* Tampa Bay inflation was up 10.2 percent in the last year. Nationally, the inflation-rate increase was 8.5 percent—the highest in more than 40 years.
* “Please be patient. It’ll be worth it in the end.”–Brad Baird, Tampa’s deputy administrator for infrastructure, on the city’s two-decade, ($2.9 billion) PIPES project that will begin this summer in East Tampa, MacFarlane Park in West Tampa, Forest Hills in North Tampa and Virginia Park in South Tampa.
* “We are prepared to work with federal and local partners to ensure that refugees of this terrible (Ukraine) crisis have the support and assistance that they need to join our communities—if they so wish.”–From a letter to President Joe Biden from three regional mayors: Tampa’s Jane Castor, St. Petersburg’s Ken Welch and Orlando’s Buddy Dyer.