Wakulla County needs your help, governor

OK, I’ve left this alone for a couple days while I’ve been doing other things, so let me see if I have this all straight. Please, please let me know what I have wrong. To recap:

Wakulla County Sheriff David Harvey is out at a country club and drinks alcohol.

He gets into a WCSO-owned vehicle and drives home.

His vehicle crashes into a car parked in a driveway with a mom and her 13-year-old daughter sitting inside the car, waiting to pick someone up.

The sheriff leaves the scene to go home, saying later that – although he didn’t stop to check – he knew there were no injuries.

A state highway patrol trooper comes to the scene after a 911 call from the woman in the parked car.

So does a WCSO deputy, who dismisses the highway patrol officer to take over the “investigation,” which is outside of normal WCSO practice. It’s not unheard of, just not normal for WCSO to conduct a crash investigation.

By now, the sheriff is home and has called WCSO to say he was involved in a crash.

The WCSO does not conduct any sort of testing for drinking or anything else on the sheriff, saying department policies do not apply to the sheriff because he is the sheriff.

The WCSO does not issue a citation for anything for days, by which time the public and the media are fully engaged and raising a stink.

The sheriff asks a longtime colleague, State Attorney Willie Meggs, to investigate. He does and quickly determines that the sheriff left the scene of a crash and says there is evidence that the sheriff was drinking.

The sheriff suspends himself, costing himself $2,000 pay, saying the county can put that toward the deductible on the insurance or use it to fix the vehicle.

Citizens are asking Gov. Charlie Crist to get involved and investigate.

Governor, what are you waiting for?

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Spending time with FSU and Marshall's Red Dawson

And now a respite from the politics of vehicle crashes, school-budget cuts and other bad stuff.

I get to see an old friend tonight and spend some time talking about two of the universities I care most about: Florida State and Marshall.

Red Dawson, a Hall of Fame FSU receiver in the 1960s who gained new fame with the film “We Are Marshall,” will be at the Silver Slipper with Marshall head football coach Mark Snyder and others for a public reception.

Red taught me to be a passionate FSU football fan well before I stepped foot in Tallahassee or had a daughter enroll at the university.

I helped talk Red out of putting a woman out of his house for showing up to his national championship game watching party wearing an orange sweat shirt in 1998, the year Tennessee nipped the Seminoles in the Fiesta Bowl 23-16.

The reception is 6 to 8 p.m. at the Silver Slipper. No doubt, much of the conversation will be about two local high school players who committed to Marshall: Florida’s high school player of the year, quarterback A.J. Graham of Godby High School, and corner back Monterius Lovette of Rickards High School.

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Pols just don't get the public trust issue

This one should be interesting, maybe even instructional for our public officials who sometimes don’t seem to understand why citizens watch them so carefully and always assume the worst.

A county-owned vehicle being driven by Wakulla County Sheriff David Harvey struck another vehicle. The sheriff left the scene, driving less than a mile to his home to call-in the accident report. No one was injured.

Doesn’t seem like such a big deal, right?

But what would have happened if it was Joe or Jane Citizen? That is really the question.

Wakulla deputies investigating the accident say that the sheriff was at fault in the accident, but that neither alcohol nor excessive speed were involved.

How do they know any of that for sure?

Isn’t that the point of the law requiring drivers in a crash causing damage to stop and stay at the scene to exchange information, including name, address and vehicle registration? A violation is a second-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.

If you are the sheriff, don't you want to wait until deputies show up to investigate, just to remove any possible question of wrongdoing?

Listen, I’m not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination that Harvey was drinking or speeding; I’m simply saying that I’m not sure how deputies would be able to determine anything based on a telephone conversation that far away from the scene with at least one of the vehicles removed from the scene.

And would it have been OK for the other driver to have done the same?

In politics and public life these days, you are guilty in the court of public opinion based on perception and assumption. It has been that way for a long time.

If I had to pin a time when that began to change I would say the 1988 presidential election when front-runner Gary Hart denied having an extramarital affair and challenged reporters:

“Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'll be very bored.”

