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By Compiled by SHARON KENNEDY WYNNE
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 19, 2000
Sheriff opts to offer job to successor
NEW PORT RICHEY -- After a bruising campaign, most candidates aren't on speaking terms. But Pasco County Sheriff Lee Cannon, who lost his post to Republican Bob White on Election Day, has offered his successor a job as his chief deputy for the next six weeks in hopes of making a smooth transition.
Cannon also offered to hire anyone on White's transition team. It would be up to White whether to accept salaries for the temporary positions, and Cannon said he explained to White that the salaries would come out of the agency's budget.
White has not decided whether to accept Cannon's job offers, saying that he is going to think things over in the coming week while he decides on a command staff.
Cannon's offer came during a Monday morning meeting with White that lasted a half-hour. Both men used the words "cordial," "sincere," and "gracious," when describing the meeting.
"I couldn't ask for anyone to be more professional," White said.
SPRING HILL -- Aleisha King, 37, a blue-eyed redhead who is part of the way through the sex-change process and lives as a woman, often joins the after-hours banter among several exotic dancers who go to Denny's for breakfast after the late shift.
But King was surprised recently by a phone call from a Denny's manager, partly in response to an ugly confrontation King had with another patron.
King said a night manager called Differences Pub, where King tends bar and performs as a female impersonator. He told her that the ladies' room would be off-limits to King and other transgendered people. The manager also suggested that Lynne Greene, who owns Differences, stand guard outside the bathroom door when the others went inside.
As a result, patrons of Differences have organized a boycott of Denny's and are considering a civil rights complaint.
Denny's manager Bill Cushman confirmed that there had been problems at the restaurant stemming from men dressed as women using the ladies' room and that the diner is "trying to accommodate them."
Jessica Archer, who is director of the Tampa-based Florida Organization for Gender Equality, said the incidents reflect a national trend.
"The rule is that you use the facility of the gender that you are presenting," she said. "That rule is based on safety."
TAMPA -- Fourteen months after prosecutors said they had sensational audiotapes of Steven and Marlene Aisenberg discussing the death of their missing 5-month-old daughter, the case against the couple is foundering.
In a ruling made public Monday, Judge Steven Merryday said he had listened to the tapes and found them "largely inaudible" and of generally poor quality.
The judge appears to be leaning toward finding the tapes inadmissible, said former federal prosecutor Steve Crawford. Such a decision would cripple the prosecution's case against the Aisenbergs, accused of conspiring to cover up the disappearance of their infant daughter Sabrina.
According to the tape transcripts, Marlene Aisenberg reportedly told her husband 29 days after Sabrina disappeared: "The baby's dead and buried! It was found dead because you did it! The baby's dead no matter what you say -- you just did it!"
Merryday gave prosecutors until Wednesday to submit a statement of how they plan to use the recordings to prove their case.
CRYSTAL RIVER -- Wildlife researchers reached a milestone in restoring the endangered whooping crane when an experimental flock of birds arrived in Citrus County last weekend.
The 11 sandhill cranes, which are far more abundant than their cousins, blazed a 1,250-mile migratory trail over seven states during the past month, starting at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin and ending at St. Martins Marsh Aquatic Preserve in Crystal River. It was the longest human-led bird migration, one of the groups organizing it said.
Hatched in captivity, the sandhills were raised to follow yellow-bellied ultralight aircrafts as if those were their mothers.
Having been taught how to migrate, the sandhills now must return to Wisconsin in the spring on their own.
Researchers, who learned much in the 40-day mission, plan to repeat the trip five times using whooping cranes.
TAMPA -- State regulators are delaying action on a crucial permit application for the proposed seawater desalination plant on Tampa Bay until they receive more scientific data, possibly threatening a regional deadline for new water resources.
The $110-million plant is supposed to be operational by the end of 2002, part of an ambitious plan to reduce pumping from depleted well fields.
Approval of the discharge permit is an important step for S&W Water, which has a contract to build the 25-million-gallons-per-day facility near Tampa Electric Co.'s Big Bend power plant in Hillsborough County.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection wants a copy of the modeling software used to show that salinity levels from the salty discharge of the desal plant would not harm the environment immediately surrounding the plant.
If the DEP decides the application is complete, the agency still will need to review the project and take public comment. Some residents and environmentalists strongly oppose the project.
TREASURE ISLAND -- The ParaStars paragliding club is based on a large vacant parcel in rural Parrish, where members learn, practice and train in relative isolation and obscurity.
But occasionally they visit the sand of Treasure Island, where the large expanse of beach is particularly suitable for paragliding.
Treasure Island officials think they might need to protect their earthbound visitors from the flying ones.
Paragliders fly using a large fan strapped to their backs that is attached to a 32-foot-long parachute. The group is attracted to Treasure Island because its beach is among the widest in Pinellas County.
At a meeting Tuesday, commissioners decided to position local police officers on the beach on weekends to watch for paragliders, and any that are seen will be turned over to the Federal Aviation Authority, which forbids paragliders operating in populated areas, including a recreational beach.
Watch out for traffic. Despite soaring fuel prices, Thanksgiving travel this week is expected to be up 4 percent over last year, according to AAA, with most of that increase by car. More than 38-million Americans plan a Thanksgiving holiday getaway of 100 miles or more from home, according to AAA.
The Hillsborough County School Board is set to vote on its school desegregation plan on Tuesday. The vote was deferred last week after Doris Ross Reddick, the board's only black member, still had some questions and considered the plan incomplete. The plan is the district's response to Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich's 1998 order mandating that the district do more to desegregate its schools. It ends court-ordered busing and replaces it with school choice that would offer students a menu of both suburban and urban schools.