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Official's goal: Make mundane interesting

By KATHY SAUNDERS
Published October 12, 2005

TREASURE ISLAND - Ten years ago, Jeff Jensen poked fun at Treasure Island residents and officials in a weekly newspaper column.

Today, his job is to make all of them look good.

Earlier this month Jensen, 49, became the city's first public information officer or PIO.

"I wanted to be the Public Information Guy (PIG) but they wouldn't go for that," said Jensen, whose extension at City Hall is 247.

As PIO, he'll earn $27,000 a year and a window in his office. Well, that's a window that looks into the city auditorium. From his "countertop/desk/workstation/production facility/lunch counter" Jensen tapes all City Commission and board meetings. He writes the city's news releases and updates the official Web site. It was his idea to post local "Red Tide Reports" next to the photo of a woman holding her nose.

In 2001, Jensen was a volunteer who helped launch the city's first government access cable channel, TITV, Channel 15. Nowadays, he prefers taking the camera out of the boardroom and into the community.

He made four tapes of the city's 50th anniversary celebrations in May and began airing the productions between city meetings.

He produced a special segment on the 18-foot, 300-pound pirate as it was removed from the recently demolished Buccaneer Motel on Gulf Boulevard.

"We're a hell of a team," said Jensen's boss, Mark Santos, the city's information technology director. "Jeff comes up with the ideas and I figure out how to get them on the air."

Mayor Mary Maloof considers herself one of Jensen's biggest fans.

"He can document things that are mundane and turn them into something that is interesting and informative," she said. "And he is just so funny."

She pointed to Jensen's recent programs on the construction of the new Treasure Island Causeway Bridge. In addition to explaining the traffic delays, Jensen is turning the coverage into a historical account of the project.

He wants to show future residents what it took to build a $50-million bridge designed to last 75 years.

While filming the contractors as they poured concrete slabs, Jensen decided to produce another special segment about where concrete comes from.

Turns out, the concrete for the bridge is manufactured on a piece of land at Port Tampa where Teddy Roosevelt assembled the Rough Riders in 1898 to march on San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish American War.

"And at the foot of our new bridge is a place that makes Cuban sandwiches," said Jensen, who recently was honored by the local performing arts group for his portrayal of Col. Henry Blake in the Island Community Theatre's production of M*A*S*H.

Jensen, who boasted that he shared a July 18 birthday with the late, eccentric author Hunter S. Thompson, is an optimist by nature.

"He is totally excited all the time and I have never seen him down," said the mayor. "His mind is always creating something new and he just sees so much possibility in everything."

Jensen liked being known as the "guy from the newspaper" when he worked across the street from City Hall as a reporter for the former weekly, the Island Reporter. But he always denied being a journalist.

In his former column, "Ham on Wry," he used to report on the comings and goings of city officials, as observed from the front step of his office where he usually stood, chain-smoking in his signature shorts and baseball hat.

Once he devoted an entire edition comparing the characters of Treasure Island to those from the Mayberry television series. When the Island Reporter ceased to publish, Jensen briefly published his own paper, The Treasure Island Sun and Mullet Wrapper.

Jensen got his start in radio, working as a DJ at radio stations in Tampa, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Houston. He returned to the vacation spot of his childhood, Treasure Island, in 1995. Since that time, he said he probably has missed fewer than six commission meetings or workshops at City Hall. That is a better record than almost any elected official in the city's history.

At Treasure Island, his goal is to make government access television broadcasts more exciting "than a radio station with pictures."

His televised meetings are full of close-ups, graphics and other entertaining clips. But, he said, he is careful not to let his old editorializing tendencies take over in his new position.

"This is probably the most objective kind of reporting there is," he said.

Jensen and Santos are planning to produce TITV segments about the city's Halloween haunted house, the holiday boat parade and the annual tree-lighting ceremony. They also are planning a special, Academy Award-like Oscar show for the employee appreciation event later this month.

"I can't tell you about it yet, but it will be good," said Jensen, working hard to contain his enthusiasm.

Maloof said she would bet on it.

"There's nothing ever boring or dry about what Jeff does," she said. "We all just love to watch and sit around and laugh."

[Last modified October 12, 2005, 00:19:18]