Seeing Is Believing

By Bill Yanger

Another in a continuing series of imagined conversations, some short some extended, over coffee at the Rod & Reel Pier. Any resemblance to persons or personalities, real or imagined, is entirely coincidental and mostly unintended.

Good Morning…

Hey.
Well well, if it isn’t Mr. Mysterious.

Huh?

Had some big secret the other day, remember? Skipped coffee then had to grab your blackened Mahi to go.

Oh, yeah. No biggie.

No biggie…right…What’s the deal?

Not sure I wanna tell you yet.

Oh, give me a break you prima donna…gonna make me beg?

Don’t beg. I’ll tell you when I’m ready.

Whatever.

Anyway, you know anyone who can tow my house?

You mean your boat?

No. My house, mi casa, the place I eat, sleep and watch Dancing With The Stars.

Tow, as in put it on a trailer and move it?




Yep.
Oh sure. No prob. Number’s right here in my back pocket…what the hell are you talking about now, you kook?

Wanna put my house in that little historic village they’re doing at Pine and Tarpon.

Who’s doing?

The English lady, the one with all the fish rental houses…she’s doing it. Bought the land at the corner from PAR and had some of her own. Apparently wants to make a historic village.
And how did you hear about this?

You know that architect with the new parking plan? His nice wife talked about it at the circus the other night. She’s working on it too.
The circus is in town?

No… but pretty close I ‘spose. It was the City Commission P&Z thingy.
I was there. Surprised you weren’t.

Hah! Needed an oxygen tank and rehab after the last one. I’ll wait’ll things get sane again.
Missed a good one. Looks like you could be gettin’ that time-out you wanted.

Time out?
Yeah, a few weeks ago you were all poopoo-faced over the City not slowing down and calling a time-out to get their sh…uh…stuff together. You said they needed to take three deep breaths and put in a moratorium on buildin’ stuff on Pine….pass me that creamer please…looks like it might happen.

I heard. That’s what that architect’s wife was worried about at the meeting…that a moratorium would kill their historical village thingy.
If a moratorium happens, it’d be done and over in a few months. Can’t see where she has anything to worry about.

Any other meeting highlights?

Heh heh, some lowlights for sure but what’s new? At least they got the site plan ordinance done. One last hearing and its law…site plan approval back where it belongs with the City Commissioners.

Really? It was that easy?
Well, it wasn’t without some drama, never is. Right off the bat, the lady commissioner stomped her feet and hissy-fitted when the guy with the gavel wouldn’t give her the floor.

What was her beef?

I think lotsa folks were asking that question. She read some long legal thingy about that feisty new commissioner being power hungry…said something like “abuse of authority”… and that maybe they should censure him.

You mean censor him.

It’s not cen-SORE, like that ache in your knees. It’s cen-SHURE, like “I’m sure glad to meet ya.”

Big deal, just words.

Well words seemed like a big deal to her. Used some big ones. Even read us the definition of one… “egregious.”

Yeah? What’s it mean?

Got me. Sounds ominous.

You ask what egregious means but you whip out ominous on me. Piece a work, boy. Bet she stirred up the other commissioners with that egregious thing, huh?
Nope.

No? Then I’m sure there musta been one of those low rolling mumbles through the crowd…
Nope again. She finished reading and folks kinda looked at each other and did a shoulder shrug like “Huh?” And the gavel guy banged everyone right to work. Like it never happened.

So what was the point?

Guess you gotta ask her.

Did they did fix the site plan ordinance?

Well…yeah…but my philosophy lately with those guys is this: Until it is, it isn’t. Know what I mean?

No truer words my friend, no truer words. But it’s in final form now?

Yeah, after some…uh…coaching from that brainiac lady from the audience, you know, the one with the little glasses and blonde hair, she’s at every meeting? Nothin’ gets by her. Nuh-thing, boy. She caught a bunch of glitches they fixed. Thankfully.

And they talked about parking I guess?

Hah! You guess…funny guy…Uh, yeah, they talked about parking a little. The room was wall papered with banners like a high school pep rally… blow ups of maps and satellite pictures and paragraphs of parking ordinances scotch taped up one wall and down the other. A whole lotta work went into it and a whole lotta talk went on about it.

