Shining light on the good, bad and ugly of bureaucracy in Florida

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

For years, Tallahassee officials have promised big things from a new International Processing Facility and Foreign-Trade Zone at Tallahassee International Airport. 

Really big things. 

More than 1,600 jobs. 

More than $300 million in annual economic impact. 

Hundreds of acres opened for development. 

A “global gateway” connecting Tallahassee to international markets. 

Mayor John Dailey called the City’s 2022 move toward establishing a Foreign-Trade Zone “a huge step forward.” 

Four years later, the step apparently wasn’t quite as large as advertised. It’s yet another example of The Capital City of Things That Never Happen that has been a hallmark of Dailey’s regime. 

The International Processing Facility that was once supposed to be completed in 2024 still isn’t operational. 

The project, originally awarded for $23.5 million plus contingency, is now described by the City as a $35 million investment. 

And the federal application required to actually establish Tallahassee’s much-touted Foreign-Trade Zone? 

It hasn’t been submitted. 

That last part came as something of a surprise to Red Tape Florida. 

It may come as an even bigger surprise to Leon County. 

About that application 

RTF recently asked the City for the formal application submitted to the U.S. Foreign-Trade Zones Board, including the submission date and any federal docket or application number. 

“No responsive record exists,” the City replied. 

We asked for correspondence between the City, airport and federal FTZ Board concerning the application or its status since 2022. 

“No responsive record exists.” 

So we asked directly about an apparent discrepancy between City and County documents: Has the application actually been submitted? 

“The formal application is being assembled but has not yet been submitted,” the City responded. 

Fair enough. 

Except that’s not what Leon County has been telling county commissioners — or the public. 

In October 2023, County agenda materials accurately described what was supposed to happen next: “Once complete, the City will submit its formal application to the Foreign-Trade Zone Board for approval.” 

Somewhere between then and May 2024, however, the County’s version of events changed. 

“The City’s formal application was subsequently submitted to the Foreign-Trade Zone Board and is now pending approval,” County agenda materials stated in May 2024. 

The County repeated essentially the same claim in June 2024.  

And again in October 2024. 

And again in October 2025. 

As recently as June 9 of this year, County Administrator Vincent Long’s legislative-session report told commissioners that the City “has submitted its formal application to the Foreign-Trade Zone Board.” 

It hadn’t. 

The City says it still hasn’t. 

Apparently Tallahassee and Leon County have spent the past couple of years operating in slightly different foreign-trade zones. 

The other delay 

So why hasn’t Tallahassee applied? 

Back in 2021, Aviation Director David Pollard publicly explained the planned sequence: 

“First we build the facility that will house Customs, and once we get Customs in, we make a formal application for the Foreign Trade Zone.” 

There’s just one problem with that plan. 

They’re still building the facility. 

City documents once said the International Processing Facility was slated for completion in the third quarter of 2024. 

That became the third quarter of 2025. Then “opening in 2025.” 

In March 2025, with construction reportedly 80% complete, officials said it would be finished by the end of that year. 

By October, Pollard said substantial completion would occur in early 2026, after which U.S. Customs and Border Protection would still need to install equipment, systems and furniture. 

The City’s current materials say the facility will become operational in 2026. 

So a facility once expected to be finished in 2024 is still awaiting completion in late 2026. 

And because Customs isn’t in, the City’s own stated sequence means the FTZ application hasn’t gone in either. 

One delay has effectively become two. 

Then there’s the money 

In December 2021, the City awarded Whitesell-Green Inc. a $23.476 million contract to build the facility, with a 5% contingency bringing the authorized amount to about $24.6 million. 

The project is being funded through a mixture of federal and state grants, airport money and local penny-sales-tax dollars. 

In January 2024, the City Commission approved another $878,674 for the project and authorized City Manager Reese Goad or his designee to execute the necessary change orders. 

Today, the City describes the International Processing Facility as a $35 million project. 

That doesn’t necessarily mean Tallahassee has experienced a $10 million cost overrun. The scope and components included in those various figures may be different. 

But we’d certainly like to know. 

We’d also like to know why a facility originally expected to be completed in 2024 still isn’t open nearly two years later. 

So we’re asking. 

Another public-records request 

RTF is submitting a narrowly tailored public-records request for approved change orders, contract amendments and time-extension requests involving the construction contract that changed the project’s completion date or document delays. 

Those records should tell us whether the delays resulted from design changes, federal requirements, construction problems, expanded scope, supply issues or something else entirely — and what those changes cost. 

Maybe there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. 

There often is. 

But after years of $300 million economic-impact projections, 1,600-job promises, shifting completion dates and Leon County repeatedly announcing the submission of a federal application that apparently never left Tallahassee, we figure it’s worth asking. 

After all, before Tallahassee can become a global gateway, it would probably help if City Hall and the County Courthouse were in the same time zone. 

October 15, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

Three construction estimates are supposed to give taxpayers some confidence they’re getting a competitive price.

The application for a $200,000 Tallahassee Community Redevelopment Agency grant at 540 W. Brevard Street has two bids listed on the application.

The project

The CRA is considering a $200,000 grant to help Unity Child Care Development Schools convert the former retail building at 540 W. Brevard Street into a private K-8 school.

The building is owned by Ballew Properties LLC, which bought the property for $550,000 in March 2025.

The renovation is expected to cost more than $600,000, with taxpayers picking up $200,000 of the tab.

Now, about those estimates.

Bid No. 1: The landlord

The lowest estimate — $604,485.18 — came from Ballew Properties itself.

In other words, the company that owns the building also submitted the low bid to perform the improvements to its own property.

