The Tallahassee Reports Morning Briefs: Thursday, Jan. 19

The Tallahassee Reports Morning Briefs: Thursday, Jan. 19

LOCAL NEWS

The Tallahassee City Commission devoted a lot of conversation to affordable housing during its annual retreat Wednesday. Mayor John Dailey says there’s a national housing crisis, and that Tallahassee is not immune to it. According to the University of California at Berkley, developers face financial challenges when it comes to low-income housing due to rising land and material costs. Dailey is now challenging the commission to solve that riddle. Get more details.

On the affordable housing question, Tallahassee City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow supports the City of Tallahassee building more housing. Details here.

A Tallahassee man is now on trial nearly three years after he allegedly committed murder in January 2020. Cleveland McNair is accused of shooting and killing John Dees in January 2020. Dees’ body was found in the woods on Pecan Road on January 13th, and court records say officers found two spent shell casings at the scene. Testimony in McNair’s trial is scheduled to last through the end of the week.

FLORIDA NEWS

It is estimated over $1 billion in damages were incurred on Florida’s agriculture industry after Hurricane Ian ravaged southwest Florida. University of Florida-Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences is set to report citrus damages at $247 million, horticultural crops at $227 million, vegetables and melons at $204.6 million, non-citrus fruits and tree nuts at $137.7 million, field and row crops at $130 million and livestock and animal products at $122.7 million.

Florida Republican Congresswoman Maria Salazar recently spoke in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting and said that Americans need to accept amnesty for the nations illegal immigrants. Salazar was previously one of six other House Republicans in unveiling an amnesty plan last year.

SPORTS NEWS

Florida State women’s basketball travels to Charlottesville, VA to take on the Virginia Cavaliers tonight at 7:00 p.m. Florida State is tied for third place in the ACC standings after being picked to finish ninth in the league’s predicted order of finish. The Noles are also 5-1 in road games this season.

It was officially announced that Florida State football has hired Patrick Surtain Sr. from the Miami Dolphins to coach the Seminoles’ defensive backs. Surtain had a 10 year career in the NFL playing for the Miami Dolphins and the Kansas City Chiefs. Before coaching with the Dolphins, he spent the previous nine seasons, including six as head coach, at American Heritage High School in Plantation, Florida, and was named the 2020 High School Football America National Coach of the Year where he also won three state titles.

TALLHASSEE WEATHER

18 Responses to "The Tallahassee Reports Morning Briefs: Thursday, Jan. 19"

  1. Amazon is where it needs to be, by an Interstate Exchange, anywhere else would be foolish. If Amazon actually starts it’s Employees at the Hourly Wage they said they would then, they should not have any problems finding workers and the Employees should be able to afford to buy a Vehicle to get to work.

  2. Mr Weed.

    Amazon chose their location and is responsible for every element of running their business. Government should NOT be throwing additional taxpayer money at them to deliver their employees to them. If Amazon needs more personnel than the local area will/can provide they will find a way to get those employees at their own expense. That becomes necessary for their own survival and is simply free enterprise. If they find it hard to get sufficient staff on their own they should have understood that before they committed to the project. If government is to provide that “service” now it should come with a bill that covers those costs instead of the taxpayers financially supporting an enterprise that looks poised to potentially become the top business on the Fortune list.

  3. No one should be rewarded in for violating our laws and breaking into our country. We are a sovereign land, and the current invasion of our nation – as organized and administered by the Mexican cartels – is tantamount to an act of war. And the clear and present aiding and abetting of it by the current installed Resident and his administration is nothing short of treason. And I don’t care if stating that hurts anyone’s delicate sensibilities… the brazen truth often hurts.

    Running for greener pastures in search of handouts is not lawful grounds for claiming asylum. Furthermore, anyone seeking asylum must do so in the first country they enter when exiting theirs. That the government of Mexico is colluding with the cartels to allow passage through Mexico and into our sovereign land, makes the government of Mexico part and parcel to the aforementioned invasion of and Act of War against these United States of America.

    Reality can be a b!+@#… but we had better start facing and dealing with it, or our Republic is lost.

  4. I’ve been listening to the banal laments about “affordable housing” for decades. Politician after politician – particularly during election cycles – bloviate and pontificate over an economic reality that they have no true power or ability to impact. Save for confiscating taxpayer dollars from hard working people to build “projects” – and support such projects with confiscated funds in perpetuity – there is nothing they can do. Ones ability to secure housing is wholly dependent upon ones ability to secure a job, make smart choices, and lead a responsible life. It has nothing to do with race or income inequity or discrimination or white supremacy or political party affiliation or ideology.

    That said… politicians can be and are often at the root cause of the particulars associated with the market impacts relative to the debate itself. For example: the mass exodus of residents from so-called “blue” states, migrating to so-called “red” states, is a direct result of blue state political policies. This causes a demand for housing in the destination states, which subsequently causes housing market prices to skyrocket, thus artificially and unsustainably increasing property values, thus increasing the amount of property taxes flowing into the local government coffers… and this of course leads to foolish, reckless, and wasteful drunken sailor ideology-based spending by local elected officials… and ultimately ends in a crash that most impacts those in the low and middle income bracket.

    … and here we go around the mountain… again

  5. “vegetables and melons at $204.6 million” & “field and row crops at $130 million” ……… OK, All of the Vegetables I know about are Planted in ROWS and in FIELDS………… What am I missing here?

