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A ploy for attention, sure, but with cash

By SUE CARLTON
Published August 5, 2005

Tampa strip-club owner Joe Redner was looking for the woman who runs the local Planned Parenthood.

He found Barbara Zdravecky, who oversees the organization in 15 counties, on WMNF radio last Friday. She was talking about the Hillsborough County Commission's vote to yank $39,500 for a teen theater troupe that communicates with other teens about issues of sex, drugs and dating violence. The problem: It's a Planned Parenthood program.

Commissioner Ronda Storms had told Zdravecky she was prolife and could not support Planned Parenthood. Talk of common ground - that they could surely agree preventing teen pregnancy was a good idea - fell on deaf ears.

So Redner, who has a thriving side-job as a thorn in the side of some public officials, called the radio show to offer $20,000 for the teen program. Zdravecky said it was "very generous" and she'd talk to the Planned Parenthood board.

But they decided not to accept Redner's check because he wanted to deliver it at a press conference. That was a deal-breaker "because Joe obviously has his own political issues, which we respect, and we have ours," Zdravecky said. "To blend the money in the two sets of issues may give people the wrong idea that we are somehow linked."

No one's ever called Redner, who's repeatedly run for office, a quitter. He plans to revisit the issue after Zdravecky goes back to the commission next month, possibly with some teens to talk about the program.

Since it's a pretty good assumption the commission won't do an about face, why shouldn't Planned Parenthood take the money? Redner, who gives to groups like the ACLU and local youth sports and business associations, has made it clear he supports what they do. They might as well have the cash.

On a less serious strip-club related note, we all might want to look at that spaceship atop the 2001 Odyssey near Raymond James Stadium with a little more respect.

A recent New York Times story pointed out a growing network of fans of Futuro houses, circular, spaceship-shaped structures designed by a Finnish architect in 1968. Fewer than 100 exist, and according to the futuro-house.net Web site, Tampa has at least one.

The club owner spotted it for sale in Sebring decades ago, paid something like $3,000 for it, and a kitschy local landmark was born.

Tampa's has been retrofitted. Instead of a gangplank, wildly carpeted stairs lead to a round black-lighted room with a bar and a circle of tiny, private booths. And in this Futuro, the windows stay completely covered.

For her next cable TV show, Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio gathered former mayors Bill Poe, Bob Martinez, Sandy Freedman and Dick Greco to reminisce about a city growing up, from building the airport to developing downtown to recessions and civil disturbances.

You find out what they think were the most significant steps and you hear stories, like how they got death threats or had to wear bulletproof vests. You learn that one of them wanted to put glass covers over the sewer manholes.

"I have some very interesting stories - I'm not sure I can share all of them on television," says Freedman, the first woman mayor.

"Don't call me honey,' right?" says Greco.

For viewers in Hillsborough County, the show first airs at 7 p.m. Monday on CTTV-Ch. 15 on Bright House Networks.

Sue Carlton can be reached at carlton@sptimes.com

[Last modified August 5, 2005, 01:06:07]