Jeff Vinik Owns Tampa Bay Times—in Case You Hadn’t Noticed

Cross post with permission from post author Jim Bleyer, Tampa Bay Beat

Jeff Vinik, through Tampa Bay Sports and Entertainment LLC, owns the major interest in the Tampa Bay Times, according to corporate records obtained by Tampa Bay Beat from Bloomberg, the world’s primary distributor of financial data.

It accounts for the Times’ sheer, unfettered promotion of all Vinik enterprises including the Tampa Bay Lightning hockey team, obfuscation of his role in meddling with Tampa’s Museum of Science and Industry, and the deliberate withholding of facts surrounding the new one percent sales tax for transit in Hillsborough County—a gargantuan financial windfall for Vinik.

Transit Study Reveals AFT Sold Voters Costly Can of Worms

The idiom "can of worms" refers to doing something that creates a litany of other problems and creates more trouble and complicates the situation or problem trying to be solved.

The All for Transportation (AFT) 30 year $16 Billion sales tax hike is now looking like a can of worms. AFT ignored transit reality and the reality is happening now.

Legal Questions Remain As County Admits All For Transportation Gave "Oversight" Committee Overreaching Powers

Legal questions remain about who has the "Rightful Authority" to appropriate All for Transportation's $16 Billion tax hike proceeds for 30 years. Now the county and the agencies receiving the tax proceeds are admitting there are big problems with AFT's tax hike charter amendment.

All For Transportation (AFT) touted in their $4 million marketing campaign that the AFT $16 Billion tax hike was keeping "Political Hands" aka duly elected officials out of their tax hike cookie jar. AFT sent thousands of mailers to voters with that message.

All for Transportation Mailer

Taxation without Representation For Unincorporated Hillsborough As Tax Hike Committee Stacked With Appointees Who Reside in City of Tampa

Warning signals went out prior to the election raising numerous issues with the All for Transportation 30 year $16 Billion tax hike. Those warnings included what All For Transportation (AFT) touted as their "Independent Oversight Committee" (IOC).

AFT, a political committee, defined enumerated powers in their 5 page tax hike charter amendment to unelected bureaucrats on the IOC who are accountable to no one. AFT empowered the IOC to be the ultimate approver/disapprover for all transportation projects to be funded by AFT's $16 Billion tax hike.

Commissioner Stacy White sounded warnings before the election in his October 18th press release that the IOC can be stacked with members not from the areas where the majority of the AFT taxes will be paid. In other words there was a good chance that the IOC will be stacked with those who live in the city of Tampa when over 2/3 of the population lives in unincorporated Hillsborough.