Richard Danielson, Times Staff Writer
Richard Danielson covers city government and politics in Tampa. He grew up in Clearwater, graduated from Vanderbilt University and joined the Times in 1987. This is his second tour at City Hall (the first was from 1992 to '97). His other reporting assignments at the Times have included covering local government and politics in Pasco County, federal courts and higher education. He also has worked as the Times' Palm Harbor bureau chief and Clearwater city editor. In his current assignment, he is a main contributor to PolitiFact Florida's Buck-O-Meter, which tracks Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn's performance on nearly three dozen campaign promises
Phone: (813) 226-3403
Email: danielson@tampabay.com
Twitter: @Danielson_Times
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Tampa City Council opts not to hire its own budget analyst
05/23/13 Local GovernmentTAMPA — The City Council on Thursday decided this is not the time to hire its own budget analyst to help keep an eye on Mayor Bob Buckhorn's administration.
With a $15 million to $20 million revenue shortfall looming for next year's budget, a majority of the council treated the idea as a luxury the city cannot afford — at least, not now.
Instead, several said, any available funds for new positions should go to departments such as parks or code enforcement....
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Tampa changing downtown garbage pickup for businesses
05/23/13 Local GovernmentTAMPA — Goodbye, blue bins. Hello, blue bags.
Starting July 1, the city and Tampa Downtown Partnership will discontinue using 95-gallon carts for trash pickup at 53 businesses in downtown Tampa.
In their place, local officials will pick up 30-gallon blue bags on a more frequent schedule.
The goal: less-cluttered sidewalks.
"Frankly, the blue bins are big and clunky, and on trash days, they are everywhere," Mayor Bob Buckhorn said in a statement announcing the change....
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Coming to Tampa's riverfront — beach volleyball
05/22/13 Human InterestTAMPA — It's had ice-skating in the winter. Now, for the first time, Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park will offer beach volleyball this summer.
The white-sand court is going in this week for Saturday's Tampa Bay Margarita Festival, but it's staying through July 31.
"We thought it would be pretty cool, like an urban beach kind of thing," said Ferdian Jap of Big City Events, which is organizing the margarita fest....
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Tampa chamber: Businesses concerned by Legislature's inaction on Medicaid expansion
05/21/13 BlogFor Tallahassee, refusing additional federal funds to expand Medicaid may turn out to have been the easy part.
It will take longer, a half-dozen Hillsborough legislators acknowledged Tuesday, to come up with an alternative to provide health care coverage to an estimated 1 million uninsured Floridians.
The business impact of legislative decisions on health care was a main issue when about 120 members of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce sat down for lunch with seven Hillsborough County legislators at the Embassy Suites Hotel in downtown Tampa....
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Hillsborough Aviation Authority seat draws 12 applicants
05/21/13 BlogA dozen people have applied to fill the vacancy on the Hillsborough Aviation Authority created by the April 21 death of lawyer and board chairman Steve Burton.
Gov. Rick Scott has not indicated when he will make his choice. The day after Burton’s death, Scott told reporters, “we'll do this in a methodical manner, try to find somebody as good as Steve to be there, but Steve will be tough to replace."...
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Tampa Bay area waits its turn to bid for a fifth Super Bowl
05/20/13NewsTAMPA — The National Football League today picks its host cities for Super Bowls L and LI — that's 50 and 51, for the Roman numeral-challenged — and Tampa Bay is not in the conversation.
No surprise there, because the NFL did not invite the bay area to submit a bid for either game.
Instead, invitations for those two games went to San Francisco, South Florida and Houston. The league will choose between San Francisco and South Florida for the 50th championship in 2016....
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Along Adamo, a statement to match the bold history of Ybor City
05/18/13 Human InterestTAMPA
Rolling by on Adamo Drive, thousands of motorists have gotten glimpses under the scaffolding of the work in progress, but a huge mural painted to tell the story of Ybor City makes its official unobstructed debut next week.
