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

By Red Tape Florida 

Four months ago, Madam Sunshine looked into her crystal ball. Today, the City Commission made her prediction official. 

TALLAHASSEE — We hereby inform you that Madam Sunshine remains undefeated. 

Four months ago, Red Tape Florida’s Notary of Inevitable Outcomes peered into her crystal ball and told readers how Tallahassee’s national search for a new city manager would end. 

An internal candidate would get the job. 

More specifically, Deputy City Manager Karen Jumonville. 

On Wednesday, after a $30,000 national search, 37 applicants, a search firm, candidate screening, interviews, a public meet-and-greet and presentations before the City Commission, commissioners reached their decision. 

Karen Jumonville. 

Imagine our surprise. 

Actually, don’t. 

We’ve waited four months for this, so we’re going to take a thoroughly obnoxious victory lap. But the point of our May story wasn’t simply to play Carnac the Magnificent and guess the winner. 

It was that Tallahassee never should have rushed this decision in the first place. 

Three of the five seats on the Tallahassee City Commission are on the ballot this year. Voters are in the middle of deciding who they want running City Hall, and the new commission takes office after the November election.  

Yet the current commission decided it needed to choose the next city manager before voters finish choosing the next commission. 

We called it “Lame Duck Timing” in May. We wrote that rather than hand the decision to the incoming commission — “the one voters are about to elect in a change election” — the current commission was determined to conduct a nationwide search and make the hire first.  

That wasn’t just a philosophical objection. We argued that the timing would damage the search itself. 

Why would an accomplished city manager somewhere else uproot a family, leave a secure job and move to Tallahassee knowing that the commission doing the hiring could look very different almost immediately afterward?  

Four months later, we don’t need Madam Sunshine to answer that question. 

The City’s own search consultant did it for us. 

Renée Narloch told commissioners, during a process update, that some people her firm approached declined to apply, and that one of the reasons was the pending election and uncertainty about who would be sitting on the commission. Another reason: a belief that an internal candidate would prevail. 

In other words: The exact problem Madam Sunshine warned about actually happened.  

Here is exactly how she saw it in her all-knowing sphere: 

---

“I see city managers in Ohio and Oregon and places that end in -ville. Impressive people. Impressive resumes. I see them reading about Tallahassee. I see Google search results like ‘divided Tallahassee commission’ and ‘Palm Bay city manager fired.’ I see them quietly closing their browsers. I see them returning to their current jobs, where nobody is about to fire them.”  

She watches the inbox. It is not filling up the way one might hope.  

She does not appear surprised. 

---

By the way, please don’t fall for the idea that this was some sort of grass roots process. 

At Wednesday’s meeting where the commission voted to move forward with an offer to Jumonville, Commissioner Jack Porter also questioned just how much public involvement the process actually produced. She said Tuesday’s community gathering appeared to be “95 percent” City staff and noted that, even as of the night before, it wasn’t clear to the public that Wednesday morning’s meeting — where commissioners would actually make their choice — would include an opportunity for public comment.  

That’s a curious way to wrap up what the City had advertised as a process designed to give the public meaningful opportunities to engage with the finalists. 

And here’s where Madam Sunshine really earns her turban. 

We wrote in May: 

“What is left when serious external candidates self-select out? Internal candidates.” 

And then: 

“The best candidate was here all along!” 

That was May 5.  

Today, the best candidate was here all along. 

To be clear, this isn’t an argument that Jumonville is unqualified. She’s spent years in Tallahassee city government and has served as deputy city manager. If a commission elected with a fresh mandate considered a strong national field and concluded that Jumonville was the best person to lead the city, so be it. 

The problem is the process that produced her. 

There was no emergency requiring this commission to make a permanent hire before the election. Reese Goad is leaving Sept. 30. Tallahassee has multiple senior administrators capable of keeping the lights on for a matter of weeks. In May, we suggested appointing an interim manager and letting the newly elected commission make one of the most consequential decisions it will face.  

Instead, City Hall spent $30,000 to launch a nationwide search during an election, potential candidates apparently stayed away because of that election, and the outgoing commission rushed to make the selection anyway. 

And after all that? 

They hired the deputy city manager who was already sitting inside City Hall. 

As we wrote then: “Let’s be clear: What Mayor Dailey is proposing is not a national search. It is the performance of one.” 

So, yes, we’re going to enjoy this one. 

Madam Sunshine: 1. 

Nationwide search: 0. 

INVOICE 

Client: City of Tallahassee 
Service: Identification of next city manager 
Prediction delivered: May 5, 2026 
Result: Karen Jumonville 
National search fee: $30,000 
Madam Sunshine fee: $0 
Potential taxpayer savings: $30,000 

Payment is due upon receipt. 

Madam Sunshine accepts cash, check or public records produced without a $480 special service charge. 

September 2, 2026
By Red Tape Florida 

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

TALLAHASSEE — Red Tape Florida has filed a series of public-records requests with the City of Tallahassee seeking information about taxpayer-funded vehicles provided to some of City Hall’s highest-ranking officials. 

We asked for the current vehicles purchased for Tallahassee Police Department leaders at the rank of major and above. 

No charge. 

We asked for the current vehicles provided to the city attorney, city clerk, inspector general and City Manager Reese Goad. 

No charge. 

Then we asked for the complete record of vehicles purchased for or by Goad since he became city manager. 

That’ll be $480. 

Which raises what seems like a pretty obvious question: 

Why this request? 

That discovery prompted us to take a broader look at vehicles provided to top City officials. 

