Associated Press
Friday, February 8, 2013

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian rebels brought their fight within a mile of the heart of Damascus on Friday, seizing army checkpoints and cutting a key highway with a row of burning tires as they pressed their campaign for the heavily guarded capital, considered the likely endgame in the nearly 2-year-old civil war.

The clashes raised fears that Damascus, a major cultural center and one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities, could fall victim to a protracted battle that would bring the destruction seen in other major cities and trigger a mass refugee exodus into neighboring countries.

"Any attempt by the rebels to advance into central Damascus would mean the beginning of a very long fight," said Syrian activist Rami Jarrah. "I imagine Aleppo would be a small example of what is likely to happen in Damascus."

Aleppo, Syria's largest urban center and main commercial hub, has been convulsed by violence since the summer, when rebels launched an offensive to take control of the city. Since then the fighting has been locked in a deadly stalemate, with the war-ravaged city carved up into government- and opposition-held strongholds.

The latest Damascus offensive, launched from the northeastern side of the city, did not appear to be coordinated with rebels on other sides of the capital, and it was unclear whether the opposition fighters would be able to hold their ground.

Previous attempts to advance on the capital have failed. The government controls movement in and out with a network of checkpoints, and rebels have failed to make significant inroads.

MANY FLEE WAR: The U.N. refugee agency reported a major increase in the number of people fleeing Syria, with 5,000 refugees crossing the borders daily into neighboring countries. The mass exodus "is really a full-on crisis," agency spokesman Adrian Edwards said. About 787,000 Syrians are registered as refugees, mainly in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Turkey, Edwards said. The number has shot up 25 percent in January alone.

Washington Post
Friday, February 8, 2013

Three long-awaited studies have shown that mechanically removing a blood clot from a stroke patient's brain is no more useful than the older treatment of giving an IV dose of a clot-dissolving drug to the whole body.

The results of the clinical trials, presented this week at a meeting in Hawaii, shocked and surprised stroke physicians. Many had already adopted the more aggressive strategy over the past decade.

"For the stroke field this is a really big deal," Walter Koroshetz, deputy director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said of the findings, which were presented over three days at the International Stroke Conference in Honolulu.

Practitioners hoped that "endovascular treatment," in which a catheter is threaded into a blocked artery and the clot is pulled out, would do for stroke patients what it has done for heart attack patients. In them, going after clots with angioplasty balloons and stents is clearly more effective than giving clot-dissolving drugs through a vein in the arm.

"We did this study with the strong expectation that we would find a positive benefit. We were surprised," said Joseph Broderick of the University of Cincinnati Neuroscience Institute, who headed one of the studies.

Stroke is the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States. About 800,000 people suffer a stroke each year, and about 130,000 die.

Associated Press
Friday, February 8, 2013

Pakistani teen to recover at home

Malala Yousafzai, the teenage Pakistani education activist shot in the head by the Taliban, was discharged from a British hospital Friday after undergoing skull reconstruction and receiving a cochlear implant to restore her hearing. The 15-year-old had been released for a few weeks in January but re-entered Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham to undergo the latest procedures. The hospital said she is "making good recovery" and will continue her rehabilitation at her family's temporary home in Birmingham.

Stolen Matisse to be returned

A painting by Henri Matisse stolen more than a decade ago from a museum in Venezuela will soon be returned to the country, officials said Friday. The painting, Odalisque in Red Pants, is to be returned from the United States, said Raul Grioni, president of Venezuela's Cultural Patrimony Institute. Authorities say the 1925 painting, which is valued at about $3 million, was stolen from the Caracas museum in 2000. It was found in July when a couple tried to sell it to undercover FBI agents at a hotel in Miami Beach.

Associated Press

BY THE NUMBERS

$1.3B

Loss by the U.S. Postal Service in the final three months of last year despite a blizzard of campaign advertising for the fall elections and a big holiday mail and shipping season. A year earlier, the quarterly loss was $3.3 billion.

By Jodie Tillman, Times Staff Writer
Friday, February 8, 2013

TAMPA — By the time they see Dr. Benito Torres, cancer patients just out of surgery need a strong painkiller. A pain specialist on staff at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, Torres typically prescribes medication like Vicodin or Lortab, which both deliver the powerful drug hydrocodone.

What happens after the pill bottle is empty, but the pain continues? Torres can phone in refill orders to pharmacies. But that would change under a proposal to put new restrictions on painkillers containing hydrocodone.

Facing an unrelenting prescription drug abuse crisis, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration may reclassify hydrocodone into the most restricted category of legal drugs. The move would prohibit refills, meaning patients would have to return to their doctors for a new prescription.

Supporters say the move is long overdue, arguing it will force doctors to think twice before handing out a potentially addictive drug that is the most-prescribed painkilling medication in the nation.

"The net result might be less prescribing or more careful prescribing," said Len Paulozzi, a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention medical epidemiologist. "If it's prescribed less liberally, then it might be less likely to fall into the hands of people who abuse it."

But critics say there's no strong evidence that reclassifying a drug curbs abuse. Legitimate patients, they say, will bear the burden of further restricting hydrocodone by having to face the expense and trouble of additional trips to the doctor's office.

"To make them get out of their home after they just had surgery and drive over here to see me, that's not the best for care," Torres said of his patients. "Obviously (federal regulators) are trying to protect the population. But I think they're going a little overboard. And it's going to affect people who have limited ability to get to their doctors."

Nursing home advocates say the change could be a particular burden for frail residents. And it could have a chilling effect on doctors, who already are more skittish about prescribing pain medications after the creation of Florida's prescription drug monitoring database, said LuMarie Polivka-West, senior director of policy for the Florida Health Care Association, which represents most of the state's nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Her concern is that pain among the elderly — especially those with dementia — already is undertreated. "They need to look at this very carefully," she said.

Hydrocodone belongs to a class of drugs called opioids, which also includes oxycodone, morphine and heroin. It is sold in combination form, typically with acetaminophen. When the federal Controlled Substances Act went into effect in 1971, hydrocodone was listed as a Schedule III drug, meaning it comes with fewer restrictions than such Schedule II drugs as Oxycontin and Percocet, both of which contain oxycodone.

At the time, hydrocodone medications were thought to be less addictive, perhaps in part because they contained other substances that limited the maximum safe dosages, according to a 2004 DEA report.

But since the 1990s, hydrocodone-containing drugs have become the most widely prescribed painkiller in the nation. In 2011, nearly 131 million prescriptions for hydrocodone drugs were dispensed to 47 million patients, according to an FDA report. That was up from 100 million prescriptions in 2004.

About 40 percent of the prescriptions for hydrocodone drugs were written by primary care doctors and internal medicine specialists, the report says. Another 10 percent were written by dentists.

Clearwater rheumatologist Adam Rosen said he thinks too many patients whose pain could be addressed with less potent drugs are getting hydrocodone. He said the patients for whom he prescribes hydrocodone drugs have severe arthritis, in many cases in the spine. "They really, truly need it," he said.

Small-scale studies show that patients who have severe pain that lasts only a day or two — such as after some surgeries — get 10- or 30-day supplies of hydrocodone. Often the unused pills sit in their medicine cabinets, where they can end up in the hands of people with no medical need, such as teens, according to the American Academy of Pain Medicine.

"I think rather than reclassify the medicine they should reclassify which doctors can prescribe," Rosen said.

Paulozzi, the CDC epidemiologist, said multiple studies have shown hydrocodone is as addictive as oxycodone and should be regulated as such. A drug's potential for addiction is a key factor in any decision to move it into a stricter category.

He acknowledged that oxycodone is heavily abused though it's already in the most restrictive category. But if it weren't a Schedule II drug, oxycodone abuse "might be worse,'' he said.

Dr. Richard Goldberger, an orthopedic surgeon in Tampa, said hydrocodone drugs work well for his patients with post-operative pain. But even now, he rarely just calls in refills without seeing the patient again.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency cites other factors supporting the reclassification. Since 2009, hydrocodone has been second only to oxycodone in prescription drugs seized at crime scenes.

But the FDA, which turned down an earlier request to reclassify the drug, has said in the past that the abuse potential is not clear cut. A report prepared last October for the FDA advisory panel found a lack of consistent data suggesting hydrocodone-combination drugs carry enough abuse potential to be reclassified.

By some measures, hydrocodone drugs haven't been as risky as those containing oxycodone. In 2009, for instance, the rate of emergency room visits per 1 million prescriptions was more than twice as high for oxycodone drugs as hydrocodone, according to the FDA report.

A report by Florida Department of Law Enforcement last year cited hydrocodone as the cause of death in 307 people in 2011, compared with 1,247 deaths caused by oxycodone. The five deadliest drugs in the state that year were heroin, methadone, oxycodone, the painkiller fentanyl and alprazolam — better known as Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug that is more lightly regulated than hydrocodone.

John Coleman, president of the Prescription Drug Research Center in Virginia, said he expects drugs like Xanax will be next on the list for new restrictions. But with nearly two dozen firms making hydrocodone medications, he said, adding restrictions to its use is not a done deal.

"This is a $2 billion a year market," he said. "Those guys are going to protect the market."

Jodie Tillman can be reached at jtillman@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3374.

Washington Post
Friday, February 8, 2013

WASHINGTON — The Secret Service is investigating a hacker's apparent theft of a trove of personal emails and photos belonging to the Bush family after they were posted late Thursday by the Smoking Gun website.

A report by the Smoking Gun said the emails covered the period from 2009 to 2012, and that a total of six accounts appeared to have been compromised. Among those hacked were Dorothy Bush Koch, daughter of President George H.W. Bush and sister of President George W. Bush; as well as sportscaster Jim Nantz, a Bush family friend.

The emails were obtained by a hacker called "Guccifer," the Smoking Gun said.

On Friday, a Bush family spokesperson confirmed the hack, and Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan confirmed that the Secret Service is leading an investigation.

The Smoking Gun did not release the full cache of hacked emails, or provide information about how it learned about them. "I don't really want to go into any further details," said Bill Bastone, the site's editor, in a telephone interview Friday. He also declined to say how many total emails the site had reviewed. "They were posted in an online account, which is where we found them."

The Smoking Gun report included several quotes from the stolen emails, which showed intimate moments from the lives of two ex-presidents who have guarded their privacy in retirement. Some of those moments were grim. Last year, while George H.W. Bush was in very poor health, the emails showed relatives planning for his funeral.

But there were also lighthearted scenes from the life of President George W. Bush, who has kept an unusually low profile since leaving office in 2009. Apparently, he has been painting.

Two months ago, the Smoking Gun said, the 43rd president sent his sister photos of two paintings he was working on. One showed Bush himself in the shower, viewed from the back and from the waist up. Another showed Bush in the bath, gazing out at his legs and toes.

But the former president does not only paint self-portraits. Another photo showed him at work painting St. Ann's Episcopal Church in Kennebunkport, Maine, near the family compound.

Reached by the Associated Press by email, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called the hacking "outrageous."

By Brittany Alana Davis, Times Staff Writer
Friday, February 8, 2013

TARPON SPRINGS — When Kalena Warren, 29, moved from a homeless shelter to Tarpon Springs public housing, she hoped for a clean, safe space for her four children and baby on the way.

But in the dilapidated, three-bedroom duplex at the Mango Circle complex, she found unexpected dangers, she said. The gas stove leaked. Electrical outlet covers were missing. And toilet water drained across the linoleum floor, causing circles of mold to form on the walls.

"I don't feel safe raising my kids here," Warren said. "Just because you're a single mom or parent doesn't mean you should have to live like this."

Pat Weber, director of the Tarpon Springs Housing Authority, knows the public housing needs work — not just at Mango Circle, but across the country. For more than a decade, the federal government has steadily slashed funding to housing for the poor.

That's why Weber is among the first in the country to join a pilot program by the Obama administration to steer private money toward the country's deteriorating public housing stock.

The program is a rule waiver of sorts. It frees housing authorities, the local bodies that own and manage public housing under federal guidelines, to seek money from private banks or other corporations that might invest in a property with the hope of using tax credits and other incentives to turn a profit.

Under the program, housing authorities could also use their public housing properties as collateral for loans. The risk? If housing authorities can't repay the loans, they could lose the properties to foreclosure.

In Florida, only Tarpon Springs and two South Florida housing authorities are participating in the program, called Rental Assistance Demonstration, or RAD.

"I'm a risk-taker," Weber said, adding that 225 public housing units in Tarpon Springs could get upgrades through the program. "And this won't cost me anything but my time."

• • •

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the federal housing agency, bills the pilot as a new era for housing authorities, which in recent decades have struggled to stretch government funding to stem the crush of need.

Housing authorities often have no choice but to sell or demolish distressed properties. In Pinellas County alone, housing authorities disposed of more than 1,000 units between 2004 and 2009, most of which were built in the 1970s, said Debbie Johnson at the Pinellas County Housing Authority. Meanwhile, many eligible low-income people waited two to five years to get housing.

Nationwide, about 10,000 public housing units are lost per year, according to HUD.

Johnson is considering joining the pilot, but she's not on board yet.

"It's an excellent program and a phenomenal option but just not right for us at this time," Johnson said.

Pinellas County, like other housing authorities, has gotten creative to diversify its income stream. One popular tactic: building apartments for middle-income tenants, whose rent helps pay for people with low or no income.

The Pinellas County Housing Authority owns 1,100 such units, which, combined with tax credits, federal grants, a contribution from the city of Largo and other sources, have helped to fund construction of 153 new low-income units for seniors scheduled to open in 2014, Johnson said.

Her focus is on securing tax credits and other funding, she said, adding that Pinellas County also has a robust Section 8 program, which gives vouchers to tenants who can find their own apartments.

RAD has the potential to reduce the shortage of public housing, but it's not a slam dunk, said Susan Popkin, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and member of the panel that will evaluate the program for HUD.

RAD would require most housing authorities, which generally have few employees, to engage with the private sector in a way never done before.

"I think they're trying to be smart about how they get a more sustainable funding stream," Popkin said. "Hopefully, if this goes well, other housing authorities will be interested."

Linda Couch of the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, an advocacy group, said housing authorities only have to look at recent history to know they should be cautious.

The Hope VI program, a 1993 attempt to mingle federal and private money for low-income housing, brought mixed results.

The Tampa Bay Housing Authority won awards for its success with Hope VI, using public and private investments to demolish distressed housing and replace it with mixed-income buildings at Belmont Heights Estates, in East Tampa.

But many national housing advocates viewed Hope VI as a failure, with some public housing demolished and then never rebuilt due to bureaucratic constraints. In some cases, private investors took the tax credits and then built big complexes that offered only a few low-income units, Couch said.

The Miami Herald, in 2006, published a sweeping investigation on how the Miami-Dade housing agency squandered millions in Hope VI money, helping well-connected developers get rich and leaving the poor to rotting homes or to shelters.

"Mixed-income is often a euphemism for very few poor people," Couch said. "You had a lot of displacement and a lot of loss of housing." Still, Weber, at the Tarpon Springs Housing Authority, believes the new program is worth a try. It could lead to a new way of doing business, she said.

"This is a huge project, I mean huge," Weber said. "If this all works out, it's going to be wonderful."

Contact Brittany Alana Davis at bdavis@tampabay.com or (850) 323-0353.

