Showing posts with label Tampa Bay Times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tampa Bay Times. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 4, 2023

In downtown Tampa park, the benches are still missing years later




Advocates suspected a deliberate move to keep the homeless away. As downtown evolves, benches aren’t expected to return 
anytime soon. more

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

G. Gonzalez's Letter To The Editor (Unedited)

I’m writing, I imagine, for the same reasons many are hitting the streets protesting nationwide. I’m nobody special. I’m just a working-class stiff like the majority of us. I’m a high school dropout, a United States Air Force veteran, and now a community organizer with the Tampa DSA, also known as the Democratic Socialists of America. I’m no pundit, CEO, or powerful politician, but I think I can speak for millions or at least echo their sentiments when I ask: when will enough be enough? George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Travon Martin, Amadou Diallo, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, and this reaches all the way back to Emmett Till himself. And here in the state of Florida, we have our own examples with the shootings of Markeis McGlockton and Levonia Riggins.
We’re in the year 2020, so somebody please explain to me how police brutality and vigilante injustice is still tolerated? Maybe if we ask enough questions, we’ll reach that conclusion together. Let’s begin by asking ourselves if it’s legitimate to hold the perspective that the long arm of the law should indeed be the primary line of defense between civil society and chaotic barbarism. We should also ask ourselves why is it that our law enforcement officers seem to be in a perpetual state of fight or flight. Why do they feel so threatened by poor minority communities and why is it that the use of force is disproportionately used against said communities?
Is it really surprising when our nation is merely decades removed from the state-sponsored apartheid imposed on black and brown communities? Why is it that we’ve grown desensitized to this injustice?  How has this become the unfortunate reality of poor and minority communities, much like the one in West Tampa where I grew up? How is it justified that communities of color are constantly harassed for petty crimes and misdemeanors when the largely white ruling class of the financial sector can lead us to economic ruin while simultaneously robbing our treasury blind?  All the while, they have the shameless audacity to lie to us by telling us that basic human necessities such as universal healthcare and free college are too pie-in-the-sky to happen.
Allow me, reader, to go on one more series of questions.  As Derek Chauvin drove his knee into the neck of George Floyd because of an alleged crime as petty as a forged check in an economic depression and suffocated him to death we have to ask ourselves: why was an officer with a long history of abuse of authority and violence against minorities and poor people allowed to continue serving as a law enforcement officer?  Why did the three other officers present allow it to happen? Was it the racist, nationalist rhetoric and ideology displayed by those who live by the slogan: “Make America Great Again?”  Or was it the comfortable and complacent inaction and apathy of the so-called neoliberals of the Democratic Party in the state of Minnesota?
As we thoroughly examine these questions collectively, look within ourselves and our society at large, I hope that we begin taking our first steps toward a tangible progress as opposed to a rhetorical progress. And, as a Democratic Socialist, I believe that the answers lie in confronting a system head-on that absolves the wealthy ruling class of any and all culpability of the economic and physical violence perpetuated against poor and minority communities.  That’s why we support labor movements such as the National Nurses United, the Fight for 15, and progressive candidates. This isn’t about justice for a few, justice for some, but it’s about justice for ALL. --- So many words can be said, but I’ll conclude this letter with three of them for George Floyd: “Rest in Power”. And one word for the rest of us: “Solidarity.”
Unedited version of the one published in the
Tampa Bay Times

Monday, March 30, 2020

Florida GOP Busted

Gov. Ron DeSantis denied the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times access to a COVID-19 coronavirus briefing, the Herald's Tallahassee Bureau Chief reported Saturday. “Gov. Ron DeSantis decided to violate the state’s public meeting laws and chose to exclude the from a media briefing at the Capitol,” Mary Ellen Klas reported.

Sunday, March 29, 2020

Tampa sets up tent city

City of Tampa is establishing a tent city that will allow up to 100 homeless people to shelter in place. HERE

It cost $120,000 to run a temporary homeless camp for 30 days? At a better price they could  keep it permanently.

