Temple Terrace elected officials snort at citizen's cyber-activism

The Tampabay Business Journal
by Michael Hinman

Being an elected official sometimes means being a target when things go wrong. But as one critic of the proposed Temple Terrace downtown redevelopment found, there are limits to how far one can go.

Bart Siegel has taken his opposition to a city-led redevelopment in the 56th Street and Bullard Parkway area to cyberspace with an e-mail newsletter called The Pig Report. There he has called on city officials to sell the commercial property they've acquired along 56th Street instead of moving forward with a multimillion-dollar proposal that would mix civic, commercial and residential interests together on the site of an aging shopping plaza.

But not everyone is pleased with his candidness.

Mayor Joe Affronti, who helped lead the purchase of the property as a city councilman, has asked Siegel to stop sending him e-mails and to "get a life." Councilman Ron Govin echoed those sentiments.

"If you could back off a bit and quit the use of names, it might lend more credibility to your message," Govin wrote.

Temple Terrace voters turned down a 1-mill tax hike last month that sought to raise up to $20 million for infrastructure in a downtown redevelopment slated to cost $300 million.

Siegel told his readers that he won't back off as long as elected officials insist on taking the lead on the project.

"Our city is already millions of dollars in the red, and you are going to have to raise our taxes no matter what," Siegel wrote to Affronti. "No, I will not take you off my e-mail list until you step down from public office and it is no longer part of your official duties to learn what the little people are thinking."