Associated Press
Friday, February 8, 2013

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Friday he will press ahead with a vote on Chuck Hagel's nomination to be defense secretary, rejecting Republican demands for more financial information from President Barack Obama's choice as setting an unprecedented standard.

In a letter, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., provided a point-by-point rebuttal to the GOP requests for data on Hagel's paid speeches and foreign donors to private entities he has been affiliated with, arguing that the requirements exceed the committee's rules and what has been asked of previous defense secretaries, Republican and Democrat.

His letter was in response to Wednesday's letter from 26 Senate Republicans to Hagel insisting that they needed more information before they could vote on his nomination.

Hagel, a former two-term Republican senator and decorated veteran in the Vietnam War, has faced fierce GOP opposition.

Levin, who this week postponed an expected committee vote on the nomination as the GOP pressed for information, said he intends to schedule a vote as soon as possible.

Philadelphia Inquirer
Friday, February 8, 2013

PHILADELPHIA — The effort of Joe Paterno's family to clear the soiled reputation of the former Pennsylvania State University football coach accelerated Friday with the release of a letter from his widow that criticized his firing as "rash and irresponsible."

In a two-page letter to former Penn State players, Sue Paterno broke 14 months of silence to deliver a scathing assessment of the board of trustees and the Freeh report produced under its auspices. That report found that Paterno and three top university officials covered up allegations of child sexual abuse by former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, now in prison.

The findings of former FBI director Louis Freeh were endorsed by the university and served as the basis for exceptional NCAA sanctions against the football program.

"I was as shocked as anyone by the findings and by Mr. Freeh's extraordinary attack on Joe's character and integrity," Sue Paterno wrote. "I did not recognize the man Mr. Freeh described. … Joe was exactly the moral, disciplined and demanding man you knew him to be."

Paterno's letter said the family would release its own analysis of the Freeh report and the coach's actions at 9 a.m. Sunday on www.Paterno.com. On Monday, the family will continue to press its case when ABC telecasts an interview with Paterno by Katie Couric.

The new report was compiled by a team of experts led by Paterno's Washington attorney, Wick Sollers, the letter said.

Efforts to contact Sollers were unsuccessful. A spokesman for Freeh could not be reached.

In the letter, Paterno said the board panicked in dismissing her husband after Sandusky was indicted in November 2011. Joe Paterno died from complications of lung cancer the following January. The board, the letter said, panicked again when the Freeh report was released in July.

Penn State board member Anthony Lubrano, who has criticized the board's handling of the matter, said in an interview that he expected the family report to repudiate Freeh's findings.

He declined to say whether he had read the new study, but said, "After you see the work on Sunday from the team of experts that they used, if you're objective, you'll have a very different view of the Freeh report."

Lubrano called Sue Paterno's missive "a very, very heartfelt letter to the people who represent Joe Paterno's legacy."

"I can tell you without question that Joe Paterno is not guilty of any crime," Lubrano said. "That he was not engaged in a coverup or concealment on any level, ever."

He noted that some board members have said it's time to move on, but "in the Penn State community, there's a sense there's no moving forward until we understand what happened."

Asked for a response to the letter, Penn State spokesman David La Torre issued a statement that called Sue Paterno "an important and valued member of the Penn State community. We have and continue to appreciate all of her work on behalf of the university."

The Sunday morning release of the Paterno family's report will occur simultaneously with a discussion on ESPN's Outside the Lines, the Centre Daily Times in State College, Pa., reported.

By Patty Ryan, Times Staff Writer
Friday, February 8, 2013

TAMPA — A former employee of the Tampa Housing Authority is under federal indictment, accused of using the public agency's computers and Internet service to file fraudulent claims for federal tax refunds.

Leah Lang, 43, arrested Friday, worked for the Housing Authority for five years, from 2005 to 2009, based in a community relations office at Robles Park Village.

The government alleges that she conspired with others in 2009 and submitted six false tax refund claims totaling $30,852.60. The grand jury indictment, issued in August but kept sealed until recently, does not name anyone else. The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to provide further details.

The refunds were for sums higher than what filers were owed by the IRS. They went into a bank account Lang opened in January 2009.

She was not charged with identity theft. The indictment's unusual wording appears to leave open the possibility of interaction between her, the alleged coconspirators and the legitimate owners of the identities used to file.

She and others "would and did refuse to provide these funds to the taxpayers in whose names the defendant and her coconspirators had submitted false income tax returns," the document states.

Lang pleaded not guilty Friday in U.S. District Court before Magistrate Judge Anthony E. Porcelli and was detained pending trial.

"Ms. Lang maintains her innocence," said Howard C. Anderson, a federal public defender who represented her at the hearing.

Lang's appearance in federal court interrupted a county jail sentence.

She was serving six months in Hillsborough for the February theft of $4,452 worth of clothing from Dillard's at International Plaza. Six months ago, the Collier County Sheriff's Office charged her with identity fraud and grand theft. Four months ago, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office charged her with larceny.

In her 20s, Lang served three prison sentences in Florida, with convictions for robbery, grand theft and aggravated battery.

All three sentences predate her employment at the Housing Authority. State records show 18 arrests before her employment and seven arrests afterward, with no arrests during her five years on the job at Robles Park.

Robles Park is a public housing complex in the heart of Tampa, west of Interstate 275 and south of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

One unit had been converted into a Housing Authority office, and that's where Lang worked. Her job was to connect residents to social services, said Lillian Stringer, public relations director for the Housing Authority. Lang would have been expected to tell families about public benefits, pass along job referrals and help children with homework.

"Filing tax returns was definitely not a part of what she was supposed to be doing over there," Stringer said.

The Tampa Bay Times attempted to reach Housing Authority president and CEO Jerome Ryans to discuss the federal charges against Lang. He asked Stringer to respond to the inquiry and she did.

She said the agency knew little about the IRS' interest in Lang or the Robles Park community relations office.

"Last summer the IRS came over there and they took all of the computers from that center and said they were going to sweep them, and they brought all of the computers back and did not share any additional information," Stringer said. "That's all we know."

She could not recall anyone else working with Lang at the site.

The agency cooperated with investigators, she said.

"We have over 300 employees. It's impossible for even Jerome to know what a person's doing on a day-to-day basis on computers," she said.

It's unclear whether Lang's criminal history was considered when she was hired. When the Times attempted to pose that question later Friday afternoon, neither Ryans nor Stringer could be reached for comment.

The Housing Authority's website currently advertises a job opening for a receptionist, with a starting pay of $17,809 a year. It warns that applicants will need to pass a background screening.

News researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Staff writer Patty Ryan can be reached at pryan@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3382.

Times wires
Saturday, February 9, 2013

Cardiss Collins, 81, an Illinois Democrat who reluctantly filled her late husband's seat in Congress in 1973 and over the next quarter-century became one of the most prominent black women on Capitol Hill, died of pneumonia on Feb. 3 in Alexandria, Va. By the time she stepped down in 1997, she was the longest-serving black woman in Congress. For a number of years, she was the only black woman serving in the House.

Stuart Freeborn, 98, a movie makeup artist whose alchemy helped shape the outlandish space creatures that stalk the Star Wars films — including the big-eared, big-brained little Yoda, whom he modeled after himself and Albert Einstein — died on Tuesday in London. He worked on more than 75 movies, creating the makeup for stars like Marlene Dietrich, Burt Lancaster, Vivien Leigh and Gregory Peck.

Arlene C. Ackerman, 66, who won national accolades for improving student performance as a schools superintendent in all three cities that hired her — Washington, San Francisco and Philadelphia — even as her bulldozer management style rankled union leaders and politicians, died pancreatic cancer on Feb. 2 in Albuquerque, N.M.

John D'Arcy, 80, a bishlop who was ignored by his superiors in the 1980s when he warned about priests who later figured in the sex-abuse scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, died of cancer on Feb. 3 in Fort Wayne, Ind., where he had led the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend for 24 years.

Stefan Kudelski, 83, the inventor of the first professional-quality portable tape recorder, which revolutionized Hollywood moviemaking and expanded the reach of documentarians and eavesdroppers in the Cold War, died on Jan. 26 in Switzerland.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

A Gibsonton man died Friday night after his car went off the road, hit a ditch and came to rest against the side of a house in Riverview, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said.

Benny R. Looney was heading west on Gibsonton Drive near Mathog Road when he drove off the road about 8:50 p.m. His car sideswiped two utility poles, went across a ditch and ended up alongside a home at 9622 Hagadorn Road, sheriff's investigators said.

The home was undamaged. Looney, 66, of Missouri Avenue, died after being taken to Tampa General Hospital. Alcohol is a suspected factor in the crash and Looney was not wearing a seat belt, the Sheriff's Office said. The investigation is continuing.

By Peter Jamison, Times Staff Writer
Saturday, February 9, 2013

OLDSMAR — A second is very little time in the press of life but a meaningful measurement in the delicately tuned universe of traffic enforcement.

In Oldsmar, a difference of about a second is raising questions over the use of red-light cameras that could have significant ramifications in this city, and beyond it.

In August the city began operating a camera to catch red-light runners at the heavily traveled intersection of State Road 580 and Tampa Road, joining cities throughout Florida that have installed the devices.

In November, after Oldsmar's cameras had resulted in close to half a million dollars in tickets, city officials realized they had a problem. It appeared the traffic light wasn't working properly.

The city contacted the Florida Department of Transportation. A DOT review showed that the yellow light at the intersection was lasting only three seconds, when it should have been lasting 4.5 seconds, Oldsmar officials said.

The timing of the light was corrected on Nov. 7, but the city's handling of the affair has angered some who say thousands of drivers might have received the dreaded $158 ticket for red-light running in error.

"The amount of money that the city received out of this is mind-boggling," said Oldsmar resident Todd Male, 55, who received and paid a ticket when a camera caught him going through a red light at the intersection. "It's a large enough amount that the onus should be back on the city to refund us."

City spokeswoman Ann Stephan said Oldsmar has no plans to refund any ticket revenue. She said the yellow-light time, while shorter than that recommended by the state, was not so short as to be illegal.

Stephan said the city asked DOT to review the light after hearing complaints that the yellow signal at the intersection "felt a little too quick."

There are four intersections with red-light cameras in Oldsmar, Stephan said. Only the one at SR 580 and Tampa Road was changed. But overall ticket revenue from the cameras fell off dramatically after the yellow-light time at the intersection was lengthened, going from $158,158 from tickets issued in October and early November to $81,084 from tickets in November and early December, according to city figures.

In the last four months of 2012, all of the city's red-light cameras brought in $541,801 in revenue — and that's not counting overdue ticket payments, which increase from $158 to $264. Of that, the city kept $171,393, with $284,862 going to the state and $85,546 going to American Traffic Solutions, the Arizona-based contractor that runs the cameras.

Controversy over the timing of Oldsmar's light is so far confined to that city. That could change as more becomes known about how the light continued to operate incorrectly for months.

The DOT is responsible for traffic lights on state roads throughout Florida, and American Traffic Solutions has erected intersection cameras in cities throughout the state, including St. Petersburg and Tampa.

St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster announced Thursday that he would delay setting up new red-light cameras while the city evaluates complaints that yellow lights at targeted intersections in that city are not lasting long enough.

John O'Brien, a DOT spokesman, referred questions about the Oldsmar intersection to the department's local office. Officials there could not be reached for comment Friday.

The case of Oldsmar resident Pat Knapp offers a glimpse of what might ensue if others choose to challenge their tickets based on the wrongly timed light at SR 580 and Tampa Road.

Knapp was ticketed at the intersection in August. Earlier this year, he took his case to court, arguing that since the yellow light was too short, his ticket should be thrown out. A Pinellas judge agreed, he said, dismissing his case.

Knapp said the authorities responsible for the light owe others who got tickets the same consideration.

"They need to make amends for what they did," he said. "They did everybody wrong, and they should have known about it."

Peter Jamison can be reached at pjamison@tampabay.com or (727) 445-4157. To write a letter to the editor, go to tampabay.com/letters.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

The massive snowstorm lashing the northeastern United States continues to cause flight delays and cancellations at Tampa International Airport.

Among incoming flights, there were 11 delays and 16 cancellations as of late Saturday morning, according to the airport's web site. Most of the cancellations involved flights from the areas hit by Winter Storm Nemo, including New York City, Boston, Manchester, N.H., Long Island, N.Y., and Hartford, Conn.

Nine departing flights were scratched and one was delayed.

For the latest information about flights at Tampa International Airport, visit tampairport.com

Times staff
Saturday, February 9, 2013

TAMPA — A 75-year-old man who wandered away from his home Friday night has been located by Tampa police.

Police found Barrington "Barry" Robinson on Saturday afternoon. He had last been seen leaving his home on Lake Ventana Drive near Gunn Highway at about 7 p.m.

Robinson, who has mild dementia and other medical issues, is safe and unharmed, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said.

By Lucy Morgan, Times Senior Correspondent
Saturday, February 9, 2013

TALLAHASSEE

They headed for Marsh Harbour Airport in the Bahamas, most of them on private planes owned by billionaire Harry Sargeant III, then the finance chairman of the Florida Republican Party.

The weekend trip began on Friday Jan. 11, 2008, for a select group of Floridians —maybe 20 or so — who helped raise money for a constitutional amendment that would increase homestead exemptions.

Those who attended have differing memories of how many were there or what occurred, and no one is eager to talk to a reporter about the gathering.

Perhaps it's the accusation of a golf cart filled with prostitutes that scares them away.

The gathering five years ago has gained a life of its own in the criminal case against former Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer, who has been charged with money laundering and grand theft for allegedly diverting about $200,000 in party funds to a corporation he created. The trip itself isn't tied to Greer's legal problems, but details of the weekend could surface in testimony at his trial, which begins with jury selection today in Orlando, or remain secret, depending on which lawyers win out.

The Bahamas trip included an impressive outdoor seafood dinner with Greer, then-Gov. Charlie Crist, Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas Ned Siegel, and a handful of Tallahassee lobbyists and big campaign donors.

It was organized by Greer and Sargeant for supporters of "Yes on 1-Save Our Homes Now," a constitutional amendment campaign Crist was pushing to expand the state's homestead exemption. Delmar Johnson, former executive director of the state Republican Party and a key witness against Greer, describes it as a thank-you trip for those who contributed some of the $4.4 million raised in support of the measure. Others, including Crist, say the gathering was a fundraiser. The amendment was approved by Florida voters on Jan. 29, 2008, a few weeks after the trip.

The trip was for men only. Even women who worked for the party and helped with fundraising were excluded.

Johnson told prosecutors last summer that he saw women who appeared to be prostitutes in a golf cart driven by one of Sargeant's employees. The information surfaced late last year when a video of Johnson's testimony was made public.

More specifics have been hard to come by.

Johnson's testimony is included in a sealed Florida Department of Law Enforcement report prepared last summer by investigators looking at possible witness tampering in the Greer case. Prosecutors say the report — and details about the Bahamas trip — may be used as rebuttal evidence against some of those scheduled to testify on Greer's behalf.

Lawyers for two unidentified witnesses have asked that the report remain sealed, saying it contains information that would embarrass them. Circuit Judge Marc Lubet says the records must be made public if they are used in an attempt to impeach the testimony of witnesses who might be embarrassed by details of the Bahamas trip.

