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Councilman looking to join circus

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By STEVE OTTO | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 9, 2009

It was just lunch and he was working over a sandwich. But I looked at John Dingfelder to see if there was anything different; maybe a slight tic or some other signal that something was wrong.

Dingfelder, who sits on the Tampa City Council, has filed to run for a seat on the Hillsborough County Commission. Of course, anybody who sits on the council for more than a few months already is suspect. I mean listening to the council for more than an hour or two is like spending an afternoon with the Mad Hatter at his tea party.

But the council is amateur hour when it comes to being dysfunctional. Next to the county commission, these guys look like the Founding Fathers.

"Are you nuts?" I said politely. "You've got the county administrator and the county attorney voting themselves raises while hacking other people's jobs. You've got one commissioner who was just found guilty of sexual harassment and the rest of the commission is thinking about suing the guy because he won't cooperate with them. The county is in trouble from Plant City to the southern limits, where growth management is an oxymoron. Why would you do this?"

Dingfelder mumbled something about wanting to make a difference and bringing order to the board. He suggested the commission appeared to be coming a little more together, and then took another bite of his sandwich. You know, I'm not sure if kids ever really ran off to the join the circus, but that's what I kept thinking Dingfelder might be doing.

Doozy of a session

After lunch, I went back for the afternoon session of the commission, which promised to be a doozy. On the agenda was what to do about Commissioner Kevin White, who has made an art form of arrogance by refusing to say much of anything to the rest of the board. How he even has the chutzpah to show up and sit there with the rest of them is beyond me.

The session was everything you could have hoped for and more. Rose Ferlita, who wants to be Tampa's next mayor, has been leading the charge against White. She made a motion to go after him now before this mess costs taxpayers any more than the half-million dollars it is likely to total when all is said and done. A substitute motion by Commissioner Kevin Beckner - after White mumbled he might be willing to talk about paying some himself at some point - was to hold off awhile and see if the board could get a little mediation going and recover some of the costs.

Democracy in action

Naturally, the vote was 3-3 on both motions, meaning after more than two hours of discussion, commissioners did nothing other than waste another session on themselves.

All maintained they wanted nothing more than to put this thing behind them, but how to do so eluded them. They moved to the next issue: a report on a new sexual harassment policy designed just for commissioners and their aides.

Fortunately, the county is in swell shape and doesn't need much from the board, unless you consider uncontrolled growth, severe recession threatening to devastate eastern parts of the county, a crumbling infrastructure ... That's small potatoes. How can you worry about minutiae when commissioners have to deal with the soap opera that's themselves?

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

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