Sunday, November 8, 2015

The Bait House debacle

There are two really important lessons in this latest episode of Pier Park.

St. Petersburg, FL
Opinion by: E. Eugene Webb PhD
Coauthor of: So You Want Blog.
  
Once again, it looks like the Kriseman dream team has only stopped shooting themselves in the foot long enough to reload.

Who would have thought that the little bait house at the end of the Pier would cause such an uproar?

The Mayor and his cohorts decided they would auction off the old Pier bait house to make a few bucks, save some demolition costs and just move on.

The result was a mild uproar and a cry of fowl as apparently at some point the Kriseman administration had promised the old bait house would be saved. You can get the sorted details in Waveney Ann Moore's article in the Tampa Bay Times Auction of Pier bait house gets called off after outcry

There are two really important lessons in this latest episode of Pier Park.

First, you just can't trust the Kriseman administration. They will probably try to write the whole mess off to short term memory loss or something like that. I doubt anyone will buy it.

Second, there are a lot of people watching what is going on at the Pier site. A lot of promises have been made, and the Kriseman team would be well advised to stick to the plan and not innovate especially since they are not very good at it.

Will Michaels, a preservationist who was a member of Pier History committee, said he was, "delighted to hear that the mayor and his staff have such a high regard for our city's history and are willing to reconsider decisions that sometimes might not be the best."

I not sure the decision to reconsider selling the old bait house has as much to do with the "City's history" as it does with saving face.

E-mail Doc at mail to:dr.gwebb@yahoo.com or send me a Facebook (Gene Webb) Friend request. Please comment below, and be sure to share on Facebook. See Doc's Photo Gallery at Bay Post Photos.
Disclosures:
Contributor: Waterfront Charter Amendment (Vote on The Pier), Carly Fiorina for President

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