For those of us saddened that the formerly annual Taste of New Tampa wasn’t held in 2014, the good news is that our area is now at least one step closer to bringing back the best-attended single-day event in New Tampa.
How? Well, the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce (WCCC) has finalized an agreement with the now-defunct New Tampa Chamber of Commerce that will allow the WCCC to re-start the Taste. WCCC executive director Hope Allen says that former New Tampa Chamber president Neil Heird signed off on the agreement that will allow the WCCC to absorb the remnants of the New Tampa Chamber.
In fact, the WCCC’s new logo, which can be found on the organization’s website (WesleyChapelChamber.com), now says “Serving Wesley Chapel & New Tampa,” and Allen promises that the wheels are in motion to create a committee to help bring more New Tampa-area businesses under the WCCC’s auspices and to discuss reviving the Taste. Allen has begun recruiting a few local business leaders, including yours truly, to help get that ball rolling, although no meeting had been set at our press time for the initial get-together of that group. But rest assured, we will keep your posted.
‘Fiscal Responsibility’ & The Hillsborough School Board
Let me start by saying that I haven’t had a child in a Hillsborough County public school for almost five years, nor do I know recently-ousted Hillsborough superintendent of schools MaryEllen Elia (see page 1) personally, so I have no personal involvement in the School Board’s decision to buy out Ms. Elia’s contract “without cause.”
On the other hand, I do have a long history of not appreciating (both as a parent and as a local community news magazine editor) the way the Board runs the nation’s eighth largest school district (with more than 205,000 students, according to its website, SDHC.k12.fl.us), the way new schools in the District are named and even the way the School Board meetings themselves are conducted — when no matter how many people attend a meeting to express their opinions on a controversial subject, the Board always makes them wait, sometimes for hours, often while they give out awards and pat each other on the back. Although I have never had a problem with any of the current individual Board members themselves, I have long believed the Hillsborough District should be disassembled into individual, micro-managed districts with multiple elementary and two middle schools feeding into one high school.
But, whether or not the Board agrees with the Florida Department of Education — which recently named Ms. Elia the “Superintendent of the Year” — there’s no doubt that the action taken by the Board on Jan. 20 shows some of the current Board members to be childish babies who have no interest whatsoever in “fiscal responsibility.”
Here’s the facts — the 4-3 vote to terminate Elia’s contract will cost the District $1.1 million for the now-deposed superintendent to sit at home and eat bon-bons (if she so chooses, which I’m certain she won’t, with all of the job offers she has coming in) instead of leading a District with a long history of financial struggles, busing controversies and average (at best) testing results. And, according to the District’s own staff, there is no plan or timetable for replacing Ms. Elia, which means our schools may be rudderless for perhaps the rest of this school year.
That being said, although assistant editor Matt Wiley attended the Jan. 20 meeting instead of yours truly, the quotes coming from the Board members who voted to terminate Elia represent this group — and the leadership of our District — as less grown up than the elementary school kids they serve.
Ms. Elia didn’t ask for the accolades she’s received, they were bestowed upon her by the state, so for Dist. 6 Board member April Griffin to cite those accolades as one reason to terminate indicates to me that what she actually didn’t like was that Elia was receiving credit and the Board wasn’t.
But sadly, the worst offender in this case is Dist. 3 Board member Cindy Stuart, who was elected in 2012 to serve all of the schools in the New Tampa area. “Ms. Elia’s contract is unconscionable?” You were elected two+ years ago, but are just getting that idea now, Ms. Stuart? And, you believe that paying someone more than $1 million to not work is representative of your fiscal responsibility?
Let’s just call this what it is — a personal vendetta…nothing more, nothing less — and yet another black eye for our area schools.
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