News & Public Affairs
Fossil Fuel lobbyist Charlie Stenholm pushes drilling off Florida coast listen
07/31/09 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: oil drilling, oil and gas lobby, cap and trade, climate change
Last year Congress gave states the option of whether to allow drilling for oil and natural gas off their coasts. The Florida Legislature is expected to again take up the issue in their 2010 session. Today in Tampa, a former Democratic member of Congress from Texas spoke in favor of opening up Florida to offshore drilling.
Charlie Stenholm - a member of the House of Representatives from 1979 to 2005 – predicts that drilling off the coast of Florida “will happen someday.” Stenholm suggests t...
4 commentsBlue Dog Democrat founder Charlie Stenholm on their influence in health care reform debate listen
07/31/09 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Blue Dog Democrats, health care reform
A small group of fiscally conservative Democrats known as the Blue Dogs are having an effect on the health care reform debate that may be disproportionate to their numbers in Congress.
This afternoon in Tampa, WMNF spoke with a co-founder of the Blue Dogs, Charlie Stenholm, who represented parts of central Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979 until 2005.
The Blue Dog Democrats, formed in 1995, share some fiscal ideolo...
Be the first to commentDanny Goldberg on the music industry in 2009 listen
07/31/09 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
Danny Goldberg has been in the music business for 40 years, and currently manages Steve Earle. In the past he’s worked with Led Zeppelin, Stevie Nicks, and Warren Zevon, among others. His memoir on his life in the music business, called Bumping Into Geniuses, has just been published in paperback. WMNF spoke with earlier this week, and asked him about the state of the music industry in 2009.
Be the first to commentAuthor defends his new work on the Kennedys listen
07/31/09 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
C. David Heymann alleges in his new book that Robert F. Kennedy and his brother’s widow, Jackie, had a chemistry that evolved into a relationship after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
The accuracy of that claim has been thoroughly disputed in some quarters.
The backlash began in 1994, when he first alluded to the affair in an updated edition of his book A Woman Named Jackie. He repeated the claim in 1998's RFK: A Candid Biography.
WMNF asked Heymann about his sources – and ...
Be the first to commentAttorney fights to stave off evictions listen
07/31/09 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
At a mobile home park in east Tampa, residents are getting an eviction notice on Wednesday that they needed to depart their homes by today.
We heard from some of the residents of the Tampa Sun Mobile Home Park, located on North 47th Street in Tampa. Approximately 60 people live in the mobile park lot, and many will have no place to go, if evicted in the next week.
That’s why earlier today a St. Petersburg attorney who specializes in real estate law went to court to file an emergency pe...
Be the first to commentDespite massive deficit Hillsborough County Commission lowers property tax rate listen
07/30/09 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Hillsborough County Commission, budget
Despite facing huge budget cuts, the Hillsborough County Commission today voted to slightly reduce the property tax rate. The reduction will lower a typical homeowner’s bill by about twenty-four cents, resulting in a further $100,000 decline in county revenue.
The commissioners approved a combined general revenue operating fund and environmentally sensitive lands debt service tax rate of about $5.80 per $1,000 of a property’s taxable value. Some c...
Be the first to commentEric Draper on off-shore drilling listen
07/30/09 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Eric Draper from the Florida Audubon Society is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Agriculture Secretary next year. WMNF spoke with Draper today from Orlando, the site of the Farm to Fuel Summit, and asked him to further elaborate about Commissioner Bronson’s comments on oil drilling off of Florida’s coasts.
1 commentsTampa newspaper vendors worry about their future listen
07/30/09 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
The Tampa City Council clarified their law today on solicitations from city roadways, a law that a local newspaper and its vendors feared could hurt their ability to sell papers on street corners.
1st Amendment attorney James Lake represents the Tampa Tribune. He said of the two proposals before the Council, he disliked one that would require that all vendors to check in with the police two weeks in advance.
The Council then heard from a series of people who sell papers on Sundays, w...
Be the first to commentTampa raises fees on recreation services listen
07/30/09 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Tampa City Council
The Tampa City Council today voted to increase fees for many of its services, charged by the city’s parks and recreation department.
But they changed a provision so that if the Mayor wants to increase those fees in the future up to 5%, it must come back before the City Council and the public.
Karen Paulus is the director of the Tampa’s Parks and Recreation Department She repeated comments made earlier this week by Mayor Pam Iorio, who said that some fees needed to be raised becaus...
Be the first to commentSafeguard Our Seniors program offers tips for protection from financial fraud listen
07/29/09 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Senior citizens should be wary of scams involving annuities and other types of financial fraud. About sixty people heard that message this afternoon at the Gulfport Senior Center during a discussion hosted by the Florida Department of Financial Services. Their outreach and education coordinator, Karin Bolin, helped organize the seminar called “Safeguard Our Seniors,” or SOS “which is an initiative that the [state’s] Chief Financial Officer, [Alex Sink](http://myflorid...
Be the first to commentGOP State lawmaker wants to block health care plan listen
07/29/09 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Two Republican lawmakers have filed a proposed state constitutional amendment aimed at blocking a federal health care plan in Florida.
Sen. Carey Baker of Eustis, also a GOP candidate for Agriculture Commissioner, says that legislation pending in Congress amounts to "socialization" and would let the federal government choose a person's doctor and ration treatment.
The House sponsor, Rep. Scott Plakon of Longwood, called it a "power-grab" by President Barack Obama and the Democratic Con...
Be the first to commentPETA offers help for Friendship Trail Bridge, if fishing is banned listen
07/29/09 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Friendship Trail bridge, PETA
The animal rights activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), today wrote a letter to Friendship Trail Bridge Chair Frank Miller. The group says they will help pay for the restoration of the now closed off bridge, if officials agree to ban fishing off of it.
The bridge that runs between Hillsborough & Pinellas Counties, next to Gandy Bridge, has been closed since last Christmas.
The park has been used for years by runners, cyclists, in-line skaters, fishermen, ...
Be the first to commentHillsborough Commissioners want to cut property taxes again listen
07/29/09 MItch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Hillsborough County Commission
Despite a $140 million dollar shortfall, Hillsborough County Commissioners today indicated that they’d like to cut their millage rate, if for no other reason than that they’ve done it every year for the past decade.
County Budget Director Eric Johnson, recently caught in the middle of a feud between Commissioners and Administrator Pat Bean after Bean gave raises to top assistants like Johnson, suggested that they could avoid being attacked by the media if his staff could construct a budget...
Be the first to commentBradley case heard at Pinellas County school board meeting listen
07/29/09 Lindsey KratochwillWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
During the Pinellas County school board meeting last night, a memorandum regarding the Bradley Case, a 45 year-old lawsuit was heard.
The proposed memorandum on the Bradley case has seen criticism from the St Petersburg NAACP. The agreement includes equitable allocation of funding for instructional strategies and intervention to improve black student achievement. St Petersburg NAACP President Ray Tampa worries that it is not enough and that it needs to be more specific.
Charles McKinsey...
Be the first to commentTime To Lift The US Embargo On Cuba?
07/29/09 Robert LoreiRadioactivity: Live Call-In (Wednesday) Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Cuban embargo, Fidel Castro, Tampa, Jose Marti, Tampa-Havana connection
Good afternoon. I’m Rob Lorei. Welcome to Radioactivity. Coming up we’ll look at the question of whether it's time to re-open trade between the US and Cuba. We’ll hear from a Tampa City Council member and a Tampa Port Authority member who travelled to Cuba last week.
But first some listener comments about yesterday’s program. On the open phones portion of yesterday’s program several listeners wanted to talk about the recent arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates by Cambri...
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