Don’t turn the Sulphur Springs Water Tower into just another billboard | Editorial

Tampa Bay Times Editorial Board, Tampa Bay Times
·3 min read

Leave tower alone. For nearly a century, Tampa’s Sulphur Springs Water Tower has seen it all. Rising 21 stories over what originally were waterside tourist destinations, the tower has presided over boom and bust, over unfilled hopes and overblown promises, and now it’s a landmark in a city working to recoup the richness of its older neighborhoods. For the first time in decades, this tubular chess piece alongside the interstate is getting a scrubbing and a new coat of paint. It’s about time. But city officials are also toying with using this freshly whitewashed exterior as a marketing tool — perhaps a marquee to advertise events. No thank you. Tampa needs to end its obsession with commercializing nearly every square inch of public space. Nobody needs a welcome sign when you’re already halfway across the city. Let the tower be the tower, and save the billboards for somewhere else.

Reconnecting St. Pete. Many longtime St. Petersburg residents still smart about the construction of Interstate 175 in the late 1970s, which displaced thousands of residents and businesses and split a community into two. On Tuesday, Democratic U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor of Tampa and St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch announced the city would seek $1.2 million in federal aid to help repair the connections. The grant, through a neighborhood program under the U.S. Department of Transportation, would explore converting two of downtown’s busiest drags — Eighth Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street — into two-way streets. As envisioned, the project would reconnect the neighborhoods south of Tropicana Field that were blocked off from downtown by one-way streets and the interstate spur. “We want to look for ways to repair those historic mistakes,” Castor said. The grant would not address the interstate, though officials said the work would augment efforts to reconnect the Historic Gas Plant District — the area around Tropicana Field that once was a thriving Black community — to neighborhoods to the south. This is welcome news community leaders should support.

A missed opportunity. Chalk this one up in the not that big of a deal file, but what was the goal behind the recent Halloween display at St. Petersburg City Hall?

Exacting revenge against past colleagues? Check.

Coming off as mean? Check.

Getting a laugh at someone else’s expense? Check.

The display featured a “City Council Cemetery,” which took pot shots at longtime former council members. Of course, none of those mentioned had the opportunity to defend themselves, much less fire back. The display poked fun at one former City Council member’s drinking while describing another as being “murdered” in last year’s mayoral election. There are more lowlights included, but you get the drift. The display was the current council’s submission to a City Hall decorating contest, though nobody was taking credit for it when a reporter inquired earlier this week.

Here’s a tip to the current council: Poke fun at yourselves, not former council members. There’s plenty of material, and self-deprecation always goes over better than coming off as mean. Or maybe council should focus on garbage collection and potholes and leave the jokes to the professionals.

Editorials are the institutional voice of the Tampa Bay Times. The members of the Editorial Board are Editor of Editorials Graham Brink, Sherri Day, Sebastian Dortch, John Hill, Jim Verhulst and Chairman and CEO Conan Gallaty. Follow @TBTimes_Opinion on Twitter for more opinion news.