(UPDATED) Labor Day 2017 got off to an early start in Tampa, with more than 120 activists joined striking McDonald’s employees calling for a $15 living wage and a union for fast-food workers. The protest outside the McDonald’s near the I-4 entrance/exit in Ybor City was one of 300 scheduled around the nation for Monday.
Days after four of the five Republican members of the Hillsborough County Commission voted to keep a Confederate monument in front of the county courthouse, the controversy isn’t dissipating. Last Friday afternoon, Hillsborough County Democratic Executive Committee Chair Ione Townsend issued a blistering statement against the Republican commissioners for their vote, calling it “a continuation of white supremacy and white privilege policies.” Those remarks are now being rebuked by Kelso Tanner, a Hillsborough GOP political consultant and school board candidate,…
After years working to get Republicans elected to local and state office, Kelso Tanner is now ready to enter the arena himself. The Gibsonton-based political consultant announced Monday he will file for next year’s Hillsborough County School Board’s District 6 race. In his statement, Tanner said that the impetus for his decision to run was the board’s controversial decision last December to cut “courtesy busing” service. The decision will result in about 7,500 high school and middle school students who…
Jessica Vaughn, a Tampa Palms resident who grew up attending Hillsborough County schools and now teaches in them, filed to run for the District 6 seat on the Hillsborough County School Board currently held by April Griffin. The 39-year-old Tampa native says she thought about entering the District 7 countywide primary last summer, but realized it was too late in the process to make an impact. Her declaration for ’18 comes a full year and a half before Hillsborough voters will go the polls.…
