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By SHARON KENNEDY WYNNE
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 4, 2001
Pinellas may block voyeur Web sites
CLEARWATER -- Tired of becoming a frequent stop on randy Web tours, officials are trying to figure out how to block Internet voyeur sites operating from Pinellas County homes.
The Web sites have names like ucanwatch.com and the Dude Dorm, promising total access for peepers and lots of shower scenes, and County Commissioner Karen Seel asked county attorneys to look into zoning regulations to put a stop to them.
"I think most citizens would be concerned to feel like this type of activity might be going on next to their home," Seel said.
In Tampa, zoning officials went after Voyeur Dorm, a house from which cameras broadcast images of six young -- and often naked -- women on the Internet. The city argued that the house violated zoning laws, and a judge agreed.
Though county officials say they do have the laws in place to go after adult businesses in residential neighborhoods, Seel wants the county to strengthen its adult business rules.
Mike Schriver, who runs the ucanwatch.com Web site, contends the business is not run out of the Tarpon Springs house where subscribers can watch women shower, sunbathe and play pool. The corporate address is in New Port Richey, and the server is in Tampa, Schriver said. Only the cameras and the women are in the Tarpon Springs house, he said, which means "there's no business taking place here at all."
TARPON SPRINGS -- The famous Greek sponging community of Tarpon Springs needs to soak up a little more authentic culture to bolster the industry, some say.
A group of local sponge buyers, divers and boat captains wants to import experienced divers from Greece to mop up the lagging business.
"We need the production," said Jim Skaroulis, owner of Sponge Brokers International and a member of the newly formed Sponge Associates of Florida. Otherwise, he said, sponge diving "is going to be a dying breed."
If the plan works out, the new divers would work alongside experienced divers in Tarpon Springs and could train locals with less time in the water. The goal is to have more people diving and to increase the local supply of sponges.
It's a kids-these-days problem. Fewer and fewer locals want to make a living as sponge divers. In the past, it was a rite of passage for the city's young men to go on a sponging boat and learn the trade from their fathers, but the easy availability of jobs that offer steady wages and predictable benefits have changed that.
TAMPA -- Seeking to dispel its reputation as a menace to pedestrians, Tampa has launched an ambitious plan to build a long, luxuriant network of bicycle paths, nature trails and walkways that is expected to take decades to complete.
On Thursday, the City Council voted to give the Tampa Greenways and Trails master plan the green light, though it is uncertain how, and if, the multimillion-dollar price tag will be met.
Despite the uncertainties, Parks Director Ross Ferlita hailed the plan as the biggest effort the department has yet undertaken to improve the quality of life in the city for in-line skaters, walkers and bicyclists.
Speaking before the council Thursday, he noted that such trails already exist in cities such as Dunedin and Denver, Colo. "We're playing catch-up," Ferlita said.
CRYSTAL RIVER -- The company that wants to bottle water from Three Sisters Spring was on the defensive, saying it will use only a fraction of the water flowing from the spring each day and will pose no threat to the endangered manatee.
Experts with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, or Swiftmud, said the withdrawal would intercept water from the warm springs that are vital for manatees during the winter. And Crystal River is a prime winter home for cold-wary manatees.
On Tuesday, the agency's governing board referred the permit request to an administrative hearing.
Three Sisters Springs Water Co. said the proposed denial ignored the "high demand for pure bottled water by Floridians and other consumers" and infringed on the owner's right to use ground water. It also disputed any impact on manatees.
After the Division of Administrative Hearings reviews the case, it will then be referred back to Swiftmud's governing board, which will vote.
NEW PORT RICHEY -- Prosecutors plan to portray Jim Curtis as a repeat child abuser when they put him on trial on charges that he killed a 3-year-old boy he was trying to adopt.
In a case that drew national headlines, Alex Boucher died just days after he was brought from Connecticut to Florida to stay with a couple who wanted to adopt him.
Police say his would-be father became angry after Alex soiled himself and wrapped the boy so tightly in a blanket that he suffocated in his bed.
In court papers filed last month, prosecutors announced their intention to present evidence of three incidents in which Curtis is accused of abusing Alex in the weeks before the boy died.
In one incident, the boy's aunt said Curtis punched Alex in the stomach. In another, Curtis allegedly disciplined Alex in a malicious fashion after the mentally and physically disabled boy urinated in his pants at the doctor's office.
Curtis' defense attorney, Bob Attridge, said he will fight to keep the jury from hearing about the incidents.
"Just because (prosecutors are) asking for it, doesn't mean it's going to come in" at trial, Attridge said.
LARGO -- A proposed Bible class is a cause for concern, Pinellas County School Board attorney John Bowen told the board last week.
The proposal by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools would likely be unconstitutional, he said.
Last summer, the state Department of Education reworked how Bible courses may be taught. Now, in "Introduction to Bible: I or II," the Bible can be taught as a piece of literature but not as history.
After a brief discussion, School Board members took no action.
A similar debate took place in Hernando County last month after former School Board member Jerry Milby, along with a coalition of ministers, pushed for a Bible course that focuses less on critical review of the Bible and more on the Bible's influence on American history.
But there is no such course on the state's approved class list. To offer it, the district would have to draw up a new course from scratch and get the state Department of Education to approve it.
For now at least, a Bible course is "a dead issue for the year," said Charles Casciotta, who oversees high school curriculum in Hernando County.
The Hernando County School Board on Tuesday will take up the issue of pulling the book Freaky Friday from school shelves. The book is a rarely challenged children's book published in 1972 about a girl who wakes up one day in her mother's body. It was made into a 1977 Disney movie starring Jodie Foster as Annabel and a 1995 movie starring Shelley Long as Annabel's mother. A parent raised concern about references to drinking and smoking, and characters who take God's name in vain.
An elections task force appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush meets in Jacksonville on Tuesday. So far, the task force has concluded that Florida should look into renting better voting equipment to get through the 2002 elections, then consider buying advanced technology for the future. It's a task that could cost between $20-million and $40-million, but task force members said it is needed to get the state out of a punch card voting mess that made Florida a laughingstock during last year's presidential recount.