AFT Spokesperson/Vinik Employee Christina Barker Cited in FL Senate Brief

As reported, a Circuit Court Judge threw out major portions of All for Transportation's transit tax, including their mandated spending allocations, as illegal and unlawful. The judge, who is elected and will probably run again, split the baby and left the tax itself still standing.

Numerous appeals have been filed to the Florida Supreme Court. The appeals include those filed by All for Transportation according to this Times article.

Since the legal appeals were filed, the Florida House and Florida Senate have filed amicus curiae briefs with the Florida Supreme Court requesting the Court to strike the entire All for Transportation charter amendment including the tax.

The Florida House and Senate amicus curiae briefs can be found here and here.

The Senate brief states they are joining the brief filed by the House and also states (we included link to Times article referenced):

On September 4, 2019 the Tampa Bay Times published an article that was entitled Hillsborough's transportation tax has a new opponent: the Florida House.  

The article included the following quote from the organizer for All for Transportation, Christina Barker, the sponsor of the referendum at issue in this case: “Hillsborough County voters exercised a right that the Florida Legislature gave them. The fact that this is being walked back now is incredibly disappointing.”

The Senate wishes to appear in this case as an additional amicus curiae and join in the House brief in order to clarify that both Chambers of the Legislature support the House’s position stated therein. The Legislature is united in seeking a proper interpretation and enforcement of section 212.055, Florida Statutes, and in opposing an expansion of the severability doctrine to include local exercises of legislatively delegated non-ad valorem taxation authority.

The Senate agrees with and supports the House position, which respects and protects the voters. Unlawful referendums that do not follow the clear procedures laid out by statute should not be judicially repaired by the trial court. The result reached by the trial court ignores the premise upon which voters may have supported the referendum, namely how the transportation tax would be administered.

Foolish Power Players Supported Flawed Transit Tax

We continue our "Sunlight" series about All for Transportation's legally flawed $16 Billion transit tax and the insiders who were helping them.

We posted here about the genesis of the All for Transportation (AFT) transit tax. Transit advocate and community organizer Kevin Thurman created his "People's Plan" and shopped his transit tax political strategy to inside power players.

According to public records we received, Thurman targeted power players at Tampa International Airport and sent his transit tax presentations to Janet Scherberger last April.

Rewarding the Big Mess Makers

A judge threw out most of the All for Transportation (AFT) transit tax as illegal and unlawful. 

Rewarding All For Transportation who subjected voters to a legally flawed 30 year $16 Billion transit tax last year is unacceptable. 

But Hillsborough County Democrat commissioners Les Miller and his 3 Democrat colleagues decided to reward those who ran amok of State Statutes to get their $16 Billion transit tax passed. 

AFT's "Bad Tax" Con Was Planned To Surprise Public and Prevent Public Scrutiny

As a recent Circuit Court ruling confirmed, All for Transportation (AFT) put an illegal and unlawful transit tax charter amendment referendum on the ballot in Hillsborough County last year.

If such a big mess was about an issue local media did not agree with, we would see daily headlines shouting out those who were involved with it. But local media refuses to do that with AFT and prefers to filter out information about those who pushed an illegal transit tax onto unsuspecting voters in 2018.

The public deserves to know more. 

All for Transportation Ballot Language vs Article 11 Charter Amendment - Deceptive or Legal?

All for Transportation (AFT) hit voters mail boxes hard last year with glossy mailers claiming they had a transportation "plan" aka $16 Billion transit tax hike to "cut" traffic congestion in Hillsborough County for 30 years.

But we posted here, when AFT spokesperson Kevin Thurman, one of the authors of their $16 Billion transit tax hike, was challenged on that claim about a week before the election, he was forced to admit that such claims were not true and congestion would actually get worse over the 30 years.

No wonder AFT refused to debate anyone who opposed their tax hike before the election. Their deceptive use of exaggerated claims would be exposed.

While deceptive political campaigns may not be illegal, what about deceptive ballot language?

High-profile local transit advocacy group dissolves after filing no federal tax returns for 3 years

Cross posted with permission from the Tampa Bay Guardian

In an official filing with the State of Florida, the Hillsborough-based transit advocacy group Connect Tampa Bay, Inc. (CTB) voluntarily dissolved itself on April 26th. This came 11 days after a Guardian reporter wrote Hillsborough county commissioners with evidence that CTB never filed any federally required tax returns.

