Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 23

How much are houses going for in your neighborhood? 8B TAMB1 TOCONTACTUS ABOUT NEWS: By phone: 226-3366 By fax; 226-3381 By e-mail: tampasptimes.com SECTION MONDAY, HAY 2 2 2 0 0 0 THE TIMES Quality of Life Index quick fe A temporary facility will be set up next to the charred Ybor City building as officials look for other suitable space. post office in Ybor City, officials on Sunday were preparing to set up a temporary facility next to the charred building to keep service running. Spokesman Gary Sawtelle said employees will be on hand in the rear parking lot from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. to serve customers who had post office boxes in the building.

On Saturday, the post office began rerouting mail from that office through its facility on Hillsborough Avenue. Sawtelle said officials expect no delays with first-class and priority mail. All oth er classes should be back on schedule by midweek, he said. "We are looking to find a more permanent site in the neighborhood, a storefront or lease some space, to more permanently serve customers," Sawtelle said Sunday. "In the meantime, we are going to set up a double-wide trailer on the site and install some boxes.

Maybe in about a week, we will start to offer retail service out of there, selling stamps and that sort of thing." Service was first interrupted Friday By MICHAEL SANDLER TimStiHWrit.r Traditionally, the United States Postal Service has staked its reputation on being able to deliver the mail regardless of external circumstances. So two days after a fire destroyed the A diamond in the rough Rio. Kr ft -T i cA 3 Our times as told by Average drive-through times in minutes and seconds from menu board to departure at Wendy's: 2:30 Average drive-through times of McDonald's: Average drive-through times of Checkers: Average drive-through times of Burger King: 2:47 2:49 2:51 Number of wildfires in Florida since Jan. 1: Number of acres burned: Number of acres destroyed by wildfires in the arid summer of 1998: Number of homes destroyed or damaged in 1998: 2,800 82,000 500,000 300 Expected average increase in monthly bill for Florida Power customers, starting in July, because of higher oil prices: Average monthly bill with increase: Expected average monthly increase for Tampa Electric Co. customers: Average monthly bill with increase: Expected average monthly increase for Florida Power Light customers: Average monthly bill with increase: $2.96 $86.72 $267 $84.12 $4.39 $74.12 Sources ara on Pag 11B Overheard He complained about trying to find work.

He complained about not having any food in his refrigerator, and about not having the time or money to get groceries. He talked about his parents, how they were supposed to hook him up with some money but they didn't" Ronald Bogdahn, a neighbor of Harry Green, recalling what Green talked about in the days before Green was shot dead in an exchange of gunfire with deputies attempting to serve a warrant charging him with the robbery of a department store at Citrus Park Town Center. The county's losing 112 acres of public land that will forever be gone. Hillsborough County Commissioner Jan Piatt talking about a 4-3 vote to approve the sale of county-owned land to a developer with plans to build a subdivision. Two years ago, the county vowed to protect the land from development Somehow, the 'or didn't stick in my brain." India Williams, consumer affairs manager for the Tampa Water Department explaining the confusion that ensued when district water officials restricted lawn watering to the morning "or the evening one day a week, not morning "and" evening.

66 We can't fathom any of this happening." Michele Karpenko, a friend of Carrolfwood homemaker Kathie Freeman. Investigators say Freeman drove to the home of her ex-husband, Tampa lawyer Grover Freeman shot him 14 times and then attempted suicide by jumping off the Sunshine Skyway bridge. They thought the costumes were too revealing, but I'm not changing them" Kenneth Mitchell, artistic director of the American Stage theater and director of its current Twelfth Night Fever" production, explaining why donors with the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay yanked $39,000 in support after complaining that the show was too risque. Back in my generation, they'd be the Cleavers." Bob McQuilkin, former Tampa Catholic cross-country coach of 21-year-old murder suspect Earl Hinson, talking about Hinson's family and suburban upbringing. Hinson is charged, along with another man, with shooting to death a pizza delivery driver and stealing his car and $150 in cash and checks, then attempting to kill a restaurant manager hours later.

Belmont Heights Little League players congratulate each other after a Devil players come from Tampa's poorest neighborhoods. Some think baseball Tkttm photo TOM SANDYS Rays-Mets game May 1 0. Most of the keeps them out of trouble. morning after a forklift operator snapped a power line on 20th Street and Palm Avenue. The live wire started a fire that sent flames through a two-block area.

No one was killed, but the fire caused nearly $40-million in damage, mostly to the 454-unit apartment complex being built by Camden Development Inc. and to the post office. Sawtelle said officials have yet to determine how much mail was lost "It happened so quickly," Sawtelle Please see SERVICE 11 XL PASCO TbnM ait 6 survive night in gulf after boat sinks The three men and three women talked, joked and kept each other awake; two couples ended up engaged. By AMY WIMMER TimStftWrttr CLEARWATER Mary Jane Grau turned to her boyfriend, the man she nicknamed "Skipper" after the boat captain on Gilligan's Island. The skipper, Bryan Henegar, had just watched his boat inexplicably sink into the dark Gulf of Mexico late Saturday.

