In the wake of last week's vote by the St. Petersburg City Council not to vacate the sidewalk that leads into the BayWalk retail complex, a vote that BayWalk owners had demanded before they would consider investing more money in the struggling mall, the activist group St. Pete for Peace says they will not protest on the sidewalk for at least the next year.

On the organization's website, the group writes:

The recent Baywalk/sidewalk proposal was an attack on free speech and would have set a dangerous precedent for our city and our country.  In last week’s city council vote, everyone's First Amendment rights were maintained and our right to demonstrate was upheld.  This is what we were striving for all along.

If the city and/or Baywalk’s owners again try to ban protesters from the public sidewalk in front of Baywalk, we will re-assess our position and again struggle to maintain people’s rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

This clearly puts the onus back on the owners, C.W. Capital, to put their money where their mouth is (okay, lame expression).  For months, they and their supporters in St. Pete have said that, despite the withering economy, they would only reinvest and could only re-market the complex by insuring that protestors could not disturb customers.  St. Pete for Peace has called their bluff.

Download the report here.

We knew that the Kevin White case was going to be brought up again today by Hillsborough County Commissioners at their bi-weekly meeting.

But we didn't know that Commissioner Rose Ferlita would be announcing that she plans to ask her fellow commissioners to sue White to get back some of the taxpayer funds that are associated with his sexual discrimination lawsuit.

In an exclusive in the St. Pete Times today Ferlita says

My motion is that, now that the taxpayers have settled, I think we need to litigate to see if we can get any money back from him," Ferlita said. "I don't think we should leave any stone unturned."

This should be interesting.  Ferlita has been a force on the Board since the White shenanigans became County business, after a Federal judge ruled that they were jointly liable with White in paying damages to the plaintiff in the case, Alyssa Ogden.  Attorneys' fees in the case have pushed the cost of the trial to approximately half a million dollars.  Ferlita on two previous occasions has asked White straight up if he could cough up any money.  The first time he said he would wait to speak to his counsel.  The second time, he didn't respond at all to Ferlita's question in public.

That discussion begins at 1:45 p.m. at the County Center in downtown Tampa.

As we commented on last week, Maurice Ferre will officially declare his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate today.

The Puerto Rican 74-year-old former Miami mayor will go up against Miami area Congressman Kendrick Meek, who is the prohibitive favorite in the race, because of name recognition, fundraising ability and a slew of major endorsements.

As we wrote yesterday, Marco Rubio created excitement yesterday among supporters and political observers by announcing that he raised nearly a million dollars in campaign contributions in the 3rd quarter of this year, which ended last Wednesday.

A spokesman for the campaign admitted to CL that they still expect to be "dwarfed" by GOP Senate opponent Charlie Crist's numbers, which he must announce by early next week.  It could be double the amount that Rubio raised.  But it's an important psychological breakthrough for the former House Speaker, who so far is killing the governor when it comes to enthusiasm.  But will there be a breakthrough in the next series of state polls?  The most recent had Crist way up.

Today marks the 8th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan, and there will be protests commemorating that fact this afternoon.

In Tampa, organizers are holding an event between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. at the corner of Gandy and Dale Mabry, on the Exxon Mobil station sidewalk.

It comes as President Obama continues to consider the strategy in that country at a deliberate pace.  Yesterday the president met with congressional leaders on the matter, which led to several interesting developments.  The NY Times reports that Obama got into it a bit verbally with his opponent from last year's election, John McCain, who reportedly said that “time is not on our side.” He added, “This should not be a leisurely process,” according to several people in the room.

This is becoming a new strain of criticism from those who want more troops in Afghanistan, and want them now.  On Sunday, former CentCom Commander General Anthony Zinni accused Obama of 'dithering'.

But just as important was what happened outside the meeting  — a reluctance by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to guarantee that Congress will write a blank check to keep on supporting this war.

Another important appropriator in Congress, Wisconsin Representative David Obey, is already on the record as saying after the last legislation approving funding for the war, that he wanted to see clear progress before advocating more spending.  Since all indications are the war is going worse than when he made those comments, perhaps it won't be up to President Obama to decide about greater troop strength.  Would House Democrats go up against their own leader?  Don't think it couldn't happen.