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You didn't think we meant it, did you?

By HOWARD TROXLER, Times Columnist
Published February 7, 2008

Today, the St. Petersburg City Council will go back on something that it repeatedly told the people it would do since August.

At least some of the members will try to deny that the City Council made any commitments to the public at all.

But you can check for yourself. The video of the council's Dec. 20 meeting is on the city's Web site. Go to about the 3:42 mark.

The issue today is whether to designate Progress Energy Park, the site of Al Lang Field, as a park under the city's new land rules.

You might ask: huh? Make it a park? Isn't that where they want to build a new baseball stadium?

Yes. But whether to designate Al Lang as a park on the city's land-use map is a separate question. If the voters later say yes to a stadium, no harm done.

However, if the new stadium is NOT built, then the prime waterfront site will still in theory be available for something else. Hmm.

I keep hearing that this is "no big deal." It is just words on paper. It can always be done later. It shouldn't distract us.

If it isn't a big deal, then why won't they do it?

Let's remember how we got here.

While the city was keeping the new stadium secret during most of 2007, it held sham "public hearings" on new land rules.

The citizens came and took part in good faith, seeking to preserve Al Lang.

When the council approved the new land rules in August, it left out Al Lang. The members said they would include it in a later "glitch" ordinance.

That "glitch" ordinance is on today's agenda. Guess what is not in it.

* * *

In December, after the stadium deal was public, I questioned how long it would take the City Council to go back on its word on protecting Al Lang.

I got an upset phone call then from Bill Foster, a council member finishing up his final term.

Foster told me that he would shave his head if the council did anything else.

The council met on Dec. 20. That same day it got a memo from the city staff advising it to leave Al Lang alone.

During a break in that meeting, I called Foster and told him that I was lining up a barber.

Foster went back in after the break and brought up the new memo. I mark the spot on the video at 3:42:29.

"How did we leave that, in anyone's recollection?" Foster asked his colleagues. "Are you expecting that to come back in a glitch ordinance?"

Chairman James Bennett said yes, that in his discussion of the glitch process with staff, "I think the No. 1 was the Al Lang issue."

Foster pressed. He wanted to be sure.

"We sat right here," Bennett assured him. "I think we were all here, and one after another (citizen) came."

Council member Herb Polson chimed in. Polson said the council needed to tell the city staff "that this issue be an item on there. ... My recollection is the mayor said that when the glitch ordinance came, this would be the first issue to be taken up."

Delaying action, Polson said, was "contrary to what I recall was said to us on what was going to happen in the glitch process."

That was what the St. Petersburg City Council said on Dec. 20.

Today's meeting starts at 8:30 a.m.

[Last modified February 6, 2008, 23:57:17]