The City produced records identifying the current vehicles for TPD majors and above without charging RTF. It produced records identifying the current vehicles for the city attorney, city clerk, inspector general and Goad without charging RTF. 

But when RTF asked for the history of vehicles purchased for Goad, the meter started running. 

After RTF questioned the $480 charge, the City provided an itemized estimate. 

According to the City, employees will need four hours to search Fleet Management records and other systems; three hours to retrieve, compile, sort and organize the records; another three hours to review them; two hours for redactions and preparation; and another hour for final review and production. 

And then there’s this: 

Two hours for “printing and scanning.” 

RTF requested the records electronically. 

Altogether, the City estimates 15 hours of work to produce the records. 

Florida’s public-records law allows governments to impose a “special service charge” when a request requires extensive use of information-technology resources or extensive clerical or supervisory assistance. The charge must be reasonable and based on the actual cost incurred. 

The City says this request qualifies. 

So here’s what we’re going to do. 

Red Tape Florida is going to pay the $480, get the records and tell you what they show. 

But if you’ve ever wondered how you can help support this kind of reporting, here’s one way. 

Either way, we’re paying the $480. 

Maybe there’s nothing particularly interesting in Goad’s vehicle history. 

But here’s what we know so far: 

Records for the Police Department brass? No charge. 

Records for four of City Hall’s top officials, including Goad? No charge. 

The history of vehicles taxpayers purchased for Goad? 

$480. 

We’re going to find out what’s in those records. 

And we’ll let you know what we find. 

September 2, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

One of the questions Red Tape Florida gets asked most often is simple: 

“Do local governments ever actually change?” 

The answer is yes. 

Today, Gulf County deserves credit for proving it. 

Just a few months ago, Gulf County was one of the examples Red Tape Florida highlighted for creating unnecessary barriers to construction and private providers. The county had imposed a controversial $500 fee on projects using private providers, despite growing concern that the charge conflicted with both the spirit and the intent of Florida law. We also reported on concerns that the county’s permit discount for private-provider projects fell well short of what state lawmakers intended. 

Representative Jason Shoaf took notice. 

Rather than dismissing those concerns, Shoaf publicly urged Gulf County to comply with state law and ensure builders and property owners received the benefits the Legislature had approved. 

The county responded. 

And not with cosmetic changes. 

Since hiring new Building Official Doug Crane, Gulf County has made a series of reforms that have fundamentally changed how the department approaches development and customer service. 

Crane, who became a licensed Florida Building Code Administrator in late 2025, immediately reached out to the Florida Building Code Compliance Authority (FBCCA) to begin rebuilding relationships based on communication and cooperation rather than conflict. 

“I’ve worked with building departments all over Florida, and the difference in Gulf County has been remarkable,” said Al Wilson, President of FBCCA. “The conversations are constructive, the department is following the law, and there’s a genuine willingness to work with applicants instead of against them. That’s all anyone in this industry has ever asked for.” 

More importantly, those conversations have been followed by action. 

The county has reduced permitting and planning fees. 

The controversial $500 private-provider fee is gone. In its place is a $250 planning fee that applies uniformly to projects regardless of whether a private provider is used, eliminating the disparate treatment that had drawn criticism. 

Gulf County has also implemented the requirements of HB 803, providing the minimum 50 percent permit fee reduction when a private provider performs both plan review and inspections. Previously, qualifying projects received only a 10 percent discount. 

Perhaps just as important, Crane has reportedly made it clear to his staff that applicants should never be discouraged from using Florida’s private-provider program. 

Those changes may sound administrative. 

They’re not. 

For builders, engineers, architects and property owners, permitting culture matters. A department that views applicants as customers rather than adversaries can save time, reduce uncertainty and encourage investment. 

That’s especially true in smaller counties competing for jobs, housing and economic growth. 

The lesson here extends beyond Gulf County. 

Good government isn’t about never making mistakes. It’s about recognizing them, listening to legitimate concerns and being willing to change course. 

That’s exactly what appears to have happened here. 

Red Tape Florida has no interest in criticizing local governments simply for the sake of criticism. Our goal has always been to identify unnecessary bureaucracy and advocate for better government. 

When jurisdictions move in the right direction, they deserve to be recognized. 

By all accounts, Gulf County has done exactly that. 

August 26, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

Palm Coast decided last year that growth needed to pay more for growth. 

A lot more. 

The city approved sweeping increases in transportation, fire and parks impact fees on new development. The three fees combined added about $11,500 to the cost of a new single-family home, according to local reporting. For one actual home analyzed by the Flagler Home Builders Association, total impact fees jumped from $23,454.89 to $33,527.53 — an increase of more than $10,000.  

There was just one problem. 

A judge says Palm Coast wasn’t allowed to do it. 

Circuit Judge Sandra Upchurch last week granted summary judgment to the Flagler Home Builders Association and other plaintiffs challenging the city’s 2025 increases, finding that the higher fees violated Senate Bill 180, the growth-management legislation approved by lawmakers last year.  

The ruling doesn’t end the lawsuit, and Palm Coast says the current fees remain in place while the case continues. The city is considering an appeal.  

But it’s quite a setback for a city that didn’t exactly nibble around the edges. 

Palm Coast’s three impact-fee increases averaged 101%, according to Spectrum News. Fire and transportation fees more than doubled, while parks impact fees increased 73%.  