The Miami Herald did; the newspaper discovered the beautiful 29-year-old Donna Rice, and Hart was shortly out of the race.

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NY Post cartoon either stupid or racist

The best that can be hoped for is that the New York Post editors are guilty of stupidity, but even that just doesn’t add up.

A political cartoon appeared in the Post this week depicting two white police officers with a gun standing over the bullet-riddled money of an obviously dead money. The caption reads: “They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

The cartoon has set off a firestorm of protest, including in the digital world, where groups such as one on Facebook.com “Let’s join forces to boycott New York Post” are popping up, causing the Post last night to issue an apology of sorts:

Under a heading of “That Cartoon”, the Post said:

“It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill. Period. But it has been taken as something else – as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism.

“This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.

“However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with the Post in the past – and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.”

The Post doesn't apologize to them, the report said.

The Post wants us to believe, I guess, that editors didn’t understand the racial overtones to the cartoon, given centuries of symbolism of black Americans being depicted as not-quite-human monkeys. They didn’t see, I suppose, how the linkage would be made to President Obama in the wake of his first major political victory in Congress, the passage of the stimulus bill.

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NY Post cartoon either stupid or racist

The best that can be hoped for is that the New York Post editors are guilty of stupidity, but even that just doesn’t add up.

A political cartoon appeared in the Post this week depicting two white police officers with a gun standing over the bullet-riddled money of an obviously dead money. The caption reads: “They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

The cartoon has set off a firestorm of protest, including in the digital world, where groups such as one on Facebook.com “Let’s join forces to boycott New York Post” are popping up, causing the Post last night to issue an apology of sorts:

Under a heading of “That Cartoon”, the Post said:

“It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill. Period. But it has been taken as something else – as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism.

“This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.

“However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with the Post in the past – and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.”

The Post doesn't apologize to them, the report said.

The Post wants us to believe, I guess, that editors didn’t understand the racial overtones to the cartoon, given centuries of symbolism of black Americans being depicted as not-quite-human monkeys. They didn’t see, I suppose, how the linkage would be made to President Obama in the wake of his first major political victory in Congress, the passage of the stimulus bill.

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Hey, don't yell at the umps (or at me)

Some people say a person’s character and morality are defined by what he or she does when no one is looking. I guess that's right.

But sometimes, character can also be revealed when everyone is looking. When you are a parent, just know everyone is looking, especially your children.

I’ve been coaching baseball since they made me give back my player’s uniform in college after an injury to my shoulder just didn’t get better. Surgery at that time meant you were done anyway, so I started coaching to stay involved with the game.

It is what I love, just as some people golf or ski or play tennis; I’ve coached baseball for more than 30 years, before I had children of my own. From T-ballers to college-level players and every age in between. We still have on tape (yes, tape) my oldest kid's 8-year-old championship game from the 1988 season. We have the pizza party, too. Wild times.

But just because I've been coaching since the 1970s doesn’t mean I've always gotten it right, only that I mainly know how to get it right and know when I haven’t. It means I’ve seen a lot of silly behavior from coaches, umpires and (mainly) parents, though sometimes it was coming from me.

This year, as I do most years, I met with the parents of my new team. We had some hamburgers and hot dogs and talked, you know, while we’re all new to the team and everyone still likes each other.

This is a team of 13-year-olds in the Tallahassee Babe Ruth organization. That means the kids are moving up to a regulation big-league-size field for the first time and that all of the players – and their parents – are serious about baseball.

I’ve developed some advice for my teams' parents that I adapt to the level of play. A couple people suggested I share it, so here you go ...

To read the guidelines see the full blog on this link.

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If we only could run our schools like the widget makers

If this were strictly a business decision, it would be a relatively easy one: Bell Vue Middle would be closed. The savings of about $2 million would help stem a projected $12 million overall budget deficit for next year.

Done.

