Mitch Perry - page 512

The 28-hour qualifying period for the special election in state House District 64 began this morning. HD64 includes parts of northwest Hillsborough and eastern Pinellas counties. Former Rep. Jamie Grant, R-Tampa, received about 59.5 percent of the vote in the November election against his Republican challenger, Miriam Steinberg, but the House rejected the results because of a court battle that focused on write-in candidate Daniel John Matthews. The 1st District Court of Appeal in October overturned a lower-court ruling that…

Keep Reading

As far as security leaks, it ain’t WikiLeaks, the Pentagon Papers or Edward Snowden’s revelations of NSA surveillance on Americans. That stated, the cyberattack on Sony Pictures has produced a trove of embarrassing private emails regarding studio executives, and most of it has been great fodder for tabloids like the New York Post and websites like Gawker to go to town with. No one has come forward as being the perpetrators, but speculation has centered around the North Korean government of Kim…

Keep Reading

As always, Howard Simon is a very busy man. The executive director of the ACLU of Florida for over 17 years was in Tampa early Friday morning as the featured guest speaker at the annual Tampa/Hillsborough County Human Rights Council awards breakfast at the DoubleTree Hotel in Westshore. Simon said one of the chief reasons he accepted the invitation was learning that one of the honorees was former Tampa Democratic state legislator Helen Gordon Davis. “It’s a special honor,” he…

Keep Reading

On Wednesday, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren blasted the $1.1 trillion spending package in the House put together by Republicans and Democrats that would keep most government agencies operating through next summer. Warren’s ire was with two parts of the bill that were added on to it in the past week: provisions that would sharply increase the influence of wealthy campaign donors, and another would ease restrictions on risky trades by big banks. Most Democrats — including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Tampa’s Kathy Castor…

Keep Reading

A rumored floor challenge to the lone candidate for the Hillsborough County Democratic Executive Committee failed to materialize Thursday night, allowing Elizabeth Belcher to win the position without opposition. Belcher has been involved with the DEC since 2008. She became more involved with local politics after retiring from a 27-year career as a special agent with the IRS. She’s also been an unsuccessful candidate for political office over the last two election cycles. She ran and lost a challenge to Victor…

Keep Reading

Earlier this week Mitch Rubin, the executive director of the Florida Beer Wholesalers Association (FBWA), announced that while “for several years,” his organization has supported lifting the restriction on 64-ounce growlers, the FBWA’s support in next year’s legislative session won’t be tied into his greater concerns of direct brewer to consumer sales. Tampa House Republican Dana Young, who has sponsored legislation in the House the past few years on legalizing 64-ounce growlers, said she’s feeling more optimistic about the bill’s chance for…

Keep Reading

For the first time in four years, non-charter public schools in Florida received a relatively substantial amount of funding from the Florida Legislature this year toward the maintenance of school buildings. In 2011 and 2012, all of the monies allocated by Tallahassee to the Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO) trust fund went to charter schools. This past year was the first time in the Rick Scott era where traditional public schools received more than charter schools in that category; public schools received…

Keep Reading