By Jim Bleyer Promoting local sales tax increases for transit projects will always be a losing struggle in Florida, a group of transportation strategists agreed this week. They attributed voter mistrust of government as the insurmountable barrier to referendum-based tax hikes. That unequivocal assessment was expressed at a funding …
By Jim Bleyer The 65th anniversary celebration of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University’s pharmacy program next month will commemorate excellence as well as longevity. Begun as a modest component in the chemistry department in 1951, FAMU’s College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences has blossomed into a nationally acclaimed center …
By Jim Bleyer When Floridians vote this fall, they will enjoy the most far-reaching ballot access in the state’s history, one of the country’s most experienced and high-profile election officials affirmed this week. Ion Sancho, who is retiring this year after serving seven terms as Leon County Supervisor of …
By Jim Bleyer Three weeks after 265 Tampa Tribune employees were abruptly fired in a numbingly cold-blooded mass dismissal while the man directly responsible for the carnage hunkers down in a fabricated foxhole shunning questions. Paul Tash, publisher of the Tampa Bay Times has never been at a loss …
By Jim Bleyer Former staffers of the late Tampa Tribune threw themselves a helluva blast Friday, only 10 days after their jobs were abruptly erased in a series of double deals that makes a Three-card Monte con seem like Old Maid. The event was anything but a pity party. …
By Jim Bleyer The public interest and sanity prevailed last night as the Hillsborough County Commission voted 4-3 to jettison the ill-advised, corrupted half-cent sales tax referendum for mass transit infamously known as Go Hillsborough. The decision basically forces the …
By Jim Bleyer The transparent smear campaign by pro-light rail public officials and supportive media outlets against opponents of a Hillsborough County sales tax increase boomeranged on a gargantuan scale this week. The embarrassing fallout traveled 650 miles from Raleigh to Tampa. North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, who tried to …
By Jim Bleyer The Tampa Bay Times, without a shred of dignity, ethics, or conscience, continues to bombard the public about the Go Hillsborough transit plan with incomplete, inconsistent, and wildly inaccurate information. It is part of a concerted propaganda effort to confuse voters into taxing themselves for …
By Jim Bleyer With only a vague mass transit plan and no demonstrated need for one involving light rail, Hillsborough County politicians and their corporate cronies who stand to benefit from a $3 billion plus sales tax increase have been resorting to lies, distortions, character assassination, and backroom finagling …
By Jim Bleyer Florida’s public pension fund bailed out two prominent Miami developers linked to former governor and presidential hopeful Jeb Bush when it overpaid by tens of millions of dollars for an occupancy-challenged downtown Tampa apartment complex in February, 2014. The $76.5 million purchase of the Pierhouse at Channelside …
