Author: Owen E. Richason IV
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State regulators are moving forward on a proposal that could put Florida taxpayers on the hook for roughly $30 million to acquire nearly 28 acres of beachfront property at Mandalay Point, on the northern tip of Clearwater Beach, through the state’s Florida Forever land-buying program. The property, which sits across Dunedin Pass from Caladesi Island…
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Florida Realtors, the state’s largest professional trade association, has put its money where its endorsement is, launching a statewide “Vote Yes on 3” campaign backed by a $10 million political committee — while at least one Hillsborough County commissioner is pushing back hard against the property tax relief measure headed to voters in November. The…
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As Hillsborough County’s camera citation programs continue pulling in millions of taxpayer and driver dollars, the county commission has moved to replace the volunteers who once heard citizen appeals with paid attorneys — and the man overseeing the change can’t quite explain why. The county has hired five new hearing officers, all members of the…
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Safety Harbor city commissioners voted unanimously to authorize a purchase agreement of up to $500,000 for a small residential lot next to the Public Works complex — a price tag that has climbed considerably since the deal was first discussed, and one taxpayers will help cover through their utility bills. The commission’s 5-0 vote on…
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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier took his campaign against Silicon Valley to South Florida Wednesday, holding a news conference in Miami on artificial intelligence and the tech companies he says are dodging accountability for the harm their products cause. The Miami appearance follows a Tuesday announcement in Tampa, where Uthmeier laid out a proposal to…
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Tampa Bay’s waterfront economy is not a new branding campaign. It is a working sector already employing tens of thousands of people in ports, shipping, defense, manufacturing, and related industries. Economic development officials now want to grow it further. The useful question is what actually produces the jobs. Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Manatee counties already host…
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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier wants corporations that design, train, and sell AI chatbots treated as more than spectators when those systems walk a user through a crime. Speaking Tuesday in Tampa with Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Mark Glass, Uthmeier outlined draft legislation that would attach criminal consequences to companies that own, control,…
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The City of Tampa is lining up a $2.04 billion spending plan while warning that Florida voters might finally cap the property-tax windfall that helped fund it. If Amendment 3 passes with 60 percent of the vote in November, homestead exemptions on non-school property taxes would rise from $50,000 today to $150,000 in 2027 and…
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Cars are computers on wheels now, and the bill for that reality shows up at the shop. Independent mechanics say they cannot always reach the same diagnostic data, software, and tools that dealerships get from the manufacturer. A bipartisan measure in Congress, the REPAIR Act, would require automakers to give owners and independent shops access…
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Florida has recorded five lightning fatalities so far in 2026, the most of any state. That is not a surprise, and it is not a new “crisis.” It is the same pattern the National Weather Service has documented for years: people stay outside after thunder has already announced the danger. Between 2016 and 2025, lightning…
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Pinellas County will close libraries, shrink park hours and trim nearly every other department before it touches public safety if voters approve the statewide property-tax reform, Amendment 3, in November, County Commissioner Chris Latvala told beach-city officials last week. “Any public safety cuts would be absolutely last,” Latvala said Aug. 26 at the Barrier Islands…
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Duke Energy asked Florida state regulators this week to cut electric rates in January 2027 instead of raising them. The request, filed September 3 with the Florida Public Service Commission, would lower a typical residential bill for 1,000 kilowatt-hours by 71 cents from December to January. Commercial and industrial customers would see reductions between 0.8…
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FEMA is preparing new Flood Insurance Rate Maps for the Alligator Creek Watershed that covers parts of Clearwater, Safety Harbor, and unincorporated Pinellas County. The maps change both flood-zone boundaries and base flood elevations. The city asked FEMA to review the watershed in 2015 after stormwater conditions shifted. FEMA completed its study shortly before Hurricane…
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Doctors and administrators tied to HCA Florida South Tampa Hospital and the South Tampa Medical Center are asking Tampa City Council to approve the South Howard Flood Relief Project. They say repeated flooding has already shut clinics, delayed care, and left the hospital running on generators. Council is scheduled to take up the construction contract…
