The clerk of the circuit court may have the most responsibility of any elected official. The office is responsible for filing and recording official documents and court records, as well as conducting audits, managing the jury system, providing courtroom clerks, storing evidence, collecting fines and investing county funds, to name just a few duties. ...more

August 5, 2008

TAMPA - A batch of bogus bucks is being passed in the Tampa Bay area, counterfeit $100 and $50 bills that can pass the pen test cashiers frequently use to detect fakes. ...more

July 15, 2008

Sheriff's investigators were looking Friday for anyone with information to come forward on an armed robbery that took place late Tuesday at a Taylor's BP gas station at the corner of State Road 17 and Arbuckle Creek Road. ...more

July 12, 2008

Sheriff's Investigators were looking Friday for anyone with information to come forward on an armed robbery that took place late Tuesday at a Taylor's BP gas station at the corner of State Road 17 and Arbuckle Creek Road.< ...more

July 11, 2008

Cubans are getting wired. The island's communist government put desktop computers on sale to the public for the first time Friday, ending a ban on PC sales as another despised restriction on daily life fell away under new President Raul Castro. ...more

May 3, 2008

It costs taxpayers about $925 when police arrest a homeless person for drinking beer in public or sleeping behind a church, a Herald-Tribune analysis shows. ...more

February 25, 2008

While it is unusual to rethink the need for positions once one is well into the recruiting process, the new director positions certainly warrant deeper study than apparently took place; Kudos to the commissioners for taking a second look. Most likely, when this all shakes out, one of two things will happen: either we will not add the directors or adding them will be greatly delayed. Citizens adeserve more information about justifications for this major move, especially with the smaller-government-cut-expenses environment we live in. Speaking of expenses, the monetary cost of the new director positions has been routinely misrepresented, in print at least, because only salaries are mentioned. Employee benefits, perks, office space, equipment and the inevitable support staff-executive assistants, clerks- makes $1,000,000 a more accurate guesstimate of the annual cost. In addition, there are also significant startup costs associated with recruiting and situating them. Besides monetary costs, adding a layer of management results in a deterioration of communication from the bottom to the top. Information is filtered as it goes up the chain of command and often never reaches the top person. Generally, this means that the county manager will be less aware of negative information. ...more

February 9, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - In what may be the first effort of its kind since a countywide anti-drug paraphernalia ordinance was passed last year, detectives on Wednesday charged three men with violating it by selling special Brillo pad packages from convenience stores. ...more

January 24, 2008

A Hess gas station clerk who sold a case of Budweiser beer to a teenager who crashed a car within hours, killing himself and a passenger, is responsible for the death of the passenger, according to a lawsuit against the global energy company. ...more

January 9, 2008

The bondsmen got wind that John Edward Darlington was going to register his mother's truck Tuesday. ...more

January 9, 2008