Shockingly poor financial management at General Motors and Chrysler weakened their case for a federal bailout, but officials feared letting them collapse, the former head of a government auto task force said Wednesday. ...more

October 21, 2009

A state agency will hire an independent auditor to determine how former Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson spent federal funds meant for voter education and equipment. ...more

March 12, 2009

Their job is to put out fires. But there have been times during the past four years that members of the Seffner-Mango Volunteer Fire Rescue Association felt like lighting a fire beneath Hillsborough County officials to get their permanent fire station constructed sooner. ...more

February 7, 2009

Their job is to put out fires. But there have been times during the past four years that members of the Seffner-Mango Volunteer Fire Rescue Association felt like lighting a fire beneath Hillsborough County officials to get their permanent fire station constructed sooner. The volunteers have been operating out of a 1,300-square-foot house on Kingsway and Cactus roads for four years while waiting for the county to construct a permanent fire station at 105 Cactus Road. Now, with a groundbreaking scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday, the crew of Fire Station No. 18 is finally seeing some progress. ...more

February 6, 2009

Just about everyone is conflicted on all the bailouts going on these days. Rescuing banks and automakers are sold to the public by telling us about the apocalyptic destruction that doing nothing would spark. So Americans are going deeper in debt, with no end in sight. It's a sickening feeling. ...more

December 12, 2008

Poor management and lax oversight caused Hillsborough County's Affordable Housing Office to lose $2 million in federal funds last year, according to an internal audit released Monday. ...more

December 9, 2008

TAMPA -- An internal audit released today blames poor management and a bad reporting system in Hillsborough County's Affordable Housing Office for the loss of $2 million in federal funds. It provides a blistering assessment of housing officials, specifically those assigned to oversee or assist the department from 2004 to 2006. The audit, at different points, refers to the county's previous housing management as "inept" and lacking "ambition and initiative to promote and pursue standards, principles and values." ...more

December 8, 2008

Fireworks over Hillsborough County's election debacle intensified on Thursday, as more indications of possible human error surfaced and Democratic officials called for state and federal intervention. ...more

November 7, 2008

Isn't a knee-jerk reaction wonderful? Just like the county's employee firings, Ms. Allwood's response to my (and other) letters shows more reaction than understanding. At no point in my letter did I condone the actions of any of the employees. What I and others have tried to point out is that "all" these employees broke the "same rule" but each was treated differently. Although I have not seen the actual wording of the rule I can bet that it does not say that it's OK to have content of one type but not content of another type. It would be impossible to write such a rule that would define everything one might or might not include in a message so rules are made to be general. Most likely it says it's wrong to use the county's equipment for personal use – period, that covers it all. But now we have county administrators, after the fact, rewriting the rule to fit their own agenda (or cover their own past actions) and to protect a higher-up employee while firing lower-level employees. That's wrong, and shows poor management skills. There's an old saying: "You can't be almost pregnant." Apparently you can in Highlands County. ...more

February 8, 2008

Some 21,000 people who should not have been allowed to enter the United States came through official border crossing points between Oct. 1, 2005, and Sept. 30, 2006, according to a government report released Monday. ...more

November 6, 2007