Howard Troxler wants to emphasize that he's not leaving the St. Petersburg Times next month after a brilliant 29-year career in Tampa Bay area journalism because he's disgusted with the state of affairs in the Rick Scott era.
The three-times-a-week columnist stunned his readers (though not all of his colleagues) when he announced in April that he'd be publishing his last column on Sunday, June 12. But it's not every day that the most popular political columnist for the most popular daily newspaper in Florida calls it quits, and at 52, isn't it a little early to call it a career?
Perhaps, but Troxler has been reporting and writing about politics professionally for more than 30 years, beginning while he was still in college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For him, it's a matter of going home.
"Some of my friends have joked with me that the Legislature finally has got to me, or 'you finally got fed up' — this is not true at all." Troxler insists that he would love to stick around and churn up material on our elected officials and the nefarious and absurd things they do, but says, "It just really seemed like a good time in my life to do this."
"This" is moving with his wife to the Asheville area of North Carolina, the state where both have deep roots. Lynn Casey Troxler is CFO of a financial services company and can work from anywhere, but her corporate headquarters are in nearby Raleigh, North Carolina, and more importantly, so are her family members.
Nevertheless, some of his readers have reached the inescapable conclusion that the proceedings in Florida have gotten to him. Pinellas County Sierra Club member Cathy Harrelson, who calls Troxler the sublime essayist of our lives, says she noticed a less optimistic columnist after observing a speech he gave at a Pinellas library last year.
"Before and during this year's legislative session, as I read Howard's columns, they became more strident, filled with genuine outrage," she told CL in an email. "It seemed that the wise and funny man who fit so naturally in the center of the maelstrom, who could see it from all sides, who treated issues fairly, just couldn't do that anymore."
Over the past year, Troxler has been more relentless than ever on certain issues, like the leadership funds the Legislature brought back after 23 years ("campaign slush funds," he calls them) and the lavish $48 million "Taj Mahal" built for the First District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee, initially reported upon by his Times colleague Lucy Morgan.
In a column written last September, Troxler wrote no fewer than six times a variation of the sentence "Make them move," imploring readers to contact their legislators to demand that the entire court move out of its opulent new quarters. It didn't happen.
Was this kind of rhetoric reflective of an increased frustration with the system? No, Troxler says. In a conversation with CL at Ybor City's Green Iguana, he pointed out that in both cases the issues demonstrated the need for repetition in writing, which he makes no apologies for. In fact, he says there needs to be more of it.
"Every time I write a column in the newspaper, somebody is reading it who never has read a column of mine before," he says, describing how editors will stop a reporter or columnist from revisiting a subject because "we've already said that."
"And, I don't care how many times we've said that," he counters. Since newspapers are no longer the dominant media voice in the culture, they should repeat themselves more frequently on important subjects, he feels, citing as an example the Florida Legislature's repeal of 25 years of growth management laws. He says this should be a banner headline "every day" in the paper, until everyone is aware of it.
One of Troxler's bosses, Editor of Editorials Tim Nickens, says he was always aware of his ace columnist's deep love for his native state. But even he admits to being a bit surprised by the timing of his announcement.
What also surprises some of Troxler's fans is that he doesn't have any immediate plans. But he says after working 33 years for newspapers and 23 years writing columns, it will be a relief not to say anything anymore, at least for now.
It all started for him in the Research Triangle of North Carolina. While attending UNC, he also began reporting for the News & Observer in nearby Raleigh, in the state capitol. After graduating, he said he felt he had to move somewhere, because if he didn't leave the area that he loved, he never would. The Tampa Tribune soon hired him in March of 1982, when he had just turned 23.
From there, his rise was meteoric. In 1986, he was named the Tallahassee bureau chief for the Trib at the age of 26, and after finishing that stint he aimed to become an editor.
But in 1988, the Tribune's executive editor and vice president, Doyle Harvill, had the idea instead to make him a daily columnist, resurrecting a column called "Palm Tree Politics" that used to run in the Tampa Times.
Former CL News & Politics Editor Wayne Garcia, who worked with Troxler at the Tribune and Times and has known him for more than 20 years, says he believed that Harvill had a tremendous impact on Troxler. "The precepts of standing up to power, of representing the people tirelessly, and watching after things that nobody else wanted to watch after, I think Howard got that from Doyle Harvill early in his career."
