Mitch Perry Report 1.11.13 - Are we all good with more guns in schools?

There are a lot of things going on at the Hillsborough County School District these days, but when school board chair April Griffin appeared on WMNF's >Last Call radio program yesterday afternoon, all anybody wanted to talk about was Superintendent MaryEllen Elia's plan to spend school district funds to arm every school in the district.

While the Tampa Bay Times editorial page takes issue with that, we caught Commissioner Mark Sharpe's tweet last night that the Times was "all wet on the issue."

Some of the callers on the radio program said they previously worked as security guards, and made disparaging claims about how effective the training actually is. Hopefully Griffin and other board members will be asking some tough questions about who is actually going to be hired and what type of training they have when this issue comes before the board next week.

Speaking of something completely different, although lots of folks (especially in Pinellas County) appreciate the conservative stance of the Tampa Tribune's editorial page, we've never seen that coverage bleed too much into the regular news pages. Well, not usually. But what is one to make of this completely one-sided take of what a couple of people in Tampa think about the fact that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was too ill to attend his own inauguration yesterday.

I wrote up my preview of this weekend's NFL playoff games yesterday, but I have to admit the more I read about how former player Junior Seau suffered from a debilitating brain disease that may have contributed to personality changes and been a factor in his suicide, I realize that whether it's the equipment, the NFL has to continue to change to make the game safer, or it won't be worth watching in a few years when we realize that it truly is American Gladiators knocking themselves out each weekend for our entertainment.

Down in St. Petersburg, a proposal for a local hiring ordinance was shelved - again - by Mayor Bill Foster.

And the Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County finally has a new CEO.