After reviewing the report in chambers last year, Lubet read the names of four men: Sargeant, Johnson, lobbyist Brian Ballard and new state Rep. Dane Eagle, R-Cape Coral, asking if they would be witnesses at the trial. At the time of the trip Eagle was a travel aide for Crist. Prosecutors said all but Eagle are expected to be witnesses at the trial.

If the witnesses provide testimony that helps Greer, prosecutors could question whether the release of information about that Bahamian weekend influenced their testimony.

There is a substantial difference in the way some witnesses have testified in pretrial proceedings.

Crist, former House Speaker Dean Cannon, former Senate President Mike Haridopolos, former U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, state Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine and a long list of other GOP notables are expected to be among the witnesses. Crist, Sargeant, Greer and Johnson were among the witnesses who made the Bahamas trip.

The case against Greer is likely to focus on how much Crist knew about Greer's secretive fundraising corporation. Johnson, granted immunity in return for his testimony, says Greer went to much trouble to keep secret the formation of Victory Strategies LLC, a corporation Greer formed in early 2009 to handle fundraising duties for the party.

Greer was an unnamed partner in the corporation, which identified its only officer as Marie Anne Luber, a secretary at the GrayRobinson law firm's Tallahassee office.

John Harris, a GrayRobinson employee, has told state investigators that Greer did not want to be listed in public records as an owner.

Greer signed a Feb. 1, 2009, fundraising agreement between Victory Strategies and the GOP as chairman of the party, and Johnson signed for the newly created company.

Greer has insisted that Crist and others knew about the corporation and knew he was collecting extra money to handle fundraising after longtime fundraiser Meredith O'Rourke was terminated in January 2009.

Crist, in a written affidavit on May 10, 2010, said he was not aware of Victory Strategies, did not authorize the creation of the company and did not know Greer was receiving additional money for his fundraising efforts.

Had he known of Greer's plans, Crist said he would have insisted that Greer fully disclose his involvement to the GOP's executive board.

Crist has also suggested that Greer and his lawyer, Damon Chase, were attempting to tamper with witnesses in May 2012 when Chase contacted John Morgan, the senior partner at the law firm where Crist now works.

Chase, in telephone calls and emails, pushed Morgan to get Crist to change his testimony and sign a new affidavit saying he knew Greer was getting paid extra for fundraising or face embarrassing personal questions. Chase even furnished a new version of the affidavit for Crist to sign. Chase contends he was merely trying to get Crist to tell the truth.

Morgan and Crist refused to cooperate and reported the encounter to authorities as possible witness tampering. A short time later prosecutors re-interviewed Johnson and asked about the Bahamas trip. Chase's new affidavit is now part of the evidence against Greer.

The substitute affidavit would have put Crist's testimony more in line with statements given by Sargeant, Ballard and Jay Burmer, a GOP consultant with close ties to Crist.

Sargeant and Burmer, in separate affidavits, say they were aware that Greer and Johnson had taken over fundraising and would be paid additional money. Ballard, asked about it by prosecutors in November 2011, said Crist knew Greer and Johnson had taken over fundraising duties to save money.

"He (Crist) said it would be cheaper to have, to do it this way, that whatever Delmar and Jim Greer would cost, would be compensated for, would be less money than they were currently paying out,'' Ballard testified. At the time the party was paying O'Rourke $30,000 a month for fundraising.

"I was surprised when Greer was charged with a crime relating to setting up a company to do fundraising for RPOF, as Greer and Mr. Johnson were acting with the knowledge and approval of Gov. Crist,'' Sargeant said.

Some of the men who made the Bahamas trip, including Crist, say they never saw anyone that looked like a prostitute. Most of those contacted by the Tampa Bay Times didn't want to talk about the trip at all. Several didn't return telephone calls or declined to comment when reached.

But the Times has learned from interviews with some who attended that the group initially stayed at the Abaco Beach Resort. Some of the participants, including Crist, moved to the Abaco Club on Winding Bay, a Ritz-Carlton resort, on the second night.

Crist said he never heard anything about prostitutes or bad behavior. He said he moved to another hotel on the second night because he thought the accommodations were nicer.

At least one person who attended the gathering said he left the resort and stayed with a friend for the weekend because he was "uncomfortable.'' The guest, Tallahassee lobbyist Slater Bayliss, would not say what made him uncomfortable.

"I thought there was something else going on,'' Bayliss said. "It was one of those things you just have a gut feeling about that something else is happening."

Bayliss said he did not see any prostitutes but heard about them after the trip.

"I showed my face, said hi to the governor and then disassociated myself with the trip. It just smelled of nefarious things,'' Bayliss added.

Lobbyist David Rancourt said he decided against making the trip.

"It sounds like I made a great decision,'' Rancourt added. "I heard there were girls and a lot of drinking. I was told the Bahamian government officials were aware of what was going on and that they were appalled. I was not there and thank God I didn't go.''

Rancourt did not offer specifics.

Times staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

By Damian Cristodero, Times Staff Writer
Saturday, February 9, 2013

BOSTON — To say Ryan Belec's Saturday was a bit hectic was like saying the Northeast got a bit of snow.

The Lightning's director of team services — that is, the guy who handles all the travel arrangements — had contingencies built around contingencies as Tampa Bay waited to see if its game with the Bruins at TD Garden would be played.

When at 2:45 p.m. word came from the league the game was postponed, a casualty of a storm that dropped about 25 inches of snow Friday night and Saturday, Belec finally could focus on one plan: getting the team to New York for tonight's game with the Rangers.

"It was hectic," Belec said. "A lot of communicating with the hotel in Boston, the hotel in New York, our airline, the bus company; just a lot of phone calls and emails and text messages."

With Boston's Logan Airport closed, the Lightning at 4 p.m. began a five and a half-hour bus trip to Manhattan amid speculation the game with the Bruins would be rescheduled for April 25, which would make it the second-to-last game of the season.

"Although both clubs and the assigned on-ice officials are in Boston, travel conditions remain too hazardous for fans, security personnel and TD Garden staff to get to the arena," the league said in a statement.

"Probably the right call," Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman said. "And the safest one, too."

• • •

Not that the Lightning wasted the day. At 9:45 a.m., with the snow still flying and wind still howling, the team took a bus to TD Garden for a morning skate.

The way coach Guy Boucher figured it, Tampa Bay didn't skate Friday. And because at the time the Bruins game was still on, it would not skate before facing the Rangers, as that game would be the second of a back-to-back.

"I like the hotel," Boucher said. "But when you're enclosed like that, everybody is breathing the same air. So to see some hockey, feel some hockey, guys want to get on (the ice)."

But as the bus tried to make a left turn onto a narrow, unplowed street, forward motion stopped. Then snowballs hit the driver's window as it appeared the thrower was upset the bus had destroyed a neat pile of snow removed from the sidewalk.

But driver Jason Stirk, 29, of Boston, said the thrower wanted to get his attention.

"He wanted to tell me I had some room to back up," Stirk said.

Stirk did that, and after reaching a plowed main road, he picked up a police escort to the arena.

"Not too bad," Stirk said of the trip. "(That corner) was the only thing I was worried about."

• • •

Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman said he had no input into the league's decision to postpone the game. And though he said he's "not crazy" about when the game might be played — it would be the second game of a back-to-back — he added, "There's nothing you can do about it, so there's no sense worrying."

Saturday's postponement might even help Tampa Bay in that it won't face the Rangers tonight as part of a back-to-back.

"And even if we played (in Boston), there wouldn't be any people there," Hedman said.

"It's unfortunate," center Nate Thompson said. "You just have to roll with the punches. You can't control the weather."

Or the vagaries of a previously reliable charter bus. At a rest stop on Interstate 95 in Connecticut, the bus door lost air pressure and would not fully close. Beyond the obvious safety issue, it also was 25 degrees outside.

After the driver was walked through several trouble-shooting steps by his home office, the problem was resolved, and the trip continued.

"All in all," Belec said, "a pretty good day."

Times staff
Saturday, February 9, 2013

ST. PETERSBURG — More than 10,000 runners and walkers plus thousands of spectators will take to the streets of St. Petersburg Sunday morning for the Rock 'n Roll St. Pete Half Marathon.

Organizers urge travelers to plan ahead for the event, which will necessitate road closures from 6 a.m. to noon throughout downtown.

The closures include streets on and near the marathon course, which begins in the parking lot of Tropicana Field and winds through downtown before heading north into the Old Northeast neighborhood.

Streets along the course, which will be subject to closures while the marathon is ongoing, include the following:

• Central Avenue between 29th Street and Bayshore Drive

• Third and Fourth Streets South from Central Avenue to 21st Avenue

• Bayshore Drive NE

• Bayshore Drive SE

• Beach Drive NE

• Coffee Pot Boulevard NE

• Snell Isle Boulevard NE

• North Shore Drive NE

For a complete list of road closures and a map of the marathon course, visit runrocknroll.competitor.com/st-petersburg and click "Course Information."

Letitia Stein, Times staff writer
Saturday, February 9, 2013

TAMPA — Roxies and oxys, as they're called on the street, were among the powerful prescription painkillers Sarah Ryan was abusing when she found out she was pregnant.

Her battle with drug addictions during earlier pregnancies eventually cost her custody of her three sons. This time, she wanted things to be different, but needed help.

"I just couldn't stop. And the more I hated myself, the more I wanted to drown my sorrows," the 29-year-old Valrico resident said. "I was petrified to actually tell a physician that I was addicted, because I didn't want to lose my child. I was so scared they'd judge me."

Ryan felt trapped in a cycle increasingly common in Florida, where prescription drug abuse has fueled a three-fold increase in the number of babies born into agonizing withdrawal symptoms.

For the first time, a statewide task force of doctors, social workers and public health experts have evaluated the scope of the problem and possible remedies. They issued a report last week with these key findings:

• More than 1,560 Florida newborns in 2011 were diagnosed with the symptoms of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome — withdrawal conditions believed to be even more common than data suggest.

• The babies typically spend three weeks in neonatal intensive care, resulting in hospital charges as high as $53,400 per baby, compared with $9,500 for a healthy newborn.

• In 2011-12, state taxpayers spent more than $32 million on their care through the Medicaid program, which covers about three-fourths of these babies.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, who chairs the group, visited St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa to see babies in withdrawal.

"Once you see a baby, it changes your life,'' she said, recounting the shrill cries of newborns in agony, lying in incubators covered to block out irritating noise and light.

"Then we started looking at the numbers. It's a tremendous cost for the hospitals and the taxpayers."

One of the first task force recommendations is requiring hospitals to report cases of babies born into drug withdrawal, just as they report infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and measles.

Another is to see that more pregnant women receive the kind of care Ryan found at Tampa's Drug Abuse Comprehensive Coordinating Office (DACCO).

"The first healthy decision I made for me and my child," is how she describes the help she received early in her second trimester.

Ryan quit the pills, but rather than going cold turkey she was given supervised doses of methadone, a prescription narcotic commonly used to ease withdrawal symptoms. That's the protocol widely considered best for both the fetus' survival and the mother's ability to stay sober.

"If you had diabetes, you would take insulin and you would get on the right dose and remain on the insulin to treat that disease. Opiate dependence is also a disease," said Dr. Jason Fields, DACCO's medical services manager. "Methadone is an effective medication that helps them to become healthy."

Ryan also improved her nutrition with the help of regular prenatal care. Six months ago, she delivered 5-pound, 4-ounce Samuel Quinn. He seemed healthy, but on his third day began to show signs of withdrawal. He was placed on methadone, and then weaned off the drug over 31/2 weeks in neonatal intensive care.

But she is now caring for her healthy baby while continuing her treatment at DACCO.

More research is needed to identify the best way to treat newborns in withdrawal, said task force member Dr. Ken Solomon, a neonatologist. Some hospitals administer methadone, others use morphine. St. Joseph's recently purchased equipment that soothes the babies by simulating the movement of the womb. Tampa General is exploring an infant massage program.

"In the early stages of this treatment, they are just utterly miserable," said Solomon, who treats newborns at St. Joseph's and Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater. "They act like somebody is pounding a nail into their head."

The long-term effects are especially concerning to neonatologist Dr. Mary Newport at Spring Hill Regional Hospital, where 30 percent of NICU admissions last year involved drug exposure.

"We've had this rash of all of these children who had this very intense drug exposure, and then withdrawal and treatment for that. They are about to hit the school system," said Newport.

In the medical literature, these babies don't appear to suffer lasting harm. But Newport notes that synthetic painkillers like oxycodone are relatively new.

Because these medications are often prescribed by doctors for pain, many pregnant women falsely assume they're safe.

The Zero Exposure Project by the Healthy Start Coalition of Hillsborough County aims to change that perception. The task force called its advertising campaign a model for the state, highlighting the images it used of a belly bump paired with the slogan "a pregnant woman never takes pills alone."

Yet there's no money to continue advertising the campaign, which was featured on three-dozen bus benches in fall 2011 at a cost of $4,500.

Bondi said the state is seeking federal funds for awareness campaigns. The task force also wants to help treatment facilities reach more women. And it recommended exploring new laws to offer pregnant women immunity for seeking substance abuse treatment.

"Our goal is not to arrest mothers and take babies away from mothers," Bondi said. "It's to prevent this from happening."

Letitia Stein can be reached at lstein@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8330.

By Mary Ellen Klas, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Saturday, February 9, 2013

TALLAHASSEE — Even by Tallahassee standards, the scene was notable: lobbyist Brian Ballard dining with a nursing home executive, Gov. Rick Scott and a top aide at a pricey restaurant just blocks from the Capitol.

That Ballard's clout could command a private dinner with the governor for a client speaks to the influential lobbyist's fundraising finesse. Equally important is Ballard's talent for helping his clients land lucrative state contracts: $938 million this year alone, according to a Times/Herald analysis of contracts in the $70 billion state budget.

"Is that all?'' joked Ballard, who said he had never added it up. "A big part of my business is protecting contracts, and outsourcing. Outsourcing saves (the state) money."

Ballard is not alone. The lobbying offices that line the moss-covered streets of Tallahassee have grown exponentially larger in the past two decades as governors and legislators have steered a greater share of the state's budget to outside vendors.

No one is keeping track of the total, but Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater last year estimated the total contract spending for Florida's 2011-12 budget cycle at $50.4 billion — 72 percent of the budget. The bulk of it, nearly $42 billion, was for health care contracts and service sector grants.

"We probably privatize, or outsource, more than some of the northeastern states — and we have a lot more volume,'' said David Wilkins, a retired business executive who was tapped by the governor to review the state's byzantine contracting process. He also is secretary of the Department of Children and Families.

Vendors — from giant computer firms and health care HMOs, to purveyors of office supplies, parking spaces and even prison services — each compete for a piece of one of the biggest spending pies in the Southeast: the state of Florida. The infusion of state cash into private and nonprofit industries has spawned a cottage industry of lobbyists who help vendors manage the labyrinth of rules and build relationships with executive agency officers and staff so they can steer contracts to their clients.

There are now more people registered to lobby the governor, the Cabinet and their agencies — 4,925 — than there are registered to lobby the 160-member Legislature — 3,235.

