City Councilman says Ybor “is never going to get any better”
Joe Caetano (District 7, New Tampa area), speaking of crime in Ybor on October 4th at a regular City Council meeting said that our neighborhood "is never going to get any better" and that the City "can’t be spending all our money on police" to patrol the area on weekends. To anyone living in Ybor, those statements seem, at best, mean-spirited, but it also says something about the Councilman’s familiarity (or lack thereof) with Ybor and its recent history.
But there is something unfair about the whole situation that requires going a little more than a decade ago to understand. In the early to mid 90’s, our very own City Council handed liquor licenses left and right to anyone who wished to have one, despite our neighbors’ efforts to stop them. The environment created by such a high concentration of large drinking venues resulted in the Ybor of today: a hard-partying, crime-prone area. The City then tried to curve crime by saturating the area with police officers on weekend nights. Fast-forward to 2007, when a City Councilman wants to cut back funding for solving a problem the same Council created?
Is Ybor ever going to get better? Of course. Unlike Mr. Caetano, the rest of the Council and the Mayor understand (read: learned the hard way) that communities must be diverse, with a mix of business and residential. In fact, we are seeing the transition now, with every new neighbor that moves in. We just wish that our elected officials had a little faith.
Here is the snippet of the Council’s meeting transcript where Caetano comments on Ybor and crime related to bars:
11:22:58 I personally don’t think Ybor City is going to get any
11:23:00 better.
11:23:02 It’s costing us a tremendous amount of money for
11:23:05 police down there.
11:23:06 And I don’t think it will ever get better.
11:23:11 I just know recently as Westshore, we turned down a
11:23:15 project because they wanted to be open till 2:00 in
11:23:18 the morning because people are calling in.
11:23:19 It’s going to be another bar and there’s going to be
11:23:22 drunks around.
11:23:23 I think we better be more vigilant when we give out
11:23:27 these permits.
11:23:30 I supported the permit for Westshore.
11:23:34 But if this is the case we can’t be spending all our
11:23:37 money on police down in Ybor City.
