How a Story gets Spun

Gina King, Zepyrhills councilperson, has been accessable to just about anyone who contacts her. It's been that way since her landslide election just over a year ago.

So, what was a girl to do when she was approached by a bunch of guys, all wearing guns? Seems they had a bunch of beefs and they wanted to take them up with her. They came by twos and threes to her house. Then they mojoed up a big meeting to which she came. I did mention these were big guys with guns didn't I?

The point here, and it's an important point, is that these guys were persuing her, not the other way around.They were most of the city's police officers, and they felt that Ms. King was the most approachable member of the city's governing structure. Remember now, they sought her out, she wasn't out trolling for cops with grievances.

And grievances the cops had. They hated working back to back weeks with no days off. They hated that because they could do the math and match up hours to be covered by men (and women) to cover them. They also were embarassed by their Chief and some of his antics. And they were afraid to use their chain of command because it would lead right into the lion's jaws. So they sought out Gina.

Now, watch how things spin.

A story appears in the St. Pete Times that purports to tell the story, but it includes lenghty quotes from the city manager to the effect that Councilwoan King violated City Charter rules by meddling in operational affairs. Fact is, there is no provision in the charter that prevents a concil person from doing about whatever they want. So that's a misstatement.

Then there's the quote from the Chief who states that it's 'unusual.'

What's unusual is that the Chief didn't seem to know there was discontent in his rank and file. We have noticed that the Chief seems obsessed with kids riding skateboards at the city's skateboard park without helmets.

The city manager whined that the officers should have come to see him. Sadly, he was on vacation when the issue percolated to the top.

But then, look at it from the cop's side: if they played strictly by the rules they would be taking their grievances directly to the people who had put them in the pickle, and these same folks were the ones who could discipline them. They looked around, found Ms King who has an open door policy and exercised that age old tactic of lobbying their legislator. If that suddenly becomes a no-no there will be a lot of Washington types looking for work.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) the Tampa Trib should have a story about the embroglio, probably with a slightly different spin and hopefully, some nice tart quotes from Ms. King.

Our prediction is that heads will roll if there's even a scintilla of hanky panky. It's one thing when you have a squad of cops looking for evildoers all over the city. It's quite anothere when they all are looking indwardly at just one or two leaders. Just one misstep it all it takes.

Meanwhile the story will keep spinning and maybe even escalating until something else comes along. As I recall, it was about this time last year that the city administration managed to misplace about a half million dollars. Gosh, never a cop around when you need 'em.
Arjay