- Mayor Jane Castor is requiring all 4,700 city workers to be fully vaccinated by the end of September. No, she didn’t run it by RegeneRon DeSantis.
- The purposely unvaccinated are among us and a self-evident societal threat during a pandemic. That the problem includes a good chunk of the workforce, some 2,900 employees, that is overseen by Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, is discouraging—and unconscionable. “Too many people who work here are not getting it and show up to work here every day exposing others to infection,” said Gualtieri. He acknowledged about 27 percent of his workforce had been vaccinated–through Aug. 10–at the agency on-site clinic, well below the 63 percent vaccination rate for the county as a whole.
Too bad Gualtieri did not flat-out mandate vaccines or masks for his agency. He cited individual rights. “You have a right to control your own health but you also have an obligation to not be selfish and help keep other from getting COVID from you,” he added. It’s beyond defensible that individual “rights” in a collective scourge would be countenanced among those entrusted with carrying out public safety.
- Tampa Police Officer Delvin White, who was fired in March for using the n-word, has been reinstated. Good. Bad that it ever happened in the first place to this popular black high school resource officer who served as a mentor for students. His nonsensical (an appropriate n-word) firing was a blatant overreaction that totally ignored context and connotation.
- Tampa topped Forbes’ list of Emerging Tech Cities. (The rest of the top 5: Miami, New York, Austin and San Francisco.) Forbes notes that there are now more than 50 software and IT companies in Tampa, and the city accounts for more than 25 percent of Florida’s tech jobs. Forbes also underscored the impact of the Water Street Tampa development that is geared toward tech.
- For its Lincoln Day fundraiser, the Hillsborough County Republican Party called on Marjorie Taylor Greene to speak. What a ghastly get. Wonder what the back-up plan was. David Duke? Ted Nugent? Matt Gaetz? Steve Bannon? No, this is not the GOPster party of Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, previous Lincoln Day speakers. BTW, how hypocritical that Trump-fealty GOPsters should even celebrate “‘Lincoln’ Day.” That’s now a sacrilege, unless some locals are nostalgic for American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell. Then it’s another abomination.
- Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren is generating some interest from those who would like to see him run statewide—for attorney general.
- The St. Petersburg mayoral primary voter turnout: 28.5 percent.