Dozens of former legislators and their staff populate that industry, as well as former utility regulators, agency secretaries, division heads and other employees.

The most high-profile newcomer to the executive branch lobbying corps is Dean Cannon, the former speaker of the House from Orlando. Even before he retired from office in November, he had set up a lobbying shop just a block from the Capitol and started signing up clients to lobby the executive branch.

Cannon's swift lawmaker-to-lobbyist turnaround has spawned a backlash from former colleagues. Senators are proposing that lawmakers leaving office wait two years before they can lobby the executive branch — similar to a law that applies to former lawmakers who lobby the Legislature.

"One minute you can be overseeing a budget and the next you're lobbying a state agency,'' said Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, who is shepherding the Senate ethics bill. "That's a revolving door and that's wrong."

With the state using more and more outside vendors, transforming the state government as a broker of contracts, less attention is being given to managing those contracts.

As a result, say critics, all too often contractors and their lobbyists outwit and outman the state at the negotiating table.

"For a government employee going and buying something new is hard,'' Wilkins said. They have to create a process and sort through the vendors' options "so when they award a contract they are usually very happy to keep that vendor in place.''

The state not only needs better performance standards in its contracting system, he said, it needs more competition — and that means more than just the veneer of competition.

"Competition is the secret to all this stuff, and you've got to get people interested so the vendor has to believe it's not wired,'' he said. "If a vendor is going to spend $1 million on a procurement, if it's wired, then they've really made a bad business decision."

But wiring contracts to benefit vendors is the job of the legions of lobbyists. Using last-minute amendments to the budget, lobbyists write narrowly crafted budget language into the "special categories" section in the back of the annual appropriations bill or tweak language in other bills.

Here are some recent examples:

• Former Senate President Mike Haridopolos used his influence to get lawmakers to insert millions into the budget at the final stage of the budget process to pay for a state law enforcement radios system the agencies didn't ask for, a juvenile justice contract that agency didn't seek, and the extension of a contract to expand broadband service in rural areas.

• A lobbyist close to former House Speaker Cannon persuaded lawmakers to insert language allowing billboards on state lands, using language disguised as "public information systems," into a must-pass bill to fund water management districts.

• The former Senate chief of staff, Steve MacNamara, signed a no-bid $5.5 million contract with a company to develop and lease a budget transparency website for lawmakers that was paid for but never used.

Former Senate President Jeff Atwater, now the state's chief financial officer, as well as Scott, have both launched initiatives aimed at making the state's contracting corps more professional. Atwater recalled how he watched in dismay when, as Senate president, items appeared in the final budget that were intended to benefit individual companies without a public hearing.

"It was an eye-opener,'' Atwater recalled in an interview with the Times/Herald. "I'd say, did the agency want this? No? Then who did want this? They'd throw out the name of a lobbyist and so I'd cross it off."

Longtime Senate budget chairman and former Sen. JD Alexander said the blame also lies in the state's largest agencies, each of which has its own procurement system, bid process and overhead.

Every time a company loses a contract, it hires someone to come back to the Legislature to write the company back in, he said. "It works, so who wouldn't keep trying?" said Alexander.

The Government Efficiency Task Force also is studying the state's contracting system and has found plenty of fault with lawmakers. In its report, it noted that because of exceptions written into law, the Department of Management Services is barred from seeking competitive bids for legal services, health services, artistic services, lectures, training and education services, and substance abuse and mental health contracts — services estimated at $8.4 billion a year.

Legislators also carved out exceptions for 32 vendors whose services don't have to go through the state's Web-based vendor database known as MyFlorida­MarketPlace, the report found.

Last spring, Scott assigned Wilkins the task of reviewing the state contracting process. He has found a hodgepodge of procedures in which some agencies adhered to strict performance measures while others relied on little more than an invoice. There were no uniform contract standards, often no penalties, and "vendors could low-ball to get in the door and then file cost overruns."

All of this "screams for reform," said Abigail MacIver, legislative affairs director for Americans for Prosperity of Florida, a group that promotes limited government.

The group believes that Florida's budget system rewards companies by allowing contracts to roll over year after year, with minimal performance measures and competition.

"We don't even know what we're getting with these contracts. I would have to question whether or not the Legislature is even asking these questions," she said.

Senate President Don Gaetz has ordered his budget committee to take a deep dive into the state budget system and "scrub the contracts to make sure taxpayers are well served,'' said Sen. Joe Negron, the Senate appropriations chairman.

But Gaetz, who as the owner of health care companies has had government contracts, is also pragmatic.

"It's a worthy goal to take influence peddling out of contract making,'' Gaetz told the Times/Herald. "But it's as old as the republic. It's not as if we can pass a law. It is a matter of working against a natural friend when human beings operate a government."

Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at meklas@miamiherald.com and on Twitter @MaryEllenKlas.

By Michael Van Sickler, Times Staff Writer
Saturday, February 9, 2013

Opponents of red-light cameras could have found a better advocate for their cause than state Rep. Daphne Campbell, D-Miami.

On Thursday, Campbell's HB 4011 outlawing red-light cameras will be heard by the House's Economic Affairs Committee.

What's the matter with Campbell sponsoring a bill that many Floridians would cheer?

A Honda minivan registered to her husband, Hubert, has five red-light camera violations, according to records obtained by the Times/Herald from American Traffic Solutions, or ATS, a Scottsdale, Ariz., vendor that provides the cameras for most cities and counties in Florida.

Because of a lawsuit won by the Times/Herald, the tickets are public records.

Two of the tickets, a May 10, 2010, violation in North Miami and a July 16, 2010, violation in Hallendale Beach, remain uncollected.

A ticket costs $158. If unpaid, a traffic citation is issued and may result in the termination of the vehicle registration and suspension of the owner's driver's license.

ATS provided a photo of the Honda Odyssey minivan at one of the violations. It has a Campbell campaign sticker on it.

Two videos show the minivan making reckless turns on red, one left and the other right.

When reached Friday night, Campbell explained she was filing the bill for her constituents.

"My constituents complained and the people are hurting," Campbell said. "I promised them when I went to Tallahassee that I would repeal the red-light cameras."

But asked about the five tickets, Campbell said she didn't know about them. Or at least four of them. She said she did know about a ticket she received in the mail for an Oct. 22 Miami Gardens violation.

But she said she had no clue about the others.

"Something is definitely wrong," Campbell said. "You are the one who just told me about it. This is news to me."

Despite the video footage of the minivan blowing through the red lights, Campbell wasn't buying it.

"It's a lie," she said. "That camera is a made-up story. You can do anything with the computer now."

ATS spokesman Charles Territo said it was unlikely Campbell wouldn't have gotten notice of the tickets, and he vouched for the accuracy of his company's records and the photographic evidence.

"I don't know how she wouldn't know, unless her husband didn't tell her," Territo said. "Someone there knows about them because three have been paid."

By Stephen Nohlgren and Mark Puente, Times Staff Writers
Saturday, February 9, 2013

ST. PETERSBURG — In baseball, 300 represents batting excellence; in bowling, perfection. Hollywood immortalized 300 martyred Spartans. With a single jab, however, Stuart Sternberg recently gave 300 a black eye in St. Petersburg. The Tampa Bay Rays owner, who wants out of Tropicana Field, let drop that only 300 full season ticket accounts trace back to St. Petersburg addresses. Say what you want about a bad economy, that's shockingly low for a host city — even after Rays officials quickly clarified that it translates to about 800 fans in the seats, because many account holders buy multiple tickets. St. Petersburg officials launched the obvious counteroffensive:

"What does Tampa have? What does Clearwater have? What does Brandon have?" City Council member Bill Dudley complained Thursday. "We are being singled out.''

The Rays won't say. Like other baseball owners, they rarely offer details about season tickets. And after his one brief salvo, Sternberg returned to clam status.

So the Tampa Bay Times started asking around. Who does buy season tickets? Who doesn't?

This limited survey did not begin to answer Dudley's question about Brandon, et. al. But it did yield interesting results.

The city of St. Petersburg has a suite and 10 lower bowl tickets as part of the Trop contract. Officialdom's personal commitment is all over the block.

Dudley does not hold season tickets, nor do most City Council members. Jim Kennedy, a lawyer, has four. Karl Nurse, who employs about 35 people in his label printing business, has two weekend package tickets.

Charlie Gerdes, who wants to let the Rays examine Hillsborough stadium sites, is part of a group with four tickets behind home plate. His law firm has a separate weekend package.

Mayor Bill Foster has two partial season tickets in the upper deck, first base side. Top aides Rick Mussett and Tish Elston are in a group that shares four full season tickets in the lower bowl.

No Pinellas commissioners have season tickets, nor does Clearwater Mayor George Cretekos. Former Mayor Frank Hibbard once shared six tickets behind home plate with three friends. In 2008, he even shaved his head into a mohawk and dyed it Rays' blue.

But like many Tampa Bay residents, Hibbard has given up his tickets since that first winning season. "My schedule got to the point where I couldn't make it down to enough games," he said.

Both Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan and Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn say they stand ready to seek a stadium solution on their side of the bay. Neither has season tickets, though Hagan once did before he ran for office.

The Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce dropped its season tickets three years ago amid recession cost-cutting. And president Bob Rohrlack?

He took over in 2009 and still owns a house in Orlando that he can't sell. He also has "two kids in college and one in private school,'' he said. "With what pennies I have left, I can't buy tickets.''

Put St. Petersburg chamber president Chris Steinocher into the no ticket column, too. But the Rays give the chamber numerous tickets for business recruitment.

Chamber chairman David Punzak, a lawyer, belongs to a group that shares four tickets in the lower bowl.

The Tampa Bay Partnership — representing regional cooperation — doesn't own any season tickets. Nor does president Stuart Rogel.

Several large St. Petersburg-based employers have tickets, often used for marketing. But Raymond James, whose name graces Tampa's football stadium, declined to comment about whether the company holds even a single season ticket to the Rays.

The owner of a smaller business, Mark Ferguson of Ferg's Sports Bar & Grill near the Trop, said he buys 50 tickets each to four games a year to market game and food packages.

"I try to help boost attendance any way I can," said Ferguson, who also has four personal season tickets in the upper deck.

Duke Energy, a longtime Rays supporter, was busy last week with a nuclear plant shutdown and did not respond.

Tampa Electric had suite tickets from 1998 through 2007. "For whatever reason, we had difficulty consistently finding business guests to attend the games," said spokeswoman Cherie Jacobs. "Because of that, we could no longer justify the expense."

Tampa's Chuck Sykes has been a mini whirlwind on Major League Baseball. He was Tampa's representative on the ABC Coalition, which studied stadium options. When he chaired the Tampa chamber, he organized a task force to study stadium financing. He chairs the Tampa Bay Partnership, which has offered help with regional dialogue if St. Petersburg ever gives the green light.

His company, Sykes Enterprises, has suites for the Bucs and Lightning but not the Rays — in part because the Trop has such poor suite sight lines, Sykes said. The company does have four corporate tickets behind home plate.

Bank of Tampa, which recently broadened its reach into Pinellas County, buys occasional tickets for employee recognition.

That could change.

"We'll take a close look at some type of corporate sponsor as we grow more in Pinellas County," said spokesman Chris Sinton.

Echelon, which last year unveiled a stadium plan for Carillon Business Park, has four corporate tickets. Tampa-based Debartolo Development has Bucs and Lightning suites, but neither a suite nor tickets at the Trop.

Rays' sponsors and advertisers often have suites and tickets as part of broader joint marketing and service arrangements.

Times Publishing Co., owner of the Tampa Bay Times, has a suite with 16 tickets and four seats in the Whitney Bank Club. St. Anthony's Hospital, which provides medical services at the stadium, has eight season tickets and sometimes gets up to 400 for special promotional nights.

Kane's Furniture, the 10-strikeout pizza people, have 12 tickets spread throughout the stadium.

The lowest season ticket price this year is $1,036 for upper deck or tbt* Party Deck seats. That comes to $12.79 per game. Home Plate Club tickets cost $15,571 or $192.23 per game.

Team Marketing Report, which estimates average season ticket prices, ranks Rays' tickets as the fourth least expensive in Major League Baseball.

Times staff writers Dan Sullivan, Anna Phillips, Mike Brassfield, Damian Cristodero, Richard Danielson and Susan Thurston contributed to this report.

Correction

This article has been updated to reflect the following correction: The Tampa Bay Times has a suite with 16 tickets and four seats in the Whitney Bank Club. An earlier version incorrectly reported the number of tickets the company holds.

By Mary Ellen Klas, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Saturday, February 9, 2013

TALLAHASSEE — In the last two years, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater has agreed to let the state lose $48 million.

That's the amount of taxpayer money Atwater spent to settle dozens of bad contracts and grants that he said could have been avoided had the state done a better job cutting the deals.

"We could have built two elementary schools with that money,'' said Atwater, a former Senate president whose office writes the checks.

In each case, the state concluded it was not going to get what it paid for, Atwater said. "So we said, 'This is hogwash and you know it.'" Rather than taking the company to court, the state agreed to settle the contract at a loss.

With $50 billion of the state's $70 billion spent on vendors this year, the state of Florida is one of the largest buyers of goods and services in the Southeast, but its contract management is haphazard and inconsistent.

Now, Atwater, Gov. Rick Scott and his secretary of the Department of Management Services, Craig Nichols, are inching toward some improvements that will change the system.

Atwater is asking the Legislature for "pre-audit" authority to review contracts before they are completed to make sure the state is getting its money's worth.

Nichols has published a guidebook for contract negotiators, including a set of uniform standards. His agency has increased the number of agencies using the state's online purchasing program, MyFloridaMarketPlace, to get better discounts, and DMS is working to streamline the state's patchwork of contract procedures.

Scott has urged his agency heads to attempt to renegotiate their top contracts to produce savings, and he recommended spending $353,000 in his 2013-14 budget to hire four full-time people to train contract managers across the state.

The state's flawed contracting process has been the target of criticism for years, most recently from former Senate budget chairman JD Alexander, who bashed state agencies for using different methods and even different codes to buy cars, lease buildings, or purchase cell phones and computers.

In 2011, an independent group hired to review the state's online purchasing program, the 10-year-old MyFloridaMarketPlace system, found that half of the eligible state contracts were covered by the program and that the system was "hampered by poor project governance, lack of standard procurement processes… uneven executive sponsorship, and continued dependence on older shadow systems and workarounds.''

An analysis by the Times/Herald found hundreds of contracts, known as evergreens, are given terms that allow them to automatically renew, with little or no standards. Others vendors get in the door as the lowest cost bidder but the cost is allowed to balloon with budget amendments. Dozens of contracts have been on the books with the same vendor for more than 20 years.

One of the loudest critics has been the Koch brothers-funded Americans For Prosperity, which lists as its top legislative priority the increase in oversight and transparency of the state's contracting process. The Republican Legislature and governor's failure to properly police the state's contracting system has earned the organization's charge that the process "rewards cronyism and picking winners and losers."

"Our principles are limited government, lower taxes and clear oversight,'' said Abigail MacIver, the group's legislative director in Florida. "If we don't have clear oversight over state contracts, we don't know if those taxpayer dollars are being spent well.''

