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Shootin' The Breeze
09.28.06
Tropical Breeze once carried a column called "55+" which was intended for a "senior" audience. Well, last week I passed 55 and it's time to revive a column I first wrote when Tropical Breeze also was younger - Shootin' The Breeze. The name was suggested by a former co-worker at Tampa Bay Business Journal, Joe O'Neill, who was recently quoted in a Tampa Tribune article about "young retireds." To top it off, the current editor of Tampa Bay Business Journal, where Joe and I were half of the original editorial staff, recently called to interview me for an article he is preparing for the publication's 25th anniversary edition in November. But wait a minute, I'm not getting old. I just broke the national speed limit and I'm accelerating!
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Another bit of Safety Harbor history faded away this week with the passing of Virginia Showers, 92. A resident of Clearwater's Del Oro neighborhood, which often is thought a part of Safety Harbor, she was the widow of Franklin Showers, who was the longtime publisher of the Safety Harbor Herald. He was the son of A.E. Showers, who purchased Tropical Breeze from A.G. Waldron in 1916, one year after its founding. The family renamed the community newspaper to the more prosaic Safety Harbor Herald, which continued in print until the late-1980s. Sue Suby and I revived Tropical Breeze as a monthly community publication in 1991. Virginia Showers was a teacher at Safety Harbor Elementary School for 40 years and her students included current Safety Harbor Commissioner and former Mayor Claude Rigsby. She was his sixth grade teacher, he said. Claude is 81. Virginia's brother, Samuel Hendricks, was principal of the school in the early 1940s, Rigsby added. Her late husband's brother, Dwight Showers, was Postmaster for nearly 50 years beginning in the 1930s, but was not involved with the newspaper. After Franklin's death, Virginia operated the Safety Harbor Herald before selling the paper to Bea Raynard of Tarpon Springs. She later sold her publications to George Graham, a former Clearwater Sun editor, who was last owner of the Herald.
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Safety Harbor's newly hired city manager, Billy Beckett, may be toast before the ink on his contract is dry. Commissioners are meeting Friday evening to discuss this week's revelation that Beckett is a party to a federal discrimination suit filed by a former police officer in Riverdale, GA (an Atlanta suburb) where he previously was city manager. While the officer's allegations of racial discrimination are far from proven and he has his own laundry list of problems, including pleading no contest to public urination in a family-oriented, private theme park in Fayette County, commissioners are worried about Safety Harbor's own problems with allegations of racial discrimination and harrassment within its public works department. Beckett, meanwhile, was back in town this week to interview and join in the hiring of a new planning director for Safety Harbor. Matthew McLachlan of St. Petersburg got the nod. He has been assistant director of planning and community development in Bradenton since 2004 and was a planning consultant with Wade-Trim Group of Tampa for four years prior. Beckett needs three supporters to hold his job. With all five commissioners ranking Belleair Beach's former city manager, Reid Silverboard, as their number two choice, the bet is that number two will soon be number one.
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Next up for toasting should be the Mercer Group, the consulting firm the city paid to find qualified candidates. Wayne Logan, outgoing Safety Harbor city manager, got the boot because he dawdled for a month before letting commissioners know that city employees were actively pursuing a unionization effort, which was accelerated in part by the racial discontent within public works. So when did Beckett know he was a likely target of a racial discrimination suit? Certainly before he delivered a memo to Safety Harbor city hall on Saturday, Sept. 23. Although he said the suit was filed at noon on that same day, he clearly had time to research it and present a defense as part of his memo. It wasn't a surprise to him, although it seems to have been to the Mercer Group and certainly to the city commission. Dunedin just went through a major debacle that prolonged its hiring of a new city manager for months. Safety Harbor doesn't need to emulate its sister city in that regard.
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Finally, on a lighter note, Safety Harbor/East Clearwater Little League had a celebrity guest dad in attendance last weekend. St. Petersburg native Miguel Cairo, a one-time Devil Ray who is now on the Yankee's roster, was in town for the Yankee/Ray's series. He signed autographs and posed for pictures with Little Leaguers at South City Park. His home is in Safety Harbor and his son, Christian, is in Little League. He isn't the first Major Leaguer to hang out with the Safety Harbor/East Clearwater Little League. Darnell Coles, part of the Toronto Blue Jays World Series Champion team a few years ago, also was a Little League dad and even helped out as a coach. Safety Harbor has a long history of association with Major League Baseball. The Brooklyn Dodgers stayed at the Safety Harbor Spa during the 1930s for spring training.
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