Greco can't talk sweetly enough for this hard sell

MELONE E-mail: Click here Archive

By MARY JO MELONE

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 17, 2001

A walk by the river where you wouldn't have to worry if you're being tailed by a mugger.

A tour through an art show from New York, because finally Tampa had enough room to house one.

Maybe another museum to show off the bay area's history to our population of newcomers.

In a city where a guy named Bubba is an icon even after he's busted, the cultural arts district that Dick Greco proposed would be a precious counterpoint.

But the mayor who never hears anybody say no has heard a resounding no from the neighborhoods.

City Council members are grumbling.

The arts district plan, which would replace Tampa's shoe box of an art museum, give a boost to the city's zoo and at least pay for the planning of other cultural facilities in a downtown arts district, is in trouble.

The trouble could have been predicted. This is a replay of a 20-year-old power struggle between Tampa's downtown and its neighborhoods.

In the early 1980s, voters killed a plan called A Penny for the Good Life that would have raised taxes to build the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. City government said the heck with the public and floated bonds to pay for it.

Bob Martinez was mayor then. He won the governor's race in 1986 but didn't carry his hometown -- partly because people in the neighborhoods resented all the attention he had paid downtown. It wasn't just the Performing Arts Center. But the Convention Center. The office high-rises. Downtown got a photogenic skyline, but the neighborhoods felt ignored.

The balance of power was reversed by Sandy Freedman, mayor after Martinez. She created a loan fund for homeowners turned away by banks. Every distinct neighborhood in Tampa is today marked by a sign that she had erected.

Then came Greco. He portrays himself as all things to all people, but if you ask him why he wants a cultural arts district, his explanation is that it's good for business. That's the kind of telltale remark that reveals Greco's political roots.

Downtown. Land of the Chamber of Commerce. Where everybody who is anybody gets all his calls returned and comes from a neighborhood with sidewalks in front of every house, as well as curbs and streetlights. In these neighborhoods, it never floods when it rains, and when it rains, there are no potholes full of water.

If only the rest of Tampa, which looks on Kennedy Boulevard as the dividing line between the listened-to and the ignored, had these things. Now the rest of Tampa has its hand out.

This 20-year-old grudge match is only made worse by the source of the $55-million for the arts plan. That's the tax I still can't bear to call the Community Investment Tax, because everything else promised the community was an afterthought to building that new Bucs stadium that looks so nice from a blimp.

It was bad enough people were hoodwinked into approving the extra sales tax for the stadium. Worse still that they knew they were being hoodwinked. Now Greco is asking people who pay those extra sales taxes when they shop at Wal-Mart to build something they think only the Saks crowd will enjoy.

Dickie baby would have better luck attracting a favorable crowd if he walked into the Mons Venus and waved to the dancers he's been trying to put out of business.

Greco won't believe me, but I'm not picking on him. I'm on his side, and with the museums. We need them.

But to win this one, he has to reverse 20 years of history. To satisfy everyone -- the museum people and the neighborhoods -- would require divvying up $11-million each year for five years. That's not a lot of money when you run a government, but try telling that to people who will never get closer to $11-million, let alone $55-million, than the dream they chase when they buy a lottery ticket.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright