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What You Missed This Week in La Gaceta
From As We Heard It, by Patrick Manteiga
► Speaker of the House, Republican Mike Johnson, had this to say about Democrats and the progressive wing: “As I’ve said, the Barbarians are now inside the gate. By our count, there’s almost 40 openly avowed Marxists, communists, socialists. They’re all in the same camp…”
“In fact, communism has been the result of the murder of 10s of millions of innocent people in the 20th century alone …”
“So we must defeat them.”
Johnson knows voters are feeling the Republicans have failed on the economy and many other fronts, so all he can do is try to spin that the Democrats would change America to communism, therefor, they are not an option. When he says, “Barbarians are now inside the gate,” we think of Jan. 6, when Trump whipped up his supporters to attack the Capitol to stop democracy in action.
Johnson’s fear for democracy should be aimed at President Donald Trump, who acts like a dictator and has ignored our system of checks and balances. Brutal dictators are responsible for millions of deaths. … (to read more, buy a paper)
► Congratulations to the Tampa Bay Rays. They secured largest amount of tax dollars and public resources for a baseball stadium of any team in the history of baseball.
No group of taxpayers in the U.S. have given so much to say, “Play ball.”
The press got the price tag wrong. Some said the City and County commitment was $875 million, others tag that amount as the total public investment.
We have done our best to calculate the total public investment to make the Tampa Bay Rays new home and the amount is $2,209,330,000. That’s over $1.4 billion more than any other community has paid. … We have Hillsborough County’s contribution at $1.13 billion. We have added $300 million in interest to the Tourist Development Tax bonds (our best estimate) and $20 million to replace the tax collector’s office and the land it sits on, which is being leased to the Rays for development.
The acreage is part of the $10 rent for the 113 acres. We also added in $30 million in Federal Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funds. That was received by the County. The money could have improved stormwater systems to prevent neighborhoods from flooding during the next hurricane. Instead, it will be spent on stormwater infrastructure under the new stadium and the surrounding development.
The county is not bonding its CIT money but instead, is saying it will pay out the $360 million as it is collected. The first dollar gets collected on Dec. 1, 2026. The agreement has the full $360 million being paid in four payments, with the last payment on Oct. 1, 2029. We asked A.I. to project the amount of CIT funds paid by the public between the start date of the tax and Oct. 1, 2029, and it answered $411 million. That means for the first three years of the tax, only $51 million will be available for all of the other needed infrastructure improvements.
This means roads won’t be improved, firehouses won’t be built, Raymond James Stadium capital projects will be postponed.
We did not address the inflation that will affect the price of delaying these projects.
We have the City of Tampa taxpayers tossing in $351,330,000.
The City is going to rebate property tax money from the development back to the Rays. A large percentage of the property taxes collected in the future from the Rays development will go back to the Rays.
The City is paying $80 million for stadium construction. The City is going to borrow it and we calculate the interest is going to be around $71 million. As property tax comes in from the development, it will supposedly pay us back with our own tax money.
The Rays will also be able to reimburse themselves from property tax money from their development. They can eat up their taxes to cover a $100 million loan and our estimate of $89,000,000 in interest.
The Rays were about to make the deal without the City. Had that happened, $341 million of property taxes would have flowed into our government’s general revenue to use on police, fire, roads and parks. Instead, it all goes to the Rays.
We also tagged on $10 million for land and construction costs to replace the tennis complex that the Rays will demolish for development.
The State’s contribution has been ignored by almost everyone. This money and property have been delivered without public debate and the deals have all been in the backrooms with Governor Ronald DeSantis moving the funds around to enrich his friends. This giveaway makes the Hope Florida steal a cheap five-finger discount.
The State, through Hillsborough College, is giving the Rays 113 acres. There was never an appraisal on the land, but our best calculation is $500 million.
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) we’ll make improvements around the development, but projects and prices aren’t listed for easy consumption. Improvements to MLK, Columbus, Tampa Bay, Dale Mabry and Lois are in the mix along with a pedestrian bridge. Our guess is $30 million, but it could be more.
FDOT also promised to move $100 million to help pay for the County’s Lithia-Pinecrest Road Widening project. FDOT will likely take the money from projects that are scheduled over the next five years. Somebody isn’t getting their road fixed, but FDOT has yet to choose who will be victimized.
Supposedly, the County couldn’t commit CIT funds without the help from FDOT.
Also in the State contribution is $215 million to replace Hillsborough College’s campus buildings, which are to be demolished.