Bid No. 2: Not exactly a stranger

The other bid listed on the application — $631,334.44 — came from Munyan, a Largo-based painting, roofing and restoration company.

At least that one came from somebody else.

Well, not really.

Asher Ballew, president of Ballew Properties, is identified on Munyan’s own website as a sales/project manager for the company.

Florida corporate records also list Ballew as a vice president of Munyan Residential Painting Services LLC, an affiliated Munyan business operating from the same 7325 Ulmerton Road headquarters in Largo.

So, the third estimate wasn’t independently priced. Its total was calculated by averaging the first two.

But keep reading.

The document says the pricing was “based on the two supplied project bids and assembled for Boothe Construction review.”

It says the scope, quantities, pricing, terms, payment schedule, exclusions, schedule and acceptance were still “subject to Boothe Construction review and approval before issuance.”

And at the bottom:

“Prepared for Boothe Construction review; not issued until approved and authorized by Boothe Construction.”

In other words, the third estimate in the supporting documents wasn’t just derived from the first two.

The document itself indicates that it had not yet been approved and authorized for issuance by Boothe Construction. 

So, you might be asking, it’s not possible that there is a connection between Ballew and Boothe, is there?

Well, Red Tape Florida couldn’t find one until we went to the Boothe web site and saw this client testimonial.

We have a call into Boothe to see if “Asher B.” is, indeed, Asher Ballew.

CRA requirements

The CRA’s Commercial Property Improvement Program checklist calls for applicants to submit “three (3) quotes from licensed contractors including itemization of all proposed improvements.”

Interestingly, on Unity’s application checklist, that requirement is not checked off — while numerous requirements immediately above and below it are.

Nevertheless, CRA staff is recommending approval of the full $200,000 grant.

What the heck is the CRA doing?

How did this application get a recommendation for approval in the first place?

Red Tape Florida found all of this through a basic review of the documents the CRA itself provided and a few simple searches of public records.

The application lists only two bids. Bid Three is blank.

The CRA’s own checklist calls for three quotes from licensed contractors. That box isn’t checked.

One bid came from the company that owns the property.

The other came from a company where the property owner’s president works. That proposal had also expired more than two months before the application was submitted.

And the document apparently being used as the third estimate says right on it that the price was calculated from the first two bids and that it had not yet been approved and authorized for issuance by the contractor whose name appears on it.

None of this was particularly difficult to find.

Yet CRA staff reviewed this application and is recommending that taxpayers put $200,000 into the project.

And let’s remember who’s running this operation.

Just six weeks ago, the CRA board approved a $45,707 raise for Executive Director Stephen Cox, bringing his annual salary to $165,000. Mayor John Dailey defended the increase, saying Cox’s position was “woefully underfunded.”

For that kind of money, taxpayers ought to expect something more than a rubber stamp on a $200,000 grant application.

So, what exactly did that review involve?

Did anyone ask why the property owner was bidding on improvements to its own building?

Did anyone check the relationship between the property owner and the second bidder?

Did anyone notice that bid had expired?

Did anyone ask why there was no third bid listed on the application?

Did anyone contact Boothe Construction to determine whether it had actually approved and authorized the document bearing its name?

And, perhaps most importantly, did anyone at the CRA determine whether these documents actually satisfy the program’s requirement for three quotes from licensed contractors?

Because if Red Tape Florida could uncover all of this with the CRA’s own documents and a few basic public-record searches, it’s fair to ask: Why didn’t the people recommending spending $200,000 of taxpayer money do the same thing?

October 9, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

There is nothing quite like that new-car smell. 

Former Tallahassee City Manager Reese Goad apparently got to enjoy it with remarkable frequency. 

Records obtained by Red Tape Florida show the City bought or traded for five new Ford F-150 pickup trucks for Goad in just over seven years — model years 2019, 2021, 2023, 2025 and 2026. 

Five trucks. Seven years. During tough budget times. Now the City’s random insistence that Red Tape Florida pay $480 for the records makes more sense. 

After spending $49,701.72 on the first Goad truck in 2019, taxpayers kicked in another $60,328.48 to keep trading relatively new trucks for newer ones. Total documented cash outlay on the five transactions: $110,030.20. 

The City’s detailed fleet policy required ordinary vehicle-replacement decisions to consider things like mileage, useful life, condition and maintenance history. 

Goad’s vehicle was exempt. 

His employment contract instead promised him “regular replacement” of a City-provided automobile. “Regular” has apparently been doing some heavy lifting. 

And then there’s Truck No. 5. 

Just 8 days after the estimated delivery date – on April 28 — Goad announced his retirement.  

The spending is particularly striking given the financial message coming from City Hall. Tallahassee has been raising fees and searching for savings, including paying nearly $3.9 million this year to persuade 171 employees to leave — a buyout program officials claimed would save about $8.46 million annually (but haven’t been able to show their math).  

The City has repeatedly described those and other measures as part of an effort to control costs and prepare for looming budget pressures. Apparently, austerity did not extend to the City Manager’s pickup trucks. 

A new truck every couple of years 

The cycle started in March 2019, when the City purchased a Ford F-150 for Goad’s use for $49,701.72. 

In October 2021, the City traded it for another F-150. The dealer allowed $41,000 for the old truck, leaving taxpayers to kick in another $10,397. 

Less than two years later, Goad did it again. 

In September 2023, the City received $44,000 for Goad’s 2021 truck and paid another $15,449.84 to put him in a new one. 

That one didn’t make it nearly as long. 

In January 2025 – just 16 months later — the City traded it for a new F-150 King Ranch, one of Ford’s upscale trim levels. The City received $46,500 for the 2023 truck and paid another $22,942.75. 