But they don’t make widgets at Belle Vue; they educate children, unfortunately, not well enough based on state and federal standards. Belle Vue has been the worst performer – a D school listed as “intervene” in a combined state-federal grading system.

That makes it a candidate not to survive no matter what happens in budget cutting.

In the next few weeks, as our community learns how exactly our School Board intends to cut another $12 million from its $268 million budget, expect things to get emotional. It’s just the latest round of potential cuts that have taken some $23 million out of local schools since 2007.

In the past four years, spending on public schools in Florida has fallen about a half billion dollars.

If we were building widgets, we’d have to start wondering what impact the cuts are having on product quality, and we’d have to worry how far ahead the competition – that is, private schools – is getting.

But we don’t make widgets, we educate children and develop good citizens, which is even more cause for concern.

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Cheaters always prosper, right A-Rod?

Reports out of New York say that baseball’s A-Rod is getting more ink in the big-city newspapers than the recession or President Obama.

I’m not surprised. It’s been “Media Gone Wild” since reports surfaced last week that Alex Rodriquez, who played high-school ball in Miami where he grew up, was linked to a positive test for steroid use in 2003.

The New York Yankees star third baseman is the youngest player to hit 500 home runs in baseball history and signed a 10-year $275 million contract in 2007 with a bonus clause worth $30 million more if he breaks the all-time home run mark of 762.

Oh, and he and his wife separated after the birth of their second daughter last year, and some reports link him romantically to Madonna.

Expect the floodgates on A-Rod talk to open up when he reports to spring training in Tampa tomorrow. Find me some cotton for my ears.

I’ve grown so tired of the A-Rod conversation that I’ve actually had to change the channel several times to something else besides MLB Home Plate or ESPN on my XM radio. I’m avoiding reading newspaper stories about it. I probably won’t read this column after I’ve finished it.

I am disgusted with the whole steroid-use debacle, but even worse in my view is the hypocrisy. Cheaters are never supposed to prosper.

But A-Rod signed a potential $300 million contract four years after baseball knew he had tested positive for use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs. It is clear when you are talking about this kind of money in this kind of environment it is not just a kids’ game we’re talking about, but the message will be received very clearly by our kids.

Everyone who needed to know knew. A-Rod and 103 other yet-unnamed ball players tested positive in that 2003 test, and the fact that he's been cleran since only proves he didn't have to cheat to be very good.

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FSU men's BB deserve more love

Florida State basketball fans are happier now that the men’s team is showing up in the national rankings for the first time since Monica Lewinsky was a household name, especially in the White House.
They’ve beaten Florida and Clemson away, California on a neutral court, Cincinnati on a neutral court and had a very nice win against a Sweet 16 team from a year ago, Western Kentucky. They should’ve beaten North Carolina and could’ve beaten Duke and Pitt.
They’re in a virtual tie for second in the ACC, though they have a very tough schedule remaining starting with a 4 p.m. Valentine’s Day bash with a very tough Wake Forest team. Ten, even 11 wins in the ACC, does not seem out of the question.
ESPN commentators called the 'Noles a team on the rise, and a Fox broadcaster said – rightly – that no single player has meant more to his team this year than FSU’s Toney Douglas. It’s hard to imagine otherwise, and though he probably won’t get Player of the Year consideration, if the 'Noles finish strong, he should.
Clearly, Solomon Alabi is turning into the power 7 footer FSU thought he would become, and he’s still learning the game and just a freshman, one of six first-year players on the team.
So why are the Seminoles still rated below teams such as Florida, California and Minnesota in many of the power ratings, those computerized lists that look at things such as strength of schedule and game results?
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Someday you'll pay to read my blog

I think you can start to call this a trend: Bloggers and others around the country are asking people who read, watch and/or listen to their work to donate money to support the cause.
It goes something like this:
“Hi, I’m Bob and there is no charge for reading this blog. But if you enjoy it and want to help ensure I can continue to provide it, please send me money. You can make a cash donation of any size by sending your money to me at P.O. Box 990; Tallahassee, FL 32302.”
Dig, baby, dig. If it works for them, why not me? Open up those pocketbooks and wallets. Don't forget to look between the seat cushions on the couch.
I can already hear the quarters, dimes and nickels being pulled from pockets across America.
For real? Is this how we plan to fund journalism in the new age? The United Way model?
Hey, begging for money is actually working for some people. One blogger I know is hoping to earn $80,000 per year just in donations. I suspect it’s a limited-edition business model, though.
It is just one of the consumer-pay models being looked at. Some are pushing for a per-story charge of say a nickel or a dime. Every time you click, you drop a dime into the slot, electronically, of course.

