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

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

Temple Terrace recently provided a textbook example of how fragile local permitting systems become when basic backup plans exist only on paper — or worse, only in emails. 

A homeowner needed a straightforward, safety-driven modification: converting a bathtub to a walk-in shower. The permit was submitted through a private provider, a process explicitly allowed under Florida law and intended to keep projects moving efficiently. 

Even before the vacation delay, the private provider says the application faced resistance — including being told to deliver materials in person rather than electronically and to use city-specific forms not required by state law. 

The application was submitted on May 25, 2025. 

Then the City of Temple Terrace’s building official, Dallas Foss, went on vacation — and the permitting system effectively went with him. 

What followed was not a minor delay or a paperwork hiccup, but a breakdown in authority that left contractors, residents, and even other government agencies trying to figure out who was actually in charge. 

According to multiple emails from Temple Terrace’s permitting office, Hillsborough County was serving as the acting building official during Mr. Foss’s absence.  

In one, Temple Terrace “permitting coordinator” Candace Willoughby, in an email obtained by Red Tape Florida, wrote to a building inspector on June 6 that “Mr. Foss is on vacation. We are using Hillsborough County BO.” 

Contractors were told the county was “covering” and that work would continue. 

There was only one problem. 

Hillsborough County had no idea. 

In a June 4 email, Hillsborough County Executive Manager Heather A. Tank, PE, put it plainly: 

“I believe there has been some confusion into the regard that Hillsborough County is assisting Temple Terrace. Hillsborough County is not acting as Building Official and can not make decisions for Temple Terrace. We are a resource to assist if the Temple Terrace staff has any questions.” 

That clarification came days after contractors had already been told otherwise by Temple Terrace staff. 

The building official acknowledged the delay and apologized. City leadership later conceded that “we could have done better.” 

But the episode raises a more uncomfortable question: what actually happened here? 

Temple Terrace told applicants that Hillsborough County was “covering.” Hillsborough County says, in writing, that it was not. No formal backup agreement, interlocal arrangement, or delegated authority has been produced. 

That leaves two possibilities. Either the city misunderstood its own coverage plan — or coverage was represented as existing when it did not. 

The private provider also contends that Temple Terrace required procedures beyond what state law permits, including rejecting the standard state notice form and requiring inspections to be “scheduled” rather than simply noticed. Florida’s private-provider statute limits local governments from imposing requirements more stringent than those prescribed by state law. If accurate, that raises a separate compliance question. 

This case surfaced only because the contractor pushed back and escalated. Most homeowners don’t. If one permit submitted on May 25 sat untouched until June 16 because a single official was out, it’s reasonable to ask how many others quietly stalled during the same period. 

Florida’s permitting laws assume continuity. Permits are not supposed to pause because one person is on vacation. Yet in Temple Terrace, authority appears to have been so centralized — and so poorly documented — that a routine safety project effectively shut down. 

That’s not just inefficient. It’s a governance failure. 

When a city tells applicants that another government entity is providing coverage — and that entity later says it isn’t — trust erodes quickly. Mixed messages don’t just slow projects; they undermine confidence in the system itself. 

This isn’t an argument against taking vacations. It’s an argument against pretending coverage exists when it doesn’t. 

Temple Terrace says it is addressing the issue. That’s welcome. But the lesson applies far beyond one city. 

When authority is unclear, delays aren’t accidents — they’re inevitable. And waiting weeks for a bureaucrat to return from vacation is not an acceptable outcome for residents trying to make their homes safer. 

February 10, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

When governments are proud of their economic performance, they show residents jobs. 

When they’re not, they show rankings. 

That’s the only way to understand the City of Tallahassee Office of Economic Vitality’s Feb. 4 communiqué declaring that Tallahassee-Leon County’s economy is “building momentum” and that “the numbers show it.”  

The OEV narrative that follows is not a serious economic analysis. It is a carefully assembled propaganda piece designed to distract from a stubborn and embarrassing reality: by OEV’s own data, Tallahassee is not growing — it is stagnating, and in some cases going backward. 

Start with the rankings — because that’s where the deception begins. 

OEV leads with a glowing national ranking from Area Development magazine, breathlessly announcing that Tallahassee-Leon County placed 16th overall among nearly 1,000metropolitan and micropolitan areas. That sounds impressive until you understand what this ranking actually rewards. 

Area Development’s index is a blended soup of more than two dozen indicators, many of which favor government-heavy economies, long-term averages, and institutional stability. Tallahassee’s enormous state-government footprint, universities, and healthcare systems prop up these scores even when private-sector job creation is anemic. 

In plain English: Tallahassee ranks well because it is stable — not because it is growing. 

That distinction is not an accident. It is the entire point of using rankings instead of outcomes. 

Next comes the “workforce strength” sleight of hand. 

OEV touts a top-20 national ranking for “Prime Workforce” performance, citing wage growth, labor-force trends, and STEM employment shares. What the release never explains is where these jobs are actually coming from. 

