Filed under: Ethics, Leadership, Voter Support | Tags: County Commission, Hillsborough County Florida
All of us have likely heard the maxim, “Confession is good for the soul.” It’s an old Scottish proverb but there is a word missing. The proverb actually reads, “Open confession is good for the soul.”
Commissioner Jim Norman could have heeded this advice and thereby avoided the possibility of being rejected or removed by the Florida State Senate; facing the FBI and facing the IRS. Some never learn. But the possibility of learning from this should not be lost on the remaining members of the Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners.
Look deeply within your self.
What things about your past behaviors would you NOT want to see as newspaper headlines?
This is not an easy task.
Ask Jim Norman.
He could have come clean on questionable links to Ralph Hughes before someone else brought them to light. The voting public would have forgiven him and sent him to Tallahassee with pride. A re-born statesman, instead of a politician under a cloud.
The Senate would have forgiven him.
The FBI would have forgiven him.
The IRS would have forgiven him.
So now the remaining BOCC members
each have your own choices to make.
Step out of church on Sunday and openly confess anything that would otherwise disqualify you for a career in public office.
Do it now, while you still have the love and support of your public.
Do it later, and face possibly having all that you have accomplished taken away in a flash of unwanted publicity.
Each of you must decide for yourself.
Trust to “let the voters decide”. We are a very forgiving people.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Party candidates are controlled by their desire to please party leaders, who in turn are controlled by their desire to please big campaign contributors.
With party politics it is all about the money: to get elected/re-elected, to keep in power, to get favorable legislation.
With someone with no party affiliation (NPA) on the County Board of Commissioners, there is no looking toward the puppet masters such as Ralph Hughes for prompts on how to vote.
- An NPA will vote on issues based on the merits of the measure.
- An NPA knows that their ability to get elected or re-elected will be based on the will of a thoughtful voting public, not members of any political party who give up their freewill by voting how they are told by party leaders.
Isn’t it about time we made the effort to think for ourselves?
Remember, when you are in the voting booth, there is no one looking over your shoulder.
Let the voters decide.
Filed under: Campaign, Ethics, Leadership | Tags: County Commission, Hillsborough County Florida, Politics
Reading the Janet Zink and Bill Varian article today about Ralph Hughes’ influence on the Hillsborough Board of County Commission, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Who is left on the BOCC who might also have been (still being) unduly influenced by money, “mentoring” or other peccadilloes?
Let the voters decide.
Filed under: Tampa Choo-Choo, Transportation | Tags: County Commission, Hillsborough County Florida, Ken Hagan, Tampa Choo-Choo, Tampa light-rail
Now THAT'S congestion!
Tampa didn’t even make it in the top 10 of congested cities.
Weekly hours of congestion: 85
Average speed during congestion: 14 mph
#2 – New York, NY
Weekly hours of congestion: 94
Average speed when congested: 11.4 mph
#3 – Chicago, IL
Weekly hours of congestion: 83
Average speed when congested: 11.1 mph
#4 – Washington, DC
Weekly hours of congestion: 32
Average speed when congested: 14 mph
#5 – Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
Weekly hours of congestion: 43
Average speed when congested: 20.1 mph
#6 – Houston, TX
Weekly hours of congestion: 22
Average speed when congested: 13.2 mph
#7 – San Francisco-Oakland, CA
Weekly hours of congestion: 68
Average speed when congested: 19.6 mph
#8 – Boston, MA
Weekly hours of congestion: 43
Average speed when congested: 16.7 mph
#9 – Seattle-Tacoma, WA
Weekly hours of congestion: 33
Average speed when congested: 11.2 mph
#10 – Philadelphia, PA
Weekly hours of congestion: 45
Average speed when congested: 18.9 mph
Answer: ALL of these cities have rail transit systems.
Let the voters decide.
Filed under: Campaign, Ethics, Voter Support | Tags: County Commission, Electoral district, Gerrymandering, Hillsborough County Florida, Ken Hagan, Politics, Redistricting
The original Gerry-mander
When it comes to redistricting, who do you want on the Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners: R’s, D’s or NPA’s?
