Commissioner Murman with the Campo/Camp Cristina YMCA Youth in Government team at 9-11 ceremony at County Center, downtown Tampa.
On 09.14.11, In Blog, By Murman
On 09.02.11, In Blog, By Murman
The video above is the Youtube link for HTV coverage of the opening ceremony of the New Center For Development Services. This Newsbreak segment started airing today on HTV and was posted online as well. Featured speakers included:
Commissioner Sandra Murman
Commissioner Kevin Beckner
County Administrator Mike Merrill
Deputy County Administrator Lucia Garsys
Director Peggy Hamric Smith
On 08.31.11, In Blog, By Murman
MIKE SALINERO | The Tampa Tribune
Published: August 31, 2011
http://www2.tbo.com/news/news/2011/aug/31/menewso3-hillsborough-approves-ar-254213/
Just days after Irene ravaged the East Coast, Hillsborough County administrators used the proposition of a hurricane hitting the Tampa Bay area to sell county commissioners on the need for a $31.4 million public safety complex.
Commissioners voted 6-0 to build the complex, which will house emergency operations, fire-rescue headquarters and training, code enforcement and the county’s main computer servers, all in a hurricane-hardened building.
The county will borrow most of the money for the complex through a bond issue with annual debt payments of $1.78 million. Payments will be made with receipts from the communications services tax.
County Administrator Mike Merrill had made the complex a priority in his fiscal 2012 budget. He ran into resistance, however, from commissioners who questioned making such a large expenditure during a time of economic hardship.
So Merrill decided to make his case by squeezing commissioners and about 130 county employees into the present emergency operations center for a mock hurricane drill.
Emergency Management Director Preston Cook ran a video that, in faux documentary fashion, showed the impact of a Category 5 hurricane coming ashore in Tampa Bay.
“I didn’t want to dramatize it,” Merrill said, “but I wanted to make it as real as I can because I think it’s important enough.”
The sobering images of destruction in the video and the claustrophobic conditions in the 20-year-old emergency operations center seemed to wilt whatever concerns commissioners still had about the project.
“We’re here to protect and inform the people of Hillsborough County what’s going to happen if a hurricane happens,” said Commissioner Les Miller, who made the motion to build the complex. “The No. 1 thing we need to look at is the 1.2 million people we represent.”
The complex will be on county-owned land on Columbus Drive near Falkenburg Road.
A core building housing the operations center and computer system will be between 74,000 and 90,000 square feet and cover more than 20 acres. An auxiliary building will be more than 18,000 square feet.
The new buildings will be able to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, a storm with sustained winds greater than 155 mph. The current, 16,000-square-foot emergency operations center is built to withstand a category 2 hurricane with winds up to 110 mph.
Commissioner Sandy Murman asked Merrill to look at having a private business build the complex and lease it to the county.
Merrill agreed to look at a public-private partnership, but said the county can borrow money for construction at a much lower interest rate than businesses.
County officials want to have the complex finished when the 2013 hurricane season begins. Cook, the emergency management director, said the commission’s quick action confirmed his reasons for taking the job in June.
“This county understands preparedness,” Cook said. “This confirms that I came to the right place.”
On 08.26.11, In Blog, By Murman
By Shelley Rossetter, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Friday, August 26, 2011
St. Pete Times
RUSKIN — A former fire station could become a community arts center by January, thanks to $100,000 allocated by commissioners in next year’s tentative Hillsborough County budget.
The opening of the Ruskin Firehouse Cultural Center hangs on the approval of the county’s fiscal 2012 budget, which will be voted on in September. If approved, the money would go toward improvements at the fire station on First Avenue, which was vacated by the county for a new one this year, said Sandy Council, president of the Ruskin Community Development Foundation, which is handling the project.
Construction would start as soon as the money was approved.
“A lot hinges on the final vote of the budget,” Council said. “We’re moving ahead as if that’s going to happen.”
As the first of its kind in the South Shore area, the cultural center would provide access to a wide selection of arts, Council said.
“It’s not just going to be visual art,” she said. “There will be theater, music, the whole spectrum.”
Meeting rooms would be available for rent, and the building would accommodate classes, workshops and visiting artists.
The fire station, which is owned by the county, would be leased to the foundation, which submitted a business plan and is awaiting final approval from the county, Council said.
Renovations planned for the building include bringing the facility up to code and making it handicap accessible. Council estimates that will cost at least $70,000.
In addition to the county’s money, the foundation is set to receive $60,000 from the Foundation of Greater Sun City Center once it gains possession of the center, Council said. Keller Williams and the South Shore Arts Council have donated an additional $6,000 toward the project.
