{"id":18713,"date":"2012-12-17T16:27:29","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T21:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=18713"},"modified":"2012-12-17T16:27:29","modified_gmt":"2012-12-17T21:27:29","slug":"business-leader-uninspired-by-plans-for-west-tampa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=18713","title":{"rendered":"Business Leader Uninspired By Plans For West Tampa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY LEON B. CREWS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sentinel Staff Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no one more interested in seeing Black business owners in West Tampa prosper than <strong>Bennie Small. Small<\/strong>, President of the West Tampa Black Business Owners Association, said talk about what\u2019s in the future for West Tampa, definitely got his attention.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI envisioned Main Street and the surrounding areas returning to their days of glory when there were a lot of successful businesses in the area.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, I quickly discovered that\u2019s not the way things always turn out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Small<\/strong>, who has been attending meetings hosted by the West Tampa Chamber of Commerce, West Tampa Community Group, and other groups, said what he\u2019s heard so far hasn\u2019t inspired him to believe that Black businesses are going to fare any better than they have.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m working closely with the West Tampa Chamber of Commerce as they prepare to submit their plan to the City Council. My primary interest is that business opportunities become available to all of us when they start redeveloping our community.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think because everything is in a preliminary stage, this is the time to put our demands on the table, and make sure we get our share of work. We can provide a lot of jobs with these projects, and that would be beneficial to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Small<\/strong> said the first priority is to identify all of the professional service businesses in West Tampa, such as electricians, masons, plumbers, lawn maintenance, and light construction.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need to start training young men now as professionals and help them get licensed and bonded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a responsibility to prepare the next generation, because that\u2019s the only way we will be able to sustain what we\u2019re trying to get.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY LEON B. CREWS Sentinel Staff Writer There\u2019s no one more interested in seeing Black business owners in West Tampa prosper than Bennie Small. Small, President of the West Tampa Black Business Owners Association, said talk about what\u2019s in the future for West Tampa, definitely got his attention. \u201cI envisioned Main Street and the surrounding [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}