Florida’s Impact Fee Act ordinarily caps increases at 50% and requires increases above 25% to be phased in. Local governments can exceed those limitations only under an “extraordinary circumstances” exception that requires, among other things, a demonstrated-need study, two public workshops and unanimous approval by the governing body.  

Palm Coast argued it had extraordinary circumstances. 

Rapid population growth and increasingly expensive infrastructure, the city concluded, justified the extraordinary increases. The City Council unanimously approved the new fees in 2025.  

The builders weren’t buying it. 

They warned city officials before the fees were adopted that they believed the studies supporting the increases contained significant flaws. When that didn’t stop the city, the Flagler Home Builders Association and six other plaintiffs sued on Oct. 1, 2025 — the same day the new fees took effect.  

Interestingly, the builders aren’t arguing that impact fees themselves are illegitimate. 

“Growth should pay its fair share, and we absolutely support impact fees,” Flagler HBA Executive Officer Annamaria Long said following the ruling. The association’s position, she said, is that government should collect the appropriate amount based on accurate data, through a lawful process and for infrastructure actually necessitated by growth.  

That’s an important distinction. 

New development obviously creates demand for roads, parks, fire protection and other infrastructure. Impact fees are intended to make new growth contribute toward those costs. 

But impact fees don’t materialize out of thin air. They’re part of the cost of producing a home — and ultimately somebody pays them. 

In the Flagler HBA’s real-world example, government added more than $10,000 to the cost of producing the exact same house.  

That’s a particularly interesting policy choice during a housing-affordability crisis. 

And the litigation may get worse for Palm Coast before it gets better. 

Upchurch’s ruling addresses the builders’ claim under SB 180. Other portions of the lawsuit challenging how Palm Coast calculated the fees under Florida’s Impact Fee Act remain pending.  

For now, Palm Coast says it disagrees with the ruling and is reviewing “all available legal options, including an appeal.”  

Fair enough. 

But there’s also a simpler lesson here. 

Growth may need to pay its fair share. 

The government still has to follow the rules when it sends the bill. 

August 20, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

As Danfoss’ Ricardo Schneider calls for a hard look at OEV, here’s what Red Tape Florida discovered about how the office is staffed. 

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

A year ago, Ricardo Schneider — then president of Danfoss Turbocor, one of the few Tallahassee companies expanding at real scale — set a deadline: if the region didn’t land at least two new business commitments within 12 months, it would be a “community failure.” That deadline has now passed. No new businesses have been secured, and Schneider isn’t backing off.  

“I’m very disappointed with where we are today,” he told the Tallahassee Democrat in a Thursday story, adding it’s time for “a discussion about the future of OEV after the election.”  

“We are getting the same results,” he said. “We are doing the same things.” 

That’s a pointed call for scrutiny from someone who isn’t a political opponent of OEV — he’s the former head of the company local leaders have repeatedly held up as proof the strategy works.  

So Red Tape Florida reviewed OEV’s current public employee directory together with salary and personnel records obtained through public records requests to the City of Tallahassee and Leon County, to see exactly how the office charged with attracting new employers and investment is staffed. 

The staffing breakdown looks like this: of OEV’s 11 current employees, two hold positions specifically designated for business development — a Business Development Manager and a Business Development Intern. Four positions are specifically assigned to the Minority, Women and Small Business Enterprise program. Three are categorized under leadership and administration, and two under research, marketing and special projects. 

OEV Staff, Titles and Salaries 

Listed alphabetically by last name. Based on OEV’s public staff directory (titles) and salary and personnel records obtained via public records requests (annual salary). 

Name	Title	Category	Annual Salary
Keith Bowers	Director, Office of Economic Vitality	Leadership & Administration	$148,195.84
Jessica Grant	Administrative Specialist II	Leadership & Administration	$60,371.76
Darryl Jones	Deputy Director, Minority Women & Small Business Enterprise	MWSBE	$111,402.27
Sean Lewis	Special Projects Coordinator	Research, Marketing & Special Projects	$96,719.92
Dan Lucas	Business Intelligence Manager	Leadership & Administration	$102,827.11
Kadin Musco	Business Development Intern	Business Recruitment	$32,448.00
Dineta O’Hara	Business Development Manager	Business Recruitment	$100,782.15
LaTanya Raffington	Senior Manager, Minority Women & Small Business Enterprise	MWSBE	$90,941.71
Wilnick SaintCharles	Senior Coordinator, Minority Women & Small Business Enterprise	MWSBE	$78,000.00
Shanea Wilks	Senior Manager, Minority Women & Small Business Enterprise	MWSBE	$94,578.46
Maegen Wynn	Business Outreach & Marketing Coordinator	Research, Marketing & Special Projects	$63,999.94
Total (11 current employees)			$980,267.17

Note: A twelfth employee, Violeta Wall, appears in payroll records as a Blueprint Right-of-Way Assistant earning $64,786.42 annually. That position does not appear on OEV’s current public staff directory and is not included in the table above. Combined with the 11 current employees, total salaries across all 12 payroll records reach approximately $1,045,053.59. 

OEV employs one Business Development Manager and one Business Development Intern. Together, those two positions account for approximately $133,230 in annual salaries. 

By comparison, four employees work in the Minority, Women and Small Business Enterprise program. Their combined annual salaries total approximately $374,922, representing about 38 percent of the office’s current payroll. 

The remaining staff includes OEV Director Keith Bowers, Business Intelligence Manager Dan Lucas, Business Outreach and Marketing Coordinator Maegen Wynn, Special Projects Coordinator Sean Lewis and Administrative Specialist Jessica Grant. 