Much of Tallahassee’s wage growth mirrors national inflation and public-sector pay adjustments, not a competitive private market. Meanwhile, counting the share of STEM workers is meaningless when the region continues to struggle to attract the private employers who would hire them. A “strong workforce” that must leave town to thrive is not a strength — it’s a failure. 

Then comes perhaps the most unintentionally revealing boast of all. 

OEV proudly notes that roughly one-third of workers employed in Tallahassee-Leon County commute in from surrounding counties, framing this as evidence that Tallahassee is a powerful regional employment hub. In reality, this is not a flex. It’s a flashing warning light. 

While growing a regional economy is a laudable goal, high inbound commuting often signals that the core city is failing to generate enough well-paid resident workers to support household formation and long-term wealth creation. Tallahassee captures labor during the day and exports wages, homeownership, and tax base at night. 

The American Planning Association’s PAS Report on jobs–housing balance explains that when communities have a persistent mismatch between where jobs are and where workers can afford to live, the result is longer commutes and higher household transportation costs — and those costs can erase or outweigh wage gains, while also increasing regional congestion and infrastructure burdens 

A thriving economy retains its workers. It doesn’t rent them. 

But the most glaring omission in OEV’s entire release is the one statistic it absolutely refuses to confront: its own jobs data, as revealed in a recent Red Tape Florida story.  

According to OEV’s own employment chart, Leon County had roughly 159,000 jobs in late 2022. By late 2025, that number had fallen to about 158,000. That is not momentum. That is net job loss — quietly buried beneath glossy language and national rankings. 

To paper over this failure, OEV resorts to one of the oldest tricks in the economic-development spin book: anchoring job growth to April 2020, when pandemic shutdowns collapsed employment. Starting from the bottom of a once-in-a-century economic shutdown allows almost any community to claim dramatic “growth.” 

Recovery is not success. Rebounding is not momentum. And Tallahassee’s post-pandemic performance remains weak even by that generous standard. 

The Florida Chamber of Commerce, using the same federal data OEV selectively cites, reported that Leon County lost more than 4,000 jobs year-over-year — a fact OEV dismisses because it is inconvenient, not because it is wrong. 

And here’s the most telling detail of all: in 2025, OEV did not announce a single new economic-development project that added jobs. Not one. No relocations. No expansions. No headline wins. Just rankings, rankings, rankings. 

The release closes with optimism about real-estate “prospects,” citing a national perception survey showing improved sentiment among investors. Sentiment, however, does not build office space. Surveys do not sign paychecks. And optimism does not create private-sector jobs. 

Perhaps Tallahassee-Leon’s job numbers would be better if OEV spent less time on self-congratulatory rankings report and more time on actually recruiting new business to our community. 

Tallahassee residents do not live inside rankings. 

They live inside paychecks. Inside housing costs. Inside career ceilings. Inside a local economy that has spent years confusing institutional stability with economic success. 

Until the city is willing to show honest, current job numbers — without pandemic baselines, without composite rankings, and without propaganda — talk of “momentum” is not analysis. 

It’s marketing. And it’s insulting. 

February 5, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

Siesta Key is a rounding error in Sarasota County’s population statistics. But when it comes to paying the county’s tourism bills, it is one of the largest contributors by far. 

In a typical year, roughly one out of every four tourist-development tax dollars collected in Sarasota County comes off Siesta Key. That translates to around $13 million annually flowing from a barrier island that represents about 1.4 percent of the county’s permanent population and roughly 4 percent of its housing units. 

That imbalance alone should prompt a basic question: where does the money go? 

The answer is increasingly uncomfortable for county leaders — and increasingly relevant as Siesta Key property owners face tighter development restrictions, slower rebuilding approvals, and a growing political culture that celebrates saying “no” to redevelopment. 

Start with the raw numbers. In fiscal year 2024, Sarasota County collected just over $48 million in tourist-development taxes, commonly known as the bed tax. Of that total, Siesta Key generated approximately 26.8 percent — the single largest share of any location in the county, ahead of even the City of Sarasota. Even after Hurricanes Helene and Milton temporarily knocked some accommodations offline, Siesta’s share in early fiscal year 2025 still hovered around 22 to 23 percent. 

This is not a small contribution from a large place. It is a massive contribution from a very small one. 

Yet most of those dollars are not reinvested on Siesta Key in any visible or proportional way. County policy sends bed-tax revenues into broad, countywide buckets: beach maintenance and renourishment across the entire coastline; marketing and promotion handled centrally; sports facilities and stadium debt; arts and cultural grants; and large capital projects like Nathan Benderson Park and other mainland amenities. 

In plain terms, Siesta Key functions as a revenue engine whose output is largely spent elsewhere. 

That imbalance is no longer theoretical — it is now playing out in real time at the County Commission. 

Earlier this month, the Sarasota County Commission agreed to convene a half-day public workshop on Feb. 11 to discuss a proposed Siesta Key “beautification” initiative, following repeated requests from commissioners to move the issue up on the county’s 2026 strategic agenda. The workshop — framed by county staff as largely a listening session — comes after a new Siesta Key Beautification Alliance sought a $30 million county investment to repair and upgrade island infrastructure damaged by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.  

