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The Commish Who Came To Dinner

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By DANIEL RUTH

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 22, 2008

This is proving that it would probably be easier for Jabba the Hutt to move his keister than to get Karen Peoples to please, simply go away.

Or in other words, think of this as the Tampa Housing Authority's version of "The Man Who Came To Dinner" - a very, very, very long dinner.

Since January, the authority has been attempting to first relocate and now evict Peoples from her four-bedroom apartment at the C. Blythe Andrews housing project. But displacing Peoples has proved to be more difficult than extracting Ingrid Betancourt from a Colombian jungle.

It seems the authority has this crazy, insane, unbelievable regulation that stipulates if you live by your lonesome, well a one-bedroom apartment ought to be more than enough space for ... one person.

Indeed, some 207 individuals are on a waiting list for a four-bedroom apartment at the Andrews complex. Waiting for Peoples to pack up all her cares and woe and go.

Hubris, Ego And Vanity

Perhaps Peoples needed the extra bedrooms to accommodate her three best friends - hubris, ego and vanity. After all, if anyone knew Peoples was in violation of housing authority rules it certainly had to be Peoples, who also happens to have served as a housing authority commissioner since 1998.

Wouldn't this sort of be like Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke purposefully bouncing a check?

Peoples has also demonstrated her keen familiarity with housing authority policies regarding payment of rent by not paying hers on at least two occasions.

You have to have a certain sympathy for housing authority president Jerome Ryans, who has to hear horses wailing a la Frau Blucher in "Young Frankenstein" every time he hears the name Karen Peoples.

While he's trying to evict her, he also has to report to the tenant from hell as a board member. Needless to say, agency meetings are about as much fun for Ryans as confronting a plate of cold lima beans.

Boiled Rabbit

And Peoples has demonstrated she's not a Freddie the Freeloader to be trifled with when others dare to expect her to, well, act like a grownup.

When Andrews complex property manager Sharaun McClain annoyed her, Peoples accused the administrator of professional and sexual misconduct, going as far as to travel to Lakeland and confront McClain's husband at a restaurant the couple owned.

The good news is that no boiled rabbits were involved.

The even better news is that after an investigation by housing authority lawyers, Peoples' claims were found to be baseless.

For her part, Peoples has compared her kerfuffle with the authority to being whipped like a slave, which is pure-grade barnyard byproduct, only stinkier.

What a grotesque display of historical ignorance. No, Ms. Peoples, nobody is flogging you or treating you like a slave.

The Tampa Housing Authority simply wants you to comply with regulations you took an oath to uphold.

And, oh yeah, being expected to pay your rent hardly qualifies as the whipping scene from "Roots."

Shame on you for unctuously playing the race card and coming up with a joker.

Keyword: Book of Ruth, to read and comment on Daniel Ruth's blog.

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