Surely that would hold him for a while, especially given what we now know … that retirement was looming. 

It did not. 

Depreciation? Never heard of her 

There is a reason financially prudent people tend not to buy a brand-new vehicle every couple years. 

Depreciation. 

New vehicles generally lose value fastest during their early years. There is an old saying about how a car loses thousands of dollars in value the minute it is driven off the lot. 

Trading a relatively new vehicle doesn’t make that depreciation disappear. The dealer simply tells you what the used vehicle is now worth, applies that amount to the next new vehicle and somebody pays the difference. 

In this case, that somebody was repeatedly the taxpayer. 

To be clear, the City received substantial value for each trade-in. This isn’t $110,030 disappearing into thin air. 

But the relevant comparison is between repeatedly trading Goad’s functioning, relatively new trucks and simply continuing to drive them. 

Each time the City chose the former, taxpayers paid again. 

$10,397. 

$15,449.84. 

$22,942.75. 

$11,538.89. 

It’s an interesting approach to vehicle depreciation: experience as much of the early part of it as possible. 

For perspective, nearly two-thirds of Americans keep their vehicles at least five years, according to an April 2026 Cox Automotive study. 

Apparently, they haven’t discovered Tallahassee’s vehicle replacement program. 

The rules … for everybody else 

And then there is Tallahassee’s Fleet Management Policy. 

It is 10 pages long and contains detailed rules designed to manage City vehicles efficiently. For ordinary City vehicles, Fleet Management and the department are supposed to evaluate mileage, life expectancy, general condition and maintenance history in determining whether a vehicle should be replaced.  

The City even requires a five-year vehicle replacement plan.  

Sounds prudent. 

Then you get to Page 10. 

“Vehicles assigned to appointed officials are exempt from this policy.” Commission Policy 124 

Goad was an appointed official. 

So, the City had specific standards designed to determine when ordinary taxpayer-owned vehicles had reached the point where replacement made financial sense. 

The City Manager’s truck wasn’t subject to them. 

And remember who sat at the top of the fleet-management system. The policy gives the City Manager responsibility for approving fleet administrative guidelines and vehicle utilization rates.  

Mileage, useful life, condition and maintenance history for everybody else. For the boss: “regular replacement.” Goad wasn’t operating without any rules. Appointed officials are instead subject to the City’s purchasing requirements. 

Those are reassuring, too. 

The City’s procurement policy says one of its objectives is obtaining acceptable-quality goods and services “at the right time and price.” 

It’s difficult to argue with that.  

Buying things at the wrong time and price would be a considerably less promising procurement strategy. 

Where are the guardrails? 

The same City purchasing policy gives the City Manager authority to approve transactions up to $250,000. Taken together, the City’s policies and Goad’s employment agreement appear to have created a remarkably closed loop. 

Goad was entitled to a City-provided automobile. His contract required taxpayers to pay for its purchase, operation, maintenance, repair and “regular replacement.” 

How expensive could the vehicle be? 

His contract doesn’t say. 

How often could it be replaced? 

It doesn’t say. 

How many miles did it have to accumulate first? 

It doesn’t say. 

Did it have to be worn out, unreliable or expensive to maintain? 

It doesn’t say. 

Ordinarily, those are exactly the kinds of questions Tallahassee’s Fleet Management Policy requires the City to consider before replacing a taxpayer-owned vehicle. 

But vehicles assigned to appointed officials are specifically exempt from that policy. 

And Goad wasn’t merely an appointed official receiving a City vehicle. He was the City Manager — the official the City’s policies put at the top of the administrative and purchasing structure. 

His purchasing authority extended to $250,000. 

So far, Red Tape Florida has found no separate vehicle-price limit, replacement schedule, mileage requirement or condition standard that applied to Goad’s truck. 

That’s the remarkable part of this story. 

The City Commission promised its City Manager a vehicle with “regular replacement,” but apparently put no definition around either the vehicle or the replacement. 

Goad plainly was entitled to a City vehicle. And we have found no evidence that any of these purchases violated his employment agreement. 

The question is whether the system itself contained enough guardrails to protect the people paying the bills. 

Because when one city manager can go through five new trucks in seven years without apparently violating a rule, the question isn’t just why he kept getting new trucks. 

It’s why the rules allowed it. 

And where is Truck No. 5? 

There’s one loose end. 

Goad retired only months after the City paid another $11,538.89 to move him from the 2025 King Ranch into a 2026 King Ranch. 

His employment agreement gave him unrestricted use of a City automobile while he was employed. It did not give him ownership of one. Unlike Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell’s contract, which includes a provision for buying back a vehicle upon leaving the City, Goad’s did not include such language. 

So Red Tape Florida has asked the City what happened to the newest truck after Goad left. 

Did it remain in the City fleet? 

Was it reassigned? 

Was it sold? 

Did Goad purchase it? 

And if he did, how much did he pay and how was that price determined? 

After five new trucks in seven years, it seems reasonable for taxpayers to know where the last one parked. 

October 6, 2026

By Red Tape Florida 

Two years after Broward County stopped collecting roughly $8.5 million a year in development fees because its existing system didn’t comply with new state requirements, county officials are moving to dismantle much of the system that generated those charges. 

Two ordinances before the Broward County Commission last week would eliminate transportation concurrency requirements, roadway concurrency reviews, transportation concurrency assessments and road impact fees from the county’s comprehensive plan and development code.  

The story dates to 2024, when Florida lawmakers changed the requirements governing impact fees. Among other provisions, state law requires impact fees to be proportional and reasonably connected to the additional infrastructure needs created by new development and the benefits the development receives from the money collected.  