Alexander, R-Lake Wales, blames state agencies, which each have their own procurement system, bid process and overhead and don't want to see the process streamlined. But the Legislature, which writes the spending plan that outsources everything from leasing space to running prisons, is also to blame, he said.

Every time a company loses a contract, they hire someone to come back to the Legislature to write them back in, Alexander said. "It works, so who wouldn't keep trying?"

"It's a very politically charged issue,'' noted Brad Douglas, the former chief procurement officer for the state of Georgia. "I found a very decentralized, bureaucratic and fragmented" process for buying state goods and services, he told the Times/Herald. He recalls how one agency had signed a contract for staffing and another agency would sign a contract for the same people and pay 70 percent more.

But with every change comes pushback from the lobbying corps who work for vendors, and from the bureaucrats who feel threatened by change, he said. "It comes down to, are trying to lower our cost or are we trying to put people to work?"

Within four years, said Douglas, Georgia put in place a uniform contracting process, posted an online catalog for discounted goods and services that allowed cities, counties and universities to share in the savings, and his office went from managing 6 percent of its contracts to 80 percent. In 2010, the state saved $100 million, he said.

By contrast, Florida's online contracting system, MyFloridaMarketPlace, handles only about $1 billion of the state's contracts, Nichols said. The state also negotiates discounts for another $1.57 billion in large, state term contracts. Those numbers have improved steadily in the last six months as 23 of the state's 30 agencies have shifted their purchases to MyFloridaMarketPlace and are realizing savings.

"We're in really good shape in terms of having a fairly open procurement process,'' Nichols said. "The room for improvement is, once you initiate the contract, how do you manage it better."

Atwater said the state can catch flawed contracts if the Legislature gives his office the power to review them before they are signed. The change would require $783,363 and 11 positions, but Atwater believes the savings could be much higher.

"If we audit a contract before someone signs on the dotted line and also at the time of final payment, we can ensure that the promised goods or services were delivered at the best possible price,'' he said.

By John Romano, Times Columnist
Saturday, February 9, 2013

So, who wants to be the hero?

Who wants to be the state senator who proposes the legislative bill that will stop power companies from charging real money for theoretical nuclear energy?

How about you, Sen. Jeff Brandes?

In your recent campaign, you talked about bringing change to Tallahassee. You supported lowering taxes and standing up to big government. You asked whether we serve the system, or the system serves us.

Based on that type of rhetoric, this issue should be right up your alley.

Because, when they approved the nuclear cost recovery law in 2006, our state politicians sold us out. They covertly passed all the risk of building nuclear power plants on to the backs of consumers.

And that wasn't even the worst part.

As a bonus, they essentially told utility companies they had zero accountability for our money. They didn't even have to build the facilities they were supposedly charging us for.

So, who wants to be the reformer?

How about you, Sen. Jack Latvala?

When Senate President Don Gaetz recently suggested that a lawmaker from Tampa Bay should file a bill to have this law examined, you seemed to be the obvious candidate.

There's not a state legislator in this market with more power or respect. People listen to you in Tallahassee. Both sides of the aisle seem willing to work with you.

And, frankly, this issue shouldn't even be that hard to push these days. No one really believes the Levy County nuclear project will even be built.

Its value has been debated, delayed and pretty much debunked. Not even Duke Energy's CEO was able to offer much rationale for the plant a few months ago.

The original cost for the project was $5 billion. The latest proposal is more than $24 billion. It's a complete fantasy, and we're the ones paying for the fairy dust.

So, who wants to right a wrong?

How about you, Sen. John Legg?

You voted for the nuclear cost recovery fee when you were in the House in 2006. Now, obviously, that doesn't mean you are completely responsible. The House approved it 119-1. The Senate passed it 39-0. Even your Pasco County compatriot Mike Fasano voted for this ridiculous legislation in 2006.

But here's the rub: Fasano has manned up.

He's admitted his mistake and has been one of Tallahassee's loudest voices when it comes to defending consumers. Fasano has been pushing for a repeal of the nuclear fee for years, and is a co-sponsor of a bill sitting in the House.

So, who wants to stand up to the power companies?

How about you, Sen. Arthenia Joyner or Sen. Wilton Simpson or any of the other three dozen or so members in that legislative body?

Yes, this has been a more relevant issue in Tampa Bay than other parts of the state, but eventually every utility company is going to figure out a way to join this gravy train.

House Speaker Will Weatherford has already suggested he is amenable to a change in nuclear cost fees. Gaetz has expressed his willingness, too.

The time is right for someone in the Senate to follow the House's example and push a bill that would stamp out fictitious nuclear spending.

So, who wants to end this nonsense?

Washington Post
Saturday, February 9, 2013

KABUL, Afghanistan —Pakistan's release late last year of several imprisoned Taliban officials and fighters, which it advertised as a good-faith effort to help bring peace to Afghanistan, is now prompting questions about whether the gesture has yielded anything but potential new dangers for NATO and Afghan troops.

American, Afghan and Pakistani officials say they believe some of the freed Islamist movement members have rejoined their colleagues waging war against Western troops and the coalition-backed government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

With its long-standing links to Afghan Taliban insurgents, Pakistan has a vital role in nudging them to the table as the United States winds down its involvement in the war in Afghanistan. But Pakistan's handling of the prisoner release once again subverted the trust of the Afghans, who were supposed to receive the captives and keep tabs on them to lower the risk of any returning to terrorist havens in Pakistan.

The whereabouts and even the number of ex-prisoners have remained murky since their release in two batches in mid November and late December by Pakistan's powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, as part of a road map drawn up by the Afghan High Peace Council to build the confidence of the militants.

Despite an earlier agreement, the ISI failed to consult with the council when it set many of the captives free. On Friday, however, the Pakistani government pledged to coordinate future Taliban releases with the council, in a belated admission that it had blindsided the Afghans.

The U.S. military is keenly interested in the former captives' whereabouts and is trying to track down any who have returned to Afghanistan bent on jihad — or, alternately, it wants to identify those participating in the reconciliation process so they won't be targeted.

The officials spoke to the Washington Post on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

A Pakistani security official confirmed that 18 men were freed and described them as junior to midlevel members of the Islamic movement, including field commanders and foot soldiers.

Some have gone back to their old ways, with their old friends, said the official.

The original deal, presented in Islamabad by peace council head Salahuddin Rabbani and backed by Washington, envisioned the prisoners being handed over to Afghanistan or a third country. Instead, most of the released Taliban members rejoined their families in Pakistan, in cities including Quetta, Peshawar and Karachi, to recover from years in detention, according to residents and a Taliban spokesman.

Associated Press
Saturday, February 9, 2013

BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. — The hunt for a former Los Angeles police officer suspected in three killings continued in snow-covered mountains Saturday as the LAPD's chief said he would reopen the disciplinary proceedings that led to the fugitive's firing.

Officials will particularly re-examine the allegations by Christopher Dorner, 33, that his law enforcement career was undone by racist colleagues, police Chief Charlie Beck said. While he promised to hear out Dorner if he surrenders, Beck stressed that he was ordering a review of his 2007 case because he takes the allegation of racism in his department seriously.

"I do this not to appease a murderer. I do it to reassure the public that their police department is transparent and fair in all the things we do," the chief said in a statement.

Authorities suspect Dorner in a series of attacks in Southern California over the past week that left three people dead, including a police officer. Authorities say he has vowed revenge against several former LAPD colleagues whom he blames for ending his career. The killings and threats that Dorner allegedly made in an online rant have led police to provide protection to 50 families, Beck said.

A captain who was named a target in the manifesto posted on Facebook told the Orange County Register he has not stepped outside his house since he learned of the threat.

"From what I've seen of (Dorner's) actions, he feels he can make allegations for injustice and justify killing people and that's not reasonable," said Capt. Phil Tingirides, who chaired a board that stripped Dorner of his badge. "The end never justifies the means."

Saturday was the third full day of a massive multiagency hunt for Dorner in the San Bernardino mountains, about 80 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, where Dorner's burned-out pickup truck was found Thursday. A scaled-back search party took advantage of a break from stormy weather to search for Dorner using heat-sensing helicopters as vacationing families and weekend skiers frolicked nearby.

A law enforcement officer told the Associated Press authorities found weapons in the truck. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because the inquiry is ongoing.

Investigators have been examining the truck to determine if it broke down or was set ablaze as a diversion. Police say the truck had a broken axle. Investigators are trying to determine whether it was already broken when they found it, or whether it was damaged when it was towed away.

On Friday night, authorities served a search warrant and collected evidence from a Buena Park storage unit as part of their investigation. Irvine police Lt. Julia Engen wouldn't elaborate on the nature of the evidence or say who had rented the unit.

Earlier Friday, another warrant was served at a La Palma house belonging to Dorner's mother. Officers collected 10 bags of evidence, including electronic items.

In his online manifesto, Dorner vowed to use "every bit of small arms training, demolition, ordnance and survival training I've been given" to bring "warfare" to the LAPD and its families.

Dorner served in the Navy, earning a rifle marksman ribbon and pistol expert medal. He was assigned to a naval undersea warfare unit and various aviation training units, according to military records. He took leave from the LAPD for a six-month deployment to Bahrain in 2006 and 2007.

On Feb. 3, police say Dorner shot and killed a couple in a parking garage at their condominium in Irvine. The woman was the daughter of a retired police captain who had represented Dorner in the disciplinary proceedings that led to his firing.

Dorner wrote in his manifesto that he believed the retired captain had represented the interests of the department over his.

Hours after authorities identified Dorner as a suspect in the double murder, police believe Dorner shot and grazed a LAPD officer in Corona and then used a rifle to ambush two Riverside police officers early Thursday, killing one and seriously wounding the other.

Associated Press
Saturday, February 9, 2013

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian troops backed by warplanes battled rebels for control of a key highway in Damascus on Saturday, a day after opposition forces cut the strategic artery as part of what they say are efforts to lay the groundwork for an eventual assault on the capital.

Rebels have been on the offensive in Damascus since launching a series of attacks on government positions on Wednesday. They brought their fight to within a mile of the heart of the capital on Friday, seizing army checkpoints and cutting a key highway as they pressed their campaign for the city, the seat of President Bashar Assad's power.

The fighting is the heaviest to hit Damascus since July, when a first rebel assault managed to capture several neighborhoods before a punishing government counteroffensive. After that rebel foray, the regime quickly reasserted its control over the city, which has spared Damascus much of the violence and destruction that the civil war has wrought on other major urban centers.

Both the rebels and the government consider the fight for Damascus the most likely endgame in a civil war that has already killed more than 60,000 people. The city is heavily fortified and dotted with armed checkpoints, and activists say it is surrounded with three of the most loyal divisions of the army, including the Republican Guard and the feared 4th Division, commanded by Assad's brother Maher.

The latest Damascus offensive did not appear to be coordinated with rebels on other sides of the capital, and it was unclear whether the opposition fighters would be able to hold their ground.

Activists said the fighting on Saturday focused on a main highway that leads to northern Syria, a key road the regime uses to move troops and supplies. Rebels cut the road on Friday, and still controlled parts of it on Saturday despite government airstrikes and shelling to try to roll them back, said Damascus-based activist Maath al-Shami.

Activists say the fighting is only beginning of a long battle for the capital.

"The attack was planned for more than 20 days and those responsible for it are army defectors," al-Shami said. "This is one of the stages to enter the capital. … Storming Damascus is not easy."

He said one checkpoint still stands in the way before the rebels reach Abbasid Square, a landmark plaza in central Damascus.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported intense air raids on several Damascus suburbs, including Zamalka and Douma, and near the highway as well. It added that troops shelled the northeastern neighborhoods of Jobar and Qaboun, which have witnessed clashes since Wednesday.

Earlier Saturday, Assad appointed seven new ministers in a move that appeared aimed at trying to shore up an economy that has been ravaged by the fighting, state media said.

Associated Press
Saturday, February 9, 2013

LOS ANGELES — In a Mars first, the Curiosity rover drilled into a rock and prepared to dump an aspirin-sized pinch of powder into its onboard laboratories for closer inspection.

The feat marked yet another milestone for the car-size rover, which landed last summer to much fanfare on an ambitious hunt to determine whether environmental conditions were favorable for microbes.

Using the drill at the end of its 7-foot-long robotic arm, Curiosity on Friday chipped away at a flat, veined rock bearing numerous signs of past water flow. After nearly seven minutes of pounding, the result was a drill hole 2 1/2 inches deep.

The exercise was so complex that engineers spent several days commanding Curiosity to tap the rock outcrop, drill test holes and perform a "mini-drill" in anticipation of the real show. Images beamed back to Earth overnight showed a fresh borehole next to a shallower test hole Curiosity had made earlier.

"It was a perfect execution," drill engineer Avi Okon at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Saturday.

Previous Mars landings carried tools that scraped away the exterior layers of rocks and dirt. Opportunity and Spirit — before it died — toted around a rock grinder. Phoenix, which touched down near the Martian north pole in 2008, was equipped with an ice rasp to chisel frozen soil.

None, however, were designed to bore deep into rocks and collect pulverized samples from the interior.

With the maiden drilling out of the way, it'll take several days before Curiosity transfers the powder to its instruments to analyze the chemical and mineral makeup.

The cautious approach is by design. Curiosity is the most high-tech spacecraft to land on Earth's nearest planetary neighbor, and engineers are still learning how to efficiently operate the $2.5 billion mission.

The team won't know until next week how much rock powder Curiosity collected. But judging by the small amount left in the drill hole, Okon said he was confident the rover has enough for its upcoming lab analysis.

Another unknown is whether any Teflon rubbed off the drill and mixed with the rock sample. Before Curiosity launched, engineers discovered that microscopic flakes of Teflon can break off from the instrument. Okon said any Teflon contamination would be small because Curiosity did not drill for long.

As images from the drilling operation streamed to Earth, some team members shared their excitement on social media. The "full drill hole was a success! I'm sure it was LOUD and they heard the drilling action for MILES!" tweeted rover driver Paolo Bellutta. Mission managers predicted that drilling would be the hardest engineering task since the landing, which relied on never-before-tried tricks including a rocket-powered platform and cables that lowered Curiosity into an ancient crater last August.

While Curiosity executed the first rock drilling on Mars, the method has been used on other celestial bodies. The Apollo astronauts wielded a handheld, battery-powered drill into rocks and delivered pieces to Earth. The Soviets deployed spacecraft that drilled into the lunar surface to collect rocks for Earth return and also used robotic drills on missions to Venus.

Once Curiosity finishes its rock analysis, the team's focus will turn to starting the drive to a mountain, expected to take nine months with stops.

Associated Press
Saturday, February 9, 2013

SEATTLE — Boeing sent a 787 up on a test flight Saturday, the first since the new airliner was grounded three weeks ago because of a battery fire.

The aircraft took off from Boeing Field in Seattle and spent nearly 2 1/2 hours flying back and forth over the inland Columbia Plateau before landing at Boeing Field. According to flight-tracking website FlightAware, the aircraft flew for 1,131 miles.

The Federal Aviation Administration granted permission for test flights on Thursday.

The 787 is the first commercial airliner to rely heavily on lithium-ion batteries, the same kind used in cellphones. Each plane has two of the 63-pound blue power bricks, one near the front to provide power to the cockpit if the engines stop, and one near the back to start up the auxiliary power unit, which is essentially a backup generator.