Commissioners acknowledged both the island’s central role in generating tourist-development tax revenue and its deteriorating post-storm conditions, but stopped short of committing funding, citing looming budget gaps, revenue uncertainty, and broader countywide priorities. 

This matters because, at the same time, county officials and activists routinely boast about blocking development and redevelopment on the Key — even in areas that have long been zoned for commercial or multi-family. The message to property owners is that restriction itself is a virtue, regardless of zoning, storm damage, or economic impact. 

That posture is easy to maintain when someone else is paying the bills. 

Tourist-development taxes are not abstract dollars. They come directly from visitors renting rooms, condos, and vacation properties — the same properties now caught in a regulatory vise. When rebuilding is delayed, discouraged, or made economically infeasible, the revenue stream county government relies on is put at risk. 

The irony is hard to miss. The county depends on Siesta Key’s tourism economy to fund beach work, marketing campaigns, sports venues, and mainland projects — yet increasingly treats the island itself as a place where development should be frozen in amber. 

This is not an argument for reckless building or ignoring flood risk. It is an argument for honesty and proportionality. 

If Siesta Key generates roughly a quarter of Sarasota County’s bed-tax revenue, residents and property owners are justified in asking why so little of that investment visibly returns to the island itself. Why is it acceptable for Siesta to subsidize stadium debt, regional parks, and countywide promotion, while being told that responsible redevelopment on the Key is somehow a threat to the public good? 

The question becomes even sharper after storms. Hurricanes don’t just damage buildings; they test whether local governments are serious about resilience. Rebuilding to modern standards, elevating structures, and replacing outdated, non-compliant buildings all cost money and require regulatory cooperation. When those efforts are slowed or blocked, the long-term risk — both physical and financial — increases. 

That contribution should buy a seat at the table. 

This story is not about one variance request or one development fight. It is about a structural imbalance that has gone largely unexamined: a small community generating an outsized share of public revenue, while being politically rewarded with restrictions rather than reinvestment. 

Siesta Key’s tourism economy has helped carry Sarasota County through downturns, disasters, and budget cycles. It is doing so again now, even as storm impacts temporarily reduce capacity. That should buy more than rhetorical gratitude. It should buy a serious, good-faith examination of how county policies affect the people and properties that generate this revenue. 

In the weeks ahead, Red Tape Florida will examine how these financial realities intersect with Sarasota County’s permitting and rebuilding decisions on Siesta Key — and what that means for recovery, property owners, and the long-term resilience of the county’s tourism economy. 

For now, the numbers tell a simple story. Siesta Key pays the bill. Sarasota County decides how to spend it. And the people footing the bill are starting to ask harder questions. 

January 26, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

Opinion by Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

At the Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce annual breakfast this week, new Chair Eddie Gonzalez Loumiet delivered exactly the kind of message this community needs right now. Be bold. Be positive. Be innovative. Stop thinking small. 

That challenge applies across Tallahassee’s economy. But there may be no place where it applies more urgently — or more visibly — than Tallahassee International Airport. 

For years, we’ve heard about “leakage”: residents and visitors driving to Jacksonville, Orlando, or other airports to save money or gain access to better flight options. We study it. We lament it. We pass subsidy programs meant to lure airlines. 

And yet leakage persists. 

Here’s the uncomfortable truth. You don’t beat leakage by pretending Tallahassee can out-Atlanta Atlanta or out-Orlando Orlando. You beat leakage by making flying out of Tallahassee so attractive and convenient that bypassing it feels irrational. 

That requires a shift in mindset. Less airline-first. More passenger-first. 

Start with the simplest, boldest move 

Free parking at TLH 

The city currently collects roughly $6 million a year in airport parking revenue, while simultaneously seeking subsidies to airlines in hopes of adding or retaining routes. In other words, we charge our own residents and visitors to fund incentives for someone else. 

That’s backwards. 

Free parking instantly lowers the cost and stress of choosing TLH. It sends a clear signal that Tallahassee values convenience and respects travelers’ time. It makes the local airport the default choice, not the one you talk yourself into after doing math. 

Free parking shouldn’t be an incentive. It should be the baseline. 

Move to all-local vendors 

Every traveler has seen the tired airport gift shop — the same mugs, the same shirts, the same forgettable clutter. 

TLH should do the opposite. 

Why not intentionally recruit local businesses to fill those spaces, even if it means accepting lower rent or breaking even? Imagine browsing books from Midtown Reader before boarding. Coffee from Lucky Goat, Red Eye, or Ground Ops. Breakfast offerings from Canopy Road or Earley’s. Local brands, local pride, and local confidence. 

The point isn’t maximizing concession revenue. It’s maximizing loyalty and identity. The airport is the first and last impression of a city. Right now, TLH doesn’t look like Tallahassee. It should. 

