The Ybor City Stogie

Monday, October 22, 2018

On Wednesday, most all of the County Commissioners tried hard to shut me down so I could barely get my agenda item heard. I am waiting to get some help on the commission so at least I get a second and we can consider critical issues like why developers pay up to 25 times in fees to develop in Pasco & Manatee as they do here in Hillsborough. As I said, our fees are appalling low.

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Hillsborough’s fees are set so "appallingly low" that taxpayers have been effectively subsidizing developers for decades, Commissioner Pat Kemp said. here

Mariella Smith for County Commission 2018

HELP HER HERE

Fraudulent Transit Plan Skewered at Tampa NAACP Meeting: They Will Vote ‘No’

There is one group in Hillsborough County that Jeff Vinik can’t buy.

The Vinik-inspired sales tax referendum came under heavy fire Thursday night when Tampa’s African American community attacked it as vague, promoting unwanted gentrification, and a bailout for development interests at the expense of the working poor.

Vinik’s three stooges—Rena Frazier, Brian Willis, and Michael Stephens—were envisioned by their boss as glib emissaries. At the end of the evening, the trio were tongue-tied and nonplused by incisive questioning and criticism over Vinik’s hidden agenda.

Tampa Bay Beat has learned from two independent sources that certain people close to the NAACP were offered cash to wheedle an endorsement of what amounts to a multi-billion dollar taxpayer swindle.

Tyler Hudson, Vinik’s point man in the grossly misnamed All For Transportation (AFT) effort, sat grim faced in the audience as criticism from Tampa’s black community rained down on the plan. Cristina Barker, Mayor Bob Buckhorn’s former protegé on loan to Vinik, sat frowning and scribbling notes. Kevin Thurman, the fourth stooge and relegated to the audience, ineptly tried to explain the glaring flaws in the $15 billion, 30-year developer bailout which would make Hillsborough County the Florida county with the highest sales tax.