Treasure Island Florida City Hall

Gulf Beach News

The Segway Deal

Let’s talk about this Treasure Island Segway deal. If you’re going, what Treasure Island Segway deal then let me quickly explain.

There’s this guy, we’ll call him the Segway guy, who wants to rent out Segways to people who would then follow the Segway guy up and down Treasure Island’s Beach Trail on their rented Segways like little motorized ducklings behind mama duck.

What’s a Segway you ask? Well the best I can determine they are two wheeled scooters you stand on and an electric motor propels you around at the blinding speed of 8 miles per hour.

So, if you put it all together, you have the Segway guy renting out electric scooters to tourist who then follow the Segway guy up and down the beach trail a couple of times a day at the break neck speed of 8 mile per hour.

Now, the average reasonable person is going to say, so why are you wasting my time telling me about the Segway deal. What’s the big deal with someone wanting to rent out electric scooters to easily amused tourists, they do it all over the country, even in St. Petersburg, God’s waiting room.

Well, Im not talking about the rest of the country or even God’s waiting room, I’m talking about Treasure Island, or as the locals call it, TEE EYE. You see, here on TEE EYE anything that has to do with our elected city commission ends up being a big deal. Where other elected officials actually investigate an issue first and then form an opinion, here on TEE EYE, some of our elected officials form an opinion and then only use what misinformation they can find that strengthens that previously formed opinion.

The Segway deal is a good case in point. Instead of contacting municipalities that currently allow the renting of Segways to get first hand information on the pros and cons of Segways several of TEE EYE’s commissioners who are against allowing the rental of Segways because of the imagined dangers the Segways present to the public point to a single dubious web site that was obviously created by someone who hates Segways and is using any and all the lies and misinformation he can obtain or make up in order to damage the reputation of Segways. While the internet in full of legitimate websites with information about Segway’s, TEE EYE’s commissioners point to only one website that can easily be compared with websites proclaiming the Apollo Lunar landings actually took place on a secret sound stage in Nevada or the websites proclaiming the 9-11 attacks were carried out by the CIA.

Treasure Island’s tourist industry is dying and needs all the help it can get if it is to survive. Will the Segway deal save our tourist industry, of course not, but having a City Commission with preconceived opinions based on questionable information will most certainly kill it.