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Slow change for Tampa housing

Tampa's housing scandal was always about more than the story of wheeling-dealing Steve LaBrake. While LaBrake, the city's former housing chief, is facing federal bribery charges, this month's disclosure that a construction firm at the center of the scandal had continued to receive city business points to the difficulty of changing what's wrong with the entire bureaucratic culture. The staff still has the power to frustrate Mayor Pam Iorio's ethics reforms.

Iorio runs a tight administration, and she dislikes being sandbagged with negative press. Last week, the Times' David Karp informed Iorio that the city had awarded at least $87,000 in contracts to CTB Home Builder, a company headed by the grandson of Dean Ryan, who was indicted along with LaBrake for bribery. (The grandson has not been charged with a crime.) A company that Iorio vowed would not get city business essentially changed its president and its name. The firms have the same creditors, business address and federal tax identification number. Iorio said she sees little meaningful difference between the two. "I find it hard to believe," she said, "that any city employee does not understand that it's a new day."

Just hours after learning of the contracts, Iorio reassigned the housing officer who processed the awards, and she said she was considering further disciplinary action against him. The mayor called for a plan to reorganize the housing office to be prepared within 30 days. She also directed the city attorney to bar companies charged with fraud - and any of their corporate "alter egos" - from doing business with the city. On Tuesday, Bob Harrell, the city's housing chief, resigned, saying he wanted to give Iorio an opportunity to bring in stronger leadership.

These changes should help, but it's a sad state of affairs when the mayor needs to formalize what should be common sense. Several officials and different departments were in a

Tighter auditing of the housing office would help clean up the contracting process. Departments need to communicate better. City employees also need to be more sensitive to public perception of their performance. But rank-and-file employees will always have wide latitude to administer an array of regulations. Iorio needs to make an example of this case, without alienating all those city employees who exercise better judgment.