Sounds like show and tell at AME…

Exactly, but with a court reporter and grown ups. That architect guy got up and explained his masterpiece. Pretty impressive actually, at least in terms of the work he put into it. Musta been twenty feet long and had Pine Avenue laid out like Main Street at Disney. Big meandering sidewalks, street lights, trees…just needs Mickey and Goofy.

Goofy, we got. But…I don’t know.

But what?

We ain’t Disney, man. Anyway, you say it was impressive, but will it work?

Ehhh, some folks think so. Some folks don’t.

Who don’t?

Well that Commissioner for one, the pool guy, is real concerned. Likes the concept, appreciates the work involved but…

But what?

But cars backing out every ten feet or so onto the busiest street in the City is just gonna gnarl every thing up, least he thinks. Wants traffic to actually move…don’t need cars pumpin’ the brakes for every wedding guest backing out of the General Store with a last minute six-pack…he’s got a point.

Yeah, I’d say letting cars actually move down a busy street is usually a pretty good idea, know what I mean? So who liked it?

The English lady with the fish houses, she and her husband.

They just bought the General Store right? From the Commissioner’s daughter…the one on the P&Z?
Yeah, and they’ve buffed it up to a high gloss sparkle too. Nice place, real nice actually.

So why’s she on board with the…er…Disney plan?

Well, it was kind of interesting. Don’t remember her likin’ the Disney plan so much as not likin’ the other plans…the one’s with on-site parking…like Sun Plaza, you know, where the ice cream joint is, Dips, on Gulf next to that Mermaid restaurant.

Love Dips. Sticky hot fudge on the silky chocolate ice cream with a banana and sprinkles…whipped cream, nuts…
Hey! We’re talkin’ parking here.

Yeah yeah. Sorry.
So the nice English lady…you know, nillyfish willyfish, whatever fish, was worried that the on-site parking plans would block people from seeing her General Store…and other stores, with all those hedges and trees and parked cars…

Uh…Ooookay, but….

But what?

But when’s the last time you saw the Sand Bar from Gulf Drive?

Never…

And can you see what’s next to PAR’s office in their building from the street?

Not without squintin’…

Or what about Rotten Ralph’s way down at Galati’s…not exactly on the parade route. They’ve been around…uh…how long?
Longer than me.

Yeah, like since the Flintstones.

Old fogey humor…very original…

And remember Mama Lo’s down by the pier…on-site parking…hedges…parked cars? People had no problem finding that place. Always a crowd.
So what’re you saying?

I’m saying that in this little town seeing the place doesn’t have much to do with finding the place, at least as far as I can tell. If you’re good, we’ll find you and they’ll find you. So far, the new General Store seems pretty darn good. They’ll find her.
I suppose so.

But I gotta tell you. Something’s been bugging me about this moratorium thingy…

Like what?

Like why it’s even necessary.

Whoa Tonto! You kidding me? After all your poo-poo faced moaning and groaning and that “three deep breaths” stuff? You’re doing a big ol’ U-turn?

No no. No U-turn. I still think it’s needed…it’s definitely needed now. Just don’t understand why it’s gotten to this point…why it’s been made so necessary.

I’m listening.

Ah hell, I don’t know. Seems you can taste the tension these days. Huffy cold shoulders, snide comments, sarcastic responses to honest questions from curious folks. Letters to editors that are just plain false. There was even cussing and finger pointing, right in City Hall, in the middle of the day. Testosterone city…
Who? When?

Last week, the day of that Commission meeting, but I don’t want to go into it. Yapping about it won’t fix the problem.
And what will?

Not sure. But I’ve been thinkin’…
Hell has finally frozen over.

Ha ha. Really…think about this. Go back to the beginning…everyone pretty much agreed we needed to fix the parking laws to comply with the comp plan…in other words to abide by the law, right?

I guess so…sure.

And it ain’t today’s news. Seems there’s been a story on it in some shape or form every week since November or before, right?
If not, close to it.

The City lawyer, the City Planner, the City building official, a majority of the City Commission and P&Z…all on board, right?

That’s my understanding.

And changing laws can’t happen overnight, not in this city, not in any city, but our guys seem to be on it, having meetings, debating issues, working on fixes. Our government in process, so to speak.
A slow process but a process, yes.

