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

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

There is a running joke among Florida builders that you can erect a 300-unit apartment complex faster than you can get a permit to fix a shed. It’s funny until it isn’t. 

Ask Gordon Thames. Actually, don’t — he’s busy planning to demolish a perfectly functional maintenance shed because City Hall made it too expensive to keep.

Yes, demolishing. A shed. From 1989. Not because it was dangerous. Not because it violated some modern fire-code breakthrough. But because the City of Tallahassee’s building bureaucracy turned a routine renovation into a three-year maze that would embarrass Kafka.  

But this isn’t just a story of unimaginable red tape. It’s a story of mistrust and misplaced priorities. 

We know that because, at one point, a City of Tallahassee building official told Gordon Thames III that he “does not trust the document review from private providers.” That skepticism — not safety — became the justification for the blizzard of comments and delays that followed. 

More on that later. 

But first, the sorry tale of how a long-time apartment complex shed became a window into the state’s dysfunctional permitting culture. 

A 35-year-old shed walks into City Hall 

Eagles Landing Apartments were built in 1989. Like many properties of that vintage, it had two small maintenance sheds — unremarkable, functional, boring. The kind of structures that exist everywhere without incident. 

In 2022, the owner, Arbor Properties, decided to refresh one. By their own admission, they assumed a permit wasn’t needed for a simple renovation. When they later attempted to get a power meter, the City pounced with a stop-work order — fair enough, rules are rules. 

What followed was not enforcement — it was attrition. 

The owner cleared a whopping 28 plan-review comments on a maintenance-shed renovation — that’s an entire house’s worth. 

Three years later, still chasing comments 

The City bounced the application, voided it, and forced a completely new permit process years later — requiring: 
• New surveys 
• A rain-garden plan 
• Tree-mitigation calculations, even though no trees were removed — just grass behind a parking-lot curb 
• Removal of a dumpster pad on the opposite side of the property 
• A structural engineer to confirm 1989 concrete footers (spoiler: they’d need to X-ray them) 
• A new gas-line relocation meeting 
• A one-hour fire-rated wall 
• And trimming part of a wall because the corner of the shed allegedly sat four inches over a property line, even after the neighbor submitted a letter saying they didn’t care. 

Four inches. Thirty-five-year-old building. With neighbor consent. 

And, to be clear, the “violation” wasn’t a wall or foundation — it was the roof eave extending about four inches past the setback line. 

City Hall: “Never heard of it. Get out a saw.” 

Meanwhile, when the owner met with the public gas team, the building inspectors reportedly crouched on their hands and knees “looking for stuff to nitpick.” 

This is how you treat a developer who builds hundreds of quality housing units here? 

The tree-mitigation mirage 

Then came the greenest absurdity of all. 

In one plan-review round, City staff demanded a full tree-mitigation plan — including a canopy calculation and protection fencing. 

But as Arbor’s engineer pointed out, no trees were cut down. None. The work area was existing green space — just grass behind a curb, not a single stump in sight. 

“No trees were removed as part of this project,” the engineer wrote. “Existing vegetation remains unchanged.” 

Yet the tree-mitigation item stayed open through multiple rounds of review, clogging the workflow for months and forcing the owner to pay consultants to prove a negative. 

For a city that brands itself as a national model of sustainability, Tallahassee somehow managed to turn phantom trees into real paperwork. 

The private-provider slip 

The City’s posture toward private inspections was clear from the start. 

Florida law allows licensed engineers to perform reviews and inspections in place of local government — a process designed to speed construction and reduce bureaucratic load. But inside Tallahassee’s building division, private-provider work is often treated with suspicion instead of relief. 

That culture of mistrust led to duplicated reviews, endless comment cycles, and what Thames calls “a moving finish line.” 

Say it out loud: a City official openly admitted he doesn’t trust licensed professionals doing the same job under state statute. 

There’s a word for that. It’s not “policy.” 

A pattern we’ve seen before 

If you think this sounds like a one-off, look west. Our work in Gulf County documented the same dynamic: projects cleared by state-licensed private inspectors got dragged back into government review, timelines stretched, and costs stacked — not for safety, but for control. 

