By Mike Farrell How serious does a conflict of interest have to become before you can call it a conflict of interest? Believe it or not, this conundrum is intended as the start of an ethical discussion. The SPJ Code of Ethics is clear: Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than […]
Over the last few months, both the County and City governments have been less than honest with millions of dollars of money belonging to the people they represent. First up, the Leon County Commission and the five-cent increase in the gas tax that was passed by a vote of 7-2 (Commissioners Sauls and Proctor voted […]
One of the many ways to evaluate the recovery of any recession is to look at the length of time it takes to reach pre-recession employment levels. In the chart to the right, the Pew Research Center, using data from the US Bureau of Labor statistics, shows a number of statistics about job recovery trends […]
Many economists argue that the Great Recession was made great by the widespread failure of mortgage products that were used to fuel the run up of home prices that ended in late 2006. Two scholars at New York University, Ingrid Ellen and Samuel Dastrup, write that the “Great Recession, like previous recessions, has obviously brought […]
Local candidates who have declared their intention to run for office in 2014 filed their latest financial activity reports with the Leon County Supervisor of Elections earlier this month. The reports filed to date cover all contributions and expenditures through September 30, 2013. In an exclusive analysis, Tallahassee Reports has compiled two tables based on […]
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In the best of times, a city government spending $2.1 million to renovate a government owned building to facilitate a restaurant would be tough to justify. But given the facts surrounding the City of Tallahassee’s venture into what is now called the Brew Pub at Cascades Park, it is hard to believe that the City […]
The City of Tallahassee Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), whose mission is to reduce conditions of physical blight within the agency’s two redevelopment districts: the Greater Frenchtown/Southside Community Redevelopment Area and the Downtown District Community Redevelopment Area, will become a stand alone department in 2014. The CRA has been involved with a number of projects in the […]
Tallahassee Reports has learned that the vote to allocate an additional $1.3 million for a Brew Pub restaurant in Cascades Park took less than 45 seconds to approve. The Brew Pub project has been under media scrutiny since Tallahassee Reports published an article revealing the expenditure and the involvement of Commissioner Andrew Gillum’s campaign treasurer. […]
The unemployment rate is one of the most watched economic statistics. And with the slow creation of jobs during this longer than normal recovery from the Great Recession, it has become even more visible. The media and political pundits wait each month for the unemployment rate to be revealed and begin writing about the implications […]