Got any last-minute questions before you vote? You can meet local candidates and ask them your questions at a public forum in East Hillsborough. The forum is at 7:00 p.m. tonight (Monday), at Balm Civic Center, 14747 Balm Wimauma Road. It’s hosted by the Balm Civic Association, whose president, Marcella O’Steen, will moderate. I attended this [...]
I made a donation to the Kevin Beckner campaign for Hillsborough county commission. As Tommy pointed out, Brian Blair is the Republican incumbent for countywide District 6, and will be faced by Democrat challenger Kevin Beckner. If you don’t know why I’d support Beckner over Blair, you must be new around here. Blair hands out political favors [...]
I’m leaving very soon for a month in China and parts east! Please don’t tell me (like everyone does) that I’ve missed the Olympics. My favorite part of the Olympics is still to come. The Paralympics are the Olympic Games for physically disabled athletes. They are always held in the same city, at the same venues as [...]
For four years the Tribune and the Times have been bashing county commissioner Brian Blair, and when we finally get a chance to vote him out of office they turn around and endorse the Bozo?!? The Tribune’s endorsement column begins with a few understatements: [Blair] often appears less thoughtful, less farsighted and more strident than his colleagues. and, He [...]
Hillsborough County employs about 10,000 people, but, blaming budget cuts, county commissioners are poised to lay off the ONE guy responsible for protecting our wildlife from the bulldozers. If they adopt the budget with this proposed cutback, they will gut our upland habitat protection program, just like they tried to gut our wetland protection program [...]
Despite a last-ditch effort by developer interests to weaken wetland protections last Thursday, interested citizens prevailed and your county commissioners adopted the final batch of wetland rule changes without any modifications. Having failed to persuade EPC staff to agree to any weakening of the rules in this last part of the Hybrid, developers frantically lobbied [...]
Bird watchers, plant lovers and tree huggers of all stripes will gather this Wednesday evening for the Annual Joint Meeting of Tampa Audubon, Tampa Bay Sierra Club and the Suncoast Native Plant Society. It’s really more of a party than a meeting, and it’s your chance to mingle with a bunch of nature-minded folks AND [...]
Breathtakingly beautiful, and breaking all the rules, the phenomenal Ghost Orchid of Corkscrew Swamp is in bloom right now within a couple hours’ drive of Tampa. The flowers are only expected to last until Tuesday, so if you want to catch this extraordinary sight you’d better hurry. The endangered Ghost Orchid is exceedingly rare, but the [...]
Everybody is happy! Last summer, citizens stood strongly against the attempt by four county commissioners to eliminate our wetlands protections, so the commissioners backed down and accepted the “Hybrid” proposal offered by EPC director Dr. Garrity as a solution to the criticisms leveled against the agency. Commissioners promised at that hearing that the Hybrid would not [...]
