When Justin Bean sat down with the Tampa Bay Times earlier this year to discuss his candidacy for the City Council race, he was upfront about what his political opponents would undoubtedly unearth at some point — a DUI arrest in 2013. Not mentioned at the time was a 2010 resisting arrest charge in Polk County.
As a registered nonprofit group, Save Southern Heritage can’t endorse candidates. However, they can provide “information” to voters, and the inference from the cards it’s mailed out to 3,000 households in House District 58 in eastern Hillsborough County indicates it likes the responses that Lawrence McClure gave the group, as opposed to Yvonne Fry, who opted not to respond to the organization’s questionnaire.
Officials from Hillsborough and Pinellas counties announced this week they are jointly pursuing an effort to recruit Amazon to the region. The country’s largest retailer is looking to build a second headquarters outside of its current Seattle campus. This has led to an intense bidding war among communities throughout the country.
Saying it was good to be back in “Charlie Crist country,” Orlando attorney/entrepreneur/celebrity John Morgan made an entertaining appearance at the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. There, he discussed what he says is the very real possibility that he will pull the trigger next year and run for the Democratic nomination for governor.
Accusations of bad business are the new line of attack among Republicans in the increasingly nasty House District 58 primary.
Help is on the way to Florida’s citrus growers who have seen crops devastated by Hurricane Irma. That’s according to Sarasota Congressman Vern Buchanan, who says House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady assured him that his legislation — the Emergency Citrus Disease Response Act — will be part of the next hurricane relief package Congress will consider next month.
On Thursday morning, Tampa City Council members will hold a budget workshop just hours before they could possibly vote on the first property tax increase in 29 years. Last week, Councilmembers narrowly approved (by a 4-3 vote) to increase the millage rate from $5.73 to $6.33 per $1,000 of assessed property value. That could add $105 to the average homeowner’s tax bill.
