“FLEXIBILITY” TRUMPS PRINCIPLE AT CITY COUNCIL!
At the May 18 Regular Meeting of the City Council, the Council voted 4-1 to continue Gulfport’s relationship with the Tampa Bay Nitrogen Management Consortium. Since the vote will “only” cost the City $6,000 in membership fees over a 5 year period, it would be easy to dismiss the vote as being relatively inconsequential. Apparently, the Gabber, a major source of local news coverage for many citizens, either found the subject matter too complicated for us little people to understand or they missed the point completely. They chose not to report on the debate or the vote even though that serious discussion of about 45 minutes dominated the meeting.
Instead, the Gabber chose to report on an inconsequential resolution championed by our Vice Mayor, supporting the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council’s effort’s for Project Get Ready Tampa Bay to promote the region as electric vehicle plug-in ready and to assist in preparing for the use of plug-in electric vehicles.” Frankly, I was unaware that our Regional Government was in the business of manufacturing or promoting the use of the products of private industry. Maybe by the time there are significant numbers of electric vehicles on the road, government will own all the automobile companies so the Council’s vote will be more than meaningless.
Here is a brief background of the Tampa Bay Nitrogen Management Consortium, (TBNMC). In 1991, the Tampa Bay National Estuary Program, (NEP), was established, “to help local governments, agencies and other stakeholders in the Tampa Bay Area develop a plan to sustain the recovery of Tampa Bay. A comprehensive conservation and management plan for “holding the line,” (not improvement) on nitrogen discharges into the bay was established in 1996. Also in 1996 the NEP’s governmental partners, (less than half the local governments dumping pollutants into the bay), joined with key industries in the Tampa Bay Region, (many were upstream polluters), to create a unique ad-hoc public-private partnership known as the Tampa Bay Nitrogen Management Consortium.
By forming the consortium and developing a bay-wide plan, it appears that the Florida DEP and its agent the Southwest Florida Water Management District, (SWFWMD) was able to convince the Federal EPA to accept written assurance of a regional solution whereby member entities would be treated as one in the evaluation process. Gulfport joined the Consortium in 2006 and claims it has a superior nitrogen reduction program used by the Consortium to claim success for the average performance of the entire bay. There are currently 49 governmental and business entities that participate in the program.
Until recently USEPA accepted, without question, Florida’s assurances of compliance based on computer modeling data generated by SWFWMD linked Tampa Bay Estuary Program and its partners which report on “federally recognized TMDL,” (Total Maximum Daily Load). TMDL are intended to specifically define the amount of nitrogen that can be discharged into a water body annually and still allow it to meet Federal Clean Water Standards. FLDEP has made declarative, “reasonable assurance determinations,” whatever that is, to the USEPA that Florida meets the Federal Clean Water Standards. In other words, Florida is saying to the Feds, “We’ll do the testing, we’ll do the analysis and we’ll tell you that everything is hunky dory.” Bay-wide averaging of data, self inspection and self reported success appear to be Florida’s “science” behind claims of compliance with the Federal Clean Water Act. The problem is that FLDEP and SWFWMD have not done adequate testing and that there is no sound scientific basis for establishment of TMDL, or of any baseline criteria for even those waters designated impaired or proved acutely toxic.
In recent months, USEPA announced a change in the rules that would require Florida to establish credible specific standards for each source of nitrogen pollution going into our waters in order for Florida to comply with the Federal Clean Water Act. On March 14, a hearing of stakeholders was held in Orlando that ran for nine hours and at which hundreds of government entities, industries, environmental groups and citizens testified. FDEP, SWFWMD, the Tampa Bay Nitrogen Management Consortium and industrial interests testified against the proposed numerical Federal standards. Hundreds of others including conservationists and environmentalists of all stripes, educators and informed citizens, including several Gulfport residents, spoke in favor of the new Federal standards.
By the seemingly simple act of renewed membership and paying our $6000 in “dues,” Gulfport has gone on record in support of those who oppose establishment of firm standards for measuring the dumping of nitrogen into Florida waters.