It’s something the community has been seeking for a while, said Commissioner Sandy Murman, who helped secure the money for the center, which is in her district.
“Ruskin has often been overlooked,” she said. “This is going to be a good addition to south Hillsborough County.”
Though the center’s money is not part of the $2.5 million set aside by commissioners for the restoration of historical properties, the discussion that led to that fund also benefitted the center, Murman said.
Public outcry over the amount of money spent at the Regent, she said, brought attention to the need for community centers in other areas.
People in the arts community are excited, said Nina Tatlock, co-director of Big Draw Studios, an art studio in Ruskin.
“For the community, it will be a place where things can happen,” said Tatlock, who also serves on the foundation’s committee. “It’s where people from the community can come to participate in the arts, which we feel is an enrichment to the community.”
Besides drawing more attention to the arts in South Shore, supporters hope the center will create more interest in the area.
“The Ruskin area has great potential for economic development,” Murman said. “This could be the focus, the hub of where it starts.”
Shelley Rossetter can be reached at srossetter@sptimes.com or (813) 661-2442.
On 08.26.11, In Blog, By Murman
By Aubrey Whelan, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Friday, August 26, 2011
St. Pete Times
DOWNTOWN — The plan to close the dilapidated Platt Street Bridge for much-needed repairs has been on the table for months now, county officials say.
But time hasn’t eased the frustration residents of Davis Islands and Harbour Island feel over the project that will eliminate a major link to and from downtown for 105 days, some time in early October.
They say the city hasn’t provided enough options for diverting traffic away from the bridge, contending that the closing will create a near-constant gridlock in and around the Platt Street area.
“Hopefully this (traffic plan) is a work in progress,” Davis Islands resident Joe Fontana said at an open house this week hosted by County Commissioner Sandy Murman. “But this is the same as nine months ago. That’s extremely inefficient.”
One resident said the traffic plan made her feel “claustrophobic,” while others expressed concerns about access for emergency vehicles in the area. They’re also worried that cars leaving from Tampa General Hospital on Davis Islands and St. John’s Episcopal Church School in Hyde Park — which send employees and students home around the same time — will further clog the area.
City transportation officials say the plan is a tentative one and are still looking for suggestions from residents as the project draws closer to its start date.
City transportation manager Jean Dorzback said while the traffic situation in and around Platt Street isn’t ideal, the city will “deal with it as best as we can.”
In part, the current plan will divert neighborhood traffic crossing the Hillsborough River onto Kennedy Boulevard and Franklin Street. Other alternatives will detour drivers onto Verne Street and Plant Avenue, which will soon allow three lanes of traffic through.
Commuters will be encouraged to take the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway across town to avoid Bayshore Boulevard. The Tampa Police Department will station officers at key intersections to direct traffic during the first few days of the bridge closure, and the city plans to post 30 electronic message boards around the area to warn drivers.
The county, which owns the bridge and is overseeing the $13.8 million project, is offering monetary incentives to its contractors to finish the job on time — $10,000 per day if the bridge is completed up to 20 days in advance and $10,000 penalties for every day past the 105-day completion window. The project is part of ongoing repairs to the bridge that began in January and have caused lane closures along the way.
But no matter what, officials say, residents will have to deal with occasionally frustrating traffic.
“The first few days are going to be awful,” said Martin Stone, the planning director of the state Expressway Authority. He was at Monday’s open house, handing out free SunPasses to help residents prepare for the months to come.
Despite all their planning, officials say they still expect some confusion in October.
“We’ve been promoting this for months now,” said Shannon Edge, the head of the city’s neighborhood and community relations office. “People aren’t going to realize it’s actually closed until the day of.”
Aubrey Whelan can be reached at (813) 226-3446 or awhelan@sptimes.com
On 08.25.11, In Blog, By Murman
By TBO.com
Published: August 24, 2011
Updated: August 24, 2011 – 5:08 PM
Tampa — Hillsborough County’s after-school program may get a reprieve.
Commissioners agreed unanimously this afternoon to have county officials draw up a plan that would add 19 parks that would provide recreational programs after school – more than the 11 regional centers commissioners had approved for their 2012 budget after agreeing to discontinue full-time staffing at 31 recreation centers.
County officials will come back to the commission on Sept. 8 with standards to determine the success of the program – including having a minimum of 25 children per site — and how they will communicate to parents that the program, which they were told was being discontinued, is back on.
Under the plan, commissioners would receive a 6-month report on how the program is performing and would re-evaluate the program after the end of the school year, in time to inform parents so they can make plans before the start of the next school year.
