In looking at the race for Hillsborough County Tax Collector, I originally said that “Belden has kept his name out of the newspaper, which means no one is complaining about the job he has done.” That was incorrect.
His name HAS BEEN in the paper, and Jason Strochak HAS BEEN complaining.
Jason contacted us via email last week encouraging an endorsement of Beverly Harris:
You had displayed stories in 2006 related to Doug Belden the Hillsborough County Tax Collector assaulting a woman in Jacksons Bar, lying about it, then blaming alcohol once a video came out proving the womans story. Many people have called out to get him out of office or at least make sure he is not re-elected.
We now have some new hope of making this happen. Beverly Harris (non-party affiliate) is running for Hillsborough County Tax Collector and needs everyones support. Lets get her elected and restore some integrity of this office.
I asked for more information about her, and he gave me her website. We see where that got him. And he doesn’t like it.
He left comments on that post, and sent us another email:
I have got to tell you that it is extremely disappointing to us that you suddenly announced support for Doug Belden today. Not only did he assault a woman a year ago, he recently lost a huge lawsuit where a federal judge ruled that he violated florida statutes and the company he awarded the contract to has personal ties to him as well. Beldens company also filed chapter 11 years back. Cant believe this is the guy you support and your reason being because Beverly Harris’ website was down for a couple hours. WOW? I thought this was more of a liberal site but i was wrong. Good luck with your George Bushesque picks this election.
Good grief, Jason! We go from “Hey, let’s get behind Beverly!” to suggestions of corruption? Why didn’t you mention this originally? Did you figure I would just parrot your original email? If so, you can get your own website.
Oh, but he has one… at autotagagency.net. Yeah – he helps with auto registrations. And Belden denied his firm a huge contract, so there are some sour grapes. Oh, and Jason is not even from Hillsborough County.
Take a look at the St. Pete Times article about the contributions Strochak and friends have made to Beverly Harris. Jason wants us to focus on this part:
The First Hillsborough agency submitted a proposal but another company won the bid. Kenneth and Jason Strochak, the father-son duo who run First Hillsborough and other auto tag agencies in Broward County, contended in a February 2003 lawsuit that Belden rigged the process to favor a competitor. Belden denied the accusation.
Hillsborough Circuit Judge Marva Crenshaw ruled in First Hillsborough’s favor in May. The case is now before the 2nd District Court of Appeal.
Ok, so the case is not yet resolved. But with the original ruling, there is some merit to accusations of patronage (no mention of this in the Trib or Times endorsements, hmmm). That certainly makes me think twice about Belden. Unfortunately, it still doesn’t make Beverly qualified for the job.
We agree with The Carl, who sums it up thusly:
“… nobody else worth a damn is running…”
As for Jason Strochak, well, good luck, and stay in touch…
Clyde
1 year ago
Hey Dude, we’re in Florida, the home of crony capitalism. It may just be business as usual. Perhaps there are some “personal ties” to the company that received the contract, but Jason doesn’t share any details. As for the bankruptcy, it’s years ago and Belden is going to have a lot of company going forward. And it’s ok that Belden likes girls; he probably thought being an elected official entitled him to cop a feel now and then.
wendy
1 year ago
I voted for Bev Harris. Couldn’t stand the groping in public from an official. If what Jason says is true, about the contract award, even more pleased I voted for her. I am holding to my promise to vote for all who ARE NOT incumbents! I did so yesterday in the early voting at the library.
Notvoting4Harris
1 year ago
During the Balm Candidate forum Harris (who was not invited originally) evidently invited herself anyway. Due to non-partican rules she could not be a part of the forum and the moderator explained this to the audience since she did not have time to extend the offer to Mr. Belden. The moderator explained this at the beginning but did note that Ms. Harris was present at the meeting in the audience. In spite of the explaination two very rude Harris supporters attacked the moderator demanding that Harris be a part of the forum. This would have been agains the rules of a county facility so again the moderator explained why Ms. Harris could not sit on the panel. Soooo since she was not invited and since the press release did not include her name how did these two rude supporters know she would even be there? Chances are Ms. Harris told them herself. She never did a thing to curb their inappropriateness. At best they were too stupid to understand the rules, at worst they were just plants that wasted valuable time. I don’t really care a hoot about Belden or Harris but after that display with Harris present I will vote for Belden.
WP
1 year ago
If in doubt, vote them out.
Those with clout, vote them out.
If you can’t name anything they’ve accomplished, vote them out. Given the current state of affairs, there are so very few that I can name that have done so good a job that an unknown would or even could do worse. Cross party lines and vote anti-incumbent. Nothing will change until we change it.
diamond dog
1 year ago
As for Harris I voted for her and I was also at the Balm meeting as a resident of the community(after all it was a open civic meeting). The moderator didn’t have enough sence to invite one of the biggest offices being sought in Hillsborough County so who is the rude,stupid one? She took it upon herself to leave out the Tax Collectors office ( maybe a friend of Doug’s trying to protect him from the reminder of his actions of pawing females at Jackson’s bar). At least Harris pays attention to what is going on in the community. As for “Notvoting4Harris” it is people like you that keep Balm and other rural areas from the attention they need and deserve, so go ahead and keep your head in the sand and just be miserable (as you appear to be) good luck with your vote and hopefully the rest of the residents of the South County area have their heads out of the sand and their eyes open. This would be a good time for Balm to seek another person to orgainze their civic meetings, the person they have is not doing them any favors by keeping them in the dark about important things like the election candidates.