Two months ago, Hillsborough County Commission Chairman Ken Hagan proposed an economic stimulus task force to study ways to create new jobs and make the county more competitive. Hagan said that he wanted to get a “fresh set of eyes and ideas” working on the problem. The task force was beginning to come together last month, [...]
Because of the stock market crash and losses in risky investments, Florida’s public employee pension fund is way too low. The state could take a chance that the stock market will rebound: Florida has not only taken a hit on stocks but also on risky real estate ventures, private equity deals and securities tied to the subprime [...]
“I didn’t even know we had a bus. But I should be driving it.” According to Rose Ferlita’s (former campaign) website, she currently sits on the boards of both Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART) and the Public Transportation Commission. She is also currently the Vice Chair for the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Chair of the [...]
HTV is Hillsborough County’s cable TV channel that provides programming about County government and the services it provides. For the Black Heritage Celebration, HTV planned a half hour show about blacks in politics. As part of the show, producers wanted an interview with a black politician, and asked Joyce Russell, Hillsborough [...]
Having seen the Tampa area featured in The New Yorker as America’s prime example of greedy, wrongheaded leadership driving us off the cliff of economic disaster, let’s take a look at how our county commissioners propose to lead us out of this mess shown in this New Yorker video as “ground zero of the foreclosure [...]
The February 9 issue of The New Yorker spotlights the Tampa Bay area as “ground zero of the foreclosure crisis,” and exposes us nationally as a prime example of the political and corporate greed and utter wrongheadedness that has ruined America’s economy and laid waste to Florida. In “The Ponzi State, Florida’s Foreclosure Disaster,” George Packer [...]
Ernst and Young released their audit of our Supervisor of Elections budget: … former Hillsborough County Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson overspent his budget by nearly $1 million last year and then violated state law by failing to reimburse the county. …former Hillsborough Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson mishandled grant money, failed to properly oversee finances within his office [...]
“This is totally going to get blown out of proportion,” said Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin Beckner. He was right. Problem is that he didn’t see that BEFORE Beckner moved to allow county staff to prepare a cost-benefit analysis of offering domestic partnership benefits. By most accounts, Kevin Beckner pulled an upset victory in the race for BOCC in [...]
Poor Buddy can’t catch a break. Buddy Johnson was defeated by Phyllis Busanksy in the November elections. But for some reason, he continues to show up in the newspaper. Apparently, Buddy signed Kathy Harris to a term that exceeded his own employment, sticking Busansky with the bill. Then Busansky found uncounted ballots from Temple Terrace, which may [...]
