BY LEON B. CREWS<\/b><\/p>\n
Sentinel Staff Writer<\/b><\/p>\n
Early Friday morning, former Tampan, Andre White<\/b>, convinced the opponents involved in the skateboarding rink (Bro Bowl) debate to sit down and talk.<\/p>\n
With White<\/b> acting as a mediator, Fred Hearns<\/b>, who opposes the effort to have the Bro Bowl declared a historic landmark, met with Shannon Bruffett<\/b>, who represents the Skateboarding Heritage Foundation, and initiated the effort to have the skateboarding rink at Perry C. Harvey Park declared as a historic landmark.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter reading and hearing so much about this issue, I decided to try to build bridges to make peace,\u201d said White<\/b>.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not easy with so much hostility, but my dad came to me in a dream, and told me I needed to get involved by uniting everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
So on Friday, White <\/b>joined Bruffett<\/b> and Hearns <\/b>at the skateboarding rink where they joined hands in prayer. Afterwards, all three men walked across the street to have a closed-door meeting at Bethel Baptist Church.<\/p>\n
After the meeting, Hearns <\/b>said he thought it was productive, but now he\u2019ll just have to see what\u2019s going to happen in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it makes the National Register, I believe Shannon <\/b>may be open to some compromise. If it doesn\u2019t it will be up to the city and Tampa Housing Authority to decide the fate of the rink.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the meantime, I will continue to lobby for the nomination to not be approved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hearns<\/b> said he appreciated the effort of White<\/b> bringing he and Bruffett<\/b> together, and without that, he believes they would have never had any one-on-one contact.<\/p>\n
\u201cAndre<\/b> was very instrumental in at least getting us to sit down and talk to each other. No one wants to end skateboarding. We\u00a0 just want to relocate it in the park.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bruffett<\/b> said all-in-all, Friday was a great day, and he thought it was great he and Hearns<\/b> found some common ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was happy to walk away with some friends after the meeting. I still want to proceed and make sure all the\u00a0 history is acknowledged, and just work together with everyone in a positive manner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we can find it in our hearts to work together, and come up with something that will benefit everyone. I\u2019m saddened about all the negative press that has come out of this, because that\u2019s not who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
White<\/b> said he believes things will work out, and he plans to contact Bruffett <\/b>again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of things that haven\u2019t been discussed, and not on the table. I think people need to be more honest about what\u2019s at stake.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems everyone knows what\u2019s at stake, with the exception of the public. There are a lot of issues here, and I believe we will get things straightened out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BY LEON B. CREWS Sentinel Staff Writer Early Friday morning, former Tampan, Andre White, convinced the opponents involved in the skateboarding rink (Bro Bowl) debate to sit down and talk. With White acting as a mediator, Fred Hearns, who opposes the effort to have the Bro Bowl declared a historic landmark, met with Shannon Bruffett, […]<\/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-23285","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\/23285","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=23285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}