  6. Dailey’s new communications hire… now there’s a riddle. Along with his appointment of Grow Tallahassee/Ghazvini PAC chair to a government board.

    Great points David Hawkins.

  7. Mr Skeptic

    The City of Tallahassee is doing nothing regarding the bus service to Amazon. Of course they should be making a plan and of course there are funding sources for this such as Leon County and Amazon. Is the city even working with other entities to procure funding?

    Why isn’t the Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce asking these questions?

  8. When it comes to “Affordable Housing”, if it HAS TO BE a Single Family House, you DON’T have to build a NEW House. You can “Re-Hab” a Dilapidated House at a fraction of the cost. Watch Home Town, the Show takes place in Laurel Mississippi. Great Show. Not only are you Re-Habbing an old run down House but you are Beautifying a Neighborhood AND increasing Property Values.

  9. Amazon selected Moore’s property along I-10 for its distribution center. It’s not up to anyone except Amazon to figure out how to hire enough people to run it. It’s already going to have quite an impact on a semi-rural/suburban setting. I’m against the city (or any other governmental entity) financially supporting the center or Amazon’s staffing “challenges”.

    To my way of thinking, Amazon choose its location poorly. Every single item that goes into and out of that center will be on a truck. That’s many thousands of cross country trucks every year, and thousands more regional trucks. It seems to me that building the center a few miles from where they did, and taking advantage of the existing railroad system, would allow them to bring in more merchandise with less expense.

  10. Don’t be fooled by your City Nannies constant harping, as of late, on the “buzz words” affordable housing. Fact is your elected City Nannies got caught with their pants down for the final time withholding development funding to the southside. So finally your Nannies have determined, in their great wisdom and desire of re-election, to reluctantly, and at long last, toss a bone to our poor folk on the southside. The “affordable housing” your Nannies are getting the word out to their herd of loyal wealthy mostly white supporters and co-conspirators is not exactly what you think. No not by a long shot. What your Nannies call affordable housing on the southside is just fixing up some of the projects down there on the southside. And remember all you in the herd of loyal wealthy mostly white supporters and co-conspirators to reference your Nannies good works as “affordable housing”.
    This should be sufficent for your Nannies folk on the southside for the next 25 – 30 years and best of all allow for all funding to be diverted back to the wealthy northside for more projects like those old former plantation slave schoolhouses to be restored to fancy venues where your Nannies herd of loyal wealthy mostly white supporters and co-conspirators can have fancy wedding receptions and other such fabulous events. Enjoy your affordable housing long negelected citizens on the southside!!!!!

  11. Rush Limbaugh called them “the drive by media”. And I understand why. Our local media doesn’t expend any effort researching crime in our neighborhood.

    I have a hypothesis. The average Tallahassee, Leon County, Gadsden County resident isn’t aware of the Scum our Law Enforcement take off the streets daily. And until a horrific event shocks their family, the are content to go to work looking forward to the evening watching Fantasy Island.

    So they are obvilious to the 28 arrests that happened yesterday. If I was running the local Republican Party, I’d rent a Billboard Sign, on Cap Circle that reads/informs everyone about yesterday’s arrest. Let’s be honest, Dailey, Richardson and Cox are not going to take substantial action to stop crime. No Way. They are not going to arrest their constituent’s family.

    The media could report on crime daily if they wanted so people understand what is happening in our community. But they don’t.

    Saving the Southside/Black Community is a waste of time. Build more prisons and increase police patrols/presents. There is no way you can provide adult education that makes up for the failure to take advantage of the 12 years of free education all of us received. We need hard working men/women on parole to cut our yards.

    Just ask yourself, do you want to take care of our crime problem now or after a loved one is harmed/murdered. Realise our local Sinclair media is passively covering up our crime problem. You make the call.

    As soon a our local Republican Party gets serious about our problems is when I will start making contributions.

    Let’s get real.

  12. City Commissioner Matlow may want to consider obtaining a restraining order against Rusty. His obsession and sore loser syndrome with Matlow is disturbing.

  13. – Still no information on the recently hired City of Tallahassee Communications Director. Was this an added position or did it facilitate a position that was vacant?

    – Cities solve crime and poverty issues by providing jobs. Why is the city not facilitating bus service to the Amazon Fulfillment Center? This isn’t rocket science; how hard is it to drive a couple of buses a few miles out of the city limits to provide needed transportation? Another reason to do a nationwide search for a city manager.

    – Why isn’t the Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce advocating for bus transportation to Amazon? Aren’t they supposed to have people’s backs regarding business?

    – Perhaps if the Tallahassee Democrat would use an actual reporter asking these questions instead of a PR rep facilitating the Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce’s free publicity some progress could be made.

  14. Does Matlow know that the “faith” in his “faith without works is dead” tweet comes from James 2:20 (KJV) and means faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross for the forgiveness of sins, and not faith in something else, such as “faith in faith”? “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12 ESV).

  15. You lost me with; “according to the University of California at Berkeley”.

    BTW… Salazar was on with Maria Bartiromo this morning insisting that all she wants is “dignity”, not “amnesty”, for millions of illegal aliens. She must think talking really fast and loud so Bartiromo can’t get a word in will get her off the hook. It won’t. Sugar coating amnesty for illegals is what democrats do. She sounded more like Joe Biden than Ron DeSantis…

Leave a Reply to Nicholas Weed Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published.