Broward’s assessment of its existing system was unusually direct. 

“The County’s fee structure did not comply,” county staff wrote in the report accompanying the proposed comprehensive plan changes.  

On Sept. 17, 2024, commissioners voted to suspend collection of the affected fees. The suspension took effect Oct. 1 and covered transportation concurrency assessments, road impact fees, regional park impact fees and local park impact fees in the Broward Municipal Services District. School impact fees and application review fees continued to be collected.  

The amount of money involved wasn’t trivial. 

County records estimate Broward had been collecting approximately $6.83 million annually in transportation concurrency assessments, $459,421 in road impact fees and $1.27 million in regional and local park impact fees. 

Combined, that’s about $8.55 million a year. 

Now, two years later, Broward isn’t proposing to resurrect the old transportation fee system. 

The county’s Sept. 22 agenda included an ordinance amending its comprehensive plan to conform with state law and another ordinance that would remove the old transportation concurrency system from the county code altogether.  

Under the proposed code changes, Broward would eliminate concurrency districts, roadway concurrency reviews, transportation concurrency assessments and road impact fees. Development applications submitted after the ordinance takes effect would no longer undergo the county’s regional road-network adequacy review. Previously issued development orders, permits and certificates would remain valid.  

There is an important distinction. Broward didn’t conclude that the fees it collected before 2024 were illegal. The Legislature changed the requirements, and Broward’s existing system didn’t meet the new standards. 

But Broward’s response is notable. 

The county could have conducted the necessary analysis, established fees satisfying the new requirements and resumed collecting the money. 

Instead, collection has remained suspended for two years. And now Broward is considering eliminating much of the transportation-concurrency apparatus that produced those charges in the first place. 

For developers, the financial effect is easy to understand: millions of dollars in annual government charges disappeared after state law required Broward to provide updated justification for them. 

And two years later, Broward isn’t trying to bring the old system back. 

It’s trying to take it off the books. 

September 30, 2026
By Red Tape Florida

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

What does the Office of Economic Vitality actually spend all that money on? 

It’s a question Red Tape Florida has heard repeatedly from local residents as we’ve reported on OEV’s staffing, business-recruitment record and the millions of dollars flowing through the agency. 

So we decided to find out. 

OEV’s adopted fiscal-year 2026 budget totals about $9.15 million, although most of that isn’t day-to-day agency spending. The budget includes roughly $3.92 million transferred to capital projects, $2.43 million for debt service and $1.92 million for personnel. Another $436,000 is budgeted in the category labeled “Operating Expenses,” with additional amounts for other services, capital outlay and administrative costs. 

But budget documents tell you how money is supposed to be spent. Red Tape Florida wanted to see the checkbook. 

RTF obtained OEV’s detailed accounts-payable records for the current fiscal year. The records include invoices dated through July 31 — two months before the end of the fiscal year — and show $812,550.91 in actual payments to companies, consultants, vendors and incentive recipients. 

Nearly half of that total — $381,239 — is incentive payments still being made on Amazon’s 2021 fulfillment-center deal. The remaining records provide a much more granular look at what OEV is buying: consultants, studies, databases, marketing, advertising, sponsorships and other economic-development services. 

And after looking through the spending, another question naturally follows: 

Where are the new wins? 

Still Paying Amazon 

The largest chunk of the money — $381,239 — is incentive payments associated with Amazon’s massive fulfillment center near Mahan Drive. 

That project was announced in 2021. 

Local officials approved a $2.565 million incentive package for what was then called Project Mango, with payments spread over six years through reimbursement of eligible development fees and certain property taxes. 

Amazon delivered on the promises attached to the deal. By March 2024, Leon County reported the company had invested approximately $250 million in the facility and employed about 1,400 people, exceeding the original requirement of 1,000 jobs. 

OEV counts Amazon as one of its biggest economic-development successes and received a Florida Economic Development Council award for the project. 

RTF has previously reported another side of the deal. 

Multiple sources familiar with the Amazon project have told RTF that the company had already decided to locate the facility in Leon County before the incentive package was approved. 

Whatever your view of the original incentive deal, the current records establish something else: 

Five years after Amazon was announced, taxpayers are still paying the incentives. 

And the $381,239 in Amazon payments accounts for nearly half of the $812,550 in direct payments reviewed by RTF. 

Consultants, Data and Marketing 

The rest of the spreadsheet provides a window into the day-to-day machinery of economic development. 

OEV paid SB Friedman Development Advisors $67,933 for a “Targeted Industry Study Analysis.” 

Another $29,999 went to Placer Labs for platform access and ESRI basemaps. 

Wall Street Transcript Corp. received $28,000, including $20,000 described in OEV’s records as “2026 MDSM Conference – Carpet” and another $8,000 for an event sponsorship. 

GIS WebTech received $25,182 for licenses and renewals. Grova Creative received $24,500 for a website audit/review and Market District marketing. Bludot Technologies received $21,520 for a business database. 

Other payments include nearly $18,000 to CoStar, almost $14,000 to InfoUSA, $13,400 to the publisher of Area Development, $11,000 for airport LED advertising and $10,000 to Choose Tallahassee. 

There is nothing inherently unusual about an economic-development agency spending money on research, data and marketing. Companies looking to expand need site information. Site selectors need data. Communities market themselves. Consultants conduct studies. 

And recruiting a company can take years. 

But those expenditures also provide a useful measuring stick for taxpayers: What is all that activity producing? 

OEV’s own July economic dashboard doesn’t provide a particularly rosy snapshot. Leon County employment was down 1 percent from a year earlier, unemployment was up 0.8 percentage points and taxable sales were down 15.5 percent year over year. 

