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Complaints about Pier Park already rolling in

in The Bay and the 'Burg/Top Headlines by

Watch out St. Pete, the pitchforks are coming. While there is no doubting there will be any number of arguments laid out before city leaders and residents about why building the latest approved design for a new pier is a bad idea, there’s already some garbage poking off the bottom of those yard tools.

Ladies and gentlemen, complaint number one is the lack of two types of businesses on the Pier Park design team. During the Request for Qualification period, teams were required to identify whether or not they included an SBE -– a small business enterprise.

Minority business enterprises and women business enterprises have also been lumped into this category.

It all started with one statement during the nine-hour meeting last week when it was brought up by one of the Pier Selection Committee members who originally ranked Pier Park dead last of the four still standing. James Jackson, who works as a city architect for Tampa, pointed out that in his city a team not having an SBE or an MBE on their team would be disqualified.

Pier Park doesn’t have those and they weren’t disqualified and Destination St. Pete Pier supporters are in a tizzy over it.

“The Council and Mayor should vote down a company that does not provide MBE and SBE representation,” said Robert Neff, a frequent commenter on Pier-related posts. “This is a large contract and the city’s procurement and culture has been to support minority businesses.”

Neff, and others making a similar argument, say Pier Park should have been disqualified because it didn’t include a required component during the Request for Qualification period.

“Interested Teams are invited to submit a detailed SOQ including portfolios of accomplishments that demonstrate organization, experience, capabilities, key staff, use of SBEs and the Team’s vision, theme and design approach, as well as the capability and experience of the Team, and all other information required by this RFQ,” the original document reads.

That paragraph asks teams to outline an intent, which Pier Park did. In a side-by-side comparison of elements, Pier Park is the only one of the three final teams to not list an SBE or MBE in that column.

According to City Architect Raul Quintana, those qualifications were not required.

“It’s in the evaluation criteria,” Quintana said.

The referenced RFQ language simply asks a team to indicate whether they have an SBE or MBE on their team.

“It’s suggested,” Quintana added.

That means even though Neff is correct in his assertion that Pier Park does not have minority or small business representation on their team, it does not disqualify them. Instead, it was one of many factors that had to be considered in making a decision.

“Among everything else they had to consider, I’m not saying it’s not important, but it’s not going to make or break it,” Quitana said.

The problem is, the comparison of elements made available to the public shows them being “required.” That easily gives opponents of Pier Park a pretty solid reason to discredit Quintana and they’re not backing down.

“That response would be the same if it was Destination or any [other design]. Here, Pier Park responded no,” Neff said clarifying that it wasn’t just a response to a design he didn’t like.

However, Neff frequently links to pro-Destination St. Pete social media and webpages.

The minority business issue isn’t the only one creeping up in the days following the selection committee’s ranking.

A Facebook page previously established to discredit the Lens but now used to tout Destination St. Pete Pier called, “WOW the Lens sucks” points out Pier Park’s graphics distributed to the selection committee and displayed for the public include a phase two round of projects that aren’t included in the $33 million construction budget.

Those items shown but not budgeted are a slip for a future high- speed ferry stop, a restaurant in the Pelican Parking lot, courtesy boat slips and additional coastal thicket. They angrily point out Destination St. Pete Pier designers were required to remove a $300,000 waterfall from its graphics due to budgeting issues, so why was Pier Park allowed to keep its extras?

The page’s administrators are marketing this oversight as a repeat of 2013’s failed Lens project in which the public was sold on millions of dollars worth of extras not included in the city’s budget. Mark this one as a fairly legit argument.

Some other extraneous complaining coming from critics include the “we already have parks” group.

“But those parks don’t represent ‘The City of Parks’ well enough. The park that will make this City NOTHING but parks, would be Pier Park,” wrote James DeRusha on Facebook following it up with “NOT” to emphasize his sarcasm.

Then there’s the “it’s too gosh darn big” argument.

“How many know Pier Park is huge compared to the inverted pyramid. Big eyesore, birds will nest and catch bird poop,” wrote Neff. Surely he meant the large structure planned for the Pier head at Pier Park would catch bird poop, not birds nesting.

This one from Carolyn Boudreau-Glaudel is a tad ironic.

“I hope they dont (sic) expect much. instead (sic) of the toilet bowl, people now want another Dali museum. (its (sic) what I call it because it looks soo(sic) much alike),” she wrote perhaps not realizing that the lead architect for Destination St. Pete Pier is Yann Weymouth, the guy who literally designed the Dali Museum.

Boudreau-Glaudel goes on to call St. Pete’s elected officials, “morons.”

“Did the Florida sun fry their brains? Have they been pickling their brains with great quantities of alcohol? The people are so much smarter than these government officials,” wrote someone clearly of superior intelligence.

Then there’s Kelly Andersen, who thinks the city’s leaders are just “greedy.”

“I did not choose this design, nor did I choose Destination St (sic) Pete as my first choice but by far Destination was the PEOPLES (sic) CHOICE.”

So, with only four days under Pier Park’s belt, looks like they’ve got a lot of enemies. It’s going to be a long road, folks.

Janelle Irwin has been a professional journalist covering local news and politics in the Tampa Bay area since 2003. She also hosts a weekly political talk show on WMNF Community radio. Janelle formerly served as the sole staff reporter for WMNF News and previously covered news for Patch.com and various local neighborhood newsletters. Her work has been featured in the New York Daily News, Free Speech Radio News and Florida Public Radio and she's been interviewed by radio stations across the nation for her coverage of the 2012 Republican National Convention. Janelle is a diehard news junkie who isn't afraid to take on big names in local politics including Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, the dirty business of trash and recycling in St. Pete and the ongoing Pier debacle. Her work as a reporter and radio host has earned her two WMNF awards including News Volunteer of the Year and Public Affairs Volunteer of the Year. Janelle is also the devoted mother to three brilliant and beautiful daughters who are a constant source of inspiration and occasional blogging fodder. To contact, email [email protected]

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