Candidate Ken Hagan makes no bones about following the party line. This would seem to be his plan for redistricting, even if he is elected to District 5, county-wide. There are still R’s to protect in other single-member districts.
What Wikipedia says:
“Gerrymandering is a form of boundary delimitation (redistricting) in which electoral district or constituency boundaries are deliberately modified for electoral purposes, thereby producing a contorted or unusual shape.
Incumbents are likely to be of the majority party orchestrating a gerrymander, and incumbents are usually easily renominated in subsequent elections.
This demonstrates that gerrymandering can have a deleterious effect on the principle of democratic accountability. With uncompetitive seats/districts reducing the fear that incumbent politicians may lose office, they have less incentive to represent the interests of their constituents, even when those interests conform to majority support for an issue across the electorate as a whole. Incumbent politicians may look out more for their party’s interests than for those of their constituents.”
Sound like what we have now in Hillsborough County?
Is this what we REALLY want to continue under Hagan?
Let the voters decide.
Filed under: Tampa Choo-Choo, Transportation | Tags: County Commission, Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority, Hillsborough County Florida, Ken Hagan, Tampa light-rail
Support HART bus, not rail
Chairman Ron Govin is absolutely correct in today’s Tampa Tribune Views page that HART delivers on its mission:
“Our Team is dedicated to providing excellent customer service while building solutions to support Hillsborough County’s needs…now and into the future.”
CEO David Armijo and his executive staff have built the best bus transit service of its size in the United States.
The real problem for HART has been a BOCC who diverted 99% of the last half-penny sales tax increase away from public transportation.
Commissioner Hagan’s Transportation Task Force pretty much stacked the deck so that light-rail for the area surrounding downtown Tampa was the preferred solution, benefiting mostly consultants, developers and attorneys. By comparing light-rail with the most expensive bus service, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), it made light-rail seem not so much more expensive.
What HART and all the dedicated people who work there do best, is to provide cost-effective Plain Old Bus (POB) service, with some enhancements.
I believe that with the whole 75% of the proposed sales tax increase, HART could more than double bus transit ridership, at no cost to riders, for less than half of the total cost of light-rail.
Govin says they just need more time for a thorough analysis. I agree. Let’s push this whole tax increase issue back to the next election in 2012, which is not the end of the world.
Otherwise we could wind up voting for transportation funding that STILL does not let HART do what it does best: Affordable public transportation.
Let the voters decide.
Filed under: Economic Stimulus, Tampa Choo-Choo, Transportation | Tags: Bus rapid transit, County Commission, Ken Hagan, Tampa Choo-Choo, Tampa light-rail
After 15 MONTHS of additional study by an expensive, outside consulting group, the resulting 125-page Alternatives Analysis Study STILL says “I don’t know” to the important questions as to which transit routes would best serve the community and which mode of transportation would be most cost-effective.
This report was to be the result of “a planning process to determine the transit mode and the alignment that best meets the needs of the community.” They only looked at two route corridors in Tampa, not the entire county. Now we need to wait for a “Locally Preferred Alternative” (LPA) study.
Just how hard is it to add Plain Old Bus (POB) service along any route, without another bazillion-dollar study?
We already voted to tax ourselves a half-penny Community Investment Tax (CIT) added to the sales tax years ago for among other things, transportation.
We will still be paying on that added $4 BILLION tax for the next 15 years.
We already have 100 of the needed buses sitting in HART parking lots. We just need drivers and maintenance workers.
Here’s a thought: Use that CIT money to give jobs to several hundred of otherwise unemployed Hillsborough residents and put those buses on the road.
The problem is that members of the HART board of directors have been snookered by downtown property owners and lobbyists into believing that increasing property values under the guise of “economic development” is more important than serving the riding public.
Consultants, lawyers and developers all tell us that new restaurants, strip-malls and hotels will spring up near rail stations. What they don’t say is that the jobs thus created will largely be low-wage, part-time, no-benefits jobs.
