Mitch Perry - page 516

Fast-food workers in Tampa, St. Petersburg and more than 150 other cities across the country walked off their job today, demanding an industry-wide base wage of $15 per hour and in some cases, the right to form a union. It was the latest in what has been a series of protests across the country to raise awareness about the low pay for such workers and their demand for more money, organized by the Fight for $15 campaign. Approximately 75 people…

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Superlatives rolled off the tongues of members of USF’s board of trustees this morning, all in praise of the plan they voted on unanimously that calls for the creation of a new urban medical campus in downtown Tampa. That will include the new Morsani College of Medicine, the USF Heart Health Institute, a separate medical building for administrative and clinical functions and a large parking facility. “For USF and Tampa, this will be our rendezvous with destiny,” said Dr. Charles Lockwood,…

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One of the few tangible (if not necessarily positive) events with nearly universal appeal that came out of the entire Michael Brown tragedy was the call for body cameras on police officers. Local police departments in the Tampa Bay area are about to start pilot programs with the cameras. And yesterday Gulfport Police Chief Robert Vincent wrote in a blog post that even though his force has been using such cameras for about five years, he wants to hear from…

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Once again, Rick Scott has had his plans to drug test Floridians thwarted by a judge — this time by the three justices who comprise the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The court has ruled that a 2011 Florida law mandating that all applicants for the state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program submit to  suspicionless drug tests violates the Constitution’s protection against unreasonable government searches. “By virtue of poverty, TANF applicants are not stripped of their legitimate expectations of…

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The latest conservative legislative lollapalooza sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, is taking place this week in Washington. The three day free-market policy summit features loads of Republican stars like Ted Cruz and Marsha Blackburn, and will include already-drafted legislation for Republican lawmakers to bring back to their home states. And with Republicans now in control of the legislatures of 31 states, 24 of whom (like Florida) have Republican governors, you can expect that many of the…

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He’s used to often being in the minority on the City Council, so it won’t be a shock to him to be a Democratic House member in Tallahassee. Today, St. Petersburg City Councilman Wengay Newton declared he’ll be a candidate for House District 70 in 2015, the seat currently occupied by Rep. Darryl Rouson, who won re-election just last month. But it will be his last term in the House due to term limits. The district is one of the…

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Hope sprang eternal back in March, when Hillsborough County Commission Ken Hagan dropped a proposal on his colleagues for an immediate approval of a $250,000 grant for The Infiltrator, a $47.5 million Hollywood film production that tells the story of former DEA agent (and Tampa Bay resident) Robert Mazur, who helped take down the infamous cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. The approval came at the same time there was a furious lobbying effort being undertaken in Tallahassee to have the Legislature replenish a tax…

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