Speaking of local vendors, the amount of local art that could be displayed at the airport is endless – it should be constantly rotating in and out. 

Create a sense of urgency on behalf of customers 

Fast retrieval of luggage should be the highest priority. Communicate to customers a target time for luggage delivery. Then, measure it. Then publish the results. Then work on maintaining good numbers and improving poor ones.  

Add more generic EV charges 

They are overallocated to Tesla’s, which are losing market share. No electric vehicle should ever be unable to charge while parking at TLH. 

Lean into early mornings instead of ignoring them 

Early morning departures are a fact of life at TLH. Instead of pretending otherwise, design around them. 

Offer free local coffee for one hour — from 5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Partner with Tallahassee roasters. It’s inexpensive, humane, and unforgettable to anyone navigating the terminal half-awake.If somebody wants a fancy latte, they can pay for that, but a plain cup o’ joe is on the house. 

Small gestures matter most when people are tired, stressed, and short on time. 

Communicate like a service, not a press office 

When flights are delayed by weather or TSA lines back up, travelers don’t just want information. They want clarity, reassurance, and honesty. 

That means investing in communications as a core service. 

Tallahassee should have an airport app that actually matters. Live parking availability. TSA wait times. Gate changes. Weather explanations in plain English. Push alerts when things change. 

Many TLH flights leave very early in the morning. Design for that reality. Between 4:30 and 7:00 a.m., the app should default to a calm, simplified mode: gate confirmation, boarding countdown, coffee availability. No clutter. No guesswork. 

And for those picking people up, offer a simple but transformative feature: text alerts for wheels-down, baggage carousel start, and passenger exit. Less circling. Less congestion. Less frustration. 

Compete on care, not scale 

Tallahassee will never win a volume contest with Orlando or a route contest with Atlanta. That’s fine. 

What TLH can win is the experience contest. 

It can be the easiest airport in Florida to use. The least stressful. The most honest. The one that respects your time and treats you like a neighbor, not a transaction. 

And it’s not like it hasn’t been done before: 

Portland built a national reputation by showcasing local businesses and requiring street pricing, and Jacksonville – one of TLH’s prime competitors — is rewarding travelers with free parking through a frequent parker program 

Leakage doesn’t disappear because of one new route or one more subsidy vote. It disappears when enough people decide, again and again, that flying out of Tallahassee is simply the smartest, fastest and most pleasant option. 

Eddie Gonzalez Loumiet challenged Tallahassee to be bold. Making TLH a truly passenger-first airport would be a great place to start. 

January 16, 2026
Opinion by Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

Let’s dispense with the fiction. 

Tallahassee CRA officials, the day after Red Tape Florida reported on the issue, pulled a $750,000 grant request after acknowledging they could not support the project if the new building became a medical marijuana dispensary. 

One problem: The applicant is a cannabis real estate company. 

Not metaphorically. Not incidentally. Openly. 

WeWould REIT describes itself on its homepage as a Florida-focused cannabis equity REIT, complete with a prominent image of a cannabis plant and multiple pages devoted to cannabis-specific investments. 

Yet the proposal advanced through the CRA process as a generic retail project — complete with a colorful building rendering labeled “food.” 

According to Stephen Cox, the CRA’s executive director, the item was pulled only after staff concluded they could not recommend approval if the developer intended to lease the space to a dispensary. “We had a conversation with the owner, and he couldn’t guarantee that a dispensary wasn’t on the table,” Cox told the Tallahassee Democrat. 

That explanation raises a far more basic problem than zoning or community preference. Either CRA staff knew they were advancing a grant application from a cannabis-focused real estate company, or they advanced a $750,000 public subsidy without performing even minimal due diligence. There is no third option. 

This is the bureaucratic equivalent of telling a police officer that your friend said the bag he handed you was just home-grown oregano. 

A quick tour of WeWould REIT’s own website makes the point unavoidable. Its homepage identifies the firm as a cannabis equity REIT. Its “Our Focus” page is devoted entirely to cannabis real estate. Its portfolio highlights properties acquired, developed, or leased for cannabis uses. Its “About Us” section frames the company’s mission around serving the cannabis industry and navigating its regulatory and capital challenges.

 

Cannabis is not a side possibility. Cannabis is the business. 

This is the company CRA staff later said “couldn’t guarantee” a dispensary wouldn’t be part of the project. 

Which raises a question that should concern every taxpayer in a CRA district. 

What exactly is the threshold for due diligence? 

Because this was not the product of in-depth investigative journalism. It did not require subpoenas, records requests, or forensic accounting. It required typing the applicant’s name into a browser. 

Yet a 127-page grant application was assembled, packaged, placed on an agenda and nearly sent to a citizen advisory committee as a generic retail project, while the applicant’s core business model was treated as an afterthought. 

Cox acknowledged that staff had previously discussed with the developer that a dispensary would “be looked negatively by the community” and that CRA staff “would not be able to give a recommendation for approval from the staff perspective” if that were the use. 

