Obama Monday: June 14 BP Oil Spill Update

1. Oilcast.

That large oil sheen that's been hanging around anywhere from a few miles to half a mile off Pensacola Beach is bound to come ashore, and probably sooner rather than later. What we don't need is yet another BP storage tank washing up on Pensacola Beach.

2. Obama in Pensacola Tuesday.

Details are still sketchy and conflicting about President Obama's fourth trip to the Gulf Coast. He will be in Pensacola Tuesday, the PNJ says. And he will address the nation Tuesday night. That much seems certain.

CNN and the Associated Press separately are reporting this morning that he will return to Washington Tuesday night to "address the nation..." There are a few scattered reports that he will stay in Pensacola. The PNJ is reporting late this morning that traffic on Highway 98 through Gulf Breeze and across 3-mile Bridge will be closed Tuesday morning from 8 to 11 am.

If the president does stay in the Pensacola area it probably would be Monday night but it's anyone's guess where. We'd like to think it would be somewhere along Pensacola Beach. With just two road entrances to the island, security to protect the president from all the right-wing nuts around here would be easier.

And we have tarballs. If there aren't enough for mind-numbing TV visuals, maybe Orange Beach, Alabama, would lend us some oily pancakes.

Whadda ya think? If you were President Obama, would you rather stay in Julian MacQueen's Hilton Hotel with room service from its very fine H2O restaurant, or Republican Robert Rinke's Portofino condo complex where $10,000-a-week units now are so cheap you could put up the entire White House press corps for peanuts, or Jimmy Buffett's brand-spanking new, almost-ready-to-open Margaritaville Beach Hotel? (See left) The staff might be a little green, but the view of the oil slick should be breath-taking.

We'd be happy to offer President Obama the guest room in our humble home, but the BP oil catastrophe has She Who Must be Obeyed feeling stressed out lately. And, it might undermine her recent vow to follow Erma Bombeck's advice, which a friend says she imparted as she was dying, to "entertain more and clean less."

Actually, that's not an accurate quote and the late Ms. Bombeck didn't write it as she was dying. But shsh! Don't tell her. Life has been good lately as we entertain our friends, even if "the carpet is stained or the sofa is faded."

3. Shrimp Boats Are A-Skimming, They're Skimming Today.

The BP oil spill is giving new life to the very first, truly terrible Country-Western tune we can remember hearing as a child. "Shrimp Boats Are A-Coming" is a classic of this dubious genre. But it sounds a lot better if you slightly alter the idea to include the "collection of heavy, thick, dispersant-treated oil," as Rick Outzen reports an oil spill subcontractor has done:

The crew of one of the thousands of Vessels of Opportunity (VOO) working in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill recently recovered approximately two tons of tarball material in the Gulf of Mexico.

The recovery was the result of the kind of creative thought and innovation at work among the more than 27,000 people working around the clock in the Gulf of Mexico in the largest oil spill response in U.S. history.

Designed by Gerry Matherne, a BP contractor and nearshore task force leader, the idea is simple. A shrimp boat with outriggers on each side drags mesh oil-collection bags made of perforated webbing near the ocean surface. As the boat trawls to collect oil patches, the bags, attached to an aluminum frame, collect oil. When filled, the bags are disconnected from the frame by crew on support vessels, and then towed to a lift barge for hoisting into a collection barge.

Apparently, praise is pouring in: "creative" ... "efficient"... "effective"... "a great example of the heart and soul of the response." Rick has more, including a photo of showing some of the collected oil.

4. Florida Fishing Closed.

Late Sunday afternoon, state agencies "issued an executive order" temporarily closing about 27 miles of coastal state waters "offshore of Escambia County." The harvesting of "saltwater fish, crabs and shrimp" is banned, although "catch and release" is permitted.

A map has been issued showing the extent of the fishing ban (see above). Locally, the Pensacola Beach Fishing Pier (left) remains open for sight seeing and catch-and-release fishing.


5. Hurricane Watch.

A tropical wave of interest to hurricane watchers has formed about 1,400 miles East-Southeast of the Windward Islands. The National Hurricane Center said this morning that conditions are thought to be "conducive for development during the next day or so."

Computer spaghetti forecast models at this point are, so to speak, all over the map:

In addition to the National Hurricane Center, a useful web site for those who want to keep abreast of tropical developments is Jim Williams' HurricaneCity.com. Another is Central Florida Hurricane Center. Both have been at it for over a decade. We've found them essential resources in tropical times like these: reliable, responsible, and well informed.

Jim also maintains "Cane Talk," a message board where quite a few storm chasers, hurricane gurus, and others (including some Pensacola Beach residents) share storm information, answer questions from readers, and hash out where they think storms are headed. Spend a little time there and you'll soon figure out who has a good crystal ball and who is in need of serious counseling.

Dark Secrets on Pensacola Beach

Per curiam affirmances "are incompatible with the spirit of Florida's 'Government in the Sunshine' laws, whose purpose... is to prevent at non-public meetings the crystallization of secret decisions to a point just short of ceremonial acceptance."-- Krosschell, DCAs, PCAs, and Government in the Darkness, 1 Fla. Coastal L. Rev. 12 (1999)

Overnight, Pensacola news reporter Michael Stewart has written a second article about the Portofino real estate tax decision of the First District Court of Appeals. Is this guy prolific, or what?

Michael Stewart has more words at his fingertips than your average Florida appeals court judge scratches out in a month at five times the money! And that, of course, was the point of our baseball metaphor.

Much of Stewart's latest effort is devoted to gathering reactions from local pols to the really, really tough question, "How would you like to scoop up $19 million in extra tax money from a few folks with almost no voting power, for reasons the Florida appellate court has approved without articulating what those reasons may be?"