The maximum cost for attending the program would be reduced from $48 to $38 with a $20 fee for children who meet income guidelines for free or reduced cost school lunches. Commissioner Ken Hagan, who proposed continuing the after-school program at 30 recreation centers, said lowering the fee will attract more participants.
County administrators and parks director Mark Thornton have argued the current program is too expensive at $7.5 million, and declining enrollment has exacerbated the problem. Participation has shrunk to about 1,900 kids from 5,600 enrollees in 2008. The slide started after commissioners approved a sliding fee scale for what had been a free program.
Hagan argued that if the county can increase numbers, the program will be self-sufficient.
But commissioners Kevin Beckner, Sandy Murman and chairman Al Higginbotham wanted some benchmarks to determine whether the plug should be pulled on the program.
On 08.23.11, In Blog, By Murman
Commissioner Murman Presents a BOCC Commendation to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office K-9 Unit
On 08.23.11, In Blog, By Murman
Commissioner Murman Presents a BOCC Commendation to Community Organizer, Andrew Moss
On 08.18.11, In Blog, By Murman
Posted: Aug 17 10:22 PM
TAMPA – Hillsborough County moved one step closer to banning sweepstakes games at internet cafes.
On Wednesday, commissioners voted 7-0 to draft an ordinance that would ban the sweepstakes games. The ordinance would still have to go through a public hearing and commissioners would have to vote on it.
Commissioner Sandy Murman made the motion. She believes it should be illegal for patrons to purchase time on a computer, where they play sweepstakes games for prizes.
She considers it illegal gambling. On Wednesday, lawyers from the Hillsborough County Attorney’s Office and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office agreed with Murman’s legal assessment, but added the state law on the topic was too ambiguous, making it difficult to enforce.
They recommended the county make its own decision about what to do about the sweepstakes cafes.
After a long, heated debate — during which some commissioners suggested a task force to look into the matter — the commissioners ultimately backed Murman’s proposal.
The ordinance to be drafted would not ban internet cafes, just the use of sweepstakes-style games on the machines at the cafes.
On 08.17.11, In Blog, By Murman
By MIKE SALINERO | The Tampa Tribune
Published: August 17, 2011
Updated: August 17, 2011 – 10:30 PM
TAMPA
Usually one of the calmer, more-demure Hillsborough County commissioners, Sandy Murman broke out of character Wednesday when a fellow board member suggested delaying an ordinance to shut down internet sweepstakes cafés.
Murman made the motion to ban the cafés, which she described as illegal gambling operations that feature computerized slot machines. The county sheriff’s office also supports a ban.
But Commissioner Victor Crist, raising the specter of lawsuits by the café owners, urged caution and suggested the county appoint a work group that included sweepstakes café owners to study the issue.
“I am totally surprised at what’s come out of your mouth,” Murman almost shouted at Crist, who served with her in the Florida Legislature. She pointed out that Crist had served for years on the state Senate Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations.
“You can’t sit at the table and try to work out a consensus with people that promote illegal gambling,” she said.
After long debate, Crist withdrew his motion and the board voted 7-0 to have the county attorney draw up an ordinance banning the cafés. A public hearing on the matter will be held sometime in coming months.
The cafés have proliferated in Hillsborough as adjoining counties have moved to shut them down. Murman said there are now 25 operating in the unincorporated areas of the county, and an unknown number in Tampa.
The businesses, which often locate in strip malls, sell internet time on computers. Patrons get phone cards that allow them to participate in sweepstakes contests that are just like playing a slot machine on a computer.
Chris Brown, a lawyer with the sheriff’s office, said the video sweepstakes games meet the state’s legal definition of slot machines, which are largely prohibited in Florida.
“They are illegal gambling,” Brown said.
But the cafés have persisted because of the ambiguity of state gambling law, Brown said. The law’s loopholes make it difficult to successfully prosecute café owners, who often fight back with civil lawsuits.
Defenders of the cafés say they are no different than the sweepstake cards that some businesses give to customers who buy something.
Jacksonville attorney Kelly B. Mathis, representing a not-for-profit called Allied Veterans, said Brown mislead the commission about the legality of the cafés.
“No judge has ever held that they are illegal, that they’re slot machines,” Mathis said after the meeting. Mathis said the veterans group, which operates about 40 internet cafés in Florida, would welcome “reasonable regulation.”
Commissioner Mark Sharp asked whether the board should wait to see if the Legislature passes clarifying legislation to the gambling statute next year. But Commissioner Kevin Beckner, citing the Legislature’s failure to deal with personal injury protection insurance fraud, nixed the idea.
“We need to protect our own community and not wait for Tallahassee to act,” Beckner said. “We have that responsibility as legislators up here to do what we feel are in the best interest of our community.”