Another stat: It has been two years — at least — since OEV has announced a single significant economic development win. 

Lucy, Charlie Brown and Project Vertigo 

That’s not to say there haven’t been prospects. Last fall came Project Vertigo. 

The confidential British company was considering Tallahassee for a 216,000-square-foot manufacturing facility and 50,000-square-foot office building at the airport. The potential prize was enormous: more than 2,000 jobs. 

The company was expected to make its site decision by the end of 2025. 

That was nearly a year ago. 

No Vertigo announcement followed. 

There was also Project E-Boat, another prospect RTF previously tracked that held out the possibility of more than 500 jobs. 

Again, no announced Tallahassee deal. 

At some point, the succession of big prospects begins to resemble Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown. 

There’s always reason to believe the big economic-development kick may finally be coming. But the community is still waiting for contact with the ball. 

Confidential prospects disappear all the time, of course. Tallahassee competes against other communities, and losing a recruitment prospect doesn’t necessarily mean OEV did anything wrong. 

But taxpayers aren’t funding prospects. 

They’re funding an economic-development organization to produce results. 

Meanwhile, in the OEV Newsletter… 

You might not detect the shortage of recruitment announcements from reading OEV’s newsletters. 

OEV publishes one roughly every two weeks, and there has been no shortage of material in 2026.  

Since March, readers have learned about a Domi Awards celebration, the Leon Works Expo, educational attainment, Small Business Week, hurricane preparedness, the Love Your Local campaign, high-speed internet in rural Leon County, the Kidpreneur program and Tallahassee Restaurant Week. 

One May newsletter celebrated an OEV employee’s 30 years of public service. 

July brought “Kidpreneurs Launch Their Entrepreneurial Journey.” Two weeks later came an invitation to the Kidpreneur Pop-up Market. 

August brought the news that 18 Tallahassee employers made Florida Trend’s Best Companies to Work For list — recognition earned by those companies, not companies recruited here by OEV. 

And on Aug. 24, OEV announced that its own podcast, Economic Vitality Unplugged, had won an international Silver Award for economic-development storytelling. OEV says the award recognizes the podcast for making economic development “accessible, engaging, and community-centered.” 

There is nothing wrong with promoting local businesses, recognizing employees, helping young entrepreneurs or producing a podcast. 

But it’s a striking contrast. 

OEV’s newsletter archive documents an extraordinary amount of economic-development activity. 

What’s considerably harder to find is a new company announcing: We’re coming to Tallahassee. 

OEV did travel to England this summer for the Farnborough International Airshow, where it says it connected with global manufacturers, suppliers and executives considering future expansion. OEV called participation a “strategic investment in long-term business recruitment.” 

Perhaps one of those conversations will become the next Amazon. 

For now, it remains another investment in a future result. 

What did $24,000 Buy? 

One smaller expenditure caught RTF’s attention. 

OEV paid Strategic Optimization and Research LLC, or SOAR, $24,000 for what the accounts-payable records describe as “OEV Training Academy Facilitation.” 

RTF initially couldn’t find evidence that an OEV Training Academy had actually taken place. So we filed another public-records request asking for the contract, invoice, scope of work and whatever taxpayers received for the $24,000. 

Turns out, the work did happen. 

But it wasn’t a training academy. 

SOAR conducted four focus groups involving OEV-certified businesses, prime contractors and government project managers and produced a report recommending nine courses for a Small Business Training Academy OEV hopes to launch in 2027. 

The proposed courses include project management, estimating and bid pricing, financial management, procurement, artificial intelligence, leadership, basic Microsoft Office and productivity tools, construction basics and joint ventures. 

The $24,000 did not buy finished courses. There are no completed lesson plans, instructor materials or student materials in the final product. SOAR describes what it produced as an “implementation-ready framework” containing course concepts, topics, suggested delivery methods and possible measures of success. 

But one recommendation in the report jumped out. 

Before launching the academy, SOAR says OEV should review training already available locally through organizations including the Chamber, Small Business Development Center, FAMU, Tallahassee State College, FSU and the Jim Moran Institute. 

The reason is “to confirm that taxpayer-funded programming is not duplicating existing offerings.” 

That’s a sensible thing to do. 

The question is why it wasn’t done first. 

OEV spent $24,000 identifying the classes local businesses might need before determining whether those classes were already available. 

The academy could ultimately fill legitimate gaps and prove valuable. But taxpayers will have to wait to find out what additional work — and additional money — will be required to turn the recommendations into actual courses. 

Activity vs. Results 

Taken individually, most of the payments in OEV’s spreadsheet aren’t particularly remarkable. 

Taken together, they provide a revealing snapshot. 

To be fair, economic development isn’t a vending machine where taxpayers insert $812,000 and a factory drops out. 

But OEV’s own description of itself says the agency exists in part to provide “accountability” and “transparency” in economic development and to help companies relocate and expand here. 

That makes the distinction between activity and results a fair one. 

Amazon is real. It opened. It created jobs. 

And five years later, taxpayers are still paying incentives on that deal while waiting for the next major recruitment success. 

Project Vertigo could have been it. Project E-Boat could have been it. Perhaps the contacts made at Farnborough will produce it. 

But eventually Charlie Brown gets to ask when he’s actually going to kick the football. 

September 23, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

Neil Seeram just wanted to keep doing business.

Two years ago, his company, Everglades Door and Glass, moved into a 1,500-square-foot warehouse in the Lauderdale Lakes Business Park. He applied for the occupational license required to operate legally in the city. City staff let him use the space anyway while the application sat.

He’s still waiting.

“I couldn’t wait fast enough so I can get out of here,” Seeram told CBS News Miami. So he did. His company is relocating to Sunrise, where he says the city issued his new license within a week.

