[Times photo: Ron Thompson]
MERMAID UPSTAGES MANATEE: Jeff Corwin, host of The Jeff Corwin Experience on the Animal Planet channel, removes his face mask after completing taping with Weeki Wachee mermaid Tonia Waldron at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park. "It's sort of a gag we're doing," Corwin said. The show might air early next year, park officials said.

By SHARON KENNEDY WYNNE

Staff urges quick repair for City Hall

DADE CITY -- It's not unusual when a petition from fed-up residents lands at City Hall, but when the signers are employees of City Hall, eyebrows tend to rise.

After more than two years of discussion, it took a tropical storm for the talk -- and water, and mold -- to hit the fan for employees at Dade City's Town Hall.

Saying they are fed up with leaks, odors and even rats in their old building, employees last week submitted a petition demanding something be done.

City Manager Doug Drymon said he sympathizes because his office, like others in the building, smells of mold. But taking on a project as large as renovating or rebuilding City Hall can't be done quickly.

Drymon said a consultant is helping determine how much money the city can borrow. Results of that study are expected within a month. Then it will be up to commissioners to set priorities.

Toddler picked to lead annual Suncoast Heart Walks

PALM HARBOR -- Maddie Grace Price, 17 months, has been walking for only about eight months now, but the former heart patient is on board to lead the annual Heart Walks in Pasco and Hernando counties this year.

She and other survivors of heart disease and strokes will wear red caps at the fundraising walkathons.

Soon after her birth on April 11, 2000, Maddie's heart was found to be seriously damaged by a large hole. In addition, her aortic valve was closing and preventing blood from circulating to her lungs.

After a series of successful surgeries, nurses called her their miracle baby, knowing that only a few years earlier, her chances of survival at birth would have been zero.

The Heart Walks are scheduled throughout the Tampa Bay area in October. For information in Pasco and Hernando counties, call 1-800-275-1702; in Pinellas and Hillsborough, call 1-800-275-0448.

Scientologist merchants told they can bar critics

CLEARWATER -- Critics of the Church of Scientology can be shown the door by Scientologists who own shops downtown, the government has ruled.

Last September, Mark Bunker didn't even get beyond the front door of One Stoppe Shoppe on Cleveland Street. Two days later, Bunker and Jeff Jacobsen had just finished lunch at Daniela's Kitchen on N Fort Harrison when they were told never to come back.

The two men, both employed at the Lisa McPherson Trust, a downtown organization dedicated to fighting Scientology, believed their rights had been violated. They filed discrimination complaints with the Pinellas County Office of Human Rights.

Last month, their claims were rejected. Florida law allows business owners to refuse service to any person "who is objectionable or undesirable to the operator," so long as it's not based on race, creed, color, sex, physical disability or national origin.

Zephyrhills’ no-gossip proposal toned down

ZEPHYRHILLS -- City Manager Steve Spina at one time proposed what came to be known as an "anti-gossip" clause to the city's employee manual.

Spina has since reworded a kinder, gentler version that urges employees to treat co-workers with respect, but Spina remains irritated that his intentions were "grossly misrepresented."

A sample from his original draft read:

"Employees shall not criticize the city or its policies, programs, actions or officers or perform any acts or make any written or oral statements which tend to bring them into disrepute or ridicule. . . . Employees shall not gossip about any other member or employee to his or her discredit, whether the subject is true or false."

Spina says he was trying to maintain some decorum.

"I wasn't trying to be Joseph Stalin; I just wanted to say, "Watch how you act.' Maybe the wording was too harsh."

Dunedin rethinks accepting gifts from Blue Jays

DUNEDIN -- City Attorney John Hubbard is trying to come up with a new city policy that would allow city commissioners to take fewer gifts while not appearing compromised by the Toronto Blue Jays, which plays its spring training games there.

The proposal follows a St. Petersburg Times report last month that city leaders accepted more than $34,000 in gifts from the Jays and Canadian government the past decade. Although the practice is legal, commissioners have been criticized for their actions.

Hubbard floated the idea of banning city employees and commissioners from accepting baseball game tickets. If commissioners want tickets, the city would purchase them. And if commissioners want to travel to Toronto to promote tourism, taxpayers should foot the bill, the proposal said.

But the commission may not be ready for a change. Last week, Commissioners Cecil Englebert, John Doglione and Janet Henderson said they were comfortable with things as they are.

Englebert said accepting freebies was good business practice because his mere presence at a game, for instance, attracts other fans to the games.

In short . . .

BROOKSVILLE -- The Hernando County Commission unanimously backed the proposal to move Brooksville Regional Hospital about 3 1/2 miles west of its current home. The move was bitterly opposed by competitor Oak Hill Hospital, which plans to fight the application on a state level.

PINELLAS PARK -- After undergoing a number of renovations and opening a new stadium-seating cinema, Pinellas ParkSide has been put up for sale by its owner, John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. The company never intended to be in the mall management business, a spokeswoman said.

TAMPA -- Hillsborough County Administrator Dan Kleman has decided to stay put and patch things up with his bosses. He will withdraw as one of the finalists for the Pinellas County administrator opening and will take a four-year extension on his current contract.

Coming up this week

On Tuesday, the Hillsborough County School Board will be asked to decide what's in a school name. Admirers of legendary coach and former Superintendent J. Crockett Farnell launched a campaign to name a school after Farnell, who died in 1999. But some New Tampa residents are resisting the idea because Farnell left office under a cloud of embezzlement charges that were later overturned on appeal.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission meets in Washington, D.C., Wednesday to hear testimony on arsenic-treated wood. The commission and the Environmental Protection Agency have been looking into the issue of treated wood in playgrounds since last spring, when several wooden playgrounds were closed after tests commissioned by the St. Petersburg Times found arsenic in the soil. Only one -- Discovery Playground in Tarpon Springs -- remains closed.

Back to Tampa Bay area news

Back

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

Special Links

Mary Jo Melone

Howard Troxler

Headlines
From the Times
local news desks