Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Digest

The metro report

By TIMES WIRES
Published November 9, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG

Civic campaign set to fight homelessness

Committed to the aggressive goal of ending homelessness in 10 years, civic and elected leaders are taking message to the local business community.

Leaders of the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce and city downtown partnership will meet with business owners this morning to detail Pinellas County's plan to eradicate homelessness, laying the groundwork in a broad-based campaign that calls for least $6-million in private support.

Community support is crucial, said Don Shea, president of the St. Pete Downtown Partnership.

On any given night in Pinellas, an average of 4,450 people go to sleep homeless - including 98 families with children. Officials have developed a series of steps, based on providing housing and job training, that they believe can eliminate the area's growing problem.

OCALA

Circuit Judge Spivey resigning his seat

Circuit Judge Stephen D. Spivey, who once regularly presided in Citrus and Hernando counties, has resigned effective Dec. 31.

In a letter filed last week, Spivey said he arrived at the decision "after careful contemplation and consultation with friends and family."

Spivey, who was elected in 2004, handled family law cases in Citrus and Hernando until late 2005. He then shifted to Ocala.

Spivey was ordered to repay $265,000 to Homeowners for Justice, an Ocala group he represented as an attorney in the mid 1990s and with whom he had been fighting in court over fees he charged. The 5th District Court of Appeal recently upheld that ruling. Spivey could not be reached for comment.

CLEARWATER

Shriners make chief officer of the year

The Clearwater Police Department, in cooperation with the Clearwater Shrine Club, pulled off a stunt that stunned police Chief Sid Klein on Wednesday.

They presented him with the Clearwater Shrine Club's annual Police Officer of the Year Award at a surprise luncheon.

"Only you Shriners could have pulled off this conspiracy. And you pulled it off really well," said Klein, after finding out the award was for him, not Sgt. Greg Stewart, as he had thought. Normally, the police chief, in conjunction with the department, chooses the officer of the year. This year the Shrine Club put aside the rules.

At 25 years, Klein is Clearwater's longest-serving police chief, said Reed Rue, director of the club.

SHADY HILLS

Loss stings little for pro-white candidate

John Ubele, the white-nationalist window cleaner who ran for Pasco County Mosquito Control Board on a platform of fiscal responsibility, won't let finishing sixth out of six in Tuesday's election squash his political dreams.

Ubele, 28, told the Times he has started his own political action committee, the Sons of Liberty Committee, to further his goal of establishing a national prowhite political party. He said he plans to run for another elected office in 2008.

"Just because this race was lost," he said, "doesn't mean the struggle was lost."

[Last modified November 9, 2006, 01:05:43]