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Low-calorie morsels for your Sunday buffet

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By TOM JACKSON

Published: September 13, 2009

For your Sunday reading experience, a smorgasbord of mini-morsels that won't fill you up before you hit the pregame buffet, all the while wondering whatever happened to water warrior Gilliam Clarke.

With the U.S. Open charging toward another memorable close - even without Melanie Oudin, the instant darling of Flushing Meadow - I can't help feeling melancholy about the opportunity missed with the deep-sixing of Pasco's tennis stadium.

With her world-class game and teenager's enthusiastic artlessness, Oudin could have been a headliner here. But the stadium was killed in the spring by the county administrator's office, despite having a agreement with Saddlebrook to operate the place. Rats.

Surprise surplus

Too bad Tax Collector Mike Olson revealed a late-game discovery of nearly $3 million left over from his 2009 budget. The surplus created Commissioner Ann Hildebrand's perfect, hook-removing "have our cake and eat it, too" scenario.

Budget-squeezing and tax-hiking was about to leave the county with about a $3 million overage that administrators wanted to salt away for next year, but Commissioner Ted Schrader wanted it returned to taxpayers. Olson's surprise created a happy, squishy medium that allows the board to duck a tough vote ... and we do like it when they squirm.

Praising the watchdog

Mike Fasano is not without his critics, but whatever else anyone has to say about the state senator from New Port Richey, they cannot fault his watchfulness regarding shenanigans in public office. Long the champion of reform to eliminate double-dippers who've taken unfair advantage of the state's deferred retirement option plan, Fasano has been ferocious in the face of mischief that has passed for business as usual within the Florida Public Service Commission.

Following revelations about a lobbyist's cozy relationship with utility executives and an apparent laissez faire interaction between aides and the industries they're employed to help regulate, Fasano wasted no time planting himself squarely between the PSC and the utility customers who are his constituents.

Fasano's call to suspend hearings over rate increases sought by Florida Power & Light and Progress Energy Florida is plainly proactive and appropriate, and we salute him.

Greens and academics

From the whatever-happened-to files: Roy Gaddey, the brains, vision and spunk behind development of Lake Jovita Golf and Country Club, has re-emerged as part-owner in a golf course project in western North Carolina, an enclave popular with Tampa Bay area vacationers.

Gaddey and two partners bought Sapphire National Golf Course at the end of 2007 and spent most of 2008 renovating it - a period Gaddey ruefully describes as "the height of the real estate boom."

Now that the course has returned to full operation, Gaddey reports he has accepted a teaching position (business development, sports marketing) at the University of Minnesota - and that Sapphire National is back on the market.

Keyword: The Jax Files, for Tom Jackson's bonus musings.

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