Announced Hillsborough County Commission candidate Brian Willis (pictured below) was CTB’s president at the deadlines for 3 out of the 4 tax returns that had to be filed, but never were filed. Willis is a real estate attorney at the Tampa law firm Shumaker, Loop and Kendrick. Willis has offered no comment as to why the returns required by federal law were not filed.

Brian Willis, candidate for
County Commission District 6

It was CTB who in January 2014 came up with the name “Go Hillsborough”, which is the name that Hillsborough County chose for its now troubled transportation plan. On April 27th, commissioners declined by 4-3 vote place it on the ballot this November, but may still place it on the ballot at a public hearing on June 9th. Go Hillsborough, if placed on the ballot and approved by voters in November, would mean a hike in the sales tax.

The Tampa Bay Guardian first asked to see CTB’s tax returns on January 19th, 2016. CTB’s Executive Director Kevin Thurman wrote back the same day and said “I have received your request and will provide you with all documents required by law within one week”. Thurman never did.

Three weeks later, after prodding, Thurman (pictured below middle) said that CTB had filed all required tax returns, and claimed to have e-mailed copies of them to the Guardian two weeks earlier. Tax exempt organizations must make their tax returns available for inspection and copying by the public as a condition of their tax exempt status.

Local transit advocacy group Connect Tampa Bay
created the brand name Go Hillsborough

Annoyed that the reporter was questioning whether returns had even been filed, Thurman insisted on “re-sending” the returns via certified mail rather than e-mail, with a return receipt. His letter never came.

CTB was formed with much fanfare in late 2012 by Thurman, current Hillsborough County Commission candidate Brian Willis, Brian Seel (son of Pinellas County Commissioner Karen Seel) and Brandie Miklus, an urban planner for Jacobs Engineering.

Jacobs Engineering produced the multimillion dollar Alternative Analysis for Pinellas County,  the basis for the 2014 Greenlight Pinellas tax hike referendum, which was trounced by voters with 62% voting “NO”. Jacobs is a potential bidder on multi-million dollar Go Hillsborough contracts

Miklus worked the welcome table at early Go Hillsborough “community engagement” meetings held by the county (see picture below). This role allowed Miklus to gather contact info of all those who attended. But for whom? The County? Connect Tampa Bay? Her employer?

Brandie Miklus working sign in table
at Go Hillsborough meeting

After her role at these meetings being called into question in an article in EyeOnTampaBay, Miklus was not seen at any more meetings.

Questions have dogged CTB since their founding about who funds them. CTB has never opened its books, but Thurman claimed on February 11th that they have “collected few donations” and that they “haven’t collected a donation in two years.”

Willis faces Hillsborough Democratic Party chair Pat Kemp, former Hillsborough County Commissioner Tim Scott and former Plant City Mayor John Dicks in a Democratic primary on August 30th. Willis recently claimed in a fundraising e-mail that we was being attacked by the Tea Party supported, but offered no evidence other than an anonymous blog post from one year ago.

The Guardian has confirmed through multiple avenues with the IRS, including the below letter from the IRS, that CTB in fact never filed the required federal tax returns.

IRS letter regarding Connect Tampa Bay's
Federal 990 tax returns

In its filing with the State of Florida, CTB said they voted to dissolve on March 1st, yet only filed the document with the state 56 days later. Their filing came just 11 days after the above letter from the IRS was made public. Their state filing also said they had “no members entitled to vote on the dissolution”, yet the board voted 3-0 to dissolve.

Thurman, speaking for CTB, was frequently quoted in the now defunct Tampa Tribune. Thurman has been quoted in the Tampa Bay Times six times this year alone. In the Times latest story quoting Thurman just last week, more than 10 weeks after CTB was dissolved, Times reporter Steve Contorno described Thurman as the “executive director of the pro-transit Connect Tampa Bay”.

The Guardian provided the state filing to Contorno via e-mail on the day his article was published online, but the Times has yet to issue a correction.

This is a developing story and we will publish updates as they become available.

Cross posted with permission from the Tampa Bay Guardian

Go Hillsborough: A Tale of Cronyism, Corruption and Collusion

As posted consistently at the Eye for the last year, the Go Hillsborough campaign was NEVER a "good faith" public engagement effort to create a transportation plan.  Simply search our blog posts using "Go Hillsborough, Beth Leytham, Parsons Brinckerhoff, or transportation."

Go Hillsborough was a well orchestrated marketing campaign, now costing taxpayers almost $1.5 MILLION dollars, to force a sales tax referendum on the 2016 ballot.

