PINELLAS PARK - One of the last items on Thursday's Pinellas Park Council agenda was a vote to give a tax break to an Arizona company that wants to locate here. The company was not named, a situation that the St. Petersburg Times editorial board had objected to when a similar proposal recently came before the St. Petersburg City Council.

Pinellas Park council member Rick Butler said he had voted for similar proposals in the past but was heeding the Times' editorial. Then, he commented that he had also voted several times throughout the years to plant palm trees and had never thought anything about it until recently when a Times article pointed out that several medjool palms recently installed along Park Boulevard cost $6,000 apiece and had been shipped from Arizona where they are grown.

Hmmmm. Arizona company. Arizona trees. Maybe the company plans to build a medjool palm farm for Pinellas Park.

--Anne Lindberg, Times staff writer