The State’s total contribution is $845 million.(to read more, buy a paper)
From Chairman of the Bored, by Gene Siudut
► For nearly a decade, Jeanine Pirro has been one of Donald Trump’s most dependable public defenders. First as the host of her own weekend show on Fox News, “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” and later as a co-host of “The Five,” she used her highly rated television pulpit to reframe his deepest legal complications into straightforward battles of good versus bad.
Think Judge Judy with more influence and no moral compass.
Yet the nature of that relationship fundamentally shifted when the president appointed her as the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. Suddenly, the battle moved from the consequence-free arena of cable television to a federal office with actual statutory boundaries. And that new reality has now collided with a wall over something as inconsequential as the National Mall’s Reflecting Pool. …(to read more, buy a paper)
From O’Pionions to Go, by Joe O’Neill
► Cog Test: More hand-bruise speculation. More embarrassing, high-profile nodding off. Another “aced” cognition test. We’ve seen this presidential pattern; we’ll see it again. And again.
But we haven’t, until now, actually seen the Trump cognition test. Some likely samples: Solve Hocus-Focus, count backwards from 3, name the day of the week, current century, two SCOTUS justices, three NATO members and the main ingredients of a cheeseburger.
Atorvastatin, Azerbaijan, Acetaminaphen: Which one is a country? What is Stormy Daniels real name? Name two books other than “Art of the Deal” and “Mein Kampf,” that you have read. What is Melania’s phone number?
Party of Lincoln: How can Republicans still maintain that their party is “the party of Lincoln”? Shouldn’t these Lincoln Day Dinners be realistically renamed? How about the Bull Connor or George Wallace Day Dinners? Stop using Lincoln as a disingenuous, hypocritical model. …(to read more, buy a paper)
From In Context, by Doris Weatherford
► I see that the Justice Department is suing Harvard, again. Again, the suit is about what the Trump administration sees as Harvard’s failure to release complete data on its admission process. Let’s get this straight: Harvard is a private entity, not a public one. It has been private since 1636. (Yes, that is a 400th anniversary coming up soon, as opposed to the 250th anniversary of the United States.) It is operated by a board elected by its alumni and has no legal reason to respond to the demands of Agent Orange.
In the interest of transparency, though, there is one admission record I’d like to see: did young Donnie apply back in 1964, when he instead went to Fordham, a much inferior Catholic school in New York City? If his snit with Harvard is based on rejection, was Daddy’s promised donation insufficient to bend Harvard’s high standards? Or was he a victim of the discrimination against white men that Harvard historically upheld? Yes, I’m being sarcastic: it was impossible for a woman of any color or even wealth to enter as an undergraduatethe college back then. Not until 1977 were Harvard’s admissions “gendersex-blind.” Color-blindness came in the 70’s as well.And my daughter still is angry that her 1995 diploma credits Radcliffe equally with Harvard. …(to read more, buy a paper)
From Silhouettes, an interview with Bill Weber, by Tiffany Razzano
► For more than four decades, Bill Weber has built a career around mobility and independence.
Since opening his Tampa-area business in the early 1980s, Weber has helped many people —from aging adults to injured veterans and people living with disabilities—find the wheelchairs, scooters and wheelchair-accessible vehicles that allow them to continue working, traveling and living on their own terms. …(to read more, buy a paper)
From Líneas de la memoria, por Gabriel Cartaya
► La doctora Madeline Cámara, profesora en la Universidad del Sur de la Florida por varios años, reconocida como crítica literaria y autora de varios libros, me acaba de enviar unas líneas suyas inspiradas en El secreto de la andaluza. Las comparto con los atentos lectores de “Líneas de la memoria”, muchos de los cuales han leído esta novela, concebida en el mismo tiempo en que escribimos las breves líneas semanales de La Gaceta. … (to read more, buy a paper)
From Briznas culturales, por Leonardo Venta
► En el texto La invención de España: literatura y nacionalismo, su autor, E. Inman Fox, hace un análisis de España hacia finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX, cuando el país se encontraba en-vuelto en una transición hacia la industrialización. Esta transición vino aparejada con un cambio en la estructura social definida por la consolidación de la clase media adinerada, una emergente y organizada clase trabajadora, y por consiguiente la oscilante pequeña burguesía.
Por otro lado, la estructura política, caracterizada por la ineficiencia administrativa, un corrupto sistema electoral, un 75 por ciento de la población analfabeta, y un anacrónico sistema educati-vo, no permitió que en España se consolidara una democracia capitalista al mismo nivel que el resto de Europa. …(