To be fair, Bowers surely spends a considerable amount of his time on recruitment, in addition to managing the entire OEV operation. But if Tallahassee-Leon taxpayers were under the impression that most of OEV’s staff positions are specifically dedicated to recruiting new industry to the region, the office’s own staff directory tells a different story. 

The MWSBE program certifies and assists minority-, women-, and small-business-owned firms seeking to compete for public contracts. That work is distinct from recruiting companies to relocate or expand into Tallahassee-Leon County. 

OEV’s staffing structure comes as the region faces real economic headwinds by the office’s own numbers. Resident employment has fallen from 163,592 in October 2024 to 154,743 as of the most recent reporting — a decline of 8,849, or 5.4 percent — and the unemployment rate stood at 5.0 percent in May 2026, up from the mid-3-percent range a year earlier. Population growth, initially reported by the U.S. Census as a decline in 2024, has since been revised to a bare 0.13 percent gain — essentially flat. 

Red Tape Florida has written extensively on these matters: 

• Leon County’s economy is in real distress 

• OEV’s abysmal 10-year track record 

• OEV’s 2025 scorecard: A goose egg 

• Skip Foster’s speech to Tiger Bay on the county’s economic distress and the reasons behind it. 

The purpose of this analysis is not to suggest that one function is important and others aren’t. OEV has responsibilities beyond recruiting new industry, including administration of the MWSBE program. But attracting new employers and investment is central to the agency’s economic development mission. 

The staffing records do, however, answer one factual question: of OEV’s 11 current employees, two hold positions specifically designated for business development, in a community where economic development wins are practically non-existent.  

Schneider, for his part, isn’t blaming any one person. He credited OEV Director Keith Bowers by name, saying Bowers is “pushing very hard.” But his larger criticism is unmistakable: “We are getting the same results. We are doing the same things.” 

OEV performs a number of functions assigned by the City and County. But staffing reflects priorities. Other OEV employees may participate in recruitment efforts as part of their broader responsibilities, but their listed positions are not specifically designated as business development — and of the two that are, one is an intern. Whether that’s the right allocation is ultimately a policy decision — one Schneider is now asking the community to have out loud. 

Taxpayers deserve to know how their economic development office is actually organized going into that conversation. 

August 13, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

When Red Tape Florida asked the City of Tallahassee to show how its voluntary buyout program would save more than $8 million a year, the city’s response was remarkable: there was no spreadsheet, no financial model, and no position-by-position analysis supporting the claim. 

No methodology. No documented staffing plan. No record reconciling the promised savings with a salary budget that was still going up. 

Which made it all the more surprising when Red Tape Florida uncovered that Commissioner Jack Porter attempted to hire a new legislative aide — at the same salary as the departing aide, with comparable qualifications and consistent with what the City’s other commissioners pay their aides — only to discover City Finance had already reduced the budget for the position without consulting her. 

The city assumed – without communicating this assumption – that Porter would hire the replacement aide for approximately $13,400 less. When she didn’t, her office was expected to absorb the difference within its existing budget. 

The episode offers the clearest window yet into one of the questions Red Tape Florida has been asking for weeks: How, exactly, did City Hall calculate the savings from its Voluntary Separation Incentive (VSI) program? 

According to newly obtained emails, Porter’s longtime legislative aide, Terrie Hookfin, accepted the city’s buyout after earning an annual salary of $90,018, which is commensurate with the other four commissioners’ aides. Red Tape Florida independently confirmed that figure through the city’s VSI severance records. 

When Porter selected a replacement, she proposed paying the same salary — $90,018.38, matching Hookfin’s salary to the penny. Porter told Human Resources the new aide possessed qualifications comparable to Hookfin’s and should receive compensation consistent with the legislative aides serving the city’s other four commissioners. 

But finance had already made a different assumption. Instead of budgeting the position at its existing salary, the city reset it to what is called the Maximum Hire Rate, or MHR — an existing city compensation practice that generally establishes the highest salary at which a new employee may be hired without additional approval. In this case, Finance applied that existing practice as part of its FY27 budget assumptions, budgeting the position at approximately $76,600, more than $13,000 below the departing employee’s salary. 

“The FY27 budget assumption resetting the position to the Maximum Hire Rate did not reflect my intended compensation level for this position and was made without consultation with my office,” Porter wrote Assistant City Manager Abena Ojetayo in an email obtained by Red Tape Florida. 

New salary? That was news 

In an interview, Porter said she first learned of the reduced budget only after selecting her replacement — and that no one from finance or the City Manager’s Office ever asked whether she intended to refill the position at a lower salary before building that assumption into the budget. Had they asked, she said, they would have learned immediately that her intention was to maintain salary parity with the other commissioners’ aides. 

Porter also said the Commission received little discussion about the mechanics behind the city’s projected savings before approving the VSI program. Commissioners were told generally that savings would come from positions left vacant and others refilled at lower salaries, she said, but there was no discussion about budgeting specific vacant positions at the Maximum Hire Rate as part of the city’s projected savings or how those assumptions would affect elected officials and department directors responsible for making hiring decisions. 

Hookfin, who spent nearly nine years with the city — including assignments in Human Resources, Housing and Commissioner’s offices — corroborated Porter’s account. She said neither she nor Porter’s office was informed before she accepted the buyout that her position would revert to the Maximum Hire Rate or that her replacement would be budgeted at a substantially lower salary. 

“We learned about each new restriction only when it became another roadblock,” Hookfin said. 