On Jan. 7, a battery on a plane that had recently landed in Boston short-circuited and caught fire. Nine days later, a battery on an All Nippon Airways plane started smoking, forcing an emergency landing in Japan. Boeing said Saturday's flight was to assess the in-flight performance of the batteries. Data would be used to support a continuing investigation.

Boeing Co. has billions of dollars tied up in research on the 787, and billions more in 787s parked in Everett, Wash., and other sites that are waiting to be delivered.

Washington Post
Saturday, February 9, 2013

WASHINGTON — As he prepares to retire to his California walnut farm this month, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is still fighting the battle that has consumed his entire tenure at the Pentagon: an increasingly desperate campaign to persuade Congress not to whack defense spending.

In recent days, Panetta, 74, has uttered near-apocalyptic warnings about what will happen if Congress does not do something by March 1 to avert a "doomsday scenario" under which the Defense Department could be required to slash $43 billion in spending in the next seven months, and as much as $500 billion in the next decade.

During a visit to a U.S. military base in Italy last month, he questioned lawmakers' courage, contrasting their inaction to his troops' willingness to give their lives for their country.

"You take the worst risks of all, which is that somebody may shoot you and you may die," Panetta said. "It's a hell of a risk. You know, all we're asking of our elected leaders is to take a small part of the risk" that might upsets some constituents.

At a farewell ceremony Friday at Fort Myer, Va., President Barack Obama praised Panetta, saying, "No one has raised their voice as firmly or as forcefully on behalf of our troops as you."

Obama also urged Congress to work out a new deal with him to avoid what he called "massive, indiscriminate cuts that could have a severe impact on our military preparedness."

It is the same message that Panetta has delivered, so far to no avail, almost every day since he took over as defense secretary in July 2011. The next month, he was saddled with the task of shrinking the military after Obama and Congress agreed to cut $487 billion in projected defense spending for the next 10 years.

But that was just the first swing of the ax. Under the rest of the deal, the Pentagon would be forced to cut $500 billion more in the same period if lawmakers and the White House could not come up with another, more palatable way to reduce the nation's record deficits.

It appears highly unlikely that Congress and the White House will reach a deal to spare the Pentagon before Panetta retires. It will fall to his successor — Obama has nominated former senator Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., for the job — to manage any further cuts.

By Dan Sullivan, Times Staff Writer
Saturday, February 9, 2013

ST. PETERSBURG — Firefighters quickly doused a blaze that erupted Saturday night inside a St. Petersburg auto garage.

The fire started about 8 p.m. on the south side of J.M. Auto Parts Service at 901 16th St. S, said St. Petersburg Fire and Rescue spokesman Joel Granata.

Passersby said they could see heavy flames and smoke shooting over the rooftop.

When firefighters arrived, they heard a series of small explosions in the building, believed to have been from car tires and other items that were stored inside the garage, Granata said.

Firefighters had to cut a lock off a door on the west side of the building to get to the blaze. It was quickly extinguished and no one was reported to have been injured.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.

By William R. Levesque, Times Staff Writer
Saturday, February 9, 2013

TAMPA — The experts insist it's all about making eye contact with the person tossing the beads. But screaming can be effective, too.

Elisabeth Linsinbigler, 12, of Dover was in the screaming camp at Saturday's Krewe of Sant'Yago Knight Parade through Ybor City. Her neck held a bounty of beads.

As the Ye Mystic Krewe of Neptune float thundered by, Elisabeth raised her arms and unleashed a yell that, absent a loud parade, would generate a dozen calls to 911.

"And I smile a lot," the girl said.

Her sister Alexis, 14, knew Elisabeth's real secret. "She just looks cute," said Alexis.

Thousands of people enjoying perfect weather lined Seventh Avenue to watch a parade of loud, rollicking floats that has become a Tampa tradition. It's an ancient festival by Florida standards, tracing its roots to the 1970s. It borrows from Mardi Gras. But the finished blend is Tampa original.

Pirates danced in the street. The parrot on one reveler's shoulder was stuffed. But amid the competing aromas of cigars and beer, who noticed or cared?

And it's all about getting those cheap beads.

St. Petersburg attorney Chris Sierra bought $500 worth of beads and manned the Krewe of Sant'Yago float. In his costume he looked a bit like Henry VIII.

Sierra said it's eye contact that wins the beads. He also said it's important to throw them in a high arc. After all, nobody enjoys plastic beads flung into the face.

"You've got to be careful," he said, swinging his arm to demonstrate his technique.

Dan Buntyn of Tampa walked down the street with his daughter Emily beside him. He said she's now a veteran of two night parades. She's almost 2.

Her monkey hat might have helped attract some beads, but even if she hadn't managed to grab any among the jostling adults, her father promised to catch a few for her.

"She's not going home empty handed," he said.

Jose Monsegor, 23, of Tampa was hanging out with a few friends, their necks covered with beads. They neither screamed nor made eye contact. They were scavengers, feasting on the beads that slipped through fingers and fell to the pavement.

But his real purpose was soon clear. Whenever a pretty woman caught his eye, he would present her with a gift of beads. One woman frowned, but accepted the gift before sprinting away. One smiled flirtatiously at him.

"That's the way to do it," he said. "That's what it's about."

Louanna Tallent of Tampa screamed herself hoarse. But she noted that doesn't always work.

"In this parade," she said, "it helps to show some cleavage."

None of this is rocket science, of course. Just ask the geneticist hanging out with the Unsinkable Krewe of Molly Brown. The krewe's float is a sinking Titanic. The geneticist is Bob Gasparini. He's taught at Harvard.

It was his first night parade. A buddy instructed him in the finer points of bead tossing. The friend walked beside the float. But as a novice, Gasparini said he would stay well clear of the bead-thirsty crowd.

"I think," he said, "I'll just stay on the deck of the Titanic."

William R. Levesque can be reached at levesque@tampabay.com.

Times wires
Saturday, February 9, 2013

Egypt

Court orders YouTube blocked for a month

A Cairo court on Saturday ordered the government to block access to the video-sharing website YouTube for 30 days for carrying an anti-Islam film that caused deadly riots across the world. Judge Hassouna Tawfiq described the film as "offensive to Islam and the prophet (Mohammed)." He made the ruling in the Egyptian capital, where the first protests against the film erupted in September before spreading to more than 20 countries, killing more than 50 people. The ruling, however, can be appealed, and based on precedent, might not be enforced. A spokeswoman for YouTube's parent company, Google, said in a statement that the firm had "received nothing from the judge or government related to this matter." The 14-minute trailer for the movie, Innocence of Muslims, portrays Mohammed as a religious fraud, womanizer and pedophile. It was produced in the United States by an Egyptian-born Christian who's now a U.S. citizen.

Cincinnati

Ohio mayor quits over claims of gay slurs

The mayor of a southeastern Ohio town has resigned over accusations that she repeatedly called a gay police officer "queer" in front of his colleagues and created a hostile work environment. Jackie Welker, council president in the Village of Pomeroy, told the Associated Press that Mayor Mary McAngus, 78, submitted a letter of resignation Saturday. Police Chief Mark Proffitt told the council last week that McAngus referred to Officer Kyle Calendine as "queer" in front of other officers and dispatchers. He said that at one point she said, "I don't like a queer working for the village."

Iraq

6 killed in shelling of camp for refugees

Six people were killed and more than 50 were wounded Saturday when several dozen mortar shells fell on a refugee camp for members of an Iranian opposition group, according to an Iraqi police official. The camp, on the site of a former U.S. military base near the Baghdad airport known as Camp Liberty, is home to about 3,400 Iranian exiles who are members of Mujahedeen Khalq, or MEK, a militant organization. It was removed from the State Department's terrorist list in September after years of intensive lobbying from many prominent U.S. politicians and former military officers, who viewed the group as a legitimate democratic alternative to the Iranian government. In an email sent to media outlets in Iraq, the military wing of Hezbollah in Iraq, a militant organization believed to have connections to the main Lebanese group and to Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack and warned that others would follow.

Tunisia

Premier threatens to quit over Cabinet

Tunisia's Islamist prime minister said on Saturday he will resign if his proposal to appoint a nonpolitical Cabinet by midweek is rejected. Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali called for that change on Wednesday after Tunisia was thrown into a crisis when a prominent opposition politician was shot and killed in Tunis, touching off violent protests. Jebali's moderate Islamist Ennahda party has already rejected his proposal. But in an interview with the France-24 TV channel, the prime minister said that to change the situation, the government ministers must be replaced by ones without a political affiliation, notably technocrats.

Times wires

Times staff
Sunday, February 10, 2013

The Tampa Bay Times last week asked around to businesses, politicians and others to gain a sense of who holds season tickets to the Tampa Bay Rays. Here are the results.

CITY OF ST. PETERSBURG

City-owned tickets from Tropicana Field contract: 16 suite tickets, 10 field seats.

Mayor Bill Foster: Partial season package of two tickets, section 316.

Council members Bill Dudley, Wengay Newton, Leslie Curran, Jeff Danner: None.

Council member Charlie Gerdes: His law firm has a weekend package. Also in group that shares four tickets behind home plate.

Council member Jim Kennedy: Four tickets in section 108.

Council member Karl Nurse: Two weekend tickets for his business on the lower level, first base side.

Council member Steve Kornell: "I'm not going to comment on my leisure activities."

Rick Mussett, senior administrator for development, and city Administrator Tish Elston: Part of group with four tickets in lower bowl.

St. Petersburg City Attorney John Wolfe: None.

Former Mayor Rick Baker: Did not respond.

Pinellas County officials

No county commissioners have season tickets.

Clearwater officials

Mayor George Cretekos: None.

Former Mayor Frank Hibbard: None.

Hillsborough officials

County Commission Chairman Ken Hagan: None.

Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn: None.

Tampa Bay legislators

State Sen. Jack Latvala: In group that shares four tickets in lower bowl on third base side.

These legislators do not have tickets: Rep. Richard Corcoran, Rep. Janet Cruz, Rep. Dwight Dudley, Rep. Mike Fasano, Sen. Bill Galvano, Rep. Ed Hooper, Sen. Arthenia Joyner, Sen. John Legg, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, Rep. Kathleen Peters, Rep. Jake Raburn, U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, Rep. Darryl Rouson, U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross, Sen. Wilton Simpson, Rep. Jimmie Smith, U.S. Rep. Bill Young, Rep. Carl Zimmerman.

All other Tampa Bay legislators could not be reached.

ABC Coalition

(Studied stadium issue four years ago and angered St. Pete officials by raising possibility of Hillsborough sites.)

Craig Sher, former CEO of Sembler company: Two tickets, lower bowl.

Alan Bomstein, president of Clearwater's Creative Contractors: Two personal tickets, two corporate tickets and two others as part of a group, all in Section 111.

Chuck Sykes, president of Tampa's Sykes Enterprises, chairman of the Tampa Bay Partnership and co-chair of chamber task force on stadium financing: Four corporate tickets in home plate club.

Russ Kimball, general manager of Clearwater's Sheraton Sand Key Resort: None.

Barbara Heck, former president of St. Petersburg's Council of Neighborhood Associations: None.

Charlie Harris, coalition attorney and managing partner for St. Petersburg's Trenam Kemker law firm: Four corporate tickets in lower bowl.

Business groups

Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce: None. President Bob Rohrlack: None. Chairman Gregory Celestan, of Celestar Corporation: Did not respond.

St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce: Receives numerous tickets from the Rays for free for recruiting businesses to town. President Chris Steinocher: None. Attorney Dave Punzak, chamber chairman: In group that holds four tickets in section 115.

Tampa Bay Partnership: None. President Stuart Rogel: None.

Businesses

Tampa's Debartolo Development: No suite for Rays but has them for Lightning and Bucs.

St. Petersburg developer Echelon, which proposed a stadium in Carillon Business Park: Four corporate tickets in section 110.

Jabil: Four field-level seats.

Duke Energy: Did not respond.

Tampa Electric: None.

Clearwater's Tech Data: 12-16 corporate seats on third base side.

Bloomin' Brands: CEO Liz Smith, four personal tickets.

Fifth Third Bank (Tampa Bay): Season tickets, wouldn't say how many.

Cornerstone Community Bank: Four tickets.

Bank of Tampa, which recently branched into St. Petersburg: None.

Bank of America: Suite.

Hospitals

Bayfront Medical Center: None.

Tampa General: None.

Sponsors

(These packages are part of broader agreements for joint marketing and services.)

Times Publishing Co.: A suite with 16 tickets and four seats in the Whitney Bank Club.

St. Anthony's Hospital: Eight full season tickets, plus hundreds of individual tickets for special promotions. Uses Trop for corporate events.

Kane's Furniture: 12 tickets spread throughout the stadium.

Others

Mark Ferguson, owner of Ferg's sports bar: Four season tickets in Section 301. Also buys 50 tickets to four other games for marketing.

Ed Armstrong, Clearwater lawyer who advises the Rays: His law firm, Johnson, Pope, Ruppel & Burns, has four tickets in Section 112.

Robert Byelick, chairman of the Clutch Hitters, a St. Petersburg group that promotes baseball: Shares four tickets in section 111 with two law partners at Abbey Adams Byelick & Mueller,

Bill Edwards, former owner of St. Petersburg mortgage company who is involved in many St. Petersburg civic ventures: Did not respond.

Former Gov. Charlie Crist was out of the country and could not be reached.

By Rich Shopes, Times Staff Writer
Sunday, February 10, 2013

TAMPA — A stray bullet fired during an argument after Saturday evening's Krewe of Sant' Yago Knight Parade in Ybor City struck a woman in the thigh, police said.

The victim, identified as Camile N. Prince, who turned 24 on Sunday, was injured after an altercation between two groups of people in the area of E Seventh Avenue and 16th Street at 10:13 p.m., police said.

Police said they don't believe Prince was the intended target.

She was taken to Tampa General Hospital with what police described as a nonlife-threatening wound, a gunshot to the upper left thigh. She was treated for her injury and released.

A police spokesman said Sunday that investigators are reviewing video from security cameras in the area as part of their attempts to identify the shooter.

Ramon Favata, vice president of the nonprofit Krewe of the Knights of Sant'Yago, said he was surprised when he heard about the shooting Sunday morning.

"I've never heard of anything like this happening," said Favata, 44, who has been attending Knight parades since childhood. His grandfather, Joe Granda, was one of the founders in the early 1970s.

The event that draws thousands to Ybor City's main drag and its aftermath always felt safe, he said. Tampa police provide security. The krewe also hires off-duty state troopers.

"All the officers involved do a phenomenal job," he said.

Once the parade ends about 9 p.m., parade watchers disperse and workers begin dismantling the grandstands and returning the floats to storage.

The shooting happened about an hour later.

Anyone with information about the shooting is urged to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-873-TIPS (8477).

Times Staff
Sunday, February 10, 2013

TAMPA — Hillsborough County Fire Rescue officials Sunday were investigating a possible electrical fire at a Citgo gas station at 6901 56th Street.

An employee said he heard a loud noise and then saw heavy smoke and flames in a southeast corner of the store. Fire Rescue officials said. The employee was able to safely leave the building and call 911. No injuries were reported.

Fire Rescue did not say what time the fire occurred.