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Searching for my grandfather

I’ve been searching for my grandfather for a long time.
I’ve walked the cemetery where he is supposed to be buried. I’ve flipped through boxes of family belongings when my grandmother died.
I’ve never found an obituary, birth record or marriage license. I’ve tried searching the Internet for clues. Nothing much was ever found. No obvious grave site. Not even a Web search of burial sites offered much help.
It was as if his existence were a fact only because of a single photograph taken with my grandmother at about the time of their marriage.
All I’ve ever known about him were pieces of information gathered from my grandmother, who never really wanted to talk about it. The memory, I suppose, was just too painful.
The best I could tell is my grandmother was married and widowed at the age of 16, when my father was 6 months old. The story is my grandfather was hit by a bus or a train in 1930 or 1931 while crossing a street in our small town, Vineland, in southern New Jersey, where the family farmed for decades.
He had two brothers, probably some sisters. The story was at some point a second “A” was dropped from our name, and Gaboardi became Gabordi. We thought that was true only because that’s how grandma, switch in hand, pronounced the name when she was angry.
When and why that happened was all a part of the mystery. That was the entire sum of my knowledge of family history.
Then a friend tipped me to a group on Facebook for people with the name Gaboardi. For the first time, I found dozens of people who had the same name as me – maybe. I joined and began asking questions. Information trickled in, but anything felt like a flood.
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Waiting for next year on Red Hills Horse Trials

It’s not just the equestrian event that is lost with the cancellation of the Red Hills Horse Trials this year; it’s also the hotel rooms that won’t get filled from the 25,000 visitors expected that mid-March weekend.
And dinners that won't be served, the tips that won’t be earned at local restaurants.And sales that won’t be made by vendors at the event.
And money that won’t be raised for local nonprofits.
In fact, based on a study by Florida State professor Mark Bonn, Red Hills contributes about $239,000 to the local economy each year. I would bet the economic impact is much higher than that, more than $11.32 per person attending the event.
The bad economy makes itself worse when it forces good economic drivers such as this event out of action. Red Hills is not alone among events that will have to be cancelled due to the economy, of course. Most organizations in town are hurting. Many are looking at whether they can afford to risk spending money on fund-raising events that have a diminished chance to be successful.
But what hurts about this one-year loss of one of the nation’s top equestrian events isn’t just its impact on the economy; it’s also the loss of a little of the magic, one of the things that make Tallahassee different (read: more special) than any other place.

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Signing Day worth $3.3 million to local athletes

There is a sports story on the front page of the Tallahassee Democrat this morning. Let the hate mail begin.
Why is all the “important” news of the day buried inside while you publish “trivial” stories such as this one about the NCAA football national signing day on the front page?
Well, let me start with a few numbers:
49: How many student-athletes from the Big Bend region who signed letters of commitment to play football in college.
19: Student-athletes from here who signed with schools in Bowl Championship Series conferences.
$3,379,775: Estimated value of scholarships those 49 students would earn over five years, assuming a red-shirt year and in-state tuition costs.
$2,703,820: Value of those scholarships over four years, still assuming in-state tuition costs.
Not included: books and other expenses, just tuition, room and board. I made my estimates using a variety of sources including College Board and U.S. Department of Education, based on national averages.
Where does that money come from? Boosters at big-time programs such as Florida State carry most of the load. At other schools, taxpayers and the programs themselves fund scholarships for athletes. If you care about sports, thank a Booster.

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