Two years versus one week. Same business, same paperwork, two Florida cities with entirely different ideas about what “timely” means.

Seeram isn’t an isolated case. Josh Levy, chief operating officer for Levy Realty Advisors and the landlord at the business park where Seeram’s company is based, says he’s watched this play out for years.

“We’ve had a number of businesses that have left the park…for this same reason,” Levy told CBS News Miami.

The business park itself sits in a prime location, between I-95 and the Florida Turnpike, the kind of spot that should be a magnet for growth rather than an exit ramp for tenants who’ve simply given up waiting on the city to do its job.

Another tenant in the same park, Varoon Welding, is caught in a separate but related fight. The city has issued more than $700,000 in liens over code violations tied to renovations the business says were done without a permit. Different dispute, same underlying theme: a city whose relationship with the businesses inside its own borders has gone sideways.

Cities exist, in part, to provide efficient services to those who choose to invest, build and hire within their borders. When a business owner can get the exact same license in a neighboring city in one week that takes two years and counting in another, that isn’t a paperwork problem. It’s a fundamental question about whether Lauderdale Lakes is actually open for business.

Lauderdale Lakes’ loss is Sunrise’s gain. Seeram is unlikely to be the last business owner to make that calculation.

September 18, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

UPDATE: Red Tape Florida has uncovered new details that suggest the city manager contract terms may violate the city charter.

New Tallahassee City Manager will be paid $317k base salary 

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

The Tallahassee City Commission Wednesday will consider a five-year, $317,000-a-year base salary as a part of the contract for incoming City Manager Karen Jumonville. That’s about $13,000 higher than her predecessor Reese Goad, who spent 10 years as city manager and 27 years with the city.  

Also, tucked into the proposed agreement is a significant new protection for Tallahassee’s top administrator: Jumonville could only be removed by a two-thirds vote of the City Commission.  

On Tallahassee’s five-member Commission, that means four votes. 

Do the math: Three commissioners can approve Jumonville’s contract Wednesday. Once she’s in the job, those same three commissioners couldn’t fire her. 

Outgoing City Manager Reese Goad doesn’t have that protection, according to a City Commission source. Goad can be removed by a simple majority. 

The City acknowledges the new provision in Wednesday’s agenda item, but doesn’t compare it to Goad’s contract. Instead, it notes that the two-thirds requirement is the same protection provided to the City’s Inspector General.  

That’s an interesting comparison. 

The Inspector General is, by design, an independent watchdog. The city manager is the administrative head of city government who reports directly to the City Commission, supervises City operations and employees, oversees public safety, administers the budget and carries out the policies and direction of the Commission. That’s how the City itself describes the job.  

Jumonville was selected last week following a nationwide search that attracted 37 applicants from nine states and Washington, D.C., including 13 current or former city and county managers. The Commission ultimately chose its own deputy city manager, who previously served as assistant city manager and Growth Management director.  

Now commissioners are being asked to give her an initial five-year contract running through September 2031. At the proposed $317,000 starting salary, that’s $1.585 million in base salary if she serves the entire initial term — before any raises or additional benefits. The agreement automatically renews for another two years unless either side gives six months’ notice, with additional two-year automatic renewals after that.  

The proposed agreement gives Jumonville a $1,000-a-month automobile allowance, increasing by $50 each year, along with the maximum allowable annual City contribution to a 457 deferred-compensation account.  

If four commissioners do eventually vote to terminate her for convenience, taxpayers would not owe the balance of the five-year contract. Jumonville would instead be entitled to 20 weeks of salary and benefits, along with two months’ notice or pay and benefits in lieu of some or all of that notice period.  

Jumonville may turn out to be a terrific city manager. That’s not the issue. 

The question for commissioners Wednesday is much simpler: 

Why should this City Commission be able to hire Tallahassee’s city manager with three votes — while making a future City Commission find four votes to fire her? 

September 8, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

Two years ago, when Tallahassee wanted to make its Inspector General harder to fire, City officials said the requirement for a supermajority had to be placed in the City Charter and “could not be done in ordinance.” 

So, it went in the Charter amendment. 

And Tallahassee voters approved it. 

Now City Hall wants to require the same four votes to remove recently hired City Manager Karen Jumonville — not through a Charter amendment, and not even through an ordinance. 

Apparently, an employment contract will do. And it’s happening today, Sept. 8, with about 24 hours’ notice for the public.  

There’s an old legal maxim that seems particularly appropriate here: Expressio unius est exclusio alterius. 

For those of us who skipped Latin, it roughly means: The expression of one thing implies the exclusion of another. 

It’s a principle that essentially says: If a governing document specifically imposes a requirement in one place but leaves it out somewhere else, there’s a pretty good reason to wonder whether the difference was intentional. 

And Tallahassee has given us an unusually convenient case study. 

At the April 24, 2024, City Commission meeting, Inspector General Dennis Sutton explained that a proposed Charter amendment would replace the IG’s status of “serving at the will of the commission” with specific protections governing his removal. 

Then Sutton explained where the most significant protection had to reside: 

“The most significant would have to be in charter and could not be done in ordinance.” 

Got that? 

An ordinance wasn’t enough. 

So, the City went to the trouble of changing its Charter and asking Tallahassee voters to approve it. They did and it now resides in Section 32 of the Charter: “The inspector general may only be removed upon the affirmative vote of a two-thirds majority of the city commission.” 

Now let’s check what those same governing documents say about the city manager. 

Section 24 of the Charter says the city manager “shall hold office at the pleasure of the city commission.” 