Evidently, only one Council Member took the reams of material provided by the USEPA and in her packet on Friday and did the research necessary to see beyond the $6000 in determining her vote. Only one Council Member spoke in terms of her vote being based on community values. That Council Member was Dr. Jennifer Salmon who in a prior meeting also took a principled stand on another environmental issue when she asked for a change in our new mixed use overlay zone language to require permeable parking lots rather than just recommending them. In both cases she got shot down; once because the city wanted to retain “flexibility” and in the most current case because the Council chose practicality over principle. There is hypocrisy when council members who claim a green philosophy repeatedly vote against issues that would reduce storm water runoff and that would improve water quality standards.
An argument put forth by the City’s representative to the consortium that Gulfport’s continued membership would reduce risk and limit expenditures for water studies did not, well, hold water. Gulfport taxpayers already pay to fund FLDEP, SWFWMD and Pinellas County environmental agencies equipped and tasked to do water quality and health assessments; Gulfport has an obligation to demand that those agencies do the testing necessary to protect Gulfport’s interests. The claim that Gulfport could face $100,000 in costs if it opted not to rejoin the Consortium in order to meet municipal obligations for Clean Water Act compliance was unsubstantiated. Inference of an undefined $100,000 expense appeared to be an effort by the Consortium to intimidate the Council. Again, it appeared that only Dr. Salmon had done the work necessary to see through the threat.
Incidentally, all Dr. Salmon wanted to do was to postpone the vote until everyone could get up to speed and a Workshop could be held to get more facts on the table. Specifically, she requested the following: 1) Why did we join in 2006; 2) What did we do about reporting to the EPA before then; 3) Why is our contribution going up 25% when we were told in November that in at least one storm pond we reduced the nutrient load 91%, (4% overall); 4) Can we get an audited financial report for the Consortium; 5) What percentage of dues is used for lobbying? Were dues used to argue against the EPA’s more stringent numeric standards? Is this in line with our interests; 6) What percentage is used to directly improve water quality, (not related to other sources of funding like SWFWMD); 7) Are we “bailing out” polluters (within the Consortium-ed.), by safeguarding them from much larger fines?
Dr. Salmon wanted to hear from experts on both sides of the new USEPA standards issue at the Workshop. Members of the public who spoke at the meeting were wary of the Consortium.
One opponent said, “The reality is that Gulfport is being asked for $6000 to fund the prime polluters and their lawyers and lobbyists whose mission is to re-write and lower water standards to allow greater pollution of upstream waters by industry, agriculture, mining and development while providing ‘reasonable assurances’ to EPA that all is well on the assumption that undefined “best management practices’ are exceeding EPA requirements.”
Members of the public are used to being ignored by the Gulfport City Council. If dedicated and educated citizens are dismissed from citizen participation in the process of government, it should be no surprise that our new highly informed and principled Council Member should also be ignored by Council Members for a simple request to postpone a vote until more information can be obtained.
Were I Council Member Salmon and I had done the hours and hours of work she so obviously did to prepare herself to address a significant issue of water quality and public health, (and my fellow Members so obviously had not), I would be both insulted and ashamed for the Council as an institution.
Really! What’s going on here?
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For those who really care, please visit the city site at www.mygulfport.us and click on City Meetings, agendas and videos-regular meeting, May 18 for a complete package of info given to the Council Members prior to the meeting and a complete video of the meeting. Also, visit Dr. Salmon’s former election website which she has converted to a blog at www.electjennifersalmon.com and click on blog 2010 05. Her complete remarks are written there. Any comments you would like to make on the City or Salmon site would be gratefully accepted here.
..just saw a piece on Bay News 9 with Michele King wherein the reporter states that Gulfport already has electric car plug in stations already in the downtown area. Also that the City will be deciding if, when and where plug in stations may be put in the rest of the City.
I wonder if the City will be offering this service for free?
I don’t think she mentioned that they are locked most of the time. Sorry I missed the newscast.
Nitrogen
I didn’t go to the meeting as most of you know who were there, but due to the fact that I was home cleaning (trust me it is a better way to spend an evening then sitting through a city council meeting).
But one of my fellow cherry covered nut case pals wanted me to come to the meeting and speak out about the nitrogen issue and even add my two cents to the Electric car charger resolution. I told her I didn’t give a shit any more and she should not expect to see me there.
I had the computer up and running hoping to hear from my future love of my life, so I decided to watch the city council meeting on line.
I think not being there was better then attending in person as I was able to listen to the speaker whereas when I would attend the event due to the back talkers and the noisy air conditioner and of course my rock and roll hearing loss, I would not be able to hear all of the speakers prose. .
