TAMPA — The red letters on the white sign in front of the Glorious Church of God in Christ read "Free Tutoring in the C.L. Kennedy Center." An arrow points to a building behind the church. Every afternoon after school, as many as 42 Hillsborough County public school students gather for tutoring in reading and math skills. Most start with a Learning to Learn course, which teaches the basics of L. Ron Hubbard's how-to-study program. The tutors, all wearing red vests, ...

BATON ROUGE, La. — Inside the industrial looking brick walls of one of Louisiana's poorest performing middle schools, Scientologists finally have achieved a longtime goal. A study skills curriculum written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard is being taught as mainstream public education. All the eighth-graders at Prescott Middle School are being taught learning techniques Hubbard devised four decades ago when he set out to remedy what he viewed as barriers to learning. The curriculum and textbooks used by Prescott's 156 ...

The man hired to build the world's largest automated-parking garage is a 6-foot-4 engineer with the Renaissance-sounding name of Royce Savoy Monteverdi. Construction on the 1, 200-car garage is under way in oil-rich Dubai, a rapidly emerging international finance center best known as Michael Jackson's latest playground. In an e-mail exchange from the Persian Gulf city, Monteverdi said the huge project and three others there have freed him to ponder a new career in the more rarefied world of architecture. You ...

ST. PETERSBURG - Just weeks after opening their first facility in St. Petersburg, Scientologists have irked two of the city's most respected institutions - the Holocaust and Dali museums. Representatives of both museums say they were misled when asked to support a human rights march but not told that the organizers are a rights advocacy group affiliated with the Church of Scientology. The Florida Holocaust Museum has withdrawn its sponsorship of the Human Rights Walkathon scheduled for today in Straub Park ...

ST. PETERSBURG - Charles L. Stafford, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the St. Petersburg Times and its national correspondent for two decades, died at 83. Mr. Stafford died of leukemia on Monday (March 19, 2007) at his home in Springfield, Va., according to a son, Michael. The 1980 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting was awarded to him and fellow reporter Bette Orsini for their investigation of the Church of Scientology. Tensions were especially high when Mr. Stafford and Orsini published their ...

ST. PETERSBURG - In her purse, she carried well-worn videos of The Boy in the Plastic Bubble and Saturday Night Fever. "Did you know John Travolta sings too?" Barbara Warren asked excitedly, pulling out a CD called Greased Lightnin' as proof. Warren, 38, of Tampa dragged her husband to Williams Park three hours before Travolta's scheduled appearance Monday evening as part of the grand opening of the Church of Scientology's first recruitment center in St. Petersburg. She hoped to catch a ...

Thousands of bay area homeowners are fighting foreclosure suits. Most will be swiftly expelled, their lender stuck with a house it never wanted. There are exceptions. Palm Harbor resident Sandra Mann-Stack hasn't paid her monthly mortgage since 1998, the year Homeside Lending Inc. sued her and husband Peter Stack for default. Over time, the couple has thwarted at least 10 scheduled auctions, twice by filing for bankruptcy protection the day before. They've gone through at least four judges and watched the ...

CLEARWATER - After years of delay, there are visible signs that the Church of Scientology's ambitious plans to expand its downtown campus are again moving forward. Several months ago, cranes began piecing together a four-story, 275-space parking garage at East Avenue and Franklin Street. It is expected to be finished by April. On Tuesday, the Church of Scientology will go before the city's Community Development Board to request a transfer of development rights from the site of its power plant on ...

[Picture / Caption: Towed by a small plane, this banner flies over downtown Clearwater Tuesday to commemorate the death of Scientologist Lisa McPherson.] There have been candlelight vigils and sidewalk pickets, but this year a small group of Scientology critics took their annual protest to the air, hiring a plane to fly over downtown Clearwater at lunchtime Tuesday with a banner that read: "Clerwater- Rember Lisa McPherson (sic)." McPherson was a 36-year-old Scientologist who died in 1995 in the care of ...

Some speculate a proposed PSTA / developer deal is driven by Scientology plans or politics. CLEARWATER - From one perspective, the discussions that took place in front of the camera last week seemed pretty straight-forward. The county's bus service, the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, has a bus depot in downtown Clearwater that is too small and too crowded. Some businessmen want the PSTA's land for private development, and they are in a position to acquire a nearby site on Drew Street ...

RAMOS, JAIRO ENRIQUE, 58, of Largo, died Thursday (Sept. 28, 2006) at Gulfside Regional Hospice, New Port Richey. He was born in San Fernando de Apure, Venezuela, and came here in 1986 from Venezuela, where he served in the Venezuelan Army obtaining the rank of captain. He worked as a manager for Hertz Car Rental, Tampa. He was a member of the Church of Scientology, Clearwater. Survivors include a son, Jamil Ramos, and two daughters, Obsana Sturiale and Jaira Ramos, all ...

Gabe Cazares spoke out, whether it was as Clearwater mayor, to promote civil rights or to fight Scientology. CLEARWATER — Former Clearwater Mayor Gabe Cazares, a civil rights advocate, champion of the disadvantaged and archenemy of the Church of Scientology, died Friday (Sept. 29, 2006). He was 86. As a politician, Mr. Cazares led the local Democratic Party and won public office at a time when few Hispanics even lived in Pinellas County. As a community activist, he worked to help ...

CLEARWATER — Former Clearwater Mayor Gabe Cazares, a civil rights advocate, champion of the disadvantaged and arch-enemy of the Church of Scientology, died Friday (Sept. 29, 2006). He was 86. As a politician, Mr. Cazares led the local Democratic Party and won public office at a time when few Hispanics even lived in Pinellas County. As a community activist, he worked to help the poor and build bridges in Clearwater during the early years of integration. But after the Church of ...

An assistant state attorney says a video of the scuffle shows mutual aggression. CLEARWATER - The State Attorney's Office has decided not to pursue charges against a Scientologist accused of assaulting a church critic who was shooting video of Scientologists downtown next to a sandwich board that read "Cult Watch." Assistant State Attorney Kendall Davidson, after viewing a video of the confrontation captured by a Church of Scientology security camera on a nearby building, determined "it is just not going to ...

Nasdaq once raved about Digital Lightwave, whose stock hit $150. Its shares now sell for about 25 cents. For lease: 92,000 square feet of Class A office space in a three-story building. Atrium. Marble floors. And terrific exposure just south of Clearwater's Bayside Bridge. Former tenant: a once-high-flying tech star now in more modest digs in a nearby office park. Digital Lightwave Inc., one of Nasdaq's most sizzling stocks in 1999, has left the building that epitomized its promise when it ...

The man took exception to being filmed as part of a documentary for a public-access TV station. CLEARWATER — A longtime member of the Church of Scientology was arrested Saturday after he scuffled with an amateur filmmaker who was videotaping on a downtown sidewalk next to a sign reading "Cult Watch," police and a witness said. Michael Fitzgerald, 52, a self-employed carpenter, was booked into the Pinellas County Jail on a misdemeanor battery charge and released after posting $250 bail. Fitzgerald ...

A longtime Scientologist has been charged with battery in a sidewalk scuffle over a filmmaker's videocamera. CLEARWATER — A longtime member of the Church of Scientology was arrested Saturday after he scuffled with an amateur filmmaker who was videotaping on a downtown sidewalk next to a sign reading "Cult Watch," police and a witness said. Michael Fitzgerald, 52, a self-employed carpenter, was booked into the Pinellas County Jail on a misdemeanor battery charge and released after posting $250 bail. Fitzgerald said ...

When the Times told officials at the Church of Scientology in Clearwater about plans to write a story about its suppressive person and disconnection policies, Scientology spokesman Ben Shaw aggressively sought to refute the story and persuade the newspaper not to tell it. Shaw provided numerous articles about the ways other churches deal with apostates, including one in which a Catholic bishop in Nebraska excommunicated every member of one church. "I don't see how you can do a fair article on ...

Karen Pressley of Atlanta and her then-husband Peter Schless — a musician and composer who wrote the hit song On the Wings of Love — became Scientologists and later joined staff. Pressley mostly worked for the church's international organization in Los Angeles, but she spent six months in Clearwater. She said she designed the new uniforms still worn by staffers today. Pressley left Scientology in 1998 and refused to come back for sec checks. She has publicly denounced "substandard" child care ...

Religions have always penalized those who betray the cause. Catholics excommunicate, barring the wayward from church rites. The Amish, Jehovah's Witnesses and some orthodox Jewish sects shun their nonconformists. In the Tampa Bay area's burgeoning Scientology community, members abide by a policy considered by some religious experts extreme: Scientologists declare their outcasts "suppressive persons." Another Scientology policy — called "disconnection" — forbids Scientologists from interacting with a suppressive person. No calls, no letters, no contact. An SP is a pariah. Anyone ...

The church is purchasing a building in St. Petersburg, where it plans to start a new recruiting effort. ST. PETERSBURG — After more than 30 years in Clearwater, the Church of Scientology is making its first significant step toward recruiting members in the heart of downtown St. Petersburg. The church has a contract to purchase a historic 7,000-square-foot building at 336 1st Ave. N, near Williams Park. The sale is not final, but church officials hope it will be by June. ...

ST. PETERSBURG — In the world of Scientology, Scott W. Snow is a winner. He has achieved the religion’s highest level of training, higher even than megastar Tom Cruise, a distinction that brings with it lofty ethical standards. But in St. Petersburg, city leaders call him slumlord. Snow, 51, is the owner of the Chinook Apartments in Midtown, which the city shut down May 2 after finding multiple fire code violations. Now two dozen Chinook tenants have hired a lawyer and ...

In the works for decades, the closely guarded spiritual training program will be revealed in Clearwater. CLEARWATER - Matt Feshbach believes he has super powers. He senses danger faster than most people. He appreciates beauty more deeply than he used to. He says he outperforms his peers in the money management industry. He heightened his powers of perception in 1995 when he went to Los Angeles and became the first and so far only "public" Scientologist to take a highly classified ...

After a period of worldwide growth, the church is turning its attention back to expansion at its Clearwater headquarters. CLEARWATER - A global expansion by the Church of Scientology delayed construction of a flagship building in this city it considers its spiritual headquarters, church officials say. But after spending hundreds of millions of dollars from Madrid to Mountain View, Calif., the church is once again turning its attention to downtown Clearwater in a big way. The church plans to finish its ...