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Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri will pull automated license plate readers off state highway rights-of-way to comply with a Florida Department of Transportation order, but he is not taking them down on county roads. He says the cameras remain a practical tool that has helped recover missing children, locate human trafficking victims, identify vehicles used…
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A Duke Energy-commissioned study estimates it would cost St. Petersburg between $2.75 billion and $4.1 billion to seize the company’s local electric system and stand up a city-run utility. The numbers arrived as the city waits on its own $590,000 analysis and after its 30-year franchise agreement expired July 31. Concentric Energy Advisors, hired by…
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Floridians heading to the polls this November will decide more than a governor and a slate of lawmakers. They will also vote on Amendment 3, a constitutional change that would raise the homestead exemption on non-school property taxes from $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, with inflation adjustments after that. It would…
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Hillsborough County commissioners are set to vote Wednesday on new government mandates for short-term rental owners, adding registration requirements, a $200 annual fee per unit, and inspection costs for property owners who already pay taxes on those homes. The proposal, up for a public hearing at 10 a.m. Wednesday, would require short-term rental owners to…
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Treasure Island is adding two new code compliance inspectors, expanding a bureaucracy still working through a backlog of complaints tied to hurricanes Helene and Milton, while quietly preparing to roll out a new surveillance system aimed at short-term rentals. With the new hires, every district in Treasure Island will now have its own dedicated inspector,…
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While other states pile on new levies and expand government programs to court residents, Florida’s tax-friendly approach just earned Tampa another national accolade: the city ranked third among the best places in America to retire, according to a new WalletHub study, trailing only Orlando and Miami. The results offer a data point worth noting in…
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While politicians debate rent control and affordable housing mandates, a decades-old private-sector solution is making a comeback across Tampa Bay: rent-to-own. And it’s happening without a single new subsidy, zoning override, or taxpayer dollar. Rent-to-own arrangements let a tenant lease a property for a set period while holding an option — or in some cases…
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For the first time in more than 15 years, Pinellas County has confirmed local transmission of dengue fever — and instead of waiting on Washington or Tallahassee for direction, the county’s own mosquito control team has moved swiftly to contain it. The Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County issued a mosquito-borne illness alert on…
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Dunedin city officials are scheduled to hold a second hearing Thursday on a proposal to permanently ban jet skis and other motorized watercraft from launching off the south side of the Dunedin Causeway — a move that would make a temporary hurricane closure into a lasting restriction on public access. The Causeway has been closed…
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More than 2.5 million low-income Florida households now spend over 30 percent of their income on housing, and 1.4 million of those spend more than half, according to the Florida Housing Coalition’s newly released Home Matters 2026 report, presented this week at the group’s annual conference in Orlando. The numbers on entry-level homeownership are stark.…
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St. Petersburg City Council quietly signed off on nearly $2.9 million in federal funding last week to elevate seven flood-prone homes in the city — the latest installment in a mitigation push that continues to rely heavily on taxpayer-funded disaster spending rather than private insurance or market-based solutions. The council approved seven grant agreements with…
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Pinellas County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to seek $15 million in state grant funding to upgrade a wastewater plant whose pumps have been running for three decades — well past their service life — as flooding risk from sea-level rise and storm surge threatens the aging facility. The South Cross Bayou Advanced Water Reclamation Facility,…
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Two years after historic flooding devastated homes and businesses across Sarasota County, the County Commission this week approved $32 million in stormwater upgrades — a fix that arrives only after residents filed lawsuits, an independent investigation exposed the county’s own failures, and taxpayers footed the bill for a brand-new $100 million administration building. The funding,…
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Hillsborough County taxpayers won’t be writing a check for the Tampa Bay Rays’ new stadium, but visitors already have been for years, and now the bill is coming due in a big way. The Tampa City Council and Hillsborough County Commission this week approved funding for the Rays’ new $2.3 billion ballpark along Dale Mabry…
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Clearwater city officials here are scrambling to draw up contingency plans after acknowledging that Amendment 3, the proposed statewide property tax relief measure, could strip more than $20 million from its coffers — a number that has bureaucrats openly worried about trimming a payroll that ballooned to nearly 140 more full-time positions than the city…
