Friday’s monthly Tampa Tiger Bay Club meeting is another casualty of the post-hurricane Irma environment. Organizers announced Thursday due to the impact that the storm has had on the community, they will reschedule the program slated for noon on Friday that was going to feature a debate on charter schools.
There is perhaps no greater moment reflective of how far the Tampa business and political establishment has come in terms of embracing relations with Cuba than the reaction to then Mayor Dick Greco’s surprise visit to the communist island in the summer of 2002. “In my opinion, it was his finest hour,” recalled Al Fox, speaking on Friday night at the Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City. It was Fox, through his Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy Foundation, that helped negotiate the historic meeting…
While the efforts at criminal justice reform remain stalled in Washington D.C., the voting public showed up at the polls last year and indicated that they certainly want change at the local level. In Harris County, Texas (which encompasses Houston), Democrat Kim Ogg defeated Republican Devon Anderson by promising to overhaul drug prosecutions. In Jefferson County, Alabama, Charles Todd Henderson defeated GOP incumbent Brandon Falls in part by campaigning against the “mass incarceration of those with drug addictions and mental illness,” and by…
Tim Schock admits that he couldn’t commit to the initial dates proposed by the Tampa Tiger Bay Club and the League of Women voters regarding a proposed debate with his Hillsborough County Commission District 6 opponent, Pat Kemp. Now Kemp says she’s too busy to debate Schock before the Nov. 8 election, and Schock isn’t happy about that. “She won’t talk about the issues,” Schock complained early Monday evening. “What’s more important than debating the issues? To turn down the press…
Jeff Brandes is taking another shot at the Hillsborough County Public Transportation Commission — this time over the fact that the PTC has hired a lobbyist. The St. Petersburg based state Senator has been calling for the demise of the agency for several years now, in part for their attempts to regulate ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft. Now he wants Attorney General Pam Bondi to review the statutes governing the agency to determine if thy are lawfully permitted to spend…
The uproar over a Tampa Bay Times report over the weekend that the Tampa Police Department has been targeting low-income black bicyclists over the past decade continues to reverberate, with Chief Jane Castor facing the strongest criticism in her nearly five-year tenure, just weeks before she steps down after a distinguished 30-year career with the department. The story detailed how eight out of 10 bike riders stopped in Tampa from 2003 to 2015 were black, meaning they received 79 percent of the…
They’ve already declared their support for a Cuban consulate to be housed in Tampa. Now they want any major agreement between the Cuban and U.S. governments to be signed in Tampa as well. By a 5-0 vote, Tampa City Council on Thursday passed “The Tampa Accord.” The resolution proposed by Councilwoman Yolie Capin offers the city to host any official agreement signings between the two neighboring countries. Charlie Miranda and Lisa Montelione were not at the dais at the time…
