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Hillsborough Lawmakers' Tally Stinks

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By STEVE OTTO sotto@tampatrib.com

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 11, 2009

There was a time, long ago when the Earth was young, that not only was the Florida Legislature an effective body, but it often had strong leadership from Hillsborough County.

These days, most legislators don't even know about the back doors to the Silver Slipper restaurant in downtown Tallahassee and the private rooms with curtains.

As for the Hillsborough delegation - well, at least there is Ronda Storms to keep things lively.

The legislators are back in town to figure out a budget while trying to save their political scalps, and, for a change, two Hillsborough legislators are doing something.

Unfortunately, what they are doing would tip the scales even further toward developers.

So, is anybody surprised? Didn't think so.

State Reps. Fay Culp, R-Tampa, and Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, are leading the charge to eliminate local regulatory agencies such as the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission.

Again, what a surprise. These two lawmakers are to good government what zits are to the Florida Strawberry Festival queen the night before her coronation.

Their tactic is to claim the EPC duplicates work done by state agencies and only serves to slow the efforts of developers to get on with progress without all that paperwork and those silly questions about wetlands and water shortages.

Wrong Again

They are wrong, and they know they are wrong.

Denise Layne is a longtime civic activist who has run unsuccessfully for various offices. She never wins, I think, because she sticks to the facts and tends to rub people the wrong way. She is director of the Coalition 4 Responsible Growth.

"For the fifth year in a row," she writes, "legislators have announced they will seek to abolish local control of wetlands permitting, especially by our Environmental Protection Commission. ... Behind this initiative is Frank Matthews, representing statewide development issues. This is the same attorney that came into Hillsborough County over a year ago and tried to abolish EPC through a number of our county commissioners."

Layne is right, you know. These people are like roaches. They seem to thrive in Florida, and just when you think you've gotten rid of them, it gets dark and they come back, eating everything in sight.

Billions And Billions And ...

Ernie Strosnider read the column last week about numbers in the trillions and enclosed these statistics that have been making the e-mail rounds. I understand some of these go back to commentary in the 1930s when the government considered spending numbers in the billions, but it still works:

•A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

•A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

•A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

•A billion days ago no one walked on the Earth.

•A billion dollars ago was only eight hours and 20 minutes at the rate our government is spending it.

Obviously, that last statistic is out of date. These days it doesn't take eight hours to go through a billion dollars.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, for more of Steve Otto's musings.

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