Local Government

In January, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri held a news conference in Largo, where it was announced that Pinellas and 16 other law enforcement agencies in Florida would now have “housing agreements’ with Immigration and...

This Thursday, the St. Petersburg City Council will begin to discuss how to reduce the amount of single-use plastics in the city; and Tuesday morning a coalition of restaurant owners and civic groups unveiled a...

There’s a new documentary on the wastewater dumping problem in St. Petersburg; it’s called St. Pete Unfiltered, and we spoke with the filmmaker. The documentary looks at a series of massive dumps of sewage, partially...

Windy March is the Dean of political reporters in the Tampa Bay area. Full stop. He toiled for the late Tampa Tribune for 30 years (1984-2014), the last 20 as the chief political reporter. Since...

In 2011 the Florida Legislature passed a bill that was signed into law by Governor Rick Scott that penalized local governments and elected officials that tried to pass gun safety rules that are stricter than...

The south Pinellas County beach community of Gulfport might consider banning single-use plastic straws; at the city council meeting Tuesday evening, a law student is introducing the idea of a straw ban in Gulfport restaurants....

Although the next mayor of Tampa may not be known for more than a year, Ed Turanchik is sure off to a swift start. The 62-year-old attorney and civic activist has already raised over $100,000...

Journalist and author John B. Judis was our guest for the first part of this edition of MidPoint. Judis is an editor at large at Talking Points Memo and the author of The Populist Explosion: How...

The Tampa Bay Rays hope to abandon St. Pete for a new baseball stadium in Ybor City and have much of it paid for with public funds; team co-president Brian Auld faced a Suncoast Tiger...

The City of St. Petersburg violated Florida’s Sunshine Law providing for open government meetings. A state appeals court made that determination this month regarding a closed-door meeting in 2011 when Bill Foster was mayor. The...

District 72 in Sarasota turned blue Tuesday night as Margaret Good was elected to Florida’s House of Representatives. The district, which had voted for Donald Trump in 2016 (50.2% vs 45.6% Clinton), had 36% of...

Teachers and their supporters rallied at Tuesday afternoon’s meeting of the Hillsborough County School Board. They’ve demonstrated outside the last several meetings. The executive director of HCTA — the Hillsborough teachers’ union — Stephanie Baxter-Jenkins,...