I had no preconceived knowledge or idea even what the Nitrogen Initiative was all about. I listened to every word our Tampa Bay Engineering guy had to say. I have only one thing to say in conclusion. Gibberish. His whole presentation focused on paying the money, how we paid it in the past and could not really explain what the initiatives purpose is.
If it hadn’t been for Councilwoman Dr. Jennifer Salmon’s research into the item, I might never had known what it was. But Salmons had done her homework, certainly in contrast to the other four members of council.
From her home work I found out that when we look at the bottom line the nitrogen consortium does two things, neither one of which I think is in the benefit to the citizens of Gulfport.
The consortium takes the cumulative nitrogen wastes from its members and uses that number to report nitrogen discharge into the Tampa Bay area. Let’s call this nitrogen for sake of ease, pollution.
Some entities nitrogen pollution are below the average that the consortium reports and some to balance it out are higher. These entities include cities, government entities and private corporations. The higher polluters get to keep polluting at their current levels (which may be individually higher then legally allowed) because they are in the consortium. The lower polluters, in the meantime are helping out the higher polluters keep polluting at their higher level rather then strive to meet the standards currently set.
This is kind of how Cap and Trade will work for Carbon emissions, except they will be trading those on some sort of exchange.
Gulfport is one of those entities that has a much lower nitrogen pollution factor then say the big phosphate companies across the bay who are also members with us in the Nitrogen Consortium. BY us remaining in the consortium with our lower levels of pollution we are enabling the heavier polluter to continue their current level of pollution output.
Secondly they are a lobbying entity whose goal is to relax the federal governments EPA standards. Now I don’t know about you but I really don’t trust the EPA’s standards or the rest of the governments ideals. Not with a huge oil slick headed our way while under the “CAREFUL” watch of our federal government. So to think that this organization wants to relax pollution rules set up by an EPA which is hardly protecting the environment as it is, is just ludicrous to me. The only ones to benefit in relaxing EPA pollution rules would be the large polluters and certainly not the citizens of Gulfport.
Now given that four of the five council member voted in favor of renewing our membership I think I will give you my impressions of why each one voted.
First off it appears to me to be the old ploy where you think you are doing good when in reality you are doing the opposite. And remember it appeared that the council with the exception of Dr. Salmon was unprepared to delve into what this expense and organization was about.
The mayor, probably voting for it the last time it came up, and probably under similar vague explanation circumstances and of course pollution wasn’t much of a concern to those in power in bygone years. No bad came of it so he probably thought that he would renew.
Our new Ward One representative, said, its only $6,000 so what’s the big deal. Hey David, we elected you the CPA to watch over our finances, no matter how small the expense is. His voting for the renewal shows that he did not understand the consortium or as he was during the campaign a little shy on environmental issues.
Ward Two Vice Mayor King, also obviously unaware of the activities or goals of the organization went along with the crowd. She would have voted for it in 2006 and without any real knowledge of the organization went along with the mayor.
Ward Four our environmental watch dog Henderson, champion of mountain tops couldn’t have possibly looked at the material, understood the organization and voted for the renewal if he was even paying attention to his fellow environmentalist Jennifer Salmon. Sam, since when do you vote for an organization whose stated purpose is to relax EPA standards for pollution?
There seemed to be some rush to push this through because as stated Dr. Salmon thought we should workshop it.
Proponents for the measure advised council you don’t want to be left out of the Consortium, and we can get you in for only $6000. At least it wasn’t a Nigerian million dollar scheme.
I decided to regurgitate what Big dog might have said to better understand the issue myself. I hope my analysis helped.
And this theme of Flexibility runs throughout the government. They imply that they have laws and ethics but under the surface of all the boosterism and self-aggrandizement you will discover that this Home Rule City has no Home Rules. “”Let’s follow what someone else is doing”", comparing our position against the established positions of other Pinellas Cities on many issues. If no one else takes a position Gulfport doesn’t have the depth of conviction to take a principled stand. When confronted they will point out how someone else does it or that there is no precedent established and therefore no legal avenue to take a stand. When the laws are clearly written, most likely copied from some other government body, they will find a way to circumvent them, to serve their friends and relatives. Pay off favors with permits and resolutions or take risks with life, property and the environment as long as they are not personally affected.