City Code §2-61, which is literally titled “Removal and suspension of city manager,” says: 

“The city manager shall be removable by the city commission.” 

That’s it. 

No two-thirds requirement. No supermajority. No four votes. 

But Jumonville’s proposed employment contract says she “may only be removed upon the affirmative vote of a two-thirds majority of the City Commission.”  

And here’s where City Hall really steps on the rake. 

The City’s own agenda item invokes the Inspector General as precedent, describing Jumonville’s proposed provision as “the same as the City’s Inspector General’s employment terms.”  

Well, not quite. 

The Inspector General’s four-vote protection isn’t simply an “employment term.” It’s in the City Charter. Tallahassee voters put it there. 

Which leaves City Hall with a question that shouldn’t require much Latin: 

If an ordinance wasn’t enough to create four-vote protection for the Inspector General, how is an employment contract enough to create it for the city manager? 

And then, of course, there’s the politics. 

Despite multiple political operatives telling Red Tape Florida that Mayor John Dailey’s favorability ratings have cratered, the mayor and the current commission majority are racing to beat the calendar before an election that could change the balance of power at City Hall.  

We’ve seen this movie a few times lately: the attempted Phipps annexation, the bungled TMH-FSU deal and the decision to hire a permanent city manager rather than leave that decision to the commission that will govern after the election. 

Some of those efforts didn’t make it across the finish line. The city manager hire did. 

Jumonville was selected 3-2. Now those same three commissioners can approve a contract ensuring that a future three-commissioner majority can’t undo their choice. 

That’s quite a trick. 

None of this, standing alone, proves the contract provision is illegal. But the legal question and the political question have landed in pretty much the same place. 

Two years ago, Tallahassee wanted to make an appointed official harder to fire. City Hall said the protection had to go in the Charter. The voters got a say. 

This time, the voters get no say at all. 

Oh, and one more thing. 

When the City Commission voted in April 2024 to move forward with the Charter amendment giving the Inspector General supermajority protection, the vote was 4-1. 

The lone “no” vote? 

Mayor John Dailey. 

September 9, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

Opinion by Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

There are bad nights for a football team, and then there are bad nights for an entire city. Monday was both on a national scale.  For any growing business or high school senior thinking about relocating to Tallahassee, this was the city’s one chance to make a first impression, and it blew it.   

With a national television audience watching, Doak Campbell Stadium lost power shortly before Florida State was supposed to kick off against SMU. The game finally began nearly two hours late, with portions of the stadium still without power. The scoreboard was dark. The public-address system wasn’t functioning. Coaches lost electronic communications and sideline technology.  

Then FSU lost. 

Miami immediately piled on. ESPN chronicled the trolling. And Tallahassee residents heard from friends and family around the country asking some version of the same question: What in the world happened in Tallahassee? 

Good question. 

This was a failure of leadership 

Whatever the technical explanation turns out to be, Monday night was a failure of leadership. 

That doesn’t mean the mayor, city manager or FSU president was supposed to know how to repair a transformer. It means people at the top are responsible for making sure their organizations are prepared when something goes wrong — and for communicating with the public when it does. 

Neither happened very well Monday night. 

Tens of thousands of fans sat inside and around Doak for nearly two hours with remarkably little information. Even after the PA system returned, there was no meaningful explanation or apology from university leadership and no thank-you to the fans who stuck around. As of 9:30 Tuesday morning, there had been no apology from FSU’s top leadership and nothing meaningful from City Hall, the mayor or the city manager.  

For a city and university with plenty of professional communicators, Tallahassee suddenly became remarkably shy. 

And communication wasn’t the only question. 

This wasn’t the first outage 

Thousands of City utility customers lost power the night before the game. We don’t yet know whether that had anything to do with what happened at Doak Monday night, and it may not have. 

But it raises an obvious question: After a significant outage less than 24 hours before one of the largest events Tallahassee hosts all year, did anyone make sure the electrical infrastructure serving Doak was ready? Did the City talk with FSU? Were systems checked? Was backup power available? 

Maybe all of that happened. Maybe Sunday’s outage and Monday’s failure were completely unrelated. Fine. Tell us. But after the night Tallahassee just had, “these things happen” isn’t much of an answer. 

About that $27 million 

There is another piece of history that makes Monday night’s embarrassment almost painfully ironic. 

When FSU came to local taxpayers for help with Doak Campbell Stadium in 2021, it wasn’t asking for money to make the stadium prettier. The case for the $20 million Blueprint appropriation was built around aging infrastructure and public safety. 

And right there on the list were electricity and lighting. 

Contemporary reporting described the needs as including the stadium’s foundation, electricity, lighting and drainage. The final list included emergency lighting and aging electrical equipment, along with safety, ADA and code-compliance work. Because Blueprint borrowed the $20 million, the ultimate cost to local taxpayers was projected at nearly $27 million. 

Think about that for a moment. 

Local taxpayers were asked to spend nearly $27 million, including borrowing costs, to help FSU address aging stadium infrastructure that specifically included electricity and lighting. 

Four years later, on national television, the lights went out. 

That doesn’t establish that Monday night’s failure involved any equipment repaired with Blueprint money. We don’t know that yet. But it certainly makes taxpayers entitled to know exactly what electrical work their money paid for, what equipment failed Monday night and whether there is any connection between the two. 

The irony doesn’t end there. As FSU’s much larger $265 million renovation neared completion, the university reported about $25 million in savings. Some argued that, given the local taxpayers’ contribution, FSU should give money back. Instead, FSU received approval to expand the project and use the savings for, among other things, new Jumbotrons and video boards.  

Monday night, the Jumbotrons went dark along with everything else. 