Hookfin also said legislative aides have historically been paid at roughly comparable salaries because each commissioner employs a single aide performing essentially the same job. “When I left, aides were earning approximately $90,000,” she said. “Requiring Commissioner Porter’s new aide to earn significantly less than every other aide abandons that equity standard without warning or a legitimate operational reason.” 

HR, Finance not on same page 

Further complicating matters is that apparently one city department didn’t know what the other was doing. The City’s Human Resources had already approved posting the position with a salary range that included Hookfin’s existing salary. Only after Porter selected her replacement and attempted to complete the hiring process did Finance advise that the position had already been budgeted at the Maximum Hire Rate. In other words, one department approved advertising the position at approximately $90,000 while another had already budgeted it at roughly $76,600. Whether that disconnect reflects poor communication, poor planning or something else entirely, taxpayers deserve an explanation. 

Assistant City Manager Abena Ojetayo acknowledged the budget reduction in her response to Porter but defended it as routine. Resetting vacant positions to the Maximum Hire Rate, she wrote, is simply “standard for our budget planning.” 

That sentence may be the most important one in the entire email chain, because of what it says about the City’s response to Red Tape Florida’s public records requests. 

For weeks, Red Tape Florida has been asking City Hall to produce the records explaining how officials calculated the program’s promised $8.46 million in annual savings — specifically, the financial models, the methodology, the records identifying which positions would be eliminated, refilled or left vacant, and the analyses showing how those savings reconciled with a salary budget that nevertheless increased. 

The city’s response has been remarkably consistent: no responsive records exist. 

Yet here, in that same email, finance had already described that assumption as routine. If it’s really “standard for our budget planning,” where are the records documenting that standard? Because that is precisely the type of methodology Red Tape Florida has been seeking all along. 

How does this play out 171 times? 

The implications extend far beyond Porter’s office. The City’s voluntary buyout program affected 171 employees across virtually every department in city government. If finance routinely applied the Maximum Hire Rate to vacant positions as part of its budget planning assumptions, how many other positions were budgeted using similar assumptions? Were department directors consulted before those assumptions became part of the FY27 budget? Did every hiring authority intend to refill positions at those lower salaries — or were those assumptions simply built into the City’s projected savings before the people responsible for making the hiring decisions had weighed in? 

Hookfin believes at least some positions were never likely to generate the recurring salary savings reflected in the city’s projections. Certain positions — including a commissioner’s sole legislative aide — were always going to have to be refilled, she said, and because of operational needs and longstanding pay equity, some would inevitably have to be filled at or near the incumbent’s salary. “Those positions would produce little or no ongoing salary savings,” Hookfin said. 

Perhaps there truly are no spreadsheets. Perhaps there is no master financial model. But there was unquestionably a methodology — and taxpayers are only learning about one piece of it because Commissioner Porter attempted to hire a replacement for her longtime legislative aide. 

Which leaves one final question: if this budgeting assumption existed all along, what other assumptions were built into the City’s $8.46 million savings estimate that the public still hasn’t seen? 

August 13, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

Opinion by Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

At Tiger Bay a few weeks ago, I talked about what I believe drives successful communities. 

Economic development isn’t the responsibility of one organization. It’s a four-legged stool. 

One leg is local government. One is higher education. One is the private sector. One is state government. 

When all four are working together, communities grow. 

If you’ve read Red Tape Florida for any length of time, you know we have spent a lot of our energy documenting the opposite. We write about bureaucratic delays, unnecessary regulations, missed opportunities and government policies that make it harder for businesses to invest and create jobs. 

That’s not changing. 

But criticism without praise is a one-note song. 

Here is an example of our community getting it right. The topic? Sports and entertainment tourism. 

The story starts in Oregon 

They weren’t just attending a conference. They were selling Tallahassee to the world based on the success of this year’s championship at Apalachee Regional Park.  

That effort didn’t begin with a plane ticket. 

It began more than a decade ago when Leon County made the long-term decision to invest in Apalachee Regional Park as a destination for cross-country competition. Since then, the park has hosted dozens of national, regional and state championships, attracting thousands of athletes and visitors and generating millions of dollars in spending for local businesses. The World Championships weren’t a lucky break. They were the payoff from years of consistent investment.  

And that investment is beginning to compound. 

The World Athletics Cross Country Championships drew more than 10,000 spectators to Tallahassee, including thousands of visitors from outside Leon County, providing another tangible example of how destination events can fill hotel rooms, restaurants and local businesses.  

County leaders aren’t treating that success as a one-off. This summer, they proposed a new performance-based tourism incentive program aimed at attracting even larger events, while simultaneously traveling to Oregon to make the case for bringing the 2029 World Athletics Championships back to Apalachee Regional Park. That’s what strategic economic development looks like. It’s not chasing the next headline. It’s building on success, reinvesting in it and creating a pipeline of opportunities that can pay dividends for years to come. 

That’s the first leg of the stool. 

The second is our area’s colleges and universities. 

Bulls and Bananas 

For years, Doak Campbell Stadium was essentially a twelve-day-a-year asset. Athletic Director Michael Alford deserves credit for changing that mindset. The Savannah Bananas filled the stadium. Professional Bull Riders brought thousands more visitors. Concerts followed. Instead of sitting empty most of the year, one of Tallahassee’s largest public assets is becoming an economic engine that benefits the entire community.  

The success of those events isn’t going unnoticed. 