The details change, the playbook doesn’t: contradictory re-reviews, moving goalposts, and a quiet message to builders — use the lawful private-provider pathway, and expect extra friction. The net result is the same whether you’re on the coast or in the capital: fewer improvements, higher costs, and less trust. 

The cheaper option: destruction 

After three years of bureaucratic ping-pong, the owner realized something terrifying: 

It was cheaper and faster to demolish a functioning structure than to satisfy the City’s demands. Initially, Thames was told he needed a NEW permit – a demolition permit. And, for a while, as he waited on that permit, he was facing fines for not resolving the underlying problem. 

To the City’s limited credit, both Building and Code Enforcement later agreed to let Arbor demolish the shed without a demo permit — a quiet sign, perhaps, that someone inside finally recognized the overreach. 

Still, think about that logic. A 35-year-old building, structurally sound and code-compliant by any reasonable measure, headed for the landfill because compliance was harder than removal. 

Climate plan? Sustainability? Affordability? 
Meet the permitting division. 

Why it matters 

This isn’t about one shed. It’s about what it says: 
• Bureaucracy is prioritized over problem-solving. 
• The City will destroy value before it will bend. 
• Private inspection options trigger institutional defensiveness. 
• Housing providers watch this and think twice about investing here. 

Tallahassee’s growth strategy cannot be “annoy them until they leave.” 

One question for City Hall 

Is this the business climate we meant to build — or just the one we accidentally built because no one is watching the building department? 

How can a city government preside over a process that literally values destruction more than improvement? 

What kind of culture allows that to happen — and who’s proud of it? 

For the sake of fairness, the City has shown small signs of course-correction — but the larger pattern remains: systems designed to serve are too often built to stall. 

We don’t expect quick answers from those in charge at City Hall. Just the usual smirk, the shrug, and the mumble as they turn their backs on the private sector: 

“Shed happens.” 

November 11, 2025
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

How Tallahassee’s airport capital improvement fund subsidized friendlier coverage for the mayor and his pals – and attacks on his foes 

If you only read the headlines, you’d think the great ethics scandal in Tallahassee was… an unpaid hospital board volunteer making a campaign contribution. 

That’s the breathless premise of Tallahassee Reports’ Oct. 29 piece “TMH Board Member Donates to Matlow Campaign During TMH-FSU Negotiations.” The target: Sally Bradshaw — a longtime civic figure serving on the TMH board without compensation — whose family donated $3,000 to Jeremy Matlow’s campaign while TMH and FSU sparred over governance … a full five months after Matlow expressed opposition to the TMH-FSU deal.  

TR framed the timing as suspicious. Here’s what it left out: Bradshaw didn’t gain a job, a contract, or any personal benefit. She is — literally — an unpaid volunteer trying to keep the community’s hospital accountable to the community. She has donated hundreds of hours to the cause, all while trying to run a local independent bookstore in the middle of an expansion. 

Meanwhile, there’s a different money story Tallahassee should be talking about: the years-long pipeline of public dollars quietly routed to the nonprofit behind Tallahassee Reports — and how TR’s posture toward City Hall shifted right when those payments started. 

Follow the money  

Let’s pause the narrative and walk through the paper trail.

• City of Tallahassee checkbook: recurring payments to the Red Hills Journalism Foundation (TR’s nonprofit), tagged to program areas like Marketing & Promotions and Energy Efficiency & DSM. 
• Fund source revelation: within the City ledger, the “Fund Name” field shows Airport RR&I Fund and Electric RR&I Fund — restricted capital funds intended for runway and grid maintenance, not underwriting news coverage. (RR&I stands for renewal, replacement and improvement). 
• Leon County ledger: from 2020–2025, Leon County paid the Red Hills Journalism Foundation monthly (mostly $700–$750), coded to Community & Media Relation. 

Even Blueprint dollars went to Stewart, for purposes and reasons that aren’t fully clear.  