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Nearly two years after Hurricanes Helene and Milton tore through the Tampa Bay area, Clearwater is still fronting the cost of its own recovery while it waits on Washington to make good on $9.3 million in promised FEMA reimbursement. City officials say the bureaucratic process remains ongoing even as residents have largely put their lives…
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St. Petersburg residents will pay more for water, sewer, and trash service starting soon after the City Council voted Thursday night to raise utility rates across the board, brushing aside objections from a room full of ratepayers. The council approved increases to water, wastewater, stormwater and sanitation charges. Customers with reclaimed water hookups will see…
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A grassroots group called “Dump Duke” has filed paperwork to put the question of the city’s electric utility future directly before voters, bypassing a St. Petersburg City Council that has yet to make its own decision. The filing kicks off signature gathering for a ballot measure asking residents whether the city should abandon Duke Energy…
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Less than a year after committing $18 million in taxpayer funds to a waterfront property purchase, Madeira Beach commissioners are eyeing another multimillion-dollar land deal at the entrance to the city — this time putting up $15,000 of public money just to find out if the numbers make sense. At a special meeting Aug. 20,…
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Pinellas County commissioners voted Tuesday unanimously to seek $15 million in state grant money for aging pumps at the county’s main wastewater treatment plant — but the project’s own paperwork leaves an $11.8 million gap unaccounted for, and commissioners spent almost no time asking about it before signing off. The vote authorizes the county to…
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The Safety Harbor Pier reopened this week after a nearly two-year closure, giving residents back a waterfront fixture that Hurricane Debby damaged and Hurricane Helene ultimately destroyed during the 2024 storm season. City officials confirmed the rebuilt pier came in under budget, with a final price tag below $1.26 million — a detail worth highlighting…
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St. Petersburg residents could soon be paying more for water, sewer and trash service as city council members prepare to vote Thursday on a fresh round of utility rate increases. City officials say the utility rate hikes are needed to fund infrastructure improvement projects, with the new rates set to take effect Oct. 1 if…
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A new industry survey finds that more than a quarter of Florida dog owners let their pets ride loose in the car, even though nearly all of them say they know better — a gap that AAA is using National Dog Day to spotlight, without calling for any government mandate to close it. According to…
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St. Pete Beach City commissioners rejected a push to create a new short-term rental registration program this week, choosing instead to enforce the rules already on the books rather than risk a legal protection that lets the city regulate vacation rentals more tightly than most of Florida. The proposal, floated by Vice Mayor Lisa Robinson,…
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Temple Terrace city officials here are weighing a water rate increase of as much as 35% on residents next year, the price tag for a water treatment overhaul that critics say should have been addressed years ago. The city’s water treatment plant is roughly 40 years old and has reached the end of its useful…
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The Florida Department of Education is pushing forward with a proposed rule that would require every public college in the state to take artificial intelligence seriously before it further disrupts classrooms. Under the proposal, all 28 institutions in the Florida College System would be required to adopt clear policies governing how students, staff, and campus…
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Tampa’s real estate market is doing exactly what a healthy market should: attracting capital, building housing, and creating value across the region. A recent CBRE survey ranked Tampa seventh among U.S. markets targeted by commercial real estate investors in 2026, with multifamily housing the top target — 74% of investors surveyed said they want in…
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A routine briefing on license plate cameras turned into a heated confrontation Monday night, as residents pressed city officials over how much surveillance authority local government has quietly amassed — and how long it plans to hold onto their data. Plant City Police Chief Richard Mills and a Flock Safety public affairs representative, Jalen Johnson,…
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Florida families now have a formal window to weigh in on a state proposal that would hand parents more control over their children’s vaccination decisions, as the Department of Health moves to strike four vaccines from the list required for school attendance. The public comment period opened Monday and runs through Sept. 14. Under the…
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Florida’s tourism engine is sputtering for a second straight quarter, with a steep drop-off in Canadian visitors driving much of the slowdown, according to new data from Visit Florida, the state’s tourism marketing agency. By the numbers Florida drew an estimated 34.01 million visitors from April through June, down 0.7% from the same quarter last…
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