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Airport manager buzzed by barber, then roasted
By BRADY DENNIS ZEPHYRHILLS -- The biggest buzz in City Hall on Monday night was a haircut. A bad one. The chuckles started before airport manager Jim Werme even reached the lectern to discuss an airport lease. "Love your haircut!" belted council member Mike Bussell. Werme couldn't help but laugh, too. "I got two haircuts today," he said. "The first one didn't go too well, so we had to go a little shorter." Werme usually sports a healthy mop of red hair. At least enough to cover his scalp. This was different. This was buzzed. This was combat-ready, military short. This was a five o'clock shadow. "Has your wife seen it yet?" Bussell asked. "Not yet," Werme said. "She'll be in bed by the time I get home tonight." "You better hope," said Bussell, almost in tears. There were 47 people in the room. Not one failed to laugh at the scene, and especially at the good-natured way in which Werme took the ribbing. It was a welcome break from a council meeting that otherwise was long, tense and at times confrontational. Before Werme's presentation, council members had been arguing about whether to give local businesses preference when bidding on city projects. Even that discussion carried over to Werme's haircut. "Was it a local barber?" shouted parks director Rick Moore. Bussell replied: "Yeah, it was the lowest-bidding barber!" Werme flew out early Tuesday to a conference in New Orleans, far from the newspaper cameras that could capture a shot of his trim job. But he did get the last laugh at Monday's meeting. "I even gave him a tip," Werme said of the barber, "because it was Christmas."
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