Orbitals

God's Skating Room
Blighted land beneath interstate highway overpasses affects neighboring homes and businesses, decreasing property values and inviting those undesirable elements that make city life so interesting.

In St. Petersburg's North Downtown (NoDo) neighborhood, the interstate-covered block at Martin Luther King Street North and Fourth Avenue is among the last seedy parcels in a neighborhood rejuvenated by downtown investments.

One option to clean up the land is to install hibachi grills, hammocks and picnic tables for the homeless who congregate there every winter. But in a city that installs bars on benches to prevent street-walking derelicts from having a comfortable night's rest, such a solution isn't likely to find support in God's Waiting Room.

Lee Metzger, manager of St. Petersburg's Department of Leisure Services, has another idea: a skate park. Metzger's park would include tracks and ramps for skateboarders and inline skaters. The location is ideal, according to Metzger, because the roof created by the interstate would actually be a plus since it blocks sun and rain.

After Metzger presented the plan to the NoDo Neighborhood Association, the membership voted 4 to 1 in favor of the skate park. Residents of Suncoast Towers, condominiums adjacent to the proposed site, raised safety concerns.

But there's one caveat: St. Pete doesn't want to operate the skate park.

The city would like to lease the land, currently owned by the Department of Transportation, to a company that would operate the skate park as a business. "We're looking for a turnkey operation," Metzger said.

The city has a similar relationship with St. Petersburg Times attorney George Rahdert, who leases two tennis courts from the city for an outdoor skate park. Rahdert's kids are avid skaters. Gary Sullivan, owner of Florida Oceansports, manages the park, which charges $3 admission Sunday to Thursday and $4 admission Friday and Saturday.

The Department of Leisure Services is holding an informational meeting for those interested in making a proposal to operate the skate park. Final proposals are due Aug. 7 and will then be handed over to a City Council subcommittee.

Among those submitting a proposal is Rahdert, who has not decided whether he would move his current skate park from Coquina Key or operate a second, more centrally located one at Martin Luther King Street North and Fourth Avenue.
--Trevor Aaronson

What, Corbett Pay Taxes?
In his continuing effort to pick the pockets of Hillsborough County taxpayers, politically connected Tampa businessman Dick Corbett has suffered a legal setback.

A state appellate court has decided that Corbett is not entitled to a property tax exemption for a golf course that he used to operate on public land near Tampa International Airport.

In late June, the Second District Court of Appeal overturned Hillsborough Circuit Judge James D. Arnold, who had ruled last year that Corbett didn't have to pay his 1997 and 1998 taxes on the land, even though the golf course was a for-profit operation.

Corbett ran the golf operation on a portion of 155 acres that he leases from the county aviation authority. He has since found an upscale mall developer to build International Plaza on the site.

His lease, a sweetheart deal by any standard, has come under heavy editorial criticism in Tampa Bay area newspapers during the past two years. Federal auditors and government watchdogs estimate that Corbett's friends at the aviation authority will cost taxpayers upwards of $500-million.

That's the estimate of what taxpayers will lose over the 80 or so years remaining on the lease because the aviation authority is charging Corbett rent that reflects just a fraction of the land's true value. (See "What a Difference a Decade Makes," Weekly Planet, May 1-7, 2002 at www.weeklyplanet.com/2002-05-02/news_feature.html.)

On the property tax question, Corbett's lawyers argued before Arnold that their client deserved an exemption because the golf course served a public purpose by being open to any duffer who came in off the street.

Hillsborough Property Appraiser Rob Turner didn't buy Corbett's rationale for tax avoidance, but Arnold did. The appeals court has now sided with Turner.

If the appellate ruling stands, Corbett is looking at about $500,000 in back taxes for the two years in dispute. If Corbett can get the appeal appealed successfully, the people who pay property taxes in Hillsborough will have made a half-million-dollar contribution to the county treasury on his behalf.

A trio of appellate judges pointed out in their June 28 opinion that the state Supreme Court has spoken on the issue. A private enterprise intending to make money cannot legally avoid property taxes just because the real estate where business is conducted has been leased from the government.