Madame Sunshine already knows what happened 

Fortunately, Red Tape Florida’s Madame Sunshine has peered into her crystal ball. 

She sees an investigation followed by an “isolated equipment failure” or an “unforeseeable electrical event.” There are already reports floating around about a vehicle striking a transformer, so perhaps that will prove to be the culprit. And perhaps it really was. 

What Madame Sunshine has more trouble seeing is anyone stepping to a microphone and saying: “This happened on our watch. It was unacceptable. We should have been better prepared. Here’s what went wrong, and here’s what we’re doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” 

She also predicts that Sunday’s outages and Monday’s stadium failure will become completely unrelated events with remarkable speed — at least when the subject turns to responsibility. 

Maybe they were unrelated. Let’s see the records. 

Awards are nice. Performance is better. 

There is some irony here. 

Just last month, the City Commission celebrated City Manager Reese Goad receiving the E.C. Shreve Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award from the Florida Municipal Electric Association. The agenda item touted Tallahassee’s smart-grid technology, its commitment to reliable and high-quality service and its recognition as the “No. 1 Public Utility in America” and a “Utility of the Future, Today.”  

Good for Goad. But this is the problem with government’s fixation on awards: people tend to remember performance more than plaques. 

Monday night was about as visible a performance as Tallahassee could get: tens of thousands of people, a nationally televised football game and the eyes of the college football world on the city. 

The lights went out, the game was delayed nearly two hours and the response from the people in charge was mostly silence. 

That’s the kind of first impression that lingers for years. 

September 8, 2026
Opinion by Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

If you live, work or own a business in Tallahassee, City Hall’s proposed FY2027 budget has a little something for you. 

And by “something,” we mean a higher bill. 

The City Commission will hold its first public hearing Wednesday on a $983.5 million budget that keeps Tallahassee’s property-tax rate unchanged. But thanks to rising property values, keeping the same rate doesn’t mean keeping the same tax collections: the City expects to collect about $4.1 million more in property taxes next year. 

And property taxes are only the beginning. 

Buried among the budget documents are proposed increases in residential and commercial garbage rates, water and sewer rates and monthly parking charges. Some are relatively modest. Others — particularly for businesses — are anything but. 

Let’s start with garbage. 

The monthly charge for standard residential curbside service would rise from $26.70 to $28.19, an increase of about 5.6 percent. That’s less than $18 a year, so nobody is going to have to sell the house over it. 

Businesses may want to keep reading. 

The minimum commercial garbage charge would jump from $33.43 to $40.05, an increase of nearly 20 percent. A two-yard dumpster emptied once a week goes from $59.63 to $89.54 — a 50 percent increase. The same dumpster serviced every other week goes from $29.81 to $53.81, an increase of more than 80 percent. 

The increases vary depending on dumpster size and frequency, but they’re substantial across the commercial rate schedule. A three-yard dumpster picked up weekly rises about 40 percent, a four-yard dumpster about 35 percent and an eight-yard dumpster about 27 percent. 

There’s also a particularly interesting sentence in the city’s explanation for why it needs more money from garbage customers. 

Among the reasons cited for the increase: “The Solid Waste transfer to the General Fund has been increased.” 

In other words, the City isn’t simply saying garbage costs more to collect and dump. Its own resolution says one reason Solid Waste needs additional revenue is because the amount being transferred from the utility into the City’s General Fund has increased. 

That’s worth remembering the next time somebody tells you a garbage rate is just a garbage rate. 

And this isn’t necessarily a one-year affair. The proposed resolution also establishes an annual adjustment tied to inflation, plus another 1 percent, beginning with future rate adjustments. 

Water and sewer are going up, too 

Tallahassee water and sewer customers already received a 2.4 percent inflation adjustment last October. 

The new budget proposes more. 

Under the City’s rate plan, another inflation adjustment takes effect Oct. 1. Then, beginning April 1, 2027, water rates would receive an additional 2 percent increase and wastewater rates another 3.8 percent. 

Commercial customers get another surprise: commercial water gallonage charges are slated for an additional 8 percent increase in April. 

And the increases don’t stop with FY2027. The City’s consultant recommends annual increases of inflation plus another 1 percent in FY2028, FY2029 and FY2030. 

The City has legitimate expenses to pay. Its utility consultant points to major capital projects, increasing operating expenses, salaries and benefits among the reasons additional revenue is needed. 

But once again, the General Fund makes an appearance. 

The consultant’s analysis notes that future financial pressure on the water and sewer system could be addressed in part by reducing transfers from the utility to the City’s General Fund. 

There’s a pattern here worth watching: utility customers pay their bills, the utility sends some of that money to the General Fund, and the City then cites the utility’s revenue needs when proposing higher rates. 

Don’t forget parking 

Even parking gets more expensive under the proposal. 

A monthly lease at the Kleman Plaza garage would rise from $105 to $120, a 14.3 percent increase. Eastside garage parking goes from $120 to $135, up 12.5 percent. 

Hourly garage rates and the $1-an-hour street-meter rate appear to remain unchanged, so this one lands primarily on people who park downtown regularly. 

Taken individually, some of these increases aren’t enormous. Another $1.49 a month for residential garbage isn’t going to wreck the family budget, and $15 more for a monthly parking space isn’t going to send downtown workers into bankruptcy. 

But taxpayers don’t pay City Hall one line item at a time. 

They pay the property-tax bill. They pay the garbage bill. They pay the water bill. They pay the sewer bill. Businesses pay those bills, too, often at considerably higher rates. And then the cost of doing business gets passed along in the prices everybody else pays. 

That’s why the entire package deserves attention at Wednesday’s budget hearing. 

September 8, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida