Political reporters around Tampa Bay have often turned to political consultant Wayne Garcia for pearls of insight to help shape their stories, or to hear the latest spin. No more.
In an e-mail to some of his pals Thursday, Garcia said he is giving up the political consultant gig - or "hanging up his spurs," as he put it.
"It's time for a change," he said, parroting a line from some of the political brochures he has helped craft over the years.
Garcia has worked as a campaign consultant for several candidates for office since late 1995, teaming up with Mary Repper , then Colleen Mackin to do so. Most recently, he headed the U.S. Senate campaign of Johnnie Byrd , which ended in the Republican primary.
Before that, he wrote for the St. Petersburg Times, Tampa Tribune and the Gainesville Sun . He also has taught journalism as an adjunct professor at the University of Florida. He said he intends to pursue advanced degrees to see if he can make teaching journalism a career.
In the meantime, Garcia said he plans to return to his journalistic roots. Instead of sharing his thoughts through reporters, he's going to write his own political column for the Weekly Planet .
The first column appears next week.
SIGHING OVER SIGNS: Republican County Commissioner Ken Hagan , who is seeking re-election to the board, has has seen far too many of his campaign signs vandalized lately.
Someone is pasting stickers on Hagan's signs saying the commissioner "Has Been Bought.' ' Rich Reidy , an aide of the commissioner, says the mischief is occuring all over the county, but particularly in Carrollwood.
"Ken is certainly frustrated and annoyed about it," Reidy said. "We feel it's not only defacing our property, but it's slanderous."
The stickers are a jab at Hagan for the healthy financial support his campaign receives from development interests.
Hagan's Democratic challenger, David Cutting , has his own beef. His signs are disappearing altogether.
Unlike Hagan, Cutting's campaign is financially challenged. Hagan has out-raised him by a 30 to 1 ratio. Most of the $5,642 he has raised went to pay his qualifying fee. And he has been forced to purchase campaign signs by the dozens compared to Hagan, whose campaign signs dot northern Hillsborough like mushrooms.
Cutting said he bought 100 signs before the August primary and said half of them were stolen within 72 hours. He said he saved up and bought another 100 only to see many of them disappear within 48 hours.
"This is a plea to people stealing my signs and defacing my opponent's signs: Please stop!" Cutting said in a letter to the St. Petersburg Times .
"I ask those who are doing this to consider that the voters will decide, based on the issues, who will represent them for the next four years. Your actions detract from a positive campaign and are not in the best interests of the residents."
MORE POWER TO YOU: City Council member Linda Saul-Sena and state Rep . Sandra Murman , R-Tampa, want overhead utility lines gone from the neighborhood landscape. They advocate having them buried, both for aesthetic and safety reasons. To that end, the two plan to get the results of a study, organized by the Davis Islands Civic Association and funded by a state grant, in the hands of lawmakers in Tallahassee.
The research, released in September, shows the benefits of going underground are great, although the costs are sky high. Still, Murman said it's worth trying to find creative ways of financing a change that could cost $3,500 per household.
Murman said she thinks legislators will be receptive to the issue after the hurricane season left millions of Floridians without electricity for days on end.
As proof, she points to a meeting Tuesday on Davis Islands that drew elected officials from Hillsborough, Pinellas and Palm Beach counties as well as representatives from the Public Service Commission who wanted to hear the results of the study.
"Everybody's taking notice of this subject," Murman said.
Saul-Sena and Murman, who live on Davis Islands, have been working on this issue for the past eight years.
"When people lost power during the hurricanes," Saul-Sena said, "something that had become an obscure academic exercise became relevant."
NOT WRITTEN OFF: In 2006, it may be harder to write off write-in candidates.
This election, four write-in candidates qualified for state and county races. Another half dozen are running for federal offices in Florida.
Next election, state House District 56 candidate Neil Cosentino wants to see more. He's launching a campaign to fill two-thirds of the ballot with write-ins in 2006.
"It's reaching out to people who want to be in politics, but they don't have the money and they know they're not going to get the party's backing," said Cosentino, a Davis Islands resident and local activist whose write-in name is "Neil." Cosentino hardly has written his own success, running as a write-in for various offices in 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2003.
He's now pushing the idea through a Web site, www.writein.us Cosentino reminds skeptics that few people took him seriously when he started pressing to save the old Gandy Bridge. Perhaps they should take a walk on the Friendship Trail Bridge and think again.
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Bill Varian, Tim Grant, Janet Zink and Letitia Stein contributed to this report.