"I love it," said Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who will dedicate the mural at 2 p.m. Tuesday. "It is a tribute to the diversity and the history of Ybor City. Ybor City is not shy and reserved. Ybor City is bold. Ybor City is colorful. I'm a big believer in public art anyway, and I think it's a great addition to Ybor City."...
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Count (and recount) finds 2,275 homeless in Hillsborough County
05/17/13 Local GovernmentTAMPA — Advocates for the homeless found a total of 2,275 homeless people in Hillsborough County — about half the number from two years ago — in a count and recount this year.
The last count, in 2011, found 4,681 homeless people.
The good news: The drop suggests that several new efforts to address homelessness are making a dent in the number of people living on the streets, in emergency shelters, in transitional housing or in jail....
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City, TECO plan $1.5 million in electrical upgrades to Tampa water plant
05/16/13 Local GovernmentTAMPA — Improving the reliability of electrical service to the city's David L. Tippin Water Treatment Facility could cost the city and Tampa Electric Co. a total of $1.5 million, officials said Thursday.
The water treatment plant lost power Feb. 22 after a squirrel gnawed into a power line and set off a cascading series of problems. The outage led to an unprecedented 37-hour advisory for residents citywide to boil their water....
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Tampa moves to muffle loud car stereos
05/16/13 Local GovernmentTAMPA — Blast your car stereo in the city of Tampa and you could soon be fined $250 or more.
The City Council on Thursday approved a new, tougher noise ordinance giving police the authority to cite drivers whose stereos are plainly audible 50 feet away.
If it wins final approval June 6, the ordinance would make a first offense a $250 civil infraction and a second offense a $450 infraction. Three or more violations could bring up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine....
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Tampa City Council okays Water Works Building lease with Columbia Restaurant's owner
05/16/13 Local GovernmentTAMPA — It's been more than a year since Tampa officials picked Columbia Restaurant owner Richard Gonzmart to renovate the city's old Water Works Building.
But on Thursday, Gonzmart finally got the lease he needs to create a new restaurant — though not a Columbia — inside the historic pump-house.
"This is going to be my legacy," Gonzmart told the City Council before it approved the lease....
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Green Party of Florida to meet in Tampa
05/14/13 BlogThe Florida Green Party will hold its annual membership meeting in Tampa May 24-26.
Along with electing officers and working on outreach and recruitment strategies, the party will hold a Q-and-A session with Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party's 2012 presidential candidate, from 7 to 9 p.m. May 25 at the St. Petersburg Museum of History, 335 Second Ave. NE.
Sessions are scheduled for:...
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Tech-savvy aide to Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn leaving
05/13/13LocalTAMPA — Siobhan Harley, special assistant to Mayor Bob Buckhorn and a rising star in local Democratic politics, is resigning to go to work for a political consulting firm in Nashville.
Harley will leave City Hall on Friday to take a job as a campaign manager with the Calvert Street Group, which does work in 30 states and Canada. There, she will be closer to her boyfriend, Patrick Kavanaugh, a law student at Vanderbilt University....
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Tampa planners, Carnegie Mellon researchers look for social hot spots
05/12/13 Local GovernmentTAMPA — Lines on a map are one thing.
But maybe real-time data on where people shop, eat and hang out can reveal more about the life of the city.
That's the idea behind a new collaboration between the city of Tampa and computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
The two are teaming up for a project to analyze social media data that tags places its users visit — the coffee shop, the gym, a ballgame, a nightclub....
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Proposed apartment tower near Straz Center hits delay
05/09/13 Local GovernmentTAMPA — An ambitious plan to build a 36-story apartment tower overlooking the Hillsborough River was delayed Thursday night amid questions about its impact on traffic, the riverfront and cultural arts institutions.
The City Council postponed votes on two aspects of the project until Aug. 8 after hearing concerns from representatives of the neighboring John F. Germany Public Library and David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts....
