Bench agreement wins approval

By Barbara Johnson
Times Staff Writer


Tampa - They're a part of the landscape that no longer registers with the eyes but beckons the seat: thousands of wooden benches painted with commercial advertising or the Jacyees' loge.

On Wednesday, Hillsborough County Commissioners gave a new 10-year contract to Metropolitan Systems Inc. and several local Jaycees chapters to put the benches at county bus stops and along county roads and walkways.

The bench agreement wasn't put out for bid, and a potential competitor from Miami, Eric Nadel of U.S.A. Transit Inc protested that he could offer the county a better deal. Questioned by Commissioner Jan Platt, Nadel said his company would like to install benches with shelters at bus stops and would pay the county for that right. Metropolitan will pay the county nothing.

But the commission didn't consider his proposal and, when Nadel tried to interject further in the discussion, Commission Chairman Rubin Padgett told him to sit down. The commission gave the contract to Metropolitan. in part, at the urging of Jaycee representative Bruce Thomas, who also is a salaried public relations employee of the bench company, according to metropolitan president, Charles Rocker. Neither Rocker nor another Jaycee spokesman, past Tampa Jaycee president Alfred Falgiani, saw a conflict of interest in Thomas's role Wednesday.

Thomas, who wouldn't comment, is the statewide coordinator for the Jaycees' bench program, according to Falgiani and Rocker. Metropolitan holds the contract in all other Florida cities and counties where the Jaycee endorsed program exists, said Rocker. Rocker, Metropolitan's sole stockholder, said the bench program is more a public service venture with the Jaycees than a profitable business. He said he lost money in 1987 and made only a few thousand dollars in 1988.

But Nadel said that's not true in South Florida

A bench contract "is normally bid and the county or city receives a substantial amount of revenue from this," Nadel told commissioners. "There is a lot of money to be generated from the advertising rights because you are giving the right to advertise on the right of way."

Metropolitan has had the country contract since 1977. The agreement names four local Jaycee chapters and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Tampa as sponsors of the bench program.

The clubs typically get their names on some benches and the company sells commercial advertising on others. The agreement doesn't specify the number of benches to be devoted to charitable organizations.

Rocker said he and several other Jaycees started the bench program in 1950 as a way to publicize the organization, and in 1951 they formed a for-profit company to run it for the clubs. Later Rocker bought out the other Jaycees in the company.

According to County Commission minutes, Rocker said last year he put about 3,000 benches throughout Hillsborough County, of which 1,000 are in the unincorporated area. Rocker said Wednesday that 500 to 600 benches carry paid commercial advertising and raise about $130,000 a year. The revenue, he said, is used to pay the costs of running the bench program.

Commissioners Plat and Pamlorio voted against the new agreement with Metropolitan, preferring to look into more innovative and possibly more aesthetic approaches to providing public seating.

County Attorney Fred Karl said the agreement is not an exclusive right to install benches, and the county can order Metropolitan to remove benches without cause. But Ms. Platt said she considered the agreement exclusive in practice since only so many benches can be squeezed into a bus stop.

Nadal has made a proposal to also install bush shelters, which he hopes will be considered.