In other words, CRA leadership understood that a marijuana dispensary was a live possibility — yet the proposal still moved forward without that issue being resolved or clearly disclosed. 

CRA staff advanced a proposal framed as “retail,” showcased a rendering labeled “food,” and confined the only clear references to a medical marijuana dispensary to page 52 and page 114 of technical attachments. 

Only after the Red Tape Florida story prompted resident calls did staff pull the item. 

“We spoke with him and said, ‘Look, if you’re trying to do something like that, that’s definitely not going to fly,’” Cox said of the dispensary use. “You can still build it, but as far as assistance goes, that’s not going to be something that we would be in favor of.” 

That may be true. But it is not reassuring. 

If CRA staff did not know this was a cannabis real estate company, that is a failure of basic competence. 

If they did know and chose to soft-pedal it in public materials, that is a failure of transparency. 

Either way, the public deserves better than a shrug and a pulled agenda item. 

That’s not redevelopment — just like it’s never oregano in the plastic bag. 

January 14, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

The City of Tallahassee’s 2025 Year in Review is glossy, upbeat, and brimming with accomplishments. It reads like a government that is busy, credentialed, and proud of itself. 

In some respects, that pride is justified. In others, it’s doing a lot of work to distract from questions City Hall would rather not answer. 

This is not a point-by-point rebuttal of every bullet in the document. Some things genuinely deserve credit. Others sound impressive until you ask the one question the Year in Review consistently avoids: compared to what? 

Let’s start where credit is due. 

Where the City actually earns it 

Parks and quality of life 
Tallahassee’s parks, tree canopy, and access to green space are real assets. They matter. They affect daily life. They are one of the few areas where Tallahassee truly punches above its weight. The City deserves credit for protecting and expanding them. 

This is not spin. It’s substance. 

Community programming 
Senior Games participation, neighborhood events, and civic initiatives help explain why people like living here even when they’re frustrated with everything else. These programs aren’teconomic development and don’t need to be. They succeed on their own terms. 

The problem begins when City Hall quietly slides from celebrating livability into declaring itself one of the best-run cities in Florida — as if the former automatically proves the latter. 

Claims that do real rhetorical work — and deserve scrutiny 

“Best-run city in Florida” and All-America City recognition 

What the City says: Tallahassee was named a 2025 All-America City and ranked the best-run city in Florida. 

What that actually means: The All-America City designation, awarded by the National Civic League, recognizes civic engagement and collaboration based largely on narrative applications. It does not measure wage growth, housing affordability, service speed, or economic outcomes. 

The “best-run” label comes from a WalletHub ranking that compares the scope of services to budget per capita. Translation: cities with larger governments and larger budgets can score well even if residents feel nickel-and-dimed, stuck in process, or priced out. 

What’s also true — and rarely mentioned: Through a public-records request, Red Tape Florida obtained documents showing that the City of Tallahassee spent approximately $130,000 preparing and submitting its All-America City application. That figure doesn’t even include staff time devoted to the effort — hours the City acknowledged were not tracked. 

In other words, this was not a spontaneous external validation. It was a competitive, resource-intensive bid, funded by taxpayers, with no accounting of the full internal cost. 

What’s missing:  
— Any discussion of cost versus benefit 
— Any disclosure of staff time diverted from core functions 
— Any evidence that household fundamentals improved as a result 

Awards feel less like independent validation when they come with a six-figure application budget and an uncounted amount of staff time. 

Crime reduction 

What the City says: Violent crime down 6.18 percent year-over-year and more than 30 percent over “the last couple of years.” 

What that actually means: A favorable slice of time following a nationwide crime spike. Possibly real progress. Possibly regression to the mean. Impossible to tell from what’spresented. 

What’s missing: 
— Raw incident counts 
— Population-adjusted rates 
— Multi-year trends 
— Neighborhood-level data 
— Any comparison to similar Florida cities 

If crime reduction is the crown jewel, show the jewels. Percentages without baselines are comfort food, not accountability. 

Economic development and jobs 

What the City says: More than 18,000 new jobs over five years. Conferences hosted. Awards received. Dashboards launched. 

What that actually means: Five-year aggregates hide churn and allow for larger numbers. Fewer than 4,000 jobs added per year is also true and far less encouraging. Conferences and awards document activity, not employer wins. Dashboards document motion, not outcomes. 

What’s missing (and this is the big one) 
— Net new jobs by year 
— Wage levels of new jobs 
— Median household income trends 
— Net migration of working-age residents 
— A simple list of major relocations or expansions 

This omission matters because prior Red Tape Florida reporting has already shown a consistent pattern: extensive economic-development storytelling paired with very few documented private-sector wins. The Year in Review does nothing to rebut that. It reinforces it. 

If job growth were truly transformative, residents wouldn’t need to be told. They’d feel it in paychecks, rents, and opportunity. 

Construction and capital spending 

What the City says: More than $350 million in active construction projects. 

What that actually means: The City spent money. Much of it public money. On things it already owns. 

