could, if carried out, make peace with history. "I've got to know," Scott once told him, "that you're not going to displace people." Turanchik promised. He also vowed that Central Avenue, the neighborhood's one-time main street, would be reopened.
Trust is a powerful glue. Scott is confident that the Civitas experiment will succeed if the day comes when the political disputes are settled. Turanchik will deliver on his promises, Scott believes. The rich will be willing to live side by side with the poor.
Scott draws on memories again.
"Just because I'm poor doesn't mean I'm filthy or that I don't value what I have," he said. "I still have a sense of pride and dignity about who I am."
Memories and trust. They are Turanchik's best allies. He'd better consider them sacred.
