BlogWood: MT Archives

Tampa's Welfare Daddies

Corporate welfare roles in Tampa continue to rise unabated as Tampa’s elite join forces to attempt a massive transfer of public wealth into private hands.

BlogWood has learned that lazy, shiftless corporate entities are living large off the public dole, and asking for more! While honest taxpayers struggle to make ends meet, their government is taking their hard-earned money and throwing it at football fat cats, hot hotels, and loony land deals.

Years ago, Tampa leaders borrowed against our collective soul and built a fancy new football stadium for a bunch of rich white men. Complete control of said stadium, including all revenue streams, has been ceded to these Welfare Daddies in exchange for vague promises to try real hard not to ask for another stadium for at least 2 or 3 more years. The Buccaneers are worth $671 million dollars.

More recently, Tampa cut a deal with some other rich white men that pays them $32 million to operate a profitable hotel. But let’s not begrudge these guys a little much-needed help. Why, one small part of the Marriott clan, John and Richard Marriott, are way down in the 100's on Forbe’s list, with a measly net worth of just $6.2 billion.

Now, Civitas, a company owned by the creme de la blanc of Tampa’s elite Welfare Daddies, is in need of our help. See, Ed Turanchik’s Plan to Take Over the World can not possibly proceed without a little public assistance. Investors might not be guaranteed to make a profit if they have to pay for everything themselves, and if they can’t make a guaranteed profit, then how do you expect them to steal from help the poor?

Make no mistake: Civitas is in business to help the poor. In fact, their primary goal seems to be to help the poor population near downtown Tampa to get the fuck out so that our homegrown Welfare Daddies can start making some money.

Their first pitch was in a meeting with City officials yesterday. Today, Ed Turacnchik will be making a presentation to the City Council.

Civitas' latest proposal calls for the city to swap land it owns within the company's 157-acre target area northeast of downtown for scattered sites the company owns in those other neighborhoods, said Mark Huey, Tampa's economic development director.

Civitas' latest proposal calls for the city to swap land it owns within the company's 157-acre target area northeast of downtown for scattered sites the company owns in those other neighborhoods, said Mark Huey, Tampa's economic development director.

Wednesday was the first meeting between Civitas and city officials since the company unveiled plans Dec. 4 to bring homes and businesses to Tampa's Central Park area.

Civitas also proposes buying some city land, and it wants city help to pay for road work, waterlines and other infrastructure improvements.

``This was the top layer of the onion,'' Huey said. ``We have a lot more meetings to have.''

Translation: “We’ll give up these sub-prime properties that are scattered all over the place in exchange for city properties that are concentrated in the area where we are working to acquire land. We absolutely need these city properties, so an ordinary seller could command top dollar, but we will pay or trade the city next to nothing for them and we will also be asking for many more handouts along the way.”

Stay tuned!

(Updated to add the rest of the Tribune quote I thought I had added in the first place. Doh.)