What’s missing: 
— On-time and on-budget performance 
— Change orders 
— Long-term operating costs 
— Private investment leveraged 
— New taxable value created 

Capital spending is not growth. It’s maintenance, replacement, and occasionally expansion. Treating dollar totals as success is a classic municipal tell. 

Housing and permitting 

What the City says: Permits or reviews issued for 548 affordable housing units. 

What that actually means: Paper moved. 

What’s missing 
— Units actually built 
— Units actually occupied 
— Affordability levels and duration 
— Public subsidy per unit 
— End-to-end permitting timelines 
— Comparison to peer cities 

Red Tape Florida has documented repeatedly how time delays and layered reviews drive up costs. The Year in Review avoids that discussion entirely — while quietly counting approvals as victories. 

Dashboards and accountability 

What the City says: 133 initiatives tracked across seven priority areas. 

What that actually means: A government that does many things and measures most of them vaguely. 

What’s missing: 
— Outcome metrics versus process metrics 
— Baselines and targets 
— What happens when goals are missed 
— Data that can be downloaded and scrutinized 

When everything is a priority, nothing is. A dashboard can clarify performance or obscure it. This one leans toward the latter. 

Fiscal stewardship and bond ratings 

What the City says: AA bond ratings across all categories. 

What that actually means: Creditworthiness. The ability to borrow. 

What’s missing 
— Debt per capita trends 
— Fee and utility cost growth 
— Government staffing growth versus population 
— Whether residents are paying more for the same services 

Bond ratings tell investors the City is a safe bet. They do not tell residents they’re getting a good deal. 

The omission that ties it all together 

What’s striking about the Year in Review isn’t any single exaggeration. It’s the systematic absence of the metrics that actually determine whether a city is thriving: 

— Median income 
— Wage competitiveness 
— Housing affordability 
— Permit approval timelines 
— Private-sector job quality 
— Comparison to peer Florida cities 

And our personal favorite: airport traffic. 

Those numbers exist. The City simply chose not to show them. 

Conclusion 

Tallahassee has real strengths. Parks. Green space. Civic culture. Dedicated public employees. None of that needs to be diminished. 

But a Year in Review that leans on awards, activity, and spending while avoiding outcome-level scrutiny is not a report card. It’s a highlight reel. 

If City Hall, under Reese Goad, wants residents to believe Tallahassee is one of the best-run cities in Florida, it should stop asking them to admire the trophies and start showing them the math. 

That’s not negativity. That’s governance. 

January 14, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

By Red Tape Florida 

The Tallahassee Community Redevelopment Agency quietly pulled a proposed $750,000 Southside construction grant from its advisory board agenda Monday night after Red Tape Florida exposed that the project was intended to subsidize a marijuana dispensary — a fact not clearly disclosed in the public-facing materials. 

According to reporting by WTXL, the CRA item tied to a redevelopment project at 115 West Harrison Street was removed from consideration following public comment questioning both the use and the transparency of the grant. 

That concern echoes a prior Red Tape Florida investigation, which found that while the CRA agenda summary described the project in generic terms — emphasizing “retail” and redevelopment — the applicant’s own documents revealed a different story. Buried deep in the attachments, including an appraisal section beginning on page 52, the intended use of the property was identified as a medical marijuana dispensary, with further confirmation later in the application. 

In other words, the key word never appeared in the summary committee members and the public would reasonably rely on — only in dense supporting materials few would ever read. 

Residents speaking at the meeting made clear that the objection was not to redevelopment writ large, but to the idea that tax-increment dollars intended for Southside revitalization could be used to subsidize a cannabis retail operation, particularly without clear disclosure up front. 

It is unclear if the item will return at a later date, but the episode underscores a recurring concern with the City of Tallahassee Community Redevelopment Agency: critical project details disclosed only after public scrutiny, not before. 

For now, the $750,000 grant remains off the table — and the dispensary question remains unanswered. 

January 13, 2026
By Red Tape Florida

By Red Tape Florida 

This weekend, Tallahassee is hosting something truly historic: the World Athletics Cross Country Championships at Apalachee Regional Park, bringing the world’s best distance runners — and thousands of spectators — to our community. This isn’t just another local race or collegiate meet. This is a global sporting event that lifts Tallahassee onto the international stage and embodies exactly what sports tourism should look like.  

The 46th edition of the championships marks the first time the event has returned to the United States in more than 30 years. Apalachee Regional Park will be filled with elite runners representing more than 50 countries, competing across five championship races that will be broadcast around the world.  

This week, world-class athletes and Olympians from nations like Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Spain and Great Britain arrived in Tallahassee, and spectators have descended on our community to watch them compete. Organizers are expecting more than 450 of the world’s top runners, with economic impact estimates in the millions as visitors fill hotel rooms, dine in local restaurants, and experience our city’s unique hospitality.  

What’s happening here is the culmination of years of strategic thinking and community investment. Tallahassee and Leon County didn’t stumble into this opportunity. Like any successful sports tourism destination, they built it. Apalachee Regional Park has hosted high-profile events for years — from NCAA championships to national meets — and that track record was essential to winning the bid for these world championships.  

