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Coffee Talk (Tampa edition)
Thank goodness for elections
Hillsborough County's retiring clerk of the circuit court, Richard Ake, has been known for a lot of things while working portions of five decades at the Pierce Street courthouse.
He has been competent, adverse to publicity, and - somewhat miraculously - untainted by scandal, despite the shenanigans swirling all around the building throughout his long career.
One thing Ake hasn't been known as is a trailblazer.
So it was with some amusement that Coffee Talk noticed a few weeks ago that Ake has taken to posting court dockets on his Web site. Better late than never.
Some of Ake's more progressive counterparts, such as R.B. "Chips" Shore at the clerk's office in Manatee County, have been putting their docket sheets up on the Web for years. They'd even allowed downloading of digital images of some court filings.
That was before the Florida Supreme Court imposed a moratorium on the latter practice last year, drawing criticism from open-government advocates and the real estate industry. (See "Moratorium is 'damaging,'" Coffee Talk, April 2-8.)
Why the Hillsborough clerk's sudden burst of customer-friendliness, on his way out the door?
Well, call us cynical, but there is an election this year. And Ake has anointed a potential successor from his staff. Helene Marks, Ake's legal counsel, has tossed her briefcase into the ring.
She, too, is a Democrat. But, unlike her complacent boss who cruised to re-election with little if any opposition, Marks will need victories in two tough election races to take Ake's place.
Grizzled pol Pat Frank, who is quitting the county commission to run in the Democratic primary, awaits next month. If Marks defeats the well-known Frank on Aug. 31, the lawyer could face former Republican commissioner Chris Hart in the Nov. 2 general election.
In other words, Marks, virtually unknown outside of the courthouse circles, could use all of the Ake help that she can get.
The St. Petersburg Times gave props to Ake for the online dockets by cheerily quoting - of all people - clerk's Legal Counsel Marks, who pointed out that hits on the Web site have almost doubled.
What, the IT guy wasn't available for an interview?
Interestingly, in order to get to the online dockets, computer users have to transverse the clerk's home page, www.hillsclerk.com. Featured on that page is another new wrinkle for the clerk's Web site: Charming photographs of Ake and five of his top aides.
Among those pictures, you may not be surprised to see, is one of Marks.
If free publicity for novice political candidates is the toll that has to be paid for online access to court dockets, far be it from Coffee Talk to complain.
Capable chairman appointed
Maybe it won't be as controversial of a term for 13th Circuit Chief Judge Manuel Menendez Jr. as he takes charge as 2004-05 chairman of the state's Judicial Nominating Procedures Committee. Florida Bar President Kelly Overstreet Johnson recently appointed the Hillsborough County jurist to succeed the committee's 2003-04 chairman, Tallahassee attorney Richard Edward Dorn of Ausley & McMullen.
The committee, under state constitutional authority, advises the governor and local judicial nominating commissions on a number of issues. That includes the organization and training of judicial nominating committee commissioners. It also offers those commissioners a forum for information sharing.
Earlier this year, Dorn's committee dealt with public criticism over the actions of some JNC commissioners in Broward County. Some judicial nominees criticized Broward JNC commissioners who inquired about their views on religious and political issues.
"That was probably the first incident of that kind that had been brought to wide attention in several years," Dorn says about the committee's dealing with that controversy.
Because of the public attention, Dorn says the committee of about 40 judges and lawyers recently adopted recommendations to help JNC commissioners avoid perceptions of inappropriateness. The training will stress that judicial candidates may talk about controversial issues so long as they acknowledge their opinions won't interfere with their ability to apply facts to appropriate statutory and case law.
Since he won't see the implementation of the new training guidelines, Dorn says it's appropriate that Menendez is the one who will oversee the changes.
"Chief Judge Menendez is going to make an excellent chair for our committee," Dorn says. "He is obviously very skilled in management and has a real commitment to the work of the committee. He has served on the committee for several years now, and has volunteered to assist with both the training sessions and these working groups I put together back in January. I'm excited to have him chair the committee for the next year."
No further comment
Urine-Off.
No, Coffee Talk is not talking about the latest Tampa Bay Lightning draft pick from Russia. Urine-Off is the name of a new product from a Sarasota spin-off of Environmental Biotech Inc.
A nice lady who answered our telephone call to Bio-Pro Research LLC assured us this was no hoax.
"Urine-Off permanently removes both the stain and odor of urine from practically any surface," according to the company's promotional material.
The product, available in bottle or spray, is said to be especially helpful to cat owners whose pets haven't quite gotten the hang of the litter box yet - and are about two more squirts away from the animal pound.
The nice lady told Coffee Talk that Bio-Pro got some national exposure on July 13 when the Home Shopping Network invited the company up to St. Petersburg to hawk Urine-Off on the cable television channel.
Regrettably, Coffee Talk missed both the 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. demonstrations of Urine-Off on HSN. So we cannot say how tastefully the segments were carried out.
But, if you want to see for yourself, Bio-Pro is mixing up another batch of Urine-Off and is scheduled to come back to show HSN shoppers again on July 29.
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