It’s been seven years since John Dingfelder had to abruptly leave his Tampa City Council seat after more than seven years of service, and he has the itch to return.
Tampa residents in the Forest Hills neighborhood are fearful about the potential deleterious effects resulting from the application of a fumigant on a city owned golf course believed to be a human carcinogen. The fumigant is called curfew, or 1,3-dichloropropenene. It’s made by Dow Agrosciences and is used to reduce the population of nematodes (round worms) and other soil-borne pests that damage developing root systems of young plants. While prohibited from being used on golf courses in environmentally conscious California, it has been approved for use on…
Although he’s been long gone from the Tampa Bay area political scene, Democratic strategist Mitch Kates still recalls his days of leading Democrats to upset victories in both Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties with fond memories. Now the political director for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, Kates appeared last week on Pittsburgh Community Television to discuss his peripatetic career, which has taken him from his native Northeast to the Tampa Bay Area, to working on campaigns in Eastern Europe (Georgia), Kosovo and the Indian Ocean nation of Mauritius.…
In a few days from now, or perhaps a few weeks, Democrats in Hillsborough County may rise to announce that they’re challenging Republicans in two nearly created opportunities where analysts believe they have a decent shot at winning in a presidential election year. But that’s not the case today. With a new Senate seat created as part of the implementation of a redistricting lawsuit, Tampa Republican Dana Young has announced that she will depart her House District 60 seat that she’s held since…
We’ve heard a lot about illegal immigration on the campaign trail. Most of the GOP candidates decry it but say they embrace legal immigration. Like the H-1B visa. The H-1B visa is a nonimmigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialized fields such as in architecture, engineering, mathematics, science, and medicine. Under the visa, a US company can employ a foreign worker for up to six years.…
The recent creation of a state Senate seat in Tampa via a redistricting lawsuit has spurred some Hillsborough County political figures into action. Republican political figures that is. Dana Young said last week she’ll not run for re-election to her House District 60 seat this year and instead seek the new state Senate seat encompassing west Hillsborough County, extending from MacDill Air Force Base north to Pasco County. That prompted fellow Republican Jackie Toledo to declare her candidacy for Young’s…
Although he said a couple of years ago that he was going to retire from running campaigns, reports of Mitch Kates departure from the political arena were obviously greatly exaggerated. The latest move for the 51-year-old political strategist – who made a huge splash in the Tampa Bay Area for a short period of time in the mid-to-late aughts – is his recent ascension to becoming the political director for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. It’s a big responsibility heading into…