Thursday, February 6, 2020

Monday, September 9, 2019

Florida GOP War On Hillsborough County Voters

It takes some nerve for the Republican meddlers in the Florida House to seek to overturn the will of Hillsborough voters who overwhelmingly supported a one-cent sales tax for countywide transportation improvements. The House’s intervention in a legal challenge is an overreach legally and politically, and it’s an insult to residents. It’s also further proof that Tallahassee knows no limits when it comes to ignoring referendum results and interfering 
in local decisions. HERE

Monday, May 13, 2019

Commissioner Mariella Smith's response to the Tampa Bay Times

The Times wrote, “There is no reason local taxpayers should be paying for express service to MacDill” — by ferry. Yet they have never said that we should stop funding the express service to MacDill by bus, and ferry service is quicker and more efficient. HART’s 3 express bus lines from South County to MacDill transported 121,926 riders last year. These are the only express routes to see consistent increases in ridership, with a combined 10.5% growth in the past year. The demand for commuter transit services to MacDill is great.
Every day 18,000 people stream into MacDill Air Force Base. Most of them have no other choice but to drive a car alone to the base. The Ferry will not only provide a quicker, more direct route for commuters to MacDill, it will also remove thousands of cars from the roads during rush hour, from South County to Bayshore, making commutes easier for other drivers and reducing pollution and wear and tear on our roads.
I don’t understand why the Times singles out the workers of MacDill as any less deserving of public transit options than any other commuters. We should strive to provide mass transit wherever we can identify any large group of commuters regularly traveling from one area to another, regardless of whether those people are working at a private company, a public agency, or a military base. The MacDill route is a great place to start commuter service by ferry.
Meanwhile, the evening and weekend service connecting South County to Tampa and St. Pete will provide transit service to South County — an underserved area that has so far not seen much benefit from the tax dollars they contribute to our transportation system. This is why I constantly hear a lot of enthusiasm expressed for this ferry service in South County. And the high ridership numbers from the Cross-Bay Ferry Pilot Project definitely justify increasing ferry service on the Tampa – St. Pete route.
We have been working on this high-speed ferry transit project for 6 years now. No one has come up with a better plan, and no ferry company has offered us a better deal than the current offer by HMS Ferries’ commitment to pay all the operating costs for 20 years.
If we proceed with this ferry project, it can be the start of more robust ferry service in our future. But if naysaying and foot-dragging finally sinks this ferry project, odds are we will not see another opportunity to have ferry transit crossing Tampa Bay for decades to come.
Mariella Smith

Monday, April 29, 2019

Jeff Vinik Owns Tampa Bay Times

in Case You Hadn’t Noticed


According to corporate records obtained by Tampa Bay Beat from Bloomberg, the world’s primary distributor of financial data. 

Tampa Bay Beat HERE

Saturday, August 4, 2018

Mariella Smith Best Local Candidate In Years

 "Mariella Smith is among the best local candidates to come along in years." 
Tampa Bay Times
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We can vouch for that!

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Kelly Benjamin: Fuck This Shit

"It's draining but if you're not standing up right now at this moment in America, you're complicit. I might love you and still be your friend but now is not the time for greased accommodation and civic laziness. Cheers to all of those who are drawing a line, who are desperately trying to stop the descent into collapse, who are coming out of the woodwork to say fuck this shit."  
Kelly Benjamin

Thursday, June 21, 2018

Politico And Tampa Bay Times Hatchet Job On Andrew Gillum

The economically dying Tampa Bay Times, with former Sen. Bob Graham calling the shots on the board of the parent Poynter Foundation, continues to repeat unsubstantiated charges against a Political Action Committee (PAC) favoring gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum. here

By Jim Bleyer

Friday, May 18, 2018

The Herron-Cruz-Castor-Tampa Bay Times Relationship

The Tampa Bay Times’ alleged expert on election laws, Mark Herron, has faced ethical challenges and has political relationships with candidates favored by the St. Petersburg-based paper.
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By Jim Bleyer

Friday, May 11, 2018

Coffee with Joe Kotvas



In the early eighties, Joe Kotvas was a well-respected County Commissioner with dreams of political grandeur. The former Tampa Police Officer and City Council Member had envisioned a future that led him to the White House. However, his ambitions were quickly shattered on February 1, 1983 when Kotvas was arrested by the FBI in what is perhaps one of the most infamous cases of corruption in local government.

Kotvas served 5 years of a 12-year sentence in federal prison for his part in taking bribes to secure favorable zoning votes. He has continuously maintained his innocence. The former County Commissioner has repeatedly declared that he was set up and framed on bribery and corruption charges as part of a witch hunt designed to put dozens of prominent people who did business with the government in prison.

Now at 75 years old, Kotvas is chasing his political dreams again. He hopes this time around that Hillsborough County residents will read his book and give him the chance to finish the job the FBI cut short 35 years ago.