Welcome to TBO.com. Skip directly to: our Keyword Search, Section Navigation, Content.

TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online

Welcome to Thinking Out Loud, a blog that contains postings from The Tampa Tribune’s Editorial Board and from various Tribune Community Columnists. Unlike the unsigned editorials that represent the newspaper’s institutional voice, the blog postings offer personal perspectives on the issues, personalities and events of Tampa Bay. We invite you to participate by posting your comments. We’ll do our best to respond.

Contributors:

Joe Guidry

Joe Guidry is the deputy editorial page editor of The Tampa Tribune. He is a Tampa native and a graduate of the University of South Florida. He is married and has an adult son.

Jeff Stidham

Jeff Stidham grew up and lives in Bartow. He has been with the Tribune for nearly 22 years, the last 10 on the editorial board.

William Yelverton

William Yelverton is a Tribune editorial writer who has worked for the paper nearly 22 years. He lives in the Dade City area.

Jim Beamguard

Jim Beamguard is a Tribune editorial writer. He is a native of North Carolina and a graduate of Davidson College. He and his family live in Brandon.

Jackie Papandrew:

Jackie Papandrew is a freelance writer and editor. Her syndicated humor column appears in publications in the United States, Canada and India. She lives in Largo with her husband and children. Visit her website at www.jackiepapandrew.com.

Camille Beredjick

Camille Beredjick is a senior at Chamberlain High School, an avid musician and a scribbler with a quirky sense of humor. In the fall, she will be attending Northwestern University to study journalism, political science and music, and she plans to pursue a career in journalism.

Jim Harnish

Jim Harnish is in his 17th year as Senior Pastor at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa. He and his wife, Marsha, have two daughters and two grandchildren. He is a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary and received the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Bethune-Cookman University. He is the author of six books and numerous articles and studies. He enjoys playing with his grandchildren and cheering for the Florida Gators.

Angela Hunt

Angela Hunt is a novelist living in Pinellas County with her husband and two 220-pound mastiffs.

Sheryl Young

Sheryl Young was a Tampa Tribune Community Columnist in 2005-2006. A freelance writer since 1997, including the Tampa Bay Business Journal, Tampa Style Magazines, St. Pete Times and nationally in Better Nutrition, Today’s Christian Woman and more. She’s received a First Place Amy Foundation national "Roaring Lambs" Writing Award, and has lived in Tampa Bay with her family for over 20 years.

Christie Gold

Christie Gold teaches English and journalism at Freedom High School in Tampa where she advises Revolution, the school newspaper. She has been both the Hillsborough County Teacher of the Year and Florida Journalism Teacher of the Year. She lives on a small farm in Wesley Chapel where she trains as a competitive equestrian.

Natalie D. Preston

Natalie D. Preston is a karaoke singing, only-child pouting, Seminole Tomahawk waving, newlywed bride blushing, 50-state traveling, girlie girl who loves to shop, read, run and jump up and down on her soapbox.

Fernando Figueroa

Fernando Figueroa is a researcher, educator and lives in Riverview.

Gary Beemer

Interests include humor, politics, economics, community and world affairs, finance, people, religion, music, sports, current events, the arts and education.

Nicole Yunger Halpern

Nicole Yunger Halpern is an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, where she studies everything she can get her nerdy little hands on. Desired major: life. No, not necessarily biology. Life.

Kris DiGiovanni

Kris DiGiovanni is a Tribune Community Columnist, Huffington Post contributor, Daily Kos diarist, and teacher, who recently moved from NW Hillsborough to another planet - a small beach community in Pinellas County. She also blogs at www.sandscript.wordpress.com

H. David Braswell Jr.

H. David Braswell Jr. is an Information Systems Professional. He is a native New Yorker and a lifelong NY Giants fan. He attended college in California (Cal State Northridge) and moved to Tampa in 1998.

Sean Marcus

Sean Marcus teaches creative writing, journalism and reading at Chamberlain High School. He has one son and is expecting a daughter in early March. He can be reached at wuizabug@gmail.com

Most Recent Entries

Thinking Out Loud

Monthly Archives

You Can’t Get Blood Out of a Spurned Schlup

Posted Feb 7, 2010 by Kris DiGiovanni

Updated Feb 7, 2010 at 05:51 PM

The late Molly Ivans once said something to the effect that it’s a good thing we’ve got politics, because it’s the finest form of free entertainment ever invented. As much as I dearly love the old gal and her work, I have to disagree. Entertaining – you betcha. Free – not so much.

Case in point: the continuing grudge match between the terminally lecherous Kevin White and Hillsborough Board of Craziness and Confusion. In August, White lost the suit filed against him for Sexual Harassment, and his fellow commissioners agreed to pay his victim and her lawyers $280,000 of our money. His own legal fees have cost us an additional $140,000 and change. Now our intrepid Board of Contrariety and Conscientiousness has voted to spend another $25,000 of our hard-earned cash to sue their co-worker White, in hopes of getting some of our money back.

What’s wrong with this picture? First of all, White doesn’t have any money. According to his financial disclosure forms, he’s got just over $400,000 in assets including his house, cars, and retirement fund, and nearly $500,000 in debts. So why does the Board of Chaos and Commotion think spending $25k to mount a lawsuit is a wise use of our money?

We’re already on the hook for close to half a million dollars for the personal “foibles” of a Commissioner who is such an ethical dolt that he voted not to sue himself (can you say Conflict of Interest?), and has already been fined once for lying about his campaign finances. Hello! Has anyone on the Board of Contempt and Corruption ever heard the phrase “throwing good money after bad?”

The Hillsborough County Commission own Statement of Ethics says

“I will exercise prudence and integrity in the management of funds in my custody and in all financial transactions.”

I submit that spending more of our money to sue Kevin White is neither prudent nor conscionable. Shame on you.

Furthermore, that same statement, by which every commissioner swears to abide, begins:

”I will demonstrate and be dedicated to the highest ideals of honor and integrity in all public and personal relationships to merit the respect and trust of government officials, other public employees, and the public.”

Kevin White has not only violated both the spirit and the letter of this oath, he has lost the respect and trust of any Hillsborough County taxpayer with a sense of decency. He should be immediately removed from office, and have not another dime of taxpayer money spent on his behalf.

(0) Read Comments