Browsing Category »tax waste«

info is there if you look

Tampa City Council member Linda Saul-Sena wants a map with the best routes for biking to the new Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, so she asked the transportation staff to come up with one. Transportation manager Jean Dorzbackof said that they ain’t got no money, are swamped with other things, and they will “get to it [...]

who works for the public transportation commission?

As you know, the Hillsborough County Public Transportation Commission (PTC) put the screws to a handful of entrepreneurs, and opened the door for one of their own to steal the idea. That’s right, the PTC is supposed to regulate taxicab service here in this great county of ours, but sometimes ends up simply putting money in [...]

the rest of us can rock and roll

Hillsborough County is spending $400,000 on a road that don't need no fixing - Bayshore Boulevard.

politics slow fire response

If my house is on fire, my only concern is that the fire gets put out quickly.  I don’t care which rescue department shows up, as long as they get there fast. In Pinellas County, when you call 911, dispatchers notify the closest fire station.  In Hillsborough County, it depends on where you live. For instance, consider [...]

property tax goes unpaid, but not newspapers

The St. Pete Times reports that many businesses have not yet paid their property taxes, leading to a record number and amount of delinquencies: A record number of property tax bills remain unpaid across the Tampa Bay area this year, one more casualty of tough economic times. In April, 114,000 properties had overdue bills totaling $332.1 million [...]

the sad record of the seawater desalination plant

March 23, 2009One comment so far, add yours!

We decided to build a Seawater Desalination Plant in late 1996.  Construction began in 2001, and was to be finished in 2003.  Between 2000 and 2005, everything related to the desalination plant was a comedy of errors, and the plant finally became fully operational by the end of 2007 – nearly six years behind its [...]

buddy gone, still making news

Poor Buddy can’t catch a break.  Buddy Johnson was defeated by Phyllis Busanksy in the November elections.  But for some reason, he continues to show up in the newspaper. Apparently, Buddy signed Kathy Harris to a term that exceeded his own employment, sticking Busansky with the bill. Then Busansky found uncounted ballots from Temple Terrace, which may [...]

putting in a hard 3/4 of a day’s work

How about these Tampa Police detectives ducking out early on a way too regular a basis? Hit-and-run detective David Rochelle, a 29-year veteran, left work early 80 out of the 88 days (90%) of the investigation. During the review, 154.5 hours reported on his timecards could not be verified as having been worked. [...]

affordable housing office is inept

… and Pat Bean is Sergeant Schultz Back when they missed out on $2 million in federal grants, your Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners asked their auditors to take a look at the Hillsborough’s Affordable Housing Office (AHO).  After seven months of digging around, the findings came out on Monday. The results are not good.  Excerpts are [...]

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