Mitch PerryI will never, ever underestimate Sally Harris again.
Harris is one of the two freshly minted members on the Hillsborough County School Board who was fated with deciding the fate of Superintendent MaryEllen Elia at last night’s board meeting.
Last week I predicted that with the collective establishment in Tampa (including the editorial boards of both of the dailies, Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, Attorney General Pam Bondi, state Rep. Dana Young, the Port Authority, etc.) weighing in favor of retaining Elia and dismissing the criticism against her as “petty” and “vindictive,” the two newbies on the board elected two months ago — Harris and Melissa Snively — would bow down and vote to retain Elia, regardless of their own true thoughts on the situation.
Snidely followed suit and said last night she could not terminate her contract, but Harris opted to pink-slip the superintendent, earning a public rebuke this morning in a Times editorial.
Harris, of course, is the accidental board member. She was supposed to lose easily against her much better known and better financed District 2 opponent from South Tampa, Michelle Shimberg, last November. But Harris stunned the local political community in defeating the establishment candidate. And one of her biggest supporters/advisers during the general election race was the man whom she ousted in that primary, Michael Weston.
Weston was quite prominent at School Board debates last summer, promising audiences that “we just need one more.” When I asked him what he meant by that, he said the board needed one more opponent of Elia to join Cindy Stuart, April Griffin and Susan Valdes, all known critics of Elia.
Discussions about ousting Elia were frequent at School Board candidate forums. It was a hot topic last summer, so the idea that personality disagreements were the sole reason for Elia now looking for a job ignore what was being discussed in the community for months.
Although they were outnumbered last night, critics of how the school district is being run got their chance to voice criticisms last night — criticisms about how Exceptional Student Education students are treated (two such students died in recent years as a result of outdated policies), about the “school-to-prison pipeline,” bullying tactics inside the district, and more.
Will the board be haunted by its decision? That remains to be seen. Some critics (such as Port Tampa Bay CEO Paul Anderson) say that what happened to Elia could make it harder to find a qualified candidate to replace Elia.
But it needs to be said at this time that while it never played out as dramatically as this event, just a few years ago the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority and the Port Authority had different men running those organizations — and when activists and others said that a change needed to be made, they were publicly rebuked.
Pam Iorio fought hard against what she perceived as the negative influence of the late Steve Burton to pressure Louis Miller to depart from heading Tampa International Airport. Anybody complaining about Joe Lopano’s leadership over there these days?
There was the same sentiment to retain Richard Wainio as the head of the Port Authority. But he did leave, ultimately replaced by Paul Anderson, and I’ve not heard many complaints there either.
Time will tell if the ouster of Elia will be as disastrous as her supporters say, or if a change at the top could propel the board forward in a way that the port and the airport have thrived in recent years.
In other news …
If the rest of the Florida Legislature shows as much interest changing the attitude about energy policy in Florida as Pinellas County lawmakers, we really might see some meaningful change. Yesterday St. Pete Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes proposed a bill that was shot down a year ago, that would provide property tax relief for the installation of renewable energy source devices, such as solar panels.
Meanwhile, St. Pete House Democrat Dwight Dudley doesn’t want to allow investor-owned utilities like Florida Power & Light from fracking in Oklahoma and charging their ratepayers for that expense. Dudley introduced legislation that would repeal the decision by the PSC to allow FP&L to charge for fracking in Oklahoma.
During a Port Tampa Bay meeting, Mayor Bob Buckhorn ended up volunteering his city to coordinate a plan to save the streetcar system. First up is paying for a comprehensive study.
And the mayor and Sandy Murman led the Port Authority yesterday to go out of its way to show its support for embattled Hillsborough County School Board Superintendent MaryEllen Elia. As y’all know by now, it didn’t work.
