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Tampa Bay Partnership

TBARTA bill passes unanimously — now goes to Rick Scott for signature

in The Bay and the 'Burg/Top Headlines by

By a vote of 117-0, the Florida House passed a bill to revamp the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority (TBARTA). With the Senate approving the bill last week, it now goes to Gov. Rick Scott‘s desk. Although Plant City Republican Dan Raulerson sponsored it in the House, that chamber actually substituted his bill with the Senate version, sponsored by Clearwater Republican Jack Latvala (SB 1672). The legislation would downsize TBARTA from seven counties to five (Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee and Hernando), and it would change TBARTA’s focus to…

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Tampa Bay officials OK with TBARTA bill, now before full Senate

in The Bay and the 'Burg/Top Headlines by

Officials had high hopes for a bill to reconfigure Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority (TBARTA). Those same officials are now expressing some contentment following an amendment from the bill’s original sponsor, Clearwater Republican Jack Latvala. The legislation would change TBARTA’s name from the Tampa Bay Regional Transportation Authority to the Tampa Bay Regional Transit Authority, and reduce the number of counties involved in addressing the region’s traffic issues. It has been a top priority of the Tampa Bay area business establishment,…

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Tampa Bay Partnership on board with Jack Latvala-Dan Raulerson bill creating regional transit agency

in The Bay and the 'Burg/Top Headlines by

Legislation that would create a regional transit agency connecting four Tampa Bay-area counties breezed through committees in both the House and Senate last week. The proposed agency would be created in advance of a much anticipated Florida Dept. of Transportation transit study scheduled to be completed next year. “It’s a real project. It’s not just talk. And so we realized that in order to get this started, we needed to have the right kind of planning and the right operational structure…

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Janet Long lashes out at transit critics

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Pinellas County Commissioner Janet Long was not happy. Last Monday, the board of the Hillsborough County Area Regional Transit Authority (HART) inserted revised language into a proposed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with PSTA to ensure that the agreement did not mean that the two transit agencies would be merging or preparing for a sales tax referendum pending because of it. That rankled some board members, who said that the agreement is simply to officially collaborate on more issues going forward. Upon…

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Tampa Bay area legislative delegation tries to figure out if local governments can work together on a transportation fix

in The Bay and the 'Burg/Top Headlines by

State legislators representing the eight counties that make up the Tampa Bay area Legislative Delegation spent two hours in Clearwater on Wednesday discussing attempts to find a way to begin adequately dealing with the region’s myriad transportation issues. According to a new white paper prepared by the D.C. based Enos Center for Transportation for the Tampa Bay Partnership, a regional structure for transportation planning, operations and decision-making is paramount to developing a regional transportation system. Which might make an interested observer…

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Mitch Perry Report for 6.28.16 – SCOTUS ruling on McDonnell case must delight compromised politicos across the land

in The Bay and the 'Burg/Top Headlines by

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday unanimously overturned former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s conviction on corruption charges. In case you’ve forgotten, McDonnell and his wife Maureen accepted more than $175,000 in nice gifts, such as $6,000 Rolex watches and $20,000 in designer clothing from a dude named Jonnie Williams, who was swarming around the couple in hopes that the governor would help some of his businesses, most prominently diet supplements. But apparently there was never a smoking gun. “There is no…

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Anti-TBX activists accuse Tampa Bay Partnership of conflict of interest and intimidation

in The Bay and the 'Burg/Top Headlines by

Tensions between supporters and critics of the Tampa Bay Express haven’t tempered after last week’s vote by the Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) to put the TBX  into the organization’s Transportation Improvement Project (TIP). An email sent out by a member of the Tampa Bay Partnership to the members of the MPO and members of the TBX Yes coalition thanked the members of the MPO who supported the proposal. The letter also listed all of those on the board –…

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