Naturally, Escambia County commissioner Mike Whitehead -- who's made a career of baiting beach residents for his mainland constituents -- offered up a reaction that rests on an outright lie. Whitehead is quoted as saying:

Beach residents use all the same services as other Escambia County residents, from the Sheriff's Office to the court system, and animal control to mosquito control.

Whitehead knows full well that from time immemorial Pensacola Beach residents annually are specially assessed Municipal Service Benefit Unit fees for county law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services, mosquito control, and, yes, even animal control. Like everyone else in Escambia County, they also pay court filing fees, state intangible taxes, sales taxes, and other assessments which, as elsewhere, in part go to support the state court system.

What Whitehead also knows is that it's a whole lot easier to get away with such public prevarications when judicial panels employed to decide the legality of adding new taxes routinely 'crystallize' their decisions in secret, in the dark.

Stewart roped in one more interesting reaction. Escambia County Property Appraiser Chris Jones told him "he had no choice but impose the taxes."

"I understand and empathize with leaseholders out there," Jones said. "But my job is to uphold the law."

Ironically, Jones appears to have done done this by attacking "a state law as part of the defense in a law suit disputing his or her assessments." That could be a problem for him in the still-pending lawsuit affecting all other Pensacola Beach residents.

Reporter Bests Florida Appeals Court

In a surprise victory that left hot dog munching onlookers stunned, Pensacola News Journal reporter Michael Stewart today overwhelmed Florida's First District Court of Appeals in a series of eight back-to-back appeals involving county taxation of Portofino Towers residential units on Pensacola Beach. Although out-manned 3 to 1, and technically disabled for want of a law degree, the PNJ's ace newsman wrote circles around the appeals court panel of judges Michael Allen, Marguerite Davis, and Paul Hawkes.

The final score was 301 words to 8. Stewart scored all of his words in a single newspaper article, written inside of an hour just today. He was dazzling behind the mound on his desk, frequently firing facts right down the pipe while masterfully mixing up his delivery with active verbs, multi-syllabic words, and the occasional off-speed historical fact or futuristic prediction. Here's just a sample:

A three-judge panel of the First District Court of Appeals upheld Escambia County Circuit Judge Frank Bell’s March 2007 decision that Portofino Towers condominium leaseholders must pay property taxes.

The court’s ruling released late Tuesday paves the way for payment of $19 million in back taxes by residents of the upscale condominiums.
* * *
Beach leaseholders do not own the land on which their homes and businesses are built. They pay lease fees and have argued beach taxes are not legal. Lease fees are for a minimum of 99 years, with many leases providing an option for an additional 99 years.

The three appellate court judges barely showed up to play. They had home field advantage and nearly a year to prepare their own opinions in the various Portofino cases, designated Nos. 07-2292, 07-2293, 07-2293, 07-2294, 07-2296, 07-2297, 07-2298, and 07-2305.

Yet, the trio of high-salaried judges only managed to dink out a single bush-league word, repeated eight times: "Affirmed." Everybody was left stranded on the constitutional bases.

As we have noted before with this court, "that's 2.66 alphabet letters for each of the three judges." At an annual salary of $147,524 per judge -- assuming they all contributed equally to the effort -- writing that single word "affirmed" works out to $55,460.15 for each of the three judges. By contrast, we're guessing that news reporter Stewart draws a salary of ten cents for every whole word, on his best days.

Onlookers disappointed in the pricey judges' curiously laconic performance may seek season-ending tickets to a bigger league.

Dept. of Further Amplification

Dark Secrets on Pensacola Beach
More from reporter Michael Stewart about less from the Florida appeals court.

For Whom Bell Tolls: Portofino Taxes

Judge Frank Bell ruled that Escambia County is legally authorized to impose ad valorem taxes on Portofino condo unit owners, according to Michael Stewart's abbreviated article in today's Pensacola News Journal. The unpublished opinion was filed last week but just came to public attention today.

That has to be devastating news for the five-tower high-rise complex. At last count, more than 120 units were listed for sale. Many more were rumored to be "pocket listings" -- not listed anywhere but readily available for purchase if you knew your way around the local real estate swamp. Now that real estate taxes have to be taken into consideration, the market will be just that much smaller and slower.

Explains Stewart:

Because beach leaseholders do not own the land on which their homes and businesses are built, they pay lease fees and have argued beach taxes are not legal. Leases are for a minimum of 99 years, with many leases providing an option for a second 99 years.

Earlier, a similar ruling rendered Pensacola Beach businesses subject to property taxation on their commercial rental land leases.

Among the lawsuits yet to be decided by the courts is a homeowner residents' suit. Many have considered that one to be the strongest case of all because of the explicit written, oral, and even state statutory promises that beach leaseholds and improvements would be tax-free, promises which Escambia County consistently made over the decades in an effort to develop the island.

The Portofino development wasn't leased until 1999, by which time the county had stopped making tax-free promises. The strong record of historic tax-free promises didn't affect Navarre Beach, either, where serious development didn't get underway until the mid-1980's. In any event Santa Rosa County never engaged in the same "tax free" public marketing strategies.

Even so, some residents are pessimistic. Florida courts don't have a good record for requiring Escambia County to keep its governmental word. That pessimism may explain why one person even sold evidence of Escambia County's "tax-free promise" pamphlets on Ebay a while ago.

The winning bidder paid $20.50 for the evidence. That may be the most anyone ever makes out of the otherwise worthless promises of Escambia County -- except, of course, for the lawyers and real estate brokers.

Someone knew what he was doing when he borrowed the Creek Indian word for "money exchange" to name Escambia County.

Dept. of Amplification

Must-Have Pensacola Beach Book: William L. Post's "Deceit Beach"