At the center of that long game has been county leadership, especially Leon County Administrator Vince Long. Back when the county first set its sights on hosting major cross countryevents, few could have predicted that those efforts would culminate in a world championship. But it was exactly that kind of long-term vision — of recognizing sports as an economic engine and leveraging it — that put Tallahassee in a position to win a global event of this caliber.  

Under Long’s leadership, local officials, tourism partners, and community stakeholders worked together to elevate Apalachee Regional Park from a respected regional venue to a world-class site worthy of hosting the top names in athletics. That collaboration is the essence of effective sports tourism strategy: build quality facilities, cultivate experience hosting big events, and then leverage that to bring bigger opportunities home. 

This weekend, as champions chase medals and cameras broadcast our city to millions, Tallahassee isn’t just hosting a race. It’s showing what sports tourism looks like when you back a plan with persistence, partnership and leadership. 

Thanks to Vince Long and the team he’s helped steer, the world has a front-row seat — and Tallahassee is finally in the spotlight it’s long deserved. 

January 9, 2026
By Red Tape Florida

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

If you only read the agenda item, this looks easy. 

The Tallahassee Community Redevelopment Agency’s Greater Frenchtown/Southside Citizen’s Advisory Committee is being asked at its Jan. 12 meeting to approve a $750,000 grant for a modest redevelopment project at 115 West Harrison Street. 

The proposal from a developer called WeWould REIT, LLC, sounds familiar, almost comforting: a newly constructed 6,143-square-foot building, two tenants, retail and food service, site work, jobs, improved aesthetics. 

There’s even a friendly rendering. Trees. Pedestrians. A clean, modern building. A big sign on the front that reads, simply, “FOOD.” 

Nothing to see here.  

Except there is. 

And you won’t find it in the agenda summary, the staff analysis, the fiscal impact, or the recommended action. To find it, you have to do what the agenda quietly hopes you won’t: keep reading. 

What the agenda item tells you 

The CRA agenda item is careful and polished. It explains the New Construction Assistance Program, notes that the $750,000 request falls just under the program’s 25 percent cap, and emphasizes consistency with redevelopment goals. It highlights minority business participation, job creation, and long-term economic benefits. 

What it never does — not once — is tell commissioners or the public what the building is actually intended to be used for. 

There is no mention of any controversial or sensitive use. No hint of anything beyond ordinary neighborhood retail. If you stopped here, you’d have no reason to ask questions. 

The rendering helps reinforce that impression. 

About that “FOOD” sign 

Renderings aren’t neutral. They’re persuasion tools, designed to help decision-makers visualize what they’re being asked to approve. 

This one leans hard into normalcy. The most prominent visual cue on the building isn’t a logo or a tenant name, but a generic, reassuring word: food. 

That choice matters. If the project were truly just a speculative shell with no foreseeable end use, the rendering wouldn’t need to guide the viewer’s imagination so carefully. And if the CRA were comfortable openly subsidizing the actual intended use, there’d be no reason to dress it up as something else. 

Still, none of this proves anything. Not yet. 

For that, you have to turn a few more pages. Dozens of them, actually. 

Turn to page 52 

On page 52 of the application attachments — deep inside the technical appraisal materials — the first crack appears. 

In a discussion of buyer intent and marketing history, the appraisal states that the buyers “intend to redevelop the property into a medical marijuana facility.” 

That’s it. One sentence. One time. No emphasis. No explanation. Just a factual statement of purpose. 

If you didn’t know to look for it, you’d miss it. 

Turn to page 114 

Keep going. 

On page 114, the appraisal documents do it again. This time, even more plainly. The borrower plans to convert the property into a cannabis dispensary. 

Again, one mention. One sentence. Buried in valuation paperwork few people read closely and no one summarizes for the board. 

So, let’s pause here to say thank you — sincerely — to the appraiser. Appraisers don’t editorialize. They document reality. And in this case, reality made it into the record even when the City chose not to surface it. 

What’s missing — and why that matters 

The problem here isn’t legality. Medical marijuana is legal in Florida. Zoning questions are separate and ongoing. 

The problem is disclosure. 

The CRA agenda item does not merely fail to highlight the marijuana use — it actively constructs an alternative story. Retail. Food. Jobs. A pleasant building. A clean rendering. Meanwhile, the only honest descriptions of the project’s purpose live on page 52 and page 114 of a dense technical appendix. 

That’s not transparency. That’s a head fake. 

Especially when the developer isn’t shy elsewhere. 

What the developer says when City Hall isn’t involved 

Outside the CRA paperwork, WeWould is perfectly clear about what kind of company it is. Its website openly markets cannabis real estate, including cultivation centers and dispensary facilities. 

The Tallahassee Frenchtown site is already listed in the company’s online portfolio — before the CRA has even voted — as an available asset. 