At the close of last month’s Leon County Commission meeting, Chairman Christian Caban announced plans to bring forward a formal agenda item aimed at creating a more intentional strategy for sports and entertainment tourism. His vision is straightforward: use Tallahassee’s major public venues to attract destination events during traditionally slower tourism periods, bringing visitors here when hotel occupancy and economic activity would otherwise lag. 

That’s exactly the kind of long-term thinking communities need. Successful tourism isn’t about landing one headline event. It’s about creating a year-round pipeline of attractions that maximize facilities taxpayers have already paid to build. 

The third leg is the private sector. 

Chamber checks in 

The Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce publicly backed the County’s effort this week, recognizing what local businesses already know: visitors don’t just attend sporting events. They stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, shop in local stores and support local jobs. Several businesses have already reported significant increases in sales during these major events.  

The fourth leg is the State of Florida. 

Foundational 

The Florida Sports Foundation doesn’t build facilities or operate hotels. But it helps communities compete for major sporting events that might otherwise go to Orlando, Tampa or Miami. That statewide support gives communities like Tallahassee a chance to compete on a much larger stage.  

None of these organizations could have accomplished this alone. 

The County could build a world-class course, but without FSU embracing year-round use of its facilities, the community’s overall sports tourism strategy would be weaker. 

The Chamber could promote Tallahassee all day long, but without venues and events, there would be nothing to sell. 

The state can help market destinations, but it can’t manufacture local leadership. 

It takes all four. 

Too often in Tallahassee, these institutions operate in their own lanes. Sometimes they’re indifferent to one another. Occasionally they’re working at cross purposes. When that happens, economic opportunities are lost before they ever reach the starting line. 

This is different. 

It’s a reminder that economic development isn’t just about recruiting the next manufacturer or announcing another ribbon-cutting. Sometimes it’s about recognizing the assets you already have, investing in them over time and getting multiple institutions rowing in the same direction. 

I’ve spent plenty of time pointing out where Tallahassee falls short. 

It’s only fair to point out when it gets something right. 

The real opportunity isn’t simply bringing another world championship to Apalachee Regional Park. 

It’s asking a bigger question: 

What if we approached our other economic priorities the same way? 

What if the same level of collaboration were applied to expanding air service at Tallahassee International Airport? What if local government, the business community, Florida State and state leaders all treated that as a shared priority instead of someone else’s responsibility? 

What if we brought that same alignment to recruiting major employers? To commercializing the incredible research taking place at Florida State and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory? To creating more startup companies that grow here instead of leaving here? 

Those are the kinds of challenges no single organization can solve. 

The County can’t do it alone. 

Neither can the City. 

Neither can FSU. 

Neither can the Chamber. 

Neither can the state. 

But together? That’s a different conversation. 

That’s why this story is about much more than cross-country championships, Banana Ball or bull riding. 

Those are simply proof of concept. 

They’re evidence that when Tallahassee’s four legs of the stool — local government, higher education, the private sector and state government — decide to pull in the same direction, this community can compete with cities much larger than our own. 

Imagine what could happen if we made that the rule instead of the exception. 

August 11, 2026
Opinion, by Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

The Florida Legislature made a clear decision this year. 

The government shouldn’t get paid for work it didn’t do. 

We are talking about the years-long private provider laws in Florida which allow inspections and plan reviews to be conducted by private sector businesses. 

The problem is that local government bureaucrats can’t stand private providers. They operate on government turf. And despite often having stronger credentials than their government counterparts, they’re still viewed with suspicion because they work in the private sector. 

But the Legislature does trust and value private providers, and rightly so. 

The private sector almost always operates more efficiently, quickly and cost-effectively than bureaucracies. 

Which is why the Legislature acted on this premise: If a private provider is doing the work, taxpayers shouldn’t be paying the government as if the government did it. 

That’s exactly what House Bill 803, effective July 1, requires. On commercial projects, local governments must reduce building permitfees by at least 50 percent when a private provider performs both plan review and inspections, and by at least 25 percent when the private provider performs one of those functions. On residential projects, the permit fee is supposed to reflect the work the building department actually performs. The law also prohibits local governments from tacking on administrative or punitive fees simply because an owner chooses to use a private provider. 

Seems straightforward enough. 

So how are local governments doing? 

Not very well, at least based on an initial review of publicly available fee schedules from around Florida. 

Pompano Beach appears to provide a discount of about 14.5 percent in some situations where the new law requires at least 50 percent. 

Boca Raton’s published schedule appears to reduce the fee from 1.60 percent of project value to 1.30 percent when a private provider performs both functions. According to the analysis, that would amount to more than a $25,000 difference on a $5 million commercial project compared with what HB 803 appears to require. 

Leesburg appears to offer two separate 10 percent discounts, one for inspections and one for plan review, while also charging a $50 private provider registration fee. 

Islamorada’s published procedures reference a 25 percent discount when a private provider performs both functions and 15 percent when only one function is performed. 

Those aren’t isolated examples. 

The review also identified published fee schedules in jurisdictions including Miami-Dade County, Coral Gables, Sunrise, Tampa and others that appear to fall below the new statutory minimum. Another group of cities and counties—Cocoa, Collier County, Palm Beach County, Dundee, Coral Springs, Polk County, Miramar, Seminole and Largo—appear to continue charging administrative fees associated with private providers, despite language in the new law intended to prohibit those charges. 

Just as interesting is the timing. 

Several jurisdictions updated or adopted fee schedules after the Legislature approved HB 803. Yet the published documents still appear to reflect the old approach rather than the new law. 

Maybe there’s an explanation. 

