The best bang for the buck is to "stop the bleeding, stop the war." Bring the troops home from all nations. We can no longer be the world's policeman. We have bases all over the world that we can no longer support, short of borrowing millions of dollars a day, which is destroying us financially. The best that America can do for the entire world is to stabilize our financial institutions. The entire world's economy is tied to the American economy. America must re-build its own industries and its infrastructure, not of other nations with the American tax dollar, as well as borrowing money from other nations at huge interest. We must also work toward energy independence, which is the biggest cause of a failed economy. The many regulations that were put in place to regulate financial institutions for the last two decades have been ignored and have created criminal lending practices. These have happened under the watch of both political parties. This illegal lending will create a huge tax bill for all Americans. ...more

February 1, 2008

Century Communications has filed a motion to dismiss a breach-of-contract lawsuit brought by Live Oak Preserve's homeowners association. ...more

January 30, 2008

By next month, the city plans to hire a contractor to maintain its nearly 13,000 fire hydrants. ...more

January 26, 2008

LIVE OAK PRESERVE - Century Communications has filed a motion to dismiss a breach-of-contract lawsuit brought by Live Oak Preserve's homeowners association. Attorneys for the developer-owned cable company said the association never specified how Century breached the contract. They said Century held up its end of the deal by making "a substantial investment of installing the infrastructure required to perform the agreed upon services." ...more

January 25, 2008

Impact fees are an important pay-as-you-use tax/fee, and recent concern about raising them in a real estate market slump is unjustified. ...more

January 19, 2008

SEBRING — Downtown businesses continue to try to lure people to the City on the Circle, and now the Community Redevelopment Agency is considering hiring a marketing coordinator to help with these efforts. Linda Kegley, owner of LK Artworks Gallery and Graphics, submitted a proposal to CRA members to create the position of a marketing coordinator to advertise downtown as a destination and coordinate events to generate traffic downtown. Kegley, who has more than 25 years of advertising and marketing experience, said she would like to be considered for this position, at a rate of $24 per hour or about $24,000 per year for 20 hours of work per week. ...more

January 16, 2008

I am writing in response to the letter entitled, "Just a Lot of Hype" (Letters, Dec. 20). ...more

January 4, 2008

It's a delicate balance our county and communities must make when determining whether to take cash or land as payment for impacts on growth in this area. Making sure we have adequate land for schools, recreation, government offices, fire departments, etc., is critical. So is the need for cash to pay for impacted infrastructure. ...more

December 20, 2007

Regarding "Rays Want To Move To Waterfront Field" (front page, Nov. 10): Let me get this straight: The Rays want to build a stadium that will cost hundreds of million of dollars. All they want in return is to have the state give them $60 million and to have all the money from that sale of Tropicana Field - even though they do not own Tropicana Field - to help build their new stadium, which the Rays will totally own. ...more

November 16, 2007

Regarding 'Spending The Future' (front page, Oct. 12): Surprisingly, current and past county commission members have nearly spent all the projected tax revenue. These commissioners, like homeowners who irresponsibly borrowed (I mean gambled) on future home values, have put Hillsborough County taxpayers in jeopardy. ...more

October 14, 2007