So, the developer is transparent with investors and the market. The appraiser is transparent in the valuation documents. Only the City’s agenda item pretends this is something else. 

Then there’s the money question 

CRA staff will likely argue that this is just about the building, not the tenant. But that argument rings hollow when you look at who’s asking. 

WeWould REIT describes itself as a private-equity cannabis real estate platform with a stated ambition of assembling a $250 million portfolio and exiting to the capital markets. It touts quarterly dividends and investor returns. 

According to the NCAP application, the company has already invested roughly $1.6 million in the project and has secured a $1.1 million construction loan. 

And yet, it’s asking the CRA to contribute $750,000 — nearly the maximum allowed — from taxpayer-backed redevelopment funds. 

That raises a fair question the agenda item never asks: why is a well-capitalized, nationally oriented cannabis real estate firm seeking public subsidy to build a dispensary in one of Tallahassee’s most historically disadvantaged neighborhoods? 

The reveal the CRA avoided 

If the CRA believes subsidizing a marijuana dispensary is a wise redevelopment strategy for the Southside/Frenchtown district, it should say so plainly and defend that choice openly. 

Instead, the truth was left to page 52 and page 114, hidden behind a “FOOD” sign and a carefully sanitized agenda summary. 

That may get an item through a meeting. 

It shouldn’t get a free pass from the public. 

January 8, 2026
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida 

People who actually went in the water to do some good 
 

By Red Tape Florida staff 

The Red Tide Awards exist to document how red tape spreads when process goes unchecked. The Lifeguard designation exists for the opposite reason. 

In a year when delay was rewarded and avoidance passed for governance, a small number of people did something unfashionable: they intervened. They raised their hands, took public positions, and forced issues into the open — often at personal or political cost.  

The 2025 Red Tide Lifeguards are individuals who stepped in early enough to stop bureaucratic blooms from spreading — or at least made it harder for them to hide. 

Rep. Jason Shoaf, Florida House of Representatives 

When local governments quietly test the limits of state law, the easiest response for elected officials is silence. In 2025, Rep. Jason Shoaf chose the opposite approach. 

Shoaf publicly challenged Gulf County over its handling of private-provider inspection fees, calling out practices that appeared to conflict with clear legislative intent. Rather than letting the issue remain a local administrative dispute, he elevated it to a statewide compliance question — forcing transparency where there had been none. 

That matters. Private-provider laws only work if local governments follow them. Shoaf’s intervention didn’t just defend a statute; it sent a signal that defiance of state law would no longer be cost-free or invisible. 

Brian Welch, Leon County Commission 

Few figures in Florida’s growth debates have been as consistent — or as effective — at calling out contradiction as Brian Welch. 

Welch has spent years dismantling the familiar canard that communities can oppose growth while simultaneously lamenting the lack of affordable housing. In 2025, his commentary and public engagement sharpened that argument, exposing how NIMBY-driven obstruction is often repackaged as concern, planning, or “neighborhood character.” 

His contribution wasn’t procedural reform. It was narrative containment. By repeatedly forcing opponents of housing to reconcile their stated values with actual outcomes, Welch helped limit the political cover that allows bad policy to metastasize unchallenged. 

Christian Caban, Leon County Commission 

Fire services fees are rarely sexy. They are also rarely scrutinized — which is precisely why they grow so fast. 

In 2025, Leon County Commissioner Christian Caban publicly pressed the City of Tallahassee over massive increases in fire services fees tied to new construction, questioning both the methodology and the lack of proportionality. The defining fact wasn’t disagreement; it was accountability. Caban forced the issue into daylight and demanded justification for costs that had quietly tripled. 

That kind of oversight is uncommon in intergovernmental relationships, where deference often replaces diligence. By refusing to treat fee escalation as inevitable, Caban slowed a bloom that thrives on assumption and inertia. 

Al Wilson, Florida Building Code Compliance Association 

Private-provider reform in Florida has produced no shortage of quiet frustration — and very few public advocates willing to absorb the blowback. 

As CEO of the Florida Building Code Compliance Association, Al Wilson has repeatedly stepped into that gap. In 2025, he continued to challenge local governments that undermined private-provider statutes through selective discounts, inconsistent fee structures, and procedural workarounds that preserved control while defeating purpose. 

Wilson’s role isn’t symbolic. He has brought data, comparisons, and persistence to a fight many would prefer to avoid. In a system where local resistance often counts on fatigue and fragmentation, sustained leadership matters. Wilson provided it. 

Why these designations matter 

None of these Lifeguards solved Florida’s red tape problem. That was never the standard. 

They did something rarer: they interrupted it. 

They acted early, publicly, and with enough clarity to make avoidance harder. In a year defined by bureaucratic blooms, that was enough to keep parts of the water clear — and to earn recognition for doing the work most people avoid. 

The Red Tide Awards will continue to document where the process goes toxic. The Lifeguard designation exists to remind readers that intervention is possible — and that it usually starts with someone willing to step in, before the bloom takes over. 

January 6, 2026
By Red Tape Florida staff