Times staff
Sunday, February 10, 2013

PORT RICHEY — A man was stabbed during a drug deal gone bad Saturday night, then dropped off at a hospital where he later died, authorities said.

The Pasco County Sheriff's Office said Sunday night it had arrested Kevin Dylan Whittaker, 26, on a first-degree murder charge in the death of Cory Keeler, 25. Both men were homeless.

Authorities said Whittaker was trying to rob Keeler during a drug deal when the victim tried to get his money back. Keeler was stabbed several times by Whittaker along Sandra Drive in Port Richey, investigators said.

About 9 p.m. Saturday, someone dropped off a seriously injured Keeler at the Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point in Hudson, where he later died.

By William R. Levesque, Times Staff Writer
Sunday, February 10, 2013

TAMPA — Cujo and Luna Loca first saw them Sunday morning in the back of Pine Lake Garden Villas in Carrollwood — a mama duck and 11 ducklings.

The dogs, lovers of waterfowl, strained against leashes as owner Belen Artidello held back the miniature pinschers. The ducks weren't bothered. They waddled along. But then the ducklings tried to cross a metal grate covering a storm drain.

Artidello watched in horror as eight of the ducklings fell out of sight between the grate's slats as if a trap door had opened. She looked down the 12-foot-deep drain. The ducklings were in a pickle. Someone called 911.

That call unleashed what some neighbors were soon referring to as the "Great Duck Rescue." It would attract a Hillsborough County sheriff's deputy, five members of Hillsborough Fire Rescue, a gaggle of neighbors, a nervous condo association president and a guy from Public Works on his first duck call in a 14-year career.

"This was worse than rescuing a cat from a tree," Artidello said. "And crazier, too."

After the fall, the mama duck reacted frantically, circling the drain as the ducklings' chirps rose from the drain amid a trickle of water. Artidello tried to lift the grate. It didn't budge.

The mama duck retreated to a nearby pond as rescuers arrived.

It was quickly clear this was a rescue in need of heavy equipment. A Hillsborough Public Works Department truck arrived. Donoban Brown got out for his first duck rescue.

He used a big mechanical arm, operated from the back of the truck, and with a giant claw pulled out the grate and concrete surrounding it. Fire Rescue moved in with a ladder.

The ducklings did what anybody would when confronted with a giant claw — they fled into a small drain pipe in the side of a wall at the bottom of the sewer, out of reach.

A resident ran up with a bag of bread. Fire Rescue personnel dropped crumbs into the drain. The ducklings emerged from the pipe to feast.

A stuffed garbage bag was dropped to block the pipe. The ducklings squeezed by it, hidden again.

Rescue crews dropped more bread. They waited 10 minutes, then 20. The ducklings hid still.

Villas resident Debbie Magers had an idea. She arrived with a duckling in hand, one of the three that hadn't fallen.

It chirped loudly.

The other ducklings emerged to try to investigate. A firefighter's jacket was dropped down the drain to block their exit back into the pipe.

Then Capt. Sean Duncan climbed down a ladder. One by one, he plucked the ducklings, putting them in a cat carrier.

The uninjured ducklings were released in a pond to be reunited with mom. They swam off together.

Bernadette Storck, Villas president, watched it all, getting nervous only when a TV cameraman joked that rescuers might use dynamite to free the ducklings.

Storck eyed the grate, put back into place over the drain when it was over, and worried they all might all be back in a day or two for another rescue.

"I don't know," she said, "if ducks are smart enough to learn from their mistakes."

William R. Levesque can be reached at levesque@tampabay.com

Times staff
Sunday, February 10, 2013

BROOKSVILLE — A Brooksville man died Saturday night after losing control of his car and driving down a steep ditch, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

Shortly after 8:30 p.m., John R. Bigelow Sr., 75, was driving a Hyundai Sonata south on Weeping Willow Street approaching State Road 50, west of Brooksville.

For an unknown reason, he suddenly veered off the road, troopers said, then onto an access road, over a curb and down a ditch.

He sustained serious injuries and was taken to Oak Hill Hospital. He died at the hospital, the patrol said.

By Mark Puente, Times Staff Writer
Sunday, February 10, 2013

ST. PETERSBURG — After teetering on the idea since 2009, Rick Kriseman will challenge Mayor Bill Foster in this year's election.

The former City Council member and state representative plans to formally announce his candidacy today at City Hall.

He cited what he called Foster's lack of leadership as a reason for entering the contest, pointing to issues like the stalemate with the Tampa Bay Rays over a new stadium, the plan to replace the Pier and not trimming enough from the city's budget.

"The position of mayor is where I can make an impact on the community and residents," said Kriseman, a Democrat who served with Foster on the eight-member council from 2000 to 2005. "There hasn't been any real vision."

Foster could not be reached for comment after Kriseman's announcement Sunday afternoon.

Foster and Kriseman, 50, have differing views on the stalemate with the Rays, who no longer want to play at Tropicana Field but have a user agreement to play there until 2027.

Kriseman said he supports the proposal by council member Charlie Gerdes to let the Rays examine stadium sites in Hillsborough County as long as the team pays a fee. The idea died Thursday during a City Council meeting.

Foster, citing the user agreement, will not let the team look outside mid Pinellas County. Taxpayers suffer, Kriseman said, the longer Foster hides behind the agreement.

"It's time we start acting like adults and have mature conversations with the Rays," Kriseman said. "We can't keep just putting our head in the sand."

Kriseman is no stranger to City Hall. He was appointed to the City Council in 2000 to fill a vacancy and won elections in 2001 and 2003.

He resigned the council seat in November 2006 to run for the Florida House, where he was elected in 2006, 2008 and 2010.

When Kriseman announced he wouldn't seek re-election to the House in April 2012, speculation ensued that he did so to run for mayor. He cited fatigue with a brand of politics in the Legislature that left him feeling powerless.

Still, an incumbent mayor hasn't lost the nonpartisan election since St. Petersburg switched to a strong mayor form of government. But it's a short history, with David Fischer in 1997 and Rick Baker in 2005.

Foster also faces perennial candidate Paul Congemi in the August primary.

In December, a Tampa Bay Times, Bay News 9 and AM 820 News Tampa Bay telephone survey found that many voters like the way Foster has guided the city since taking office in 2010.

About 41 percent of residents rated Foster's job performance good or excellent. An additional 38 percent ranked his work as average. By comparison, only a total of 13 percent rated him as not so good or poor.

Even with strong ratings, Foster, a Republican, has repeatedly said he would campaign like an underdog.

Kriseman isn't worried. With the primary more than six months away, Kriseman said he has time to knock on doors and greet voters throughout the city, adding: "I plan to be out there to move this city forward."

Kriseman also disagrees with the way Foster has handled the plan to demolish the Pier and replace it with the structure known as the Lens.

A former City Council member and five other residents sued to force the city to hold a referendum to amend its charter to save the 40-year-old Pier.

Foster told the opposition group he supported the referendum and blamed the council for not allowing it on a ballot.

"The mayor has sent out mixed messages," Kriseman said. "I'm going to respect the will of the people or the court."

Married with two children, Kriseman describes himself as moderate who is socially liberal. He was born in Detroit and raised in St. Petersburg. He is married to Kerry Kriseman, a St. Petersburg native who worked for the Times Publishing Co. for nine years before retiring to stay at home with their children.

Kriseman earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Florida in 1984 and a law degree from Stetson University in Gulfport in 1987. Before opening his own law practice in 1993 in St. Petersburg, Kriseman worked for several firms. He now practices with Lucas, Green & Magazine.

This isn't the first time Kriseman flirted with the city's top elected job.

In early 2009, he approached Steve Schale, then President-elect Barack Obama's state director in Florida, for guidance. Schale and Kriseman had been friends. He also discussed the mayoral campaign with Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch.

Rumors have swirled in the past few months that Welch and Kriseman were waiting for each other to make a decision about this year's race.

On Friday, Welch, Pinellas County's most prominent Democrat, applied to be the executive director at the Juvenile Welfare Board, essentially taking himself out of mayoral contention.

That was not the deciding factor, said Kriseman, who lives in the Lake Pasadena neighborhood on the city's west side.

He sounded confident in his chance to unseat Foster.

"I'm real excited at the opportunity to serve this community," he said. "I'm going to be mayor in 2014."

Times news researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

By Anna M. Phillips, Times Staff Writer
Sunday, February 10, 2013

ST. PETERSBURG

When 2013 began, Yolanda Murphy-Johnson resolved to run 13 half marathons, a goal that makes getting a gym membership look wimpy.

On Sunday, Murphy-Johnson of Clermont was one of thousands of runners and walkers who poured into the city for the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon, an event that city officials first welcomed last year in hopes it would provide a major boost to hotels and businesses.

Organizers said 6,500 people were scheduled to compete in the road race this year, which began at 7:30 a.m. at Tropicana Field and wound its way through St. Petersburg, ending at North Shore Park. About 1,000 people registered to run a 5-kilometer (3.1 miles) race — what organizers referred to as the "mini marathon" — but most signed up for the 13.1-mile feat of endurance.

The race also drew about 700 local volunteers to the downtown area, according to organizers.

The Rock 'n' Roll Marathon series, which is put on in cities around the country by the Competitor Group, is known for its pace-setting, fatigue-erasing music.

Band stages were erected at each of the mile markers along the route and local musicians like WhyteBeard, from Clearwater, and the St. Petersburg College Steel Drum Ensemble played popular songs as participants ran past. Jamaican singer Sean Kingston headlined the event.

"It really keeps you pumped up," said Keith Metcalfe, a runner from Windsor, Ontario. "It was so awesome having them play all these familiar songs."

Organizers said attendance this year was down slightly from the year before, when the race had about 7,000 finishers. Participants also noted a smaller crowd.

"I'm going to have to say there are fewer people here this year," said Erin Santella, 43, of Palm Harbor, who also participated in 2012, when it was so cold that some runners remembered seeing band members wearing gloves.

A purple tutu hugged her middle. "It's my talisman," she said.

When St. Petersburg city officials first boasted that the Rock 'n' roll Half Marathon was coming to town, they projected it would draw 12,000 to 15,000 runners. The actual number was closer to half of that estimate, but that has not diminished elected officials' attraction to the race.

St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster attended the event Sunday, as did City Council members Jeff Danner and Wengay Newton.

The city has a three-year contract for the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon and has pledged to spend $100,000 for each race.

Jon Phillips, a 28-year old from Brooklyn, N.Y., finished first in this year's race, posting a time of 1 hour, 14 minutes, 23 seconds.

Natasha Yaremczuk, 32, of Canada placed first among female entrants, finishing with a time of 1:20:03.

Among the group of runners leading the pack was Austin Dotson, a 15-year-old boy from Land O'Lakes, who finished in 1:34:08, surprising some of his competitors.

Anna M. Phillips can be reached at aphillips@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8779.

By Laura C. Morel, Times Staff Writer
Sunday, February 10, 2013

TAMPA — They knew who set the Cadillac on fire.

The problem was proving it.

A woman called 911 last May to report that her estranged husband had set her car ablaze.

Moments later, fire rescue's arson investigators arrived and sifted through the burnt front seat. Police officers searched the area for the suspect.

Then a police officer, at the scene assisting arson investigators, noticed something in the yard. It was a lighter fluid container, covered in fingerprints. Investigators compared them with the suspect's prints.

It was a match.

The decision to pair up police and fire rescue has led to the clearing of dozens of arson cases in Tampa. It's called the arson task force, a team of Tampa police homicide detectives and Tampa Fire Rescue investigators formed more than two years ago when a string of arsons dotted the V.M. Ybor neighborhood.

In 2011 and again in 2012, the task force's rate of cleared cases was about 40 percent, more than double the national rate. Officials attribute that to the task force.

"Everybody's working together," said Tampa Fire Rescue's arson investigations supervisor Ray Alcover.

• • •

The first fires started in 2009 in the V.M. Ybor neighborhood.

"It was very stressful. We were working all types of hours, all through the night," Alcover said.

The arsons continued into 2010, totaling more than two dozen.

As the neighborhood grew more frustrated, the Tampa mayor at the time, Pam Iorio, issued a blunt apology, writing that the investigations and follow-through "have not been handled with the sense of urgency and coordination that I expected."

She directed the police department to take a bigger role in what had been a fire investigation.

And the idea for a task force was born.

In January 2011, Tampa police's 11 homicide detectives and Tampa Fire Rescue's five arson investigators began working together. They share an office on the eighth floor of Tampa Police Department's headquarters on Franklin Street.

Since it launched, the task force has investigated more than 400 fires, about 37 percent of which were reported arsons, records show.

Arson investigators and detectives share resources to solve cases at a faster pace. Fire investigators have access to Tampa police forensics specialists and information databases. Patrol officers communicate frequently with fire investigators at scenes.

"Now there's more of a seamless flow of crime scene technicians, patrol," said homicide Sgt. Bill Todd. "It's not so much as you're over here and we don't always get to see each other."

Task force members also receive additional training, Todd said. Detectives take fire training courses. Arson investigators are sworn police officers.

"We try to cross train and give everybody the full benefit of those experiences, and it works well," said Todd.

It is unclear how many other agencies statewide have created similar task forces. But locally, other agencies appear to practice similar plans.

In Pinellas County, St. Petersburg Fire and Rescue has seven arson investigators, one of which is also a detective with the police department.

Hillsborough County Fire Rescue cleared nearly 11 percent of its arson cases last year. To increase the number of cleared cases, the agency plans to add more investigators to its arson unit and hopes to work closer with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, a setup similar to what Tampa agencies created.

"It's fantastic," Alcover said. "And the stats prove it."

• • •

Arsons are difficult crimes to solve. Most are committed at night, leaving few witnesses behind. Evidence is usually damaged or destroyed in the flames.

"They are very challenging," Todd said, adding that sometimes, "we know who did it, but being able to prove that beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt is quite a hurdle."

In the case of the burning Cadillac, the fingerprints led police to Thaddeus Gallon, who eventually confessed. He was convicted of arson and sentenced to 30 years in prison in December.

So far in 2013, the task force has investigated eight arson cases. It has made one arrest.

• • •

Before a fire is considered arson, investigators must determine what caused it. They consider a list of possible causes: Lightning? Weather? Electrical?

"As you go eliminating everything," Alcover said, "you come to the conclusion where it can't be anything else but human intervention."

On Jan. 29 before sunrise, Alcover and several other investigators were at a fire at 2006 N 61st St. Flames had ripped through the roof of a house that was divided into segments and rented out by the owner.

He searched outside for any evidence. At the left of the house, Alcover saw the origin of the blaze: the gaping hole where firefighters had attacked the flames.

Alcover pointed his flashlight into the darkness and caught glimpses of the wreckage. The blackened roof drooped inward. A wall was missing, exposing a room with nothing in it but the charred springs of a mattress.

Investigators reconstructed the room. They shoveled debris off the floor and placed the mattress back in place. They asked the homeowner where an A/C unit, toppled on the ground, used to belong on the missing wall. They discovered an orange cord.

The cause of the fire: an electrical malfunction.

Laura C. Morel can be reached at lmorel@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3386.

Times staff
Sunday, February 10, 2013

TAMPA — More than two dozen people were forced from their homes Saturday after a fire swept through part of a Town 'N Country apartment complex.

The blaze at the two-story Harbour Walk apartments at 6:30 p.m. Saturday destroyed eight units and caused smoke damage to several others. Although no one was seriously injured, 29 people were displaced.

Ronnie Rivera, a spokesman for Hillsborough Fire Rescue, said many of the victims were offered temporary units at the complex by management.

Others turned to relatives or the Red Cross, which provided hotel rooms.

Two dogs were rescued, including one treated on the scene for smoke inhalation. The dog seemed to recover after Fire Rescue paramedics administered oxygen to the animal.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

By Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer
Sunday, February 10, 2013

The president of the state Senate says Florida should do more for its springs. Thousands of people have petitioned Gov. Rick Scott for more protection and restoration for the springs. A group of local government officials in North Florida has formed an activist group to push for legislation.

Yet with the Florida legislative session starting in less than a month, so far no one has filed a single springs-related bill.

"I guess there are no springs champions," said Jim Stevenson, who helped launch an initiative to rescue the springs that began under Gov. Jeb Bush and was abandoned in 2011 under Scott.

Florida's springs are in deep trouble. Although the state has more than 1,000 freshwater springs — generally hailed as the greatest concentration of springs in the world — many are suffering from nitrate pollution that fuels the growth of toxic algae blooms.

Compounding the problem is a decline in their flow that in some cases resulted in them sputtering out completely. And geologists have found a disturbing increase in saltiness in a few of freshwater springs, which could signal future problems with the state's drinking supply.

The springs initiative begun under Bush led to the state's purchase and preservation of thousands of acres of land that could have been developed or otherwise contributed to the pollution of the aquifer, Stevenson said.

But all of his group's recommendations for new laws were ignored by the Legislature — except for one involving septic tank inspections, which was passed and then repealed before it took effect.

Because many of the springs are major tourist draws, their environmental woes have an economic impact. As a result, local officials across North Florida have formed their own group, Florida Leaders Organized for Water, or FLOW for short, to push for what they're calling the Fountain of Youth Springs Protection Act of 2013.

Their proposed bill calls for setting strict limits on the pollution flowing into the springs, reviewing all the water-pumping permits that have been issued around springs, setting a level for water use around the springs that ensures they will stay healthy and creating a new Florida Springs Task Force to provide annual reports to the Legislature on how all this is working out.

To pay for it, they propose a use fee on all for-profit water-bottling businesses in the state.

Ask White Springs Mayor Helen Miller, who's leading FLOW, how many legislators have lined up to sponsor this bill, and the answer is zero.

"We haven't been able to pick up a single sponsor," Miller said. "I guess the current feeling of this Legislature is that we don't have to deal with water. But clearly, the citizens of this state recognize the need for a serious policy discussion, more funding and more attention to our water problems."

Last year, springs advocates — including former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham and former Nixon administration Deputy Interior Secretary Nathaniel Reed — rounded up 15,000 signatures on a petition demanding the state do more to protect Silver, Rainbow and other popular springs, and sent it to the governor and the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The one bright spot for springs advocates is in the proposed budget offered by Scott. The budget contain $6 million for springs restoration work, which is $3 million more than last year — although that's nowhere near the $122 million that state water officials have requested. The budget also includes $500,000 to help farmers in springs areas retrofit their thirsty center-pivot irrigation systems with something that will slurp up less water from the aquifer.

Legislative leaders aren't convinced the situation is all that dire. Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said of the springs, "We need to do more than we're doing now." But he indicated he regards the projected cost as potentially excessive, calling it "a heck of a big number."

House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, contends the Legislature isn't the one that's responsible for fixing what's wrong with the springs.

"I'm not a scientist, man," Weatherford said, acknowledging he had heard something about the problems facing the springs but lacked specifics. Then he added, "But that's what we have water management districts for."

When a reporter pointed out that the Legislature has imposed deep cuts in the water agencies' budgets, hampering their ability to take action on springs, Weatherford said they still had plenty of money, but weren't spending it the right way.

"Maybe they should be buying less land and instead investing in our water resources to make sure they're protected," the speaker said.

Miller said that sounded like Weatherford is passing the buck, and as for Gaetz's concern regarding the cost: "What's the cost to the state of not dealing effectively with our water issues now?"

Craig Pittman can be reached at craig@tampabay.com.

By Tia Mitchell, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Sunday, February 10, 2013

TALLAHASSEE — Florida businesses small, medium and big alike are trying to make sense of the new health care law and what it means for their bottom line.

It's no different for Florida's biggest employer, the state of Florida.

Though Gov. Rick Scott fought the law since its infancy and Attorney General Pam Bondi took the matter all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Florida lawmakers are now awkwardly having to comply with key provisions of the health care law — including offering health insurance to thousands of additional state workers.

"The budget we proposed includes the mandatory portions of the president's new health care law, which means the state needed to provide coverage for state employees or pay a per-employee penalty to the federal government," said Melissa Sellers, the governor's spokeswoman.

How the state implements the federal health care law for its 160,000 employees is a separate question from whether lawmakers decide to expand the state's Medicaid program to cover additional Floridians.

Some work already has occurred, and some is getting started.

State workers can now include children younger than 26 on their health insurance plans, the state's insurer is barred from refusing to sign up minors because of pre-existing conditions, and annual dollar-amount caps were eliminated.

The changes cost the state $16 million in the current budget year, officials say.

Even bigger changes come in 2014. First, new taxes and fees are expected to increase Florida's insurance costs by $20.4 million.

In addition, thousands of temporary state workers may now be eligible for insurance. That could cost an additional $29 million next year.

All together the state says it will spend about $60 million implementing the Affordable Care Act for its employees, though some of those costs could be offset by the premiums that employees pay.

As part of the health care law, companies with 50 or more employees must offer all full-time workers health insurance. If they don't, and the federal government subsidizes even one employee's health care costs, it triggers huge fines. (Florida could face a fine of up to $318 million.)

The law goes further, broadening the definition of a full-time employee to include anyone who works more than 30 hours a week.

For the state, that means about 10,000 people who are filling temporary, contract positions in all branches of government could now be eligible for insurance.

The state is still trying to determine how many of its employees would be eligible and how many would sign up for the state's insurance plan. Right now, the assumption is that roughly two-thirds (6,300) would enroll.

Many state agencies hire contract workers for seasonal positions or special projects such as lifeguards at state parks during the summer or extra customer service representatives to assist with a backlog of unemployment compensation applications.

"My understanding is that it's driven by the number of hours worked," said Sharon Larson, the Department of Management Services' director of human resources management. But the federal government hasn't said exactly how hours will be calculated, Larson said.

For example, is someone who works 30 hours in one week but averages less than that in a month or year still eligible to join the state health plan?

The issue becomes even muddier at the state's 12 public universities, where the bulk of Florida's contract employees work. They include adjunct professors and graduate assistants, as well as a myriad of clerical and administrative workers.

Many of them don't work during summers or during the long winter holiday break.

"One of the issues we're running into is the definitions piece of this," said Tim Jones, chief financial officer for the Board of Governors.

So far, each university has provided its own estimates about the number of full-time contract employees. The numbers range from 2,948 at the University of Florida to just 381 at the University of Central Florida, which has the state's largest student population.

Later this month, human resources directors from all of the universities will meet with the state's Department of Management Services to discuss the impacts of the Affordable Care Act and revise their criteria for identifying eligible employees.

Contact Tia Mitchell at tmitchell@tampabay.com or (850) 224-7263.

Associated Press
Sunday, February 10, 2013

HATTIESBURG, Miss. — A tornado tore through Hattiesburg on Sunday as part of a wave of severe storms that injured more than a dozen people, downed trees and damaged buildings.

The twister traveled down one of Hattiesburg's main streets and mangled homes, commercial buildings and structures on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi. Emergency officials said at least 10 people were injured in surrounding Forrest County and three were hurt to the west in Marion County, but they weren't aware of any deaths.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn said it appeared that a single tornado caused the damage in those two counties and in Lamar County. Hundreds of homes were damaged in Forrest County, along with a couple of dozen in the two others.

Flynn said the sheer scope of the damage was slowing the assessment of damage.

"The problem is, it was so strong that there's so much debris that there's a lot of areas they haven't been able to get to yet," he said.

On the campus of the university, trees were snapped in half around the heavily damaged Alumni House where part of the roof was ripped away. Windows in a nearby building were blown out, and heavy equipment worked to clear streets nearby in a heavy rain after the worst of the weather had passed.

The university released a statement saying that no one was hurt but that it was under a state of emergency.

Forrest County Sheriff Billy McGee said 10 or 15 people were injured by the tornado that slammed Hattiesburg and other parts of the county, but none of the injuries was serious.

Marion County emergency director Aaron Greer reported three injuries, with two people taken to hospitals.

By Sean Daly, Times Pop Music Critic
Sunday, February 10, 2013

After being shut out for most of the 55th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, the earnest Brit boys in Mumford & Sons (right) took home the heaviest hardware of the evening: album of the year for Babel. • "Music's biggest night" was a bit bipolar this year, with more than a few lackluster performances and a too-casual vibe at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. • But hey, there was enough during the three-and-a-half-hour show (ugh) to keep us catty at the watercooler today. Herewith, Grammy highlights, lowlights and, well, Jennifer Lopez's superheroic thigh:

WELL, IF PRINCE LIKES IT... The Purple One presented Belgian singer Gotye with the record of the year award for Somebody That I Used to Know. "Oh, I love this song," hushed a rather tender Prince upon opening the envelope, a super-cool blessing that's even more awesome than the trophy itself.

best performance of the night Pt. I Those garage-rocking Akron outcasts in the Black Keys — who won, among several other awards, best rock album for El Camino — invited the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Dr. John for a blazing version of Lonely Boy, which also won best rock song.

OF COURSE THEY HAD FUN New York City pop-rock crew Fun. won best new artist and song of the year for ubiquitous anthem We Are Young. They also performed new single Carry On in an indoor rainstorm — and every single person watching was terrified of imminent electrocution. Phew.

QUITE FRANKLY Frank Ocean, whose genre-blending album Channel Orange explored themes of bisexuality (not exactly the most popular topic in the braggadocious domain of hiphop), won for best urban contemporary album and joined in the victory for rap/sung collaboration with Kanye West, Jay-Z and The-Dream (No Church in the Wild).

best performance of the night pt. II Ocean singing Forrest Gump, a neo-soul song about another man. Awesome, moving, unforgettable.

TAYLOR SWIFT GETS EDGY (OR SOMETHING) When you saw a creepy Mad Hatter guy on a flame-throwing tricycle roll onstage to open the night, you were thinking Lady Gaga, maybe Katy Perry, right? Nope, behold T-Swizzle (as show host LL Cool called 23-year-old Swift) doing a Psycho Circus version of We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC AND THE RED-HAIRED COWBOY The Grammys have always been more about performances than awards (most of the trophies are handed out before the show even starts). They also love funky pairings, and the first of those was Elton John and rookie busker Ed Sheeran, who duetted on the latter's The A Team. EJ sounded a little gruff, but he perked up later an all-star tribute (Zac Brown, T Bone Burnett and more) to the late Levon Helm. "Take a load off, Fanny..."

GRAMMYZZZ Boy, did this one have some sloooow parts. A pairing between Maroon 5 and Alicia Keys was lackluster. A solo performance by Rihanna fizzled. And it turns out the Lumineers are more annoying live than on radio. Hey! Ho! No!

JUST JACK Raging guitar nutter Jack White brought two bands — one all women, one all dudes — uncorking two cuts, including the psychotic breakdown of Freedom at 21. Cool stuff.

SO MUCH FOR THE NAUGHTY BITS BAN The Grammys asked attendees to watch it with the racy outfits this year. They actually used the words "breasts" and "buttocks." In related news: Jennifer Lopez flashed enough thigh to make Angelina Jolie blush. "As you can see, I read the memo," J.Lo said.

IT'S NOT SIX, BUT STILL... Adele dominated last year's Grammys, but even without a new album out, she still managed to win best pop solo performance for a live version of Set Fire to the Rain.

COOLEST MOVE OF THE NIGHT Jay-Z just kind of no-big-deal sauntered out of the audience and knocked out the rap on Justin Timberlake's slick (and sepia-toned) performance of Suit & Tie.

QUOTE OF THE NIGHT "I got stuck to Miranda Lambert!" — an adorably babbling Kelly Clarkson accepting the shiny gramophone for best pop vocal album, Stronger. Clarkson, however, was all firebrand intensity when she honored the late Patti Page and Carole King.

AT LEAST BRUNO'S A grateful THIEF Sting joined in on Bruno Mars' blatantly Police-lifting Locked Out of Heaven during a loose, irie-mon tribute to Bob Marley. Rihanna and a bunch of Bob's kids jammed on Could You Be Loved. The Grammys need to let their dreads down more often!

Sean Daly can be reached at sdaly@tampabay.com. Follow @seandalypoplife on Twitter.

By Laura C. Morel, Times Staff Writer
Monday, February 11, 2013

TAMPA — A pizza delivery man was hospitalized Sunday night after he was robbed and shot by two men, police said.

The delivery man from Domino's Pizza was dropping off a pizza at the Vintage Loft apartments near the 1500 block of W. Cypress Street. As he returned to his car, two men armed with a gun approached him, Tampa police said. They robbed and shot him once.

The victim, whom police did not identify Monday morning, was taken to Tampa General Hospital in reportedly stable conditon.

An investigation remained under way Monday morning as police searched for the robbers.

By Laura C. Morel, Times Staff Writer
Monday, February 11, 2013

TAMPA — Trevor Dooley, convicted last month of fatally shooting his neighbor in September 2010, may post bail at the Hillsborough County Jail on Monday morning.

A jury found Dooley, 72, guilty of manslaughter after he shot and killed his neighbor during an argument about a skateboarder using a basketball court in their Valrico neighborhood. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.

But on Friday, Circuit Judge Ashley Moody granted Dooley's motion for release on $100,000 bail while he appeals his conviction.

It was unknown at what time Dooley would be released from the jail, said Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office spokesman Larry McKinnon.

When he is released, deputies will place a GPS monitoring device on him.

By Meredith Rutland, Times Staff Writer
Monday, February 11, 2013

HOLIDAY — An Anclote High School cheerleading coach was charged with drunken driving early Monday morning.

Coach Jamie Marie Wichmanowski, 29, was arrested and booked around 3:15 a.m. by the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.

Wichmanowski is listed as a member of the school's faculty and as the school's varsity cheerleading coach on the school's website.

She was still being held without bail as of 8 a.m. Monday, according to jail records.

By Laura C. Morel, Times Staff Writer
Monday, February 11, 2013

HUDSON — A 44-year-old man died Saturday evening after being struck by a car while crossing U.S. 19, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

Joseph W. Haines was pushing a shopping cart across the highway near the Beach Boulevard intersection at 6:45 p.m. when he was struck by a Mercury Grand Marquis driven by Raymond Boschen, heading north on U.S. 19, troopers said.

During the impact, the cart was knocked forward, slamming into a Honda Accord in the left turn lane.

Haines, 44, died at the scene. Boschen, 64, and his passenger Barbara Boschen, 63, were not hurt.

An investigation remained under way Monday morning.