Think before clamoring for Olympic torch

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By HOWARD TROXLER

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 9, 2000

Nobody likes a party pooper. Yet poop I must.

The city of St. Petersburg is a babe in the woods. It cannot be trusted to do grown-up business unsupervised. Over the years it has proven itself a sucker for con men (Bay Plaza) and unable to require, negotiate or even read contracts (Bayfront Medical Center).

So before St. Petersburg goes gallivanting off to volunteer itself to the 2012 Summer Olympics, which is an interesting effort based in Tampa and spreading across west-central Florida, we need to talk about a few things up front.

The mere fact that these things need to get talked about now is an admission that the Olympics dream is real enough. The group putting together Florida's bid, named Florida 2012, has raised $10-million and has at least moved the needle on the gauge from "ridiculous joke" to "tantalizing long shot."

So sure, it was exciting to attend the group's St. Petersburg kickoff event Wednesday afternoon at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort. It was fun looking at the artists' renderings of Olympic events that supposedly would be held in St. Petersburg and Pinellas, the first in a series of such regional unveilings.

To make it all seem more concrete, one of the posters contained a day-by-day schedule of the events, which, in case you have your 2012 planner handy, would run from June 15 to July 1.

St. Petersburg's mayor, David Fischer, who was introduced as a "visionary," helped unveil the particulars, literally. Fischer helped pull the cover back from each drawing as Florida 2012 president Ed Turanchik narrated.

"You can applaud," Turanchik said after the first drapery fell, to a roomful of silence. "It's okay." After that they did.

There are four basic areas St. Petersburg needs to think about before commiting to anything. At all times the city should guard against "mission creep" or "slide" -- being beguiled into doing or paying for something that it originally was not supposed to.

First: How many tax dollars will it cost directly? Of course, on the front end, Florida 2012 says none. But already the pitch includes a gentle tug for the city to pay for the "legacy" of a permanent swimming/diving amphitheater. By the way, wouldn't it be neat-o for somebody to build a 700,000-square-foot media center in Pinellas County, too?

Second: How many tax dollars will it cost indirectly? No one has any idea. I asked the mayor about the impact on police and fire protection, and he replied that for other events (such as the Taste of Pinellas) the organizers have paid for it. Somehow I do not think Ed Turanchik is thinking of himself on the same scale as the Taste of Pinellas.

Also along these lines are the costs of having Tropicana Field and the Bayfront Center out of commission for weeks or months, operations, staffing, any modifications required, construction of city streets, water, sewer, traffic management and crowd control.

Third: What will be the lasting physical mark on the city? In particular, everybody is talking about how beautiful a 12,000- to 15,000-seat amphitheater would be on the city's precious waterfront, not asking the first question of whether it should be there at all. What about traffic? What about parking?

Fourth: All those folks who backed Bay Plaza and every other cockamamie scheme to put St. Petersburg "on the map," and who are still ticked off that the baseball team is named the "Tampa Bay" Devil Rays, should not harbor any illusions here. The souvenir golf towels and T-shirts are going to say "Tampa." Accept the fact that when the divers dive off their boards in Vinoy Park, the dateline in Le Monde is still gonna say "Tampa," or maybe, "Tampa Bay."

Sorry to bring up such grubby and mundane detail while cheeks are still flushed with the Olympic dream. But the more we think it through on the front end, the smoother it goes later, and the less likely anybody will feel blackmailed, or threatened with being labeled, you know, a party-pooper.

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