Unions smell a rat in hiring for Moffitt job

By Times Staff Writer
Published February 23, 2008

TAMPA

People driving by the Moffitt Cancer Center have been seeing two giant inflatable rats lately. There aren't lab experiments.

They're a pair of rodents being used as props by two workers unions protesting Moffitt's hiring of a company to do its expansion work.

Sheet Metal Workers unions are faulting Moffitt leaders for hiring contractors that are using nonunion subcontracting companies, which they say offer substandard pay and benefits.

"There are 47-million Americans without medical insurance," said Sam McIntosh of Sheet Metal Workers' Local No. 15. "We feel (Moffitt) is contributing to the problem."

Moffitt spokeswoman Nancy Johnson said Moffitt has no direct involvement in the selection of subcontractors.

EAST LAKE

Utility says power line need overestimated

A strip of land through the Brooker Creek Preserve half a mile wide?

Sorry, make that 125 feet wide.

That's the message Progress Energy Florida executives delivered Friday, acknowledging that a utility consultant recently chose some words poorly and left Pinellas County officials misunderstanding the utility's plans.

Progress Energy representatives now say that if they decide to build a nuclear power plant in Levy County, the maximum additional right of way they would need in the preserve for new transmission lines is 125 feet.

That would be added to a 500-foot-wide Progress Energy strip where existing transmission lines already run along the eastern side of the preserve.

Or, the utility says, perhaps no new lines would be needed in the preserve at all.

CLEARWATER

Member of pioneer McMullens turns 100

Daniel Guy McMullen turned 100 this month, making him the oldest living member of Pinellas County's pioneering McMullen clan.

One of seven children, McMullen, known as Guy, was born Feb. 13, 1908, to Ward and Jessie McMullen. They lived in a two-story house that once stood 200 yards from his current home. The property, which overlooks McMullen-Booth Road, has been in the family since the mid 1800s.

Guy McMullen's father, Ward, was one of 11 children born to James P. McMullen, known as "Captain Jim," an original homesteader of this area. Six brothers would follow, including Daniel, Guy McMullen's namesake.

The McMullens raised cattle, grew sugar cane, and were involved in the citrus industry.

[Last modified February 23, 2008, 00:06:29]