Go Hillsborough was orchestrated behind the scenes with no transparency and outside of our Sunshine laws.

We always speculated and have known for quite sometime that there was back door collusion going on with Go Hillsborough.

Collusion reigned king in the Go Hillsborough phony baloney crony taxpayer funded campaign led by the well connected political insider Crony Queen Beth Leytham.

10 Investigates's Noah Pransky investigates cronyism
 in Hillsborough County and in Tampa

Thanks to Noah Pransky and his 10 Investigates report now we know who has been colluding within this entire Go Hillsborough crony process.

• County commissioners, some of who have close associations with Crony Queen Leytham.

• Parsons Brinckerhoff, Crony Queen Leytham's client, a crony engineering firm who has a colorful history of using their political prowess and band of mercenaries to ram tax referendums through that they can then benefit from.

• Bob Clifford, former TBARTA Executive Director who resigned from TBARTA last May and conveniently went to work for Parsons in June 2014 sat in the audience of the August PLG meeting when the vote was taken to hire the Parsons/Letham team. He's been the face of Parsons throughout the campaign.

• County Administrator Mike Merrill - he enabled the crony procurement process that circumvented any normal bid process for the public engagement work. He has always wanted another boatload of your tax dollars and has been the face of pushing the sales tax referendum for over a year. 

• Kevin Thurman, Executive Director of Connect Tampa Bay, the local transit lobbyist who helped the process from the outside by being a leaker of certain information at various times - Crony Queen Leytham was so close to him that she hijacked Connect Tampa Bay's campaign theme "Go Hillsborough" and suddenly CTB removed their Go Hillsborough presentation from their website (but of course we already had a copy of it)

• The Tribune, who has been pounding the pavement for a sales tax hike since the transportation initiative started over 2 years ago, and instead of investigating Go Hillsborough, has continued to circle the wagons to protect the corrupt process.

• Mayor Buckhorn, his close ties to Crony Queen Beth Leytham are well documented and he sat as a voting member of the Policy Leadership Group and voted to hire Parsons knowing that hundreds of thousands of tax dollars would get laundered to his campaign PR consultant Leytham.

• And the cog of this crony wheel is the Crony Queen Beth Leytham. She owns her PR/lobbyist business that is a staff of one - her; and the sucking sound of your tax dollars funneled to her PR firm The Leytham Croup go all to her.

Beth Leytham

This collusion helps explains why there has been little transparency but much deception with this entire Go Hillsborough process.

County commissioners cannot feign ignorance. I have made numerous public comments at BOCC meetings. I have spoken to county commissioners, some numerous times, about the crony Parsons Brinkcerhoff contract and the corrupted process. 

In fact, I asked the county commissioners to stop funding Go Hillsborough at the July 15 BOCC meeting, the day before the July 16 Policy Leadership Group meeting Merrill wanted the Policy Leadership Group to vote to continue pursuing the 1/2 percent sales tax increase proposal. Click on the second HTV link (afternoon session) here and scroll to about 3:52 at the end to listen to my public comment. 

On July 16 all the county commissioners, except Stacy White, voted to continue pursuing the 1/2 percent sales tax hike proposed. They also agreed to handing the crony Parsons/Leytham team another $350K of our tax dollars. This time Merrill conveniently worked out for the municipalities to chip in a $100K so the county would cough up $250K, the upper limit of what Merrill has authority to unilaterally approve with no vote needed by the county commissioners.

County Administrator Mike Merrill cannot feign ignorance. Merrill cannot say he had nothing to do with procuring the Parsons contract. I began submitting Public Records Request for documentation about the Parsons contract and how this public engagement work was procured on September 9, 2014. I have a paper trail since then that can be a post for another day.

County staff cannot feign ignorance as I have spoken to too many of them since September 2014 about too many issues swirling around Go Hillsborough and the million dollar blank check no bid contract "handed" to Parsons Brinckerhoff.

Leytham, who supposedly was known for her crisis management skills for others cannot coverup her own crisis that she created and enabled.

When cronyism and collusion collide, there is corruption.

There's more so stay tuned.

But you can take action NOW! The county commissioners cannot allow this corrupted process to continue.

Contact our county commissioners and DEMAND they vote to shut down the crony corrupt Go Hillsborough campaign at tomorrow's BOCC meeting. Not another taxpayer dime should be spent on the corrupt Go Hillsborough campaign.

Better yet - show up at the BOCC meeting tomorrow, sign up before 9am to make a public comment and tell the county commissioners directly.