Veteran Tampa Bay Times Anne Lindberg has left her post as Pinellas County’s emergency medical services reporter after spending 23 years with the paper. Lindberg also covered mid-Pinellas government including Largo, Pinellas Park, Seminole and Kenneth City.
Her work with those cities is perhaps what landed her new gig. Lindberg will hang up her reporter hat to work for the City of Pinellas Park.
“Talk about mixed emotions. I’ve left the Times after 23 intense years. But I’m jazzed at the prospect of starting a new job with Pinellas Park on Wednesday and becoming part of all the creative happenings there and of the absolutely amazing and inventive plans for the city’s future,” Lindberg wrote on her Facebook page.
It’s not clear what exactly Lindberg’s duties will be with Pinellas Park.
Her announcement came with a barrage of well wishes from colleagues and readers.
Tampa Bay Times environmental reporter Craig Pittman wrote, “best of luck to you! We’ll miss you.”
Lindberg got a “congrats” from former Pinellas County Commissioner Neil Brickfield who she no doubt interviewed countless times during his tenure on the BOCC.
Reporter Jon Wilson wrote that it was the end of an era, but “the beginning of a new one!”
Lindberg acknowledged in the Facebook feed that the move is “scary and great all at the same time.”
Lindberg’s most recent work includes coverage of stale leadership within Largo City Commission, the upcoming Seminole municipal elections and proposed property tax hikes in Largo.
But Lindberg’s most dominant work in recent years has most certainly revolved around the county’s complicated disputes over Emergency Medical Services. Among other issues, a decade’s long dispute between the County and the City of St. Petersburg was solved when City Council approved a deal between the two government boards.
Over the years Lindberg has covered other disputes between Fire Departments and private emergency transport companies, particularly Sunstar, over how the county should transport victims to the hospital or other emergency locations.
“No EMS story will be the same,” wrote Joyce Lee Pink, one of Lindberg’s followers.
As of Tuesday evening the Tampa Bay Times still listed Lindberg as a reporter and listed a phone number and email address for her at the paper. A request for comment and more information was not answered.