Well, I read in the newspaper last week that the PAR guy with the red bike said a pretty interesting thing. He was trying to get his new site plan approved for 216 Pine and said somethin’ like, if down the line the City adopts a parking plan on Pine Avenue, PAR would voluntarily modify their parking plan at 216 to meet the City’s plan.

He said that?

Apparently so. And they approved his plan.

Go on.

So, he’s already offered to fix his place to comply with the law even after that law gets changed.
Seeing is believing, Chief…we’re talking mucho dinero here.

Yeah but how much of that dinero do you think it’s costing him to show up at those City Hall meetings once a week, with his lawyer and court reporter posse, just to sit through another fire-fight in what could turn out to be his personal Waterloo?
Okay but look at the horizon from his helm. He wants to build “X” and make a fair profit. He sees new laws coming down the pike that only let him build “Y” and he apparently thinks that the “fair” part is no longer fair, least not by his definition. He’s gotta act and act fast.

So what’s he do?
He files site plans under the old law, as fast and as furious and as many as he can, that’s what he does.

No, no, no! That’s what he did. What’s he do? What’s he do now?
Build something?

Well, he seems to be claiming the folks in this City don’t want him building anything. He thinks any mix-use plan he submits will be nixed.
Come on, that’s just not true. He’s batting a 1000 for chrissake! He’s never had a site plan he submitted voted down. And he himself said he’s willing to change his plans to fit the City’s new parking scheme so why the drama?

Don't you get it though? Doesn’t matter if it’s not true so long as he can convince folks that it is true. Like that lady who wrote a letter to the newspapers this week saying…wait, it’s right here…yeah…she says that the new commissioner just wants to “thwart any type of progress and beautification of our Island.”
Oh, geez, no thinking person believes that…it’s drivel. First, the new commissioner’s got nuthin’ to do with the rest of the Island. And thwarting? Thwarting what? Who’s thwarting that English lady’s spiffy new General Store? Or that cool Olive Oil place in PAR’s new building? And before the new commish got here who thwarted the Sand Bar while it spent the last twenty years turning a sleepy beach bar into Wedding World? Get real.

Well, you know that P&Z guy, the Mayor’s old crony from her Temple Terrace days? It’s his wife wrote the letter, so consider the source. Funny though, she rants about the Commissions' hypocrisy in the letter but then admits that when they were building their house they were worried about “pedestrian safety” if they had to back out of their lot across a sidewalk onto Gulf Drive, worried enough, she says, to take it to the Commissioners back then.
Wait a doggone minute...her husband voted just last week for PAR’s site plan that makes cars back out across the sidewalk on Pine…guess they’re not worried anymore.

I know, I know. See? That's exactly what I'm talkin' about. All this misinformation and stuff is finding its way to folks who just want the truth, who just want to understand what’s happening. And most of that stuff just ain’t happening.
So what’s your concern about the moratorium?

My concern is this. The red bike guy has spent that last 7 years telling everyone how much he loves this place, it’s where he’s raising his family, it’s where he earns his living putting up eco-friendly buildings, and he apparently plans to keep doing all of it for as long as he can. I believe him…I think most folks believe him. We want him here doing the things he’s said he’s gonna do. But, whether he admits it or not, he knows the laws have to change, that they are changing and he knows he’ll have to live with those changes if he’s gonna stick around. Why can’t he just sit down with the City and say “Set your parameters and let’s make ‘em work” instead of something that sounds like “Here are my parameters, make ‘em work. And if you don’t, it’s because you don’t like development, any development at all, ever, period.”
Does seem to be his M-O lately…forcing the City’s hand, leaving it no choice.

Look, we all want a cool Pine Avenue, with cool places to buy cool stuff and hang out with cool people. We want and need creative builders with dynamic ideas to make it happen.
And to say we don’t is simply disingenuous.

Yeah! Disingenuous. Love that word.

Really?

Of course. What’s it mean?
Means insincere, like saying something when you don’t really believe it.

That fits.

So were you being disingenuous when you said you were towing your house to that English lady’s new little historical village?

Me? Disingenuous? Never! Ever!

But where will you live?

With…you.
Never. Ever. You gonna tell me your big secret?

Never. Ever…least for now.

See you tomorrow.

Yeah, tomorrow.

© 2010 – William L. Yanger