Hillsborough County Commissioners will take public comments Thursday on how to spend a $19.1 million federal grant to buy and redevelop foreclosed properties. The money comes to the county through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, part of a broader housing recovery act passed by Congress earlier this year to deal with skyrocketing numbers of foreclosures. ...more

October 31, 2008

Tax money given as an incentive to a private business to create jobs raises the question of how taxpayers at large will benefit from the deal. ...more

October 28, 2008

When city officials needed money for the Central Park Village redevelopment project, they turned to the bond markets. ...more

October 19, 2008

With land prices tanking, environmentalists say now is the time to pounce on a depressed real estate market to preserve thousands more acres for wildlife, water protection and quality of life. ...more

October 18, 2008

With thousands of foreclosed houses littering its landscape, Pasco County is eligible for nearly $20 million in federal aid - the fifth-highest grant in Florida. ...more

October 18, 2008

The Environmental Protection Agency is failing to stem the pollution washing into waterways from cities and suburbs, the National Academy of Sciences reported Wednesday. ...more

October 16, 2008

In national politics, the Kennedys and the Bushes are America's first families. In Florida politics, Ben Hill Griffin and his grandchildren take that title. ...more

October 12, 2008

Some people have one career, Elton Gissendanner has several. He is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force Weather Service, the U.S. National Weather Service and the Georgia Air National Guard Weather Service. He graduated magna cum laude in 1955 as a doctor of veterinary medicine. He was twice the mayor of North Miami in the 1960s, he was a state representative for two years in-between mayoral terms, he worked on Gov. Bob Graham's staff from 1978-79, and directed the Florida Department of Natural Resources from 1979 to 1987. ...more

October 12, 2008

When she was in her mid-20s, Denise Grimsley, now 48 and a registered nurse, never dreamed she would get involved in politics. That changed when her father became ill in the mid-1990s and she stepped in to run his petroleum and convenience store businesses. ...more

October 12, 2008

Jeff Carlson is a certified public accountant. He's originally from Highlands County. He's married, and has two children. ...more

October 12, 2008