The board voted 9-0 to go ahead anyway with light-rail before route, mode and cost-effectiveness questions were answered.
Why are the consultants comparing only Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and light-rail?
Because, although Plain Old Bus is cheaper and more flexible, BRT is far more expensive with its fixed guide ways, and BRT makes rail seem more affordable.
If the whole intent of candidate Ken Hagan’s Transportation Task Force was to foster economic development surrounding downtown Tampa, why not say so up-front instead of claiming that this sales tax increase was to help people get from one place to another?
Considering the TOTAL costs involved with light-rail, HART could instead use that tax money to double their MetroRapid and Plain Old Bus services while letting passengers ride free.
Are Hillsborough voter/taxpayers going to approve an added $180 MILLION yearly tax to pay for Tampa’s downtown property-value-enhancing Choo-Choo, or are we going to insist that HART first commits to increasing quality service to transit riders at the lowest possible cost? HART says: “We’re in the business of connecting people” NOT the business of economic development.
Let the voters decide.
Filed under: Campaign, Transportation | Tags: County Commission, Hillsborough County Florida, Ken Hagan, Taxation
In your face, candidate Hagan
If Transportation Task Force chairman Ken Hagan thinks that the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART) sucks so badly that they need a bajillion-million dollars to do a better job, how is it that
HART is winning national awards?
Friday, HART announced that it received the 2010 Outstanding Public Transportation System Achievement Award from American Public Transportation Association as the best in North America among transit agencies of its size.
Now, Mr. candidate Ken Hagan, why do you REALLY want a tax increase?
Why not use the LAST sales tax increase?
Are the downtown Tampa political-contributor-puppet-masters pulling a few of your strings to get a shiny new Choo-Choo to help their property values go up?
Let the voters decide.
Filed under: Tampa Choo-Choo, Transportation | Tags: County Commission, Hillsborough County Florida, Ken Hagan, Tampa light-rail
Make way for Mr. Ken Hagan's Tampa Expre$$
No wonder there have been few hard facts about routes and costs for Hagan’s downtown Tampa Choo-Choo.
A new 125-page report that will be going to HART on Monday says that the CSX right of way from downtown to Cross Creek will cost SIX-HUNDRED-EIGHTY MILLION DOLLARS!
That’s $680,000,000 of your tax dollars my friends.
That’s before a single foot of rail is built and a single rail car starts to roll. That’s another ONE AND A HALF BILLION DOLLARS.
Add to that mega-dollar price tag, another BILLION DOLLARS to build light-rail from downtown Tampa to the airport. Who knows what the right-of-way will cost us. The consultants are thinking that HUNDREDS of properties will have to be taken away from property owners through eminent domain procedures through the courts.
How’s that for “property rights”?
But think of the time savings.
The report estimates that this CSX rail route north would save the traveler all of THREE MINUTES over automobile travel. Now there is a valuable investment in easing traffic congestion.
We hear less and less about the potential riders of the Tampa Choo-Choo; more and more about the development that would spring up near the train stations. The reason is that this has never been about riders, it has been about increasing property values for land owners in Tampa.
Ken Hagan’s Transportation Task Force has known this all along.
They can’t say that because who would want to increase voter’s taxes just to make The Rich evermore richer?
Hagan says “trust me.”
Let the voters decide.
Filed under: Campaign, Ethics, Leadership | Tags: County Commission, Hillsborough County Florida, Ken Hagan, Politics
With Commissioner Jim Norman now disgraced; with Commissioner Kevin White now disgraced; with other senior County officials either fired or put under a cloud of impropriety, how can Charmian Ken Hagan continue to be silent and offer no true leadership to the BOCC?
An ostrich with its head in the sand has a better chance of protecting the reputation of the rest of the flock than candidate Ken Hagan has in protecting what is left of the reputation of the Hillsborough Board of County commissioners.
There are far too many pressing issues confronting the taxpayers of Hillsborough to allow Hagan to continue to have any say in our county’s future.
Do we really want the King of D’ Nile in charge of our future, or do we need new leadership?
Let the voters decide.
"Let the voters decide" 
