St. Pete Beach Florida - Treasure Island Florida News and Opinion

St. Pete Beach Florida News

"Treasure Island, which has seen the greatest loss of hotel rooms to condos because of a ban on tall buildings, lost about 259 hotel rooms in 2004"
St. Petersburg Times, Nov. 15, 2006

Our opinion of local affairs.
By
Gary Becker

Updated 03-22-08

Now, let me get this straight, the Treasure Island City Commission actually believes that a library in another community is more important than revitalizing Treasure Island’s downtown or having the City involved in celebrating the nation’s independence?

Yup, that’s right.

Last fall when the City Commission finalized this year’s City budget the Commission earmarked $100,000.00 of Treasure Island taxpayer’s dollars to be used to support a library that is located somewhere, not on Treasure Island, but on Madeira Beach. That’s right, during a period of tight government budgets, Treasure Island’s elected officials sent a hundred grand across John’s Pass so that a handful of residents too cheap to get an internet supplier in their own homes can go to library and play around on the World Wide Web.

In the meantime the City turned over its biggest civic event of the year to a Chamber of Commerce which is in my opinion so mismanaged it has become all about the Chamber and has forgotten about Commerce. Remember the symphony on the beach? Well memories are all you are going to have because this year the Treasure Island Chamber of Lack of Commerce has bypassed the orchestra and have hired “Lounge Cat” to play swing music instead of “God Bless America”.

The City is seriously considering canceling the public fireworks display for the Fourth of July in order to save money with one Treasure Island Commissioner actually encouraging citizens to illegally set off their own fireworks to satisfy the needs of those who want to celebrate being Americans.

Finally, the Commission now is debating whether or not to pay $50,000.00 to finalize a study to revitalize downtown Treasure Island, a study they have already spent $80,000.00 on.

Let’s do the math, $35,000.00 for the symphony, $15,000.00 for fireworks, $50,000.00 for a downtown that can create jobs and much needed tax dollars, all equals, that’s right, $100,000.00.

What kind of Commission would cancel the City’s biggest civic event, cancel the 4th of July fireworks and let their own downtown fall into ruin while spending $100,000.00 on another city’s library?

Welcome to Treasure Island.

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