Risky Business like British Petroleum (BP) took a chance on Deepwater Drilling without safeguards and the result was devastating, just as the City of Gulfport took a chance on a Smoker in a congested area of 49th street. Careless, reckless and irresponsible shallow short term thinking will continue to haunt us until this Good-ol-Boy government is dissolved or evolves into an intelligent body of concerned citizens who study the issues and have a reservoir of knowledge to understand the scope and depth of the decisions they face.
If one has a principled position then they have a basis of knowledge to rely upon. If the City wants clean air they wouldn’t deliberately pour toxins into it. If they want clean water they would do everything humanly possible to avoid toxins going into it. If they want safe traffic flows they should not establish an exception for red cars to drive 15 miles over the speed limit.
What has stuck in my craw from that May 18th Meeting was when Michele King said: “”if we don’t belong to the Consortium we won’t have a seat at the table”".
Hey Michele, we don’t want a seat at that table, don’t you get it? We could use a seat at another table, one that represents the values that you yourself claim to have. The object is to reduce water contamination not join polluters who will balance their bad behavior with our progress.
If the object of this Consortium is to increase seagrass by virtue of reducing pollutants entering into the water, why is the Consortium objecting to having a closer look at individual polluters and reducing pollution even further?
Is the hidden agenda coming to light? If the issues is too complicated please allow others who are willing to do the work to have the time to examine the issue in depth and possibly find another seat for you to sit upon.
Sam Henderson had just returned from vacation so he just followed whatever Fred Metcalf recommended, and David Hastings was just introduced to the water in Gulfport so he has a lot of catching up to do. Mike Yakes, well, he likes it just the way it is, just throw money at it and get back to baseball.
“How eager they are to be slaves”
Tiberius Caesar after being given Carte blanch by the Roman Senate.
http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/the-greenest-states
While Florida did make the top ten I was pleasently surprised that we were # 16
Greenopia.com
No mention by the supposed green folks of how much oil, coal and gas must be consumed to produce the electricity needed to charge the vehicles in question. No mention either of the public cost to fund the extensive infra-structure needed to provide the hook ups for those vehicles. No consideration of alternatives in proven transitional, more affordable and durable technology such as the common-rail turbo injected low sulpher diesel powered cars now capable of peppy performance and 40-50 mpg.
Emergency services are concerned with the implications of high voltage risk in accident scenarios with electric vehicles and also with the toxic aspects of the contents of current technology batteries.
Easy to talk green for votes and feel good vibes when there is no consideration of the unintended..but highly predictable..consequences.
How is it the council is hot to get on the electric vehicle bandwagon after they voted down the opportunity to allow street legal electric golfcarts in Gulfport? Could it be that the applicant was brash enough to oppose the dominant council member in an election?
Old time locals have frequently said that first you have the election and then you get the retribution.
An electrifying tradition of focus on the individual rather than the issue.
This site is an interesting counterpoint to other views of a small town. It would be interesting to know if other communities suffer much of the same petty interplay evidenced by Gulfport’s politics. One wonders if the demographic of the town is sufficiently unique to cause the apparant strain. Or is the situation in Gulfport merely a reflection of what appears a general and growing dis-satifaction with the process and persons of government at all levels? Is conflict between the views and expectations of long time residents and new comers somehow more intense in Gulfport or is it just how things get over time when new people have no share in the history and traditions of a place much changed over several decades? It sometimes appears that Gulfport has some of the characteristics of a medieval walled city with information and ideas kept at bay outside with a false sense among the bosses within the walls that all that is or ever will be is in their limited range of view.
It also could be lousey leadership. Not many people seem involved with the process of government and it looks like that is just fine with the city council. They appear mostly to have all the answers with little need to seek information or outside help. They appear, generally, to be particularly resistant to anything which contradicts what they already believe to be true or anything, regardless of validity, which counters what they want for whatever reason. The place seems disjointed, particularly with the focus upon the downtown area to what appears disregard for all other parts of the town. Unless one were a member of a specic segment of some favored portion of the demographic it might be that a move to Gulfport would lead to an investment followed by despair. It may have been OK before, and it may be OK again, but right now it seems not such a happy place.
For god’s sake, enough about the damned smoker. Let it go already. This is the South, people cook here. If you want to eat granola and pumpkin soup, fine, not a soul will stop you.