Maybe some jurisdictions have adopted internal procedures that simply aren’t reflected in the published fee schedule. Maybe amendments are already in the works. Every city and county deserves the chance to explain its position before anyone reaches a final conclusion. 

But if the published schedules are accurate, this isn’t a technical issue. 

It’s an issue of the rule of law and, ultimately, money. 

Permit fees don’t disappear into thin air. They become part of the cost of building a home, an apartment complex, a medical office or a warehouse. Those costs eventually show up in home prices, rents or lease rates. 

For years, local governments have defended permit fees by saying they recover the actual cost of providing the service. 

HB 803 applies that same logic in reverse. 

If the government isn’t doing the work, why should it collect the full fee? 

That’s the question the Legislature answered. 

The next question is: when are local governments going to start following the law? 

August 6, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

Opinion by Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

Red Tape Florida’s recent piece on Austin’s successful efforts to tackle affordable housing had a lot of important themes: 

• The key to lowering prices is driving up supply 

• The cost of red tape is significant 

• Time is money and a bogged-down bureaucratic process hurts not just builders but the eventual home and business owners 

But it was another theme that struck me. I saw something in Austin Mayor Kirk Watson that I simply haven’t seen within Tallahassee City government: True leadership and vision. 

While Tallahassee is paying for awards and positive coverage, renaming streets and issuing proclamations, its economy remainsstagnant and affordable housing persists as an acute problem. 

Tallahassee has largely resorted to unoriginal, public-sector driven solutions — subsidizing projects with federal and state housing dollars, supporting community land trusts, offering down payment assistance, funding rehabilitation programs, requiring or incentivizing affordable units through inclusionary housing policies, and partnering with nonprofits and developers on publicly backed projects. Those efforts may help individual families and add some units to the housing stock, but they largely rely on government money, government programs or government direction.  

Austin tried something different. It considered an idea that would surely seem novel to Tallahassee leaders: Maybe we are a part of the problem. 

It turned a critical eye on itself and hired an outside firm to provide an unbiased report answering this question: is our bureaucracy negatively impacting the issue of affordable housing? 

Can you even imagine that happening in Tallahassee? 

City leaders are too busy flexing, cheerleading and railroading. Decisions are made in backrooms, not in the public’s view. Data isn’tgathered independently with a “what we can learn” mentality. Instead, it’s cherry-picked and presented only in the most positive light. 

The internal culture is toxic and that actually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let me explain. 

Tallahassee is known across the state and even the nation as a business-unfriendly city. This is simply a fact – I’ve heard it so many times from so many people in so many sectors I don’t need a poll to tell me it’s true. 

But part of the culture that leads to this business unfriendliness is arrogance. An insular attitude. A “we know best” mentality.  

Why, Tallahassee government leaders would likely say, do we need to survey our own operation when we already know we’re right and everybody else is wrong?  

It’s that mentality that leads to absolutely inane results, like the shed from hell, that, according to my sources, STILL hasn’t been approved for use by the City. Or the Midtown Reader grass field, which STILL hasn’t been allowed to be turned into desperately needed parking. And the list goes on (and is growing, as Red Tape Florida is now receiving tips from Tallahassee and across the state on a daily basis). 

The Austin mayor was willing to cross party lines — and other imaginary political boundaries — to gather information to actually solve a problem. He was willing to admit a fault so that it could then be fixed. 

In Tallahassee, we are hopelessly divided by a 3-2 dynamic where if one side suggested an ordinance banning the torture of puppies and kittens, the other side would immediately claim to be pro-puppy and kitten torture. 

Sadly, even business leaders have become so invested in this 3-2 fable that they will support completely unqualified candidates simply to maintain “control,” when all they are really doing is sentencing the city to another two to four years of ineptitude and weak leadership. 

Heck, even when it is obvious that there is a problem – a floundering economy, or a failing Office of Economic Vitality – there doesn’tappear to be the gumption for government leaders to admit it. 

We are left with another generation’s worth of problems that never get solved because no one is willing to ask the first question Austin asked: 

Could we be part of the problem? 

That’s not a partisan question. It’s not a liberal question or a conservative question. It’s a leadership question. 

Until Tallahassee has leaders willing to challenge their own assumptions, invite outside scrutiny and admit that City Hall itself may be standing in the way of progress, we’ll continue treating symptoms instead of causes. 

Austin’s mayor had the confidence to look inward before pointing outward. 

That’s the kind of leadership Tallahassee has been missing. 

July 31, 2026
Opinion by Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

Regardless of what Floridians think about Austin, Texas, consider these four facts: 

• Austin added roughly 120,000 housing units between 2015 and 2024 — a 30% increase in its housing stock — and inflation-adjusted rents have since fallen about 19% from their 2021 peak. 

• City leaders commissioned an independent, top-to-bottom review of their own permitting and development process.  

• Instead of asking what developers or the market were doing wrong, they asked a far more uncomfortable question: Was City Hall itself making housing more expensive?  

The answer was yes.  

Those four facts deserve more than a passing glance. 

For years, the national debate over housing affordability has followed a familiar script. One side blames developers. Another blames zoning. Others point to interest rates, Wall Street investors, labor shortages or rising construction costs. All of those factors matter. 

Austin decided to ask a different question. 

Instead of beginning with the housing market, it began by examining City Hall. 

During a recent appearance on Bloomberg’s Wall Street Week, Mayor Kirk Watson explained that the city deliberately focused on the things it could actually control. That meant asking whether Austin’s own permitting process had become so slow, unpredictable and unnecessarily complicated that it was driving up housing costs before construction even began. 

