Fly on the Wall, Edition No. 25

The Fly buzzes around town to see what's up.

A new world's record

The Palmetto City Commission got a pat on the back Monday night after it adjourned at 8:15. That's at 8:15 p.m. (not a.m.)

It's a fact that some meetings can drag on and on at Palmetto City Hall, but without a CRA meeting and even with some pretty long debates, it was nice to escape into the frosty air and get home in time for "The Daily Show."

Welcome to É wherever you are

The Fly found lots of dedicated bridge players at the tournament that ends Sunday at the Manatee Civic Center. One crew of four men said they thought the event was in Bradenton, and had never heard of Palmetto.

It's nice to know that all that tourism money to push Palmetto's wonders is so well spent. Of course, Palmetto's been in the news because of its empty condo towers, whose units are selling for a song now.

Still, it was nice to see the Civic Center full of such happy people, though the bagels and coffee may have contributed to all those smiles.

Positive identification

The best part of the Port Authority meetings is before the meeting, when the Fly and his journalistic competitors hang out in the coffee room just off the meeting room to down coffee, devour doughnuts, watch the TV guys set up and chat with port people.

On Thursday, two guys from a stevedore company thought they were just chatting up two other guys, and then found out the awful truth: they'd just spilled the beans on the TIGER grants not being awarded to the port. "Who are you?" one guy said to the Fly and the Bradenton Herald reporter. Well, they didn't seem too happy to realize that they had just been talking to two reporters.

At the formal meeting, the port officials said nothing about the grants not being awarded, but executive director David McDonald expressed his disappointment at the outcome afterwards.

Background noise

Maybe the Fly has super-sensitive hearing, but it was loud in the meeting room on Thursday. The ventilation system was making a racket throughout the meeting and the sound was picked up on the Fly's audio recorder.

Or maybe they were piping in the sound of the ocean to remind us that we were near the sea.

The first time

The Fly can't be everywhere, so there are some meetings he misses. For the first time, though, he stopped at a Bradenton Planning Commission meeting. It was a pretty raucous affair, with the debate over school lights, and for an extra added bonus, the great St. Stephens-Smitty's battle got mentioned, even though it technically wasn't even on the agenda.

Somewhere in these government meetings, there's a reality show just dying to come out.

That's all until next time.