Repairing the port's image
A Times EditorialPublished November 1, 2004
Tampa's port has diversified nicely, and the agency that runs it has become a major player in developing the downtown waterfront. But a string of mini-crises has exposed a corruptible culture at the Tampa Port Authority - one that harms the very region the agency is chartered to serve.
The port board has reacted to public pressure in recent days, replacing the agency's interim director and showing signs it would make the decisionmaking process more open and accountable. If the authority is serious, it will show its commitment by adopting policies to protect jobs and industries dependent on shipping. It also will look out for the public's interests in port-area real estate deals.
The board made a start at repairing the port's image last week, replacing its interim administrator, Zelko Kirincich, with a retired Tampa business executive who enjoys broader political support. Removing Kirincich should help repair the port's relationship with many shipping services tenants, who blamed the former chief for not being responsive to their business needs and for shutting them out from major decisions affecting the port and the maritime community. The authority has done a poor job for years communicating with the traditional industrial tenants, as the agency has shifted gears to undertake sexier real estate projects on now-hot waterfront property. Port officials have ignored the industry the same way they have disregarded others who have asked the port to be more thoughtful about its downtown development plans.
Having a new interim director should also kick-start the nationwide search for a new, permanent chief, something Kirincich and his board enablers dragged out for months. It took the board's only two elected members, Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio and Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms, to force the issue by embarrassing two members in particular, gubernatorial appointees Gladstone Cooper and Lance Ringhaver. That shows the depth of resistance within the authority to opening itself to public scrutiny. Business partners of the port must wonder and worry about a government agency that leaves its top job unfilled for seven months. A front office in turmoil cannot begin to craft a strategic vision for a port that employs more than 4,000 people, generates billions of dollars in revenue and acts as a magnet for commercial and residential development on the downtown waterfront.
Along with a new director who can balance the diversification of the port, the agency also needs to formalize procedures to ensure that the governing board is making informed choices instead of pursuing pet projects. The port's Maritime Industries Association has called for several reasonable steps. One would require the authority to study the impact on jobs, shipping and the environment any time a real estate development deal was proposed for port-area property. Others would involve the public more often in port decisions and require the director to detail the port's progress in a "State of the Port" report each year.
Having an appointee from the maritime community on the board, as the association has called for, would present an ongoing ethical conflict. A cleaner way to achieve the same purpose would be for the governor to name someone sensitive to port industries but retired or independent as one of his three existing appointees.
Tampa's port is vital to the region's economy and a powerful force shaping the look and feel of downtown. Iorio deserves to know the waterfront will develop compatibly with the surrounding city center; the port, after all, anchors Tampa's tourist district. The port board must step up to this responsibility, by conducting its business beyond reproach and recognizing its impact on jobs, the skyline, tourism and the downtown neighborhoods. So many are watching because so many have a stake.