Since the “Great Recession,” many local, state, and national governments have struggled to install a sustainable budget. No matter the level of government, unanticipated costs from increases in predetermined spending remain at the heart of the problem. Whether it is local governments struggling to pay promised pensions or state governments withdrawing funding to state universities, […]
Wherever you stand on the Common Core, an attempt to provide a set of nationwide education standards, it can’t be good news for the program that it has begun to so resemble the disastrous process and rollout of this administration’s last federal reform, ObamaCare. Yet the opposition to the Common Core has followed a familiar […]
The City of Tallahassee began a Red Light Camera Safety Program on July 1, 2010. Currently, there are 19 red light safety cameras in operation at seven intersections within the City. Recently, the City released and Tallahassee Reports wrote about data that indicate the use of red light cameras has resulted in more crashes at […]
How can a relatively small town government have so many things wrong that a start-up newspaper can grow based almost entirely on reporting the misdeeds using the City’s own public records? With distribution now well over 10,000 copies of each edition Tallahassee Reports is thriving because the truth matters. But, does it? Will the truth […]
The transformation of the media industry over the last thirty years has presented severe economic challenges to the newspaper industry. The newspaper business, fueled by a near monopoly over local advertising for so long, has had to make drastic changes to the way they operate. Without much, if any competition in reporting local news, many […]
Based on pre-vote intel, it was pretty clear that the City Commission was going to vote to move forward with the million dollar investment in what has become known as the Brew Pub in Cascades Park. What was not known was if there would be a discussion among the City Commissioners about the reasons why […]
One of the most popular phrases used by politicians to justify spending your money is “public-private partnership.” The term is most often heard in the same sentence as economic development and has been used at the national and state-level by both Republicans and Democrats to provide justification for significant financial incentives given to businesses that […]
It has been almost seven years since the controversial vote by the City Commission that approved one of the most expensive projects in the history of the City of Tallahassee –smart meters. The money spent on the smart meter project falls in a range between $50 and $80 million depending on what part of the […]
By: NEBA, Network of Entrepreneurs and Business Advocates A group of outstanding citizens appointed to the ethics Advisory Panel met 18 times to formulate a plan to ensure that the city has ethics oversight. They presented a very comprehensive ethics plan to the City Commissioners, four of whom rejected most of it, suggesting instead that […]
Over a six month period from October, 2012 until July, 2013 something special happened in City Hall. Something that a lot of people in this community had been seeking for a number of years. But those people were told they were naysayers and critics. The powers in City Hall told these people “take your three […]