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Cooperation In Local Government

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 13, 2008

Updated: 02/11/2008 09:34 pm

When I lived in Pensacola, jokes about local government spanned four centuries and more.

Don Tristan de Luna launched a colony in 1559, but something wiped out the settlement. Pensacola was rediscovered in 1686. Historians speculate that de Luna's outpost was destroyed by Indian uprisings or a catastrophic hurricane. Contemporary scholars attribute the calamity to some kind of fight between the city council and the county commission.

For those of us living in Hillsborough County, it's a story that resonates on many levels.

Turf protection, defensiveness and a lack of common purpose thwart attempts at cohesive government time and again.

Something is broken, and it's time for an end to the impasse.

Change, however, is anathema when institutions morph into self-serving entities.

It has become cliche in politics to promise such change, and we often elect leaders simply in response to their commitment to shake up the status quo.

But it's not long before reality sets in.

The sheer weight of "the way things are" soon puts a stop to the idealism and good intentions. The cutting edge is blunted, the shiny new public servant succumbs to institutional inertia, the lure of incumbency sucks the air out of politically risky innovations and, before we know it, our "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" is the very power broker he or she promised to dethrone.

Too soon, one more layer of resilience is added to the thick crust of inevitability that chokes the life out of "We the People" and discourages true believers with real ideas from entering the next race.

So "change" may sell as a campaign slogan, but it turns out we don't really mean it. The citizens who vote don't really mean it and the citizens who run for office evidently don't mean it either - or without the conviction and staying power to make their promises stick.

That's what happens when we attribute life-directing value to all the wrong things. We value consumer goods more than we value ideals, we value power more than we value freedom, and we value the illusion of prosperity more than real riches that are less tangible but significantly more precious over the long haul.

That's why I'm interested in the proposal that surfaced to unify certain aspects of city and county government. It's a simple idea (proposed by Hillsborough County Commissioners Al Higginbotham and Rose Ferlita), but to me it looks like a test case for further cooperation across the board.

Reaction has been mixed, but the undercurrent of territorialism has been hard to miss.

Of course, fiefdoms are not always bad. Ownership often facilitates a sense of responsibility, and there's nothing worse for a community than collective, free-floating blame when everyone can point the finger somewhere else because, "Hey, it's not my program."

But it's the spirit of the "merger" proposal that tickles my fancy. This county is fast becoming one huge urban blob and we have more concerns in common today than ever before. What's good for South Tampa is good for Temple Terrace is good for Brandon.

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio's thinly veiled implication that the county would use such opportunity to impose intolerance on city residents is condescending at best. We're going to have to do better than that if we want to face the future with any sense of forward progress in a region that is begging for a coherent approach to government.

At face value, these proposals are about saving money. That's a laudable commitment, to be sure, but there are deeper issues than financial solvency on the line.

Higginbotham and Ferlita are on to something. Now it's up to Iorio and the Tampa City Council to get onboard. Not necessarily because the "parks merger" idea is any kind of panacea but because cooperation is.

We, the people, expect it.

Columnist Derek Maul can be reached through www.derek maul.net.

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