The Tampa Port Authority's credibility is in question after three board members abandoned their commitment to conduct a national search for a new port director.
Published June 26, 2004
The Tampa Port Authority is still struggling with this whole accountability thing. This month, without any prior notice, a three-member majority of the five-person board voted to appoint an inside candidate as the port's new director, reneging on an earlier commitment to conduct a nationwide search. The sneaky move sparked a backlash, and in 24 hours the deal collapsed, but not before damaging the credibility of those who run this important public asset.
The insider deal raises two questions: Did good-ol'-boy politics, long alive at the port, play a hand in the hiring decision? Two port board members who voted to give interim director Zelko Kirincich a one-year contract as chief said they didn't talk to anyone about the hiring beforehand. Kirincich said the decision took him by surprise. Florida's open-government laws prohibit members of governing bodies from discussing public business in private. But one board member on the losing side, Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms, said she heard that Kirincich was "making rounds" in advance of the meeting, where his hiring was not on the agenda. Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, who cast the other dissenting vote, said Kirincich told her before the meeting that the discussion would cover the hiring of a firm to conduct the national search for a new director.
The second question: Has the port authority actually changed its secretive ways, or is its instinct still to keep a lid on the decisionmaking process? Though Kirincich reacted to the fallout within a day by declining the job, neither he nor the board majority did the right thing when it really mattered. The two who opposed the way Kirincich was offered the job are the only elected members of the port board. Their sensitivity to the public image this move would create should have been enough for the three other commissioners to defer to their colleagues' judgment.
That only a public relations debacle induced the port to reverse a bad decision is hardly encouraging. Given the port's rapid diversification as a center for bulk cargo and an increasingly popular cruise ship trade, the agency should be reaching out to port tenants and local governments and honing a united business strategy. The port is also playing a larger role as developer in the Channel District, the growing neighborhood on the waterfront downtown. It was careless of port officials to endanger that progress by risking a loss of confidence from the mayor. And Kirincich, who has his supporters and is familiar with the port, now has his bid for the director's job tarnished. How could anyone have imagined the switcharoo would work out another way?