Now he and five of his closest friends were floating in saltwater 14 miles offshore, clinging to the three life preservers and one plastic foam cooler they had salvaged. "I'm going to die tonight, aren't Grau recalled saying to her boyfriend. "You're not going to die tonight," Henegar said. "If I don't die tonight, we're going to get married," she said. "Okay," Henegar said.

we get out, well get married." Sunday morning, by the light of day, as "Skipper," Grau and their friends were hoisted onto their rescuers' boat, plans were on for not just one wedding, but two. In the darkness of Saturday night and early Sunday, as the six Please see RESCUE 1 1 same block? Could they be ticketed? That won't happen, he answered. The attendants are covering each block every 15 minutes to half-hour. Once you leave, your tag is deleted. I asked: Why should a driver be punished for moving his or her car into a new parking space on the same block? That's just the way the ordinance is written, he answered.

Some cities do it by the space. Some do it by the block. Some are even harsher, and give you only one visit per block per day before assuming you are a violator. The French-made pay stations are being re-erected downtown as part of a deal with the manufacturers. We sent half of the original 225 back, and agreed to use the rest The company is paying the cost of re-fitting them.

Oropesa, who came here from Reading, in the spring of 1999, said if it were up to him he would "buy a couple thousand single-space meters." But a deal is a deal, so he is making the best of the pay stations. All in all, his explanations at least sounded more rational than anything coming out of City Hall on this topic in years. Boat sinks, 1 6 rescued i i Sand CoaM--" Key guard Station Its players come from poor neighborhoods and its fields are but the Belmont Heights League has pride in past and faith in its future. DANIELSON Writer stand, stealing everything from catcher's masks to corn dogs. Both the thief and the vandal attacked the Belmont Heights Little League as if they had never heard of the major leaguers it has produced, the world championship it won and the World Series titles it almost won.

Bostick shrugs it off. In the neighboring public housing projects, he says, kids have seen a lot worse. "All you do is keep playing and keep your faith that things are going to get better," he said. And if there is anyone who knows the truth of that statement, it may be Monty Bostick. Searching for saviors In a city rich in baseball history, the Belmont Heights Little League holds a special place.

In the 1970s, Tampa's most talented black kids flocked to its fields, just as the sons Please see BELMONT 10B TAMPA about two hours before game time, and Belmont Heights Little League president Bostick is getting ready for another of baseball. He has a rake in one hand, bag in the other, and he is picking up vandal has knocked over trash cans and litter everywhere: in the parking lot, under bleachers, near the dugouts. It is one a thief ransacked the concession game we play but never seem to win "Ml you do is keep playing and keep your faith that things are going to get better." MONTY BOSTICK, president of the Belmont Heights Little League Parking is a 77" he city of St Petersburg," Phil 1 1 Oropesa began, "has been playing this game since back in 1958." To prove his point, Oropesa, who is the city's parking manager, dumped a foot-high stack of reports and studies on the table. Sure enough, they dated back to the 1950s and early 1960s. They generally said one of two things: (1) St.

Petersburg needs more parking meters. (2) St Petersburg needs fewer parking meters. Life is a cycle. At one point, St. Petersburg had 5,000 parking meters on the streets.

But the city's downtown merchants in the 1960s demanded free parking to compete with that new threat the shopping mall. Tunes change. Today's merchants want turnover in downtown parking. Most of them are in favor of time limits or some sort of metered parking. There is constant pressure on the city.

The City Council, bless its collective heart has tried. To be more accurate, the patchy, little players By RICHARD Time Staff I is Monty evening a trash garbage. A stre.wn the week after cars back and forth, hoping to erase or cover up the chalk mark. Others say, why fool around, and just wipe the mark off (illegally, of course). Then there's the strategy of moving one's car to another space.

However, Oropesa said, you'd better be sure to move it to another block, because the two-hour limit applies to the entire block you're in, not just the space you're in. It's a big game of downtown workers versus downtown merchants. People who work downtown would like to park their cars and forget about them. People who own businesses downtown want to make sure that doesn't happen. Over the next few months, Oropesa's troops will switch from old-fashioned chalk to hand-held computers, in which they will enter each license plate on each block.

What's more, the city is re-erecting some of the French parking pay stations, in a simpler format At first blush, the new system sounded wacky to me. I asked Oropesa about a scenario that seemed the least fair. What if somebody parks for five minutes to grab a cup of coffee, drives away, comes back two hours later and parks in the HOWARD TROXLER COLUMNIST A council has tried one cockamamie scheme after another. The worst of these was spending in 1998 for French-made, solar-powered meters that nobody understood. The current situation boils down to: free street parking with a two-hour limit enforced Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.

to 6 p.m., except around Tropicana Field, where the limit is enforced up to 11 p.m. This two-hour time limit is enforced by good, old-fashioned chalk marks on tires, put there by the city's six (soon to be eight) parking enforcers. Of course, there are those who try to get around this. Some people will go out and roll their.