Troxler agrees. "This is a man who might say to a new reporter — go cover the Port Authority. And the reporter would act like it was the worst thing in the world. And Doyle would get mad and give him a 20-minute profane lecture on how damn important the Port of Tampa was: 'Do you know what a Port is? Do you know what they load on ships? Do you know they have the power to put a tax on every house in this county, and you tell me you don't care about that!?'"
Troxler says he loved it, but Harville was notoriously hard-charging, and there was a down side to that style. And he wasn't sure about the Trib's viability in the future.
So when the cross-bay St. Petersburg Times called him in 1991, and asked if he wanted to become their Metro columnist (and write only three columns a week instead of five), Troxler seized the moment and never looked back. And he's written his Times column ever since, with the exception of a two-year interregnum to cover the 1996 national elections — a major turn-off for Troxler, who said the boys on the bus were infected by horse-race politics that he considered very superficial. "I would break away and write about issues, which nobody cared about," he mused.
Troxler has won a slew of awards for his columns over the years, including from CL readers. Admirers say what sets him apart is his unique ability to explain government to readers in a simple, humorous and non-ideological fashion. Wayne Garcia calls him "the great explainer. He loves to explain something, and in the explanation he reveals his stance on something."
Dan Ruth, for years a competitor at the Tampa Tribune but now a colleague at the Times, says Troxler does what all opinion writers strive for, which is to get to the heart of the matter as soon as possible and try to explain to readers why they should care about it.
Troxler's words have not only informed readers and influenced lawmakers, they have also inspired writers and activists.
WMNF News reporter Janelle Irwin says the Times columnist is one of the reasons she has gotten so involved in following politics. "His descriptions of events, policies, people, whatever, made me want to share in that kind of passion."
And of course, Troxler has skewered many politicians over the years. When it comes to certain topics, most recently the leadership funds, he has been a one-man gang urging readers to tell lawmakers what's wrong.
"When he gets on an issue like leadership funds, we received a lot of calls and emails... because they had read Howard's column, and they were outraged," says New Port Richey Republican state Senator Mike Fasano.
Other favorite non–sexy issues that Troxler has focused on include the Public Service Commission, insurance, money in politics, corruption, all the things that make Florida politics great.
Has he gotten angrier? Dan Ruth says columnists "walk that duality" between having tremendous material that the Florida Legislature presents on a daily basis. But as a citizen, "you get very frustrated, and I think his columns reflected that."
Wayne Garcia says if there has ever been a time to be brutally direct, it's now. "I think if you disagree with about what's going on [in FL government], you strongly disagree."
From his days writing "Palm Tree Politics," Troxler has notoriously bashed both Democrats and Republicans alike. More often these days it's the GOP, but why wouldn't it be? The Democrats are so outmanned that for the most part in Tallahassee they're simply afterthoughts. When asked what he sees as the difference between the two parties in Florida, he says he has to divide that question into power and policies.
In the arena of utility deregulation, tax breaks, "slimy" lobbying activities, secret budget deals, "there is no moral distinction between a Democratic majority and a Republican majority" when they're in power.
But when it comes to public policy, and the just-completed Legislative session that he has referred to as one of the worst of the past three decades, he does whack the Republicans, saying some of their actions are "serious mistakes. I think they're rolling Florida back to a pre-1980s 'backwardism,' and I think the people of Florida will be amazed and disappointed when they see the full effect of it."
Speaking to WMNF radio back in 2006, Troxler told reporter Roxanne Escobales that he never faulted the voters for their actions. But in the wake of Floridians voting for Rick Scott in 2010, CL asked him if he still really believes that.
"People who fault the voters are typically the loser of elections. And there are things that I wish personally for my own values and own priorities they hadn't done. I wish they hadn't passed the gay marriage ban. There's a lot of things I wish the voters hadn't done, but that doesn't mean they were wrong and I was right," he says.
But Tampa Bay area readers won't have Troxler describing it anymore. State Senator Mike Fasano calls his departure a "huge void." Others contacted for this story agree.
So what is next for this legendary newsman, who just turned 52 in March? He says that it's possible that he might write a book at some point, but it's not on his radar right now. He's sold his house, and will begin packing it up and preparing to return to the North Carolina mountains in mid-June.
In journalism these days, it's rare for somebody to leave any gig voluntarily. And rarer still when that reporter is still at the top of his game as Troxler is.
But he's unsentimental about it all.
"Basically, I'm tired of listening to myself talk, so I'm not going to talk for a while."
The silence will be deafening.