It had.

“We focused on what we could control,” Watson said.

That’s what makes Austin’s experience so instructive. And its leadership so impressive.

Too often, governments begin with conclusions. They defend existing systems, blame outside forces or search for confirmation of policies they already support. Austin did the opposite.

It commissioned what Watson described as a “soup-to-nuts” review of its development process — not to validate City Hall’s performance, but to challenge it. 

Government commissions studies all the time. Most examine problems outside government. Austin turned the spotlight inward.

That question alone deserves the attention of every mayor, county commissioner, city manager and planning director in Florida.

Whether Austin’s politics appeal to you is beside the point.

“We did a soup-to-nuts review of our entire development review process,” Watson said.

Leadership is measured by the willingness to examine your own institution before assigning blame to someone else.

When 1,500 Steps Isn’t About Exercise

Austin hired McKinsey & Company to evaluate its development review process. The consultants didn’t recommend eliminating environmental protections or gutting regulations. They concluded the city’s permitting system had become so fragmented that it was difficult to navigate — for applicants and, in many cases, for the city itself.  

The numbers tell the story. 

A typical site plan required review by 11 different city departments. More than 250 city employees participated in the approval process. Depending on the project, an application could pass through nearly 1,500 separate process steps before reaching the finish line. 

Imagine running a private business where a customer request had to move through 11 departments, involve more than 250 employees and survive 1,500 procedural steps before anyone could say yes. 

Nobody would expect that organization to be fast. 

Nobody would expect it to be inexpensive. 

Housing is no different. 

The consultants also measured what applicants had experienced for years. 

The average initial review approached a year. About 80 percent of applicants reported having to revise and resubmit plans at least three times before receiving approval. Some projects remained in review for well over 18 months. Customer satisfaction with the site-plan review process was effectively nonexistent. 

The review identified problems that will sound familiar to anyone who has spent time around local government. 

Departments interpreted the development code differently. Reviews were duplicated. Communication between departments broke down. Technology lagged behind the organization’s needs. Applicants often received conflicting comments from different reviewers, forcing another round of revisions, another round of meetings and another round of delays. 

None of those obstacles were created by the private sector. 

They were created inside City Hall. 

Perhaps McKinsey’s most important contribution wasn’t identifying the delays. 

It was measuring what those delays cost. 

The consultants estimated that every additional month of permitting delay added roughly $9,700 to the carrying cost of a typical single-family redevelopment project and approximately $546,000 to a multifamily project.  

Based on Red Tape Florida’s experience, those numbers actually seem low. 

Regardless, this is the point where red tape stops being an abstraction. 

Every unnecessary review, every redundant approval and every avoidable month of delay eventually shows up somewhere. 

Usually, it’s in the price of housing. 

Those costs don’t disappear. 

They become part of the final price of the home or apartment. 

Austin’s leaders viewed those findings not as an indictment of government, but as a management challenge. 

Rather than defending the existing system, they standardized reviews, improved coordination between departments, clarified expectations, introduced performance metrics and began publicly tracking review times. According to McKinsey, initial review times were reduced by roughly 50 percent after the reforms began. 

But faster permitting was never the goal. 

More housing was. 

Supply, Supply, Supply

Austin’s permitting reforms were simply the means to a larger objective.

As Watson put it, “The biggest thing we needed to do was reduce the red tape and the bureaucracy associated with building housing.”

The city wanted more homes built.

Anyone who has taken middle school economics understands the principle: prices are determined by supply and demand.

Permits determine when – and whether – homes get built.

When projects become more predictable, financing becomes less risky. When financing becomes less risky, more projects move forward. When more projects move forward, supply increases. And when supply begins catching up with demand, upward pressure on prices begins to ease.

That’s exactly what Austin set out to accomplish.

Rather than trying to solve housing affordability by having government build enough housing itself, city leaders focused on creating conditions that allowed the private sector to build more housing.

Over the past several years, Austin added roughly 120,000 housing units. As that inventory entered the market, rents declined from their pandemic-era highs, making Austin one of the few major metropolitan areas in the country to experience meaningful rent declines.

No serious economist would argue that permitting reform alone produced that outcome. Interest rates, migration patterns and broader market conditions all played a role.

But virtually every economist agrees on one principle.

When demand consistently exceeds supply, prices rise.

When supply begins catching up, price pressures ease.

Austin also examined whether its land-use regulations unnecessarily constrained housing supply. Changes such as allowing smaller lot sizes made it possible to build more homes on the same amount of land without expanding the city’s footprint. Combined with permitting reforms and other housing initiatives, those changes created conditions for a significant increase in housing construction.

None of this means every subdivision should be approved or every regulation eliminated.

Communities have every right to protect wetlands, preserve neighborhoods, require adequate infrastructure and insist on responsible development.

But every regulation should be measured against both its benefits and its costs.

That’s ultimately what makes Austin’s experience so relevant to Florida.

Tallahassee and Leon County have their own permitting challenges. Red Tape Florida has documented examples of departments working at cross-purposes, unnecessary delays and bureaucratic friction that increase costs before a shovel ever reaches the ground.

What Austin did differently was ask the difficult question first.

Is government itself contributing to the problem?

That’s a question every city and county in Florida should have the courage to ask.

Austin couldn’t lower interest rates.

It couldn’t reduce the cost of concrete.

It couldn’t stop people from moving there.

But it could examine the one thing completely within its control:

Its own bureaucracy.

That’s leadership.

July 28, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida