By Sharon Calvert, from Eye on Tampa Bay The Jeff Vinik-inspired All for Transportation (AFT) transit tax is a storm cloud of dishonesty and deception hovering over Hillsborough County. Honesty and transparency are lacking in addressing transportation issues. AFT created a myth in their $4 million marketing campaign …
By Jim Bleyer The guilty pleas entered last week by former Tallahassee Mayor Scott Maddox and a confidante is not the end of public corruption investigations in Florida. That’s the word from Lawrence Keefe, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, and sources at the Federal …
E-scooters are ridden and parked in restricted areas of Tampa’s Riverwalk and Ybor City (above). By Jim Bleyer For the under-30 zealots who enjoy the free-wheeling e-scooter culture in Tampa’s urban core, it is the best of times. For seniors, the disabled, children, and strollers confined to the …
Like the Wicked Witch of the West, Jeff Vinik sent his surrogate monkeys to sell the illegal Hillsborough transit tax. By Sharon Calvert, from Eye on Tampa Bay All for Transportation (AFT) has been dishonest from the start. It tried to create a false narrative last June …
By Jim Bleyer Two months ago the attendance-challenged Tampa Bay Rays could at least boast of a fiercely loyal, though modest, fan base. No more, thanks to Rays owner Stu Sternberg striking out with a far-out proposal to play half a season in Tampa Bay and the other half in …
By Jim Bleyer Horse racing fatalities this year at Santa Anita’s fabled Southern California track have put the Sport of Kings under the scrutiny of politicians, animal rights activists, the media, and the thoroughbred racing industry itself. Thirty horses died in racing or training since Christmas at Santa …
2019 Haskell Invitational, Monmouth Park’s premiere event, was witnessed by sparser-than-usual crowd. By Clocker Vandalay The battle between animal rights activists and the horse racing industry over whether the sport is inhumane intensified this weekend. If you are keeping score at home, chalk up a major victory …
By Sharon Calvert, From Eye on Tampa Bay (Part 2) There are two appeals that have been made to the Florida Supreme Court related to the All for Transportation $16 Billion transit tax, so who is paying for All for Transportation’s mounting legal costs? Judge Rex Barbas’ final …
Scooters confined to special lanes found much safer than sidewalk usage. By Jim Bleyer Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signing of a bill greenlighting e-scooters in bicycle lanes will mitigate certain safety concerns and issues with the elderly, disabled, and toddlers that populate Florida’s urban sidewalks. The new law, along with …
By Sharon Calvert, from Eye on Tampa Bay (Part 1) As a recent Circuit Court ruling confirmed, All for Transportation (AFT) put an illegal and unlawful transit tax charter amendment referendum on the ballot in Hillsborough County last year. If such a big mess was about an …
By Jim Bleyer The Tampa Electric Company is playing a high-stakes shell game with the health and lives of the three million people who reside in the Tampa metropolitan area. Hillsborough County has the most polluted air in Florida, according to the recently released American Lung Association …
By Scott Myers, Contributor The recent proposal by Stu Sternberg, with the approval of MLB, to pursue having the Tampa Bay Rays, beginning in 2024, play 35 home games per season in Tampa Bay and 46 in Montreal is fraught …
By Sharon Calvert, from Eye on Tampa Bay As we posted previously, Judge Rex Barbas gutted the illegal All for Transportation (AFT) tax hike charter amendment, tossing all of AFT’s illegal spending appropriations, prohibitions on funding new roads and other regulations it tried to force Hillsborough County …
By Jim Bleyer Former hedge fund manager turned sports franchise owner Jeff Vinik continues to ply his trade in stocks: laughing ones. Vinik’s Tampa Bay Lightning, overwhelming 9-5 favorites at the outset of the recently-concluded National Hockey League playoffs, continue to be the butt of standup jokes and …
By Mark Calvert, from Eye on Tampa Bay Now that much of the mandated spending constraints All For Transportation tax hike have been found unconstitutional, all the media, business elites, politicians and proponents that were so wrong about the legal issues, are pushing hard to reinstate the “will …
By Jim Bleyer The attendance-challenged Tampa Bay Rays are exiting the area sooner rather than later. The team and Major League Baseball make that clear yesterday by announcing they will explore sharing home games with the city of Montreal. Splitting an 81-game home schedule between two cities 1,300 …
By Jim Bleyer It’s been a rocky road for electric scooters. Embraced by many American cities, including Tampa, the dockless, shareable two-wheelers have experienced mounting injuries, many serious. Initial enthusiasm has been replaced with a healthy dose of reality. Sure they’re cute, cheap, and offer Millennials a downtown …
By Jim Bleyer If Variety reviewed the Mayor’s Forum on the Arts, held Wednesday night at Hillsborough Community College, the gathering would have been described as nothing less than “boffo.” In fact, the venerable staple of entertainment news might have showered the Tampa event with more superlatives than …
By Sharon Calvert, from Eye on Tampa Bay All For Transportation (AFT) were the media darlings of transportation last year. Local media gave AFT spokespersons gobs of free exposure to shout out the message that we must spend more money on transportation in Hillsborough County. AFT spent $4 million telling …
By Jim Bleyer A combination of secrecy, weak regulation, and rapid proliferation have made hedge funds a very attractive vehicle for money launderers. And, although Congress was on the cusp of legislation making hedge funds culpable for abetting criminal activity, that opportunity evaporated following the 2018 midterm elections. …