David Hearne said= For god’s sake, enough about the damned smoker. Let it go already. No
This is the South, people cook here. People cook everywhere, you should get out more.
If you want to eat granola and pumpkin soup, fine, not a soul will stop you. I see you qualify for the door prize at the dialing for dummies convention. It’s quite a leap to equate the rejection of placing a commercial smoker 40 feet away from a bedroom window and in a congested urban area to classifying the opponent as a health food proponent.
We didn’t oppose the smoker because it cooked meat, dimbulb, we opposed it because it buried us in smoke. If they smoked granola we still would have rejected the location. It’s not about the food, it’s about the fuel. Duh?
“We didn’t oppose the smoker because it cooked meat, dimbulb, we opposed it because it buried us in smoke. ”
What was your first clue that you had bought a house next to a restaurant? Huh? Did they turn a daycare center into a restaurant and surprise you? Look, when the wind is right my front porch smells like a wet ashtray. That’s what McDonalds smells like to me on a humid day, wet ashtray.
If you bought a house next to Publix, you’d be smelling chicken fryers. Great to live in Le Chateau in South Pasadena isn’t it? And while we’re on the subject, Ted Peters Smoke Fish smells like low tide but somehow folks survive.
If you want to live near the fun then you have to put up with the fun.
David Hearne said: What was your first clue that you had bought a house next to a restaurant? Huh? Did they turn a daycare center into a restaurant and surprise you?
We selected a property because of it’s commercial zoning. There were three restaurants within 100 feet and no one ever complained about aroma. There was a bakery added and it didn’t arouse the discontent of the neighborhood either, so what changed? What brought a whole neighborhood to sign a petition against this restaurant? It certainly couldn’t have been the aroma of cooking food with traditional fuels since at times the aroma was alluring.
Of course there are those who would like to convince us that there no distinction between cooking with electric and or gas and burning wood for 16 hours a day but their depth perception would be in question. Some would try to trivialize our experience by making claims that this rural activity is to be accepted in an urban environment in the South end of our nation, as if we were out of sync with the local or regional culture, but since there were southern born and raised neighbors who signed the petition and filed complaints with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) that argument would be unsubstantiated.
The surrounding properties were purchased with established restaurants in place, there was no surprise there, what changed was that the City decided to allow the use of unregulated fuel to process the food. There was no reasonable expectation by anyone purchasing these properties that a congested City, with 40 foot lot sizes would invite an activity reserved for a rural environment, especially without regulating what was burnt in the smoker or what was emitted in the process. In addition no one expected that a site plan would leave the regulation of this activity up to the proprietor using flexibility as a justification for a half-baked plan.
On top of that, no one expected that a City with ordinances in place to protect property from unnecessary emission would circumvent their laws to appease a former City Councilman, Larry Cooper in the 49th street instance. No one envisioned that a City who prided itself on a healthy canopy and concern for the quality of life of it’s citizens would contradict it’s own public statements on YouTube about their concern for air quality and the environment.
To suggest that this neighborhood should have expected to be inundated with toxic waste by a City who expressedly stated that they place the heath of it’s citizen, the environment and the value of it property above everything else in their Mission Statement, City ordinances, and verbal statements is to ignore all reality.
4 out of the five candidates that ran for the City Council agreed that a smoker in this congested urban environment did not fit. The FDEP agreed as well and stated that the zoning for this smoker was inadequate. And everyone who took the time to observe the activity, that has no hidden agenda, also agreed that the area was too congested and the plumes of toxic waste were too overwhelming to be suitable.
If you have any semblance of recognizable intelligence and or are able to put yourself in our shoes, imagine wood smoke in every breath you take. Imagine it in your home and office. Imagine it in your garden, your car, your cloths your storage, and in the face of your neighbors, visiting friends and clients. Watch as the birds nests that you nurtured leave your yard and the beehive relocate. Watch as the gardens that you’ve spent thousands of dollars on and countless hours building be destroyed in clouds of smoke
Just put yourself in someone else’s shoes for just one minute, engage your imagination, and you may come away with a different perspective. Of course you may not, which would qualify you for the seat on the Council in Ward 1 and 2, not to mention a seat in the mayors chair. All you have to do is deny reality, make excuses, lie, cheat and steal our clean air and you can replace these scalawags.
Have a Nice day!