The appellate judges reversed Arnold's decision and remanded the dispute back to the trial judge with instructions. A layperson's interpretation of those instructions from the appeals court to Judge Arnold would be: Try again and get it right this time.
--Francis X. Gilpin

Jams for Turk
Hampton House of Jazz is the coolest place to hear real jazz in the bay area, but it was steaming Sunday afternoon, when friends, family and fans of Turk Nelson gathered for a jam session to show support and raise money for the singer and drummer, who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. The players were a virtual who's who of local and state jazz luminaries, including keyboardists Stan Hunter, William Evans, Hank Herring and Herb Carr; saxophonist Jeremy Carter; drummer Ron Gregg; bassists Bill Bennett, Michael Ross and Mark Neuenschwander; trumpeters Marcus Hampton and Shaheed Darby; singer/drummer Patricia Dean; singer/pianist Kitty Daniels and singer Rose Bilal, who organized the event with Rose and Marcus Hampton. Singer Belinda Womack shook the rafters with an a cappella version of "Amazing Grace." Octagenarian saxophonist Ernie Calhoun was the musical highlight of the afternoon with an exquisite rendition of "Street of Dreams." Anyone wishing to contribute can send a check to Roy Turk Nelson at 4014 E. Riverhills Drive, Tampa, FL 33617.
--Susan Edwards

Free Speech in Action
About 60 protestors gathered in front of The Tampa Tribune's office on Parker Street to show the Tribune exactly what they think of the paper's coverage of Muslim issues: It's racist. The University of South Florida group, Students for International Peace and Justice, called for a boycott of the paper and the removal of reporter Michael Fechter and columnist Daniel Ruth from all stories concerning Muslims.

Fechter is the reporter who first wrote of suspended USF professor Sami Al-Arian's alleged ties to terrorism, and sparked an FBI investigation of Al-Arian and his brother-in-law Mazen Al-Najjar. Al-Arian has never been charged with a crime, though he is currently on paid suspension from USF for what president Judy Genshaft asserts was a failure to distance himself from the university during an appearance on The O'Reilly Factor. Al-Najjar has also never been charged with a crime, but he currently sits in solitary confinement at Coleman Federal Penitentiary on a visa violation.

In spite of Genshaft's assertion that Al-Arian failed to say he wasn't on FOX speaking for the university, many -- including the American Association of University Professors and those protesting in front of the Tribune -- saw the move as a violation of Al-Arian's right to free speech. It's ironic, said Fechter, that the same people who were in an uproar about the violation of Al-Arian's First Amendment rights would like to silence him by violating his.

"I think they're being inconsistent," he said.

Certainly the students and the Muslim community had a right to protest, he said, but they're wrong in their assertion that he's anti-Muslim.

He has written about specific people in the Muslim community, he said, namely Al-Arian, Al-Najjar and Ramadan Shallah, a former USF professor who later emerged as the head of Islamic Jihad.

"If you're not one of those people I'm not talking about you," he said.

But the problem seems to be less with the people he has covered than with how he covered them.

Former Weekly Planet Editor John Sugg shot holes in many of Fechter's sources, showing that some of them were shaky at best. Fechter's last article on Al-Arian, which ran on the front page of the June 23 edition with the headline "Israel Ties Al-Arian to Jihad Board," didn't lend itself to such fact checking because no sources were named.

The idea that these anonymous sources may have had their own bias was not addressed in the article.

"It's Journalism 101 that when you bring very highly charged accusations, you'd better be able to back them up," said Al-Arian, who was present at the protest.

But Fechter also has a point. Just as work goes into being a producer of news, work should also go into being a consumer. Fechter has faith in his unnamed sources, he said, but he doesn't necessarily think that readers should see everything a newspaper prints as infallible.

"I don't fault anybody for being skeptical," he said.

The protestors' gripe against Ruth was about what they view as his blatantly racist attitude. Ruth isn't bothered by the accusation.

"I know who I am, I know what I believe in and I know what's in my heart," he said in an interview with the Planet prior to the protest. "In my heart and in my soul I know that I'm not anti-Muslim."

What he doesn't know is much about Islam, said protester Pilar Saad.

In his July 8 column headlined "Facing The Facts of Infidel Florida's Requirement," Ruth wrote about Sultaana Freeman, a Muslim woman who refused to remove the veil covering all but her eyes for a driver's license photo. The situation was ripe for public ridicule and Ruth stepped up to the plate. However, instead of just sticking to the comedic territory of someone refusing to allow his or her identity to be revealed on an identification card, Ruth went just a little further.

"Since Sultaana Freeman already accepts Islamic thinking, which takes a strict view of women as second-class theological citizens, why does she want a driver's license, inasmuch as in many Arab countries females aren't permitted behind the wheel?" he wrote.

This is a stretch. Many Muslims say Mohammad considered women equal to men and taught that women should have equal rights. Although women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, that is a matter of Saudi law, not an edict by Mohammad.

"He's really flaunting his ignorance," said Saad.

He's also raising some real questions about the color of his heart and the level of religious tolerance at the Tribune.
--Rochelle Renford