In other words: airport maintenance dollars, electric utility capital funds, sales tax infrastructure funds and County communications money have flowed into the nonprofit behind Tallahassee Reports for the past five years. 

Bottom line: When you total it all up, since 2020, Steve Stewart’s Red Hills Journalism Foundation has raked in $100,000 of taxpayer dollars for his website. 

The Advertising vs. Subsidy distinction 

Before anyone reaches for a strawman, let’s be clear about something. Local governments have long advertised in local media. When I worked at the Tallahassee Democrat, the City bought hurricane preparedness ads, public notices, legal ads, and utility conservation messages, among other things. That practice is normal, transparent, and healthy in a functioning civic ecosystem. If this were simply about the City buying display ads from Tallahassee Reports — nobody would blink. 

But that is not what happened here. 

In addition to conventional advertising, the City and County routed recurring payments to Tallahassee Reports’ nonprofit parent — including through the airport and electric utility “Renewal, Replacement & Improvement” (RRI) funds — capital accounts intended to maintain runways, substations, transformers, and critical infrastructure. These were not line-item display ads with rate sheets and run schedules. These were monthly transfers to a media nonprofit. 

Did these happen outside traditional procurement channels? Is there a rate card? Publicly available scope? Placement report or deliverables? Red Tape Florida has public records requests pending on these questions. 

So, did anything about Tallahassee Reports coverage change when the money started flowing? Did this plucky right-wing independent blog continue shining the light on all five Democrats on the Tallahassee City Commission?  

You bet it did. 

What changed at TR — and when 

Before December 2019, TR routinely blasted the City’s “insider” culture. Then public payments began flowing. Since then, the outlet’s most aggressive “watchdog” pieces have exclusively targeted the Mayor’s opponents on the Commission while minimizing or reframing controversies that reflect poorly on senior City leadership.  

We reviewed Tallahassee Reports’ City Hall coverage from 2020 to today — the period after the City began sending recurring payments to the Red Hills Journalism Foundation. 

Here’s what we found: 

• Multiple stories targeting the commissioners in the minority on the board (Matlow and Porter) 
• A high-profile takedown of an unpaid volunteer (TMH board member Sally Bradshaw) 
• Headlines repeatedly highlighting a lone dissenting vote as the narrative 
• Not a single headline or lead story critically scrutinizing Mayor John Dailey, Commissioner Dianne Williams-Cox, Commissioner Curtis Richardson, or City Manager Reese Goad 

To ensure fairness, we excluded routine “meeting notes” pieces and focused only on coverage that assigns blame, casts judgment, or frames political motives. The pattern was unmistakable: when Tallahassee Reports criticizes, it almost always runs in one direction. 

And for the record: If anyone can surface a Tallahassee Reports story from this period that meaningfully holds the City’s ruling bloc accountable, we will gladly add it here. Patterns are strongest when they can withstand scrutiny — and this one does. 

PRE-2020, it was a different story. 

Check out this list of stories critical of the mayor, the city manager and their current-day allies: 

1. Insiders get their man: Reese Goad hired by a lame-duck City Commission (Sept. 17, 2018). Framed the manager hire as an insider play by the outgoing commission; Richardson was part of that body. 

2. City lobbying fees up 500 percent from 2011 to 2019. (Nov. 14, 2019). TR framed this as a sign that the current regime was being unduly influenced by the political class.  

3. Ceremonial vote reveals city commissioners’ views on City Manager Goad (Oct. 31, 2019). Reported Dailey calling a public “vote of confidence” for Goad—again positioning the pro-Goad majority (Dailey/Williams-Cox/Richardson) for critique. 

4. Who is lobbying for Reese Goad to be city manager? (July 5, 2018). Highlights the efforts of consulting firm Vancore Jones – widely known to be a key ally and advisor to Dailey and Goad – as a driving force behind the city manager search. 

5. Commissioner Curtis Richardson: “Are Businesses Leaving the City?” We have the answer (April 14, 2016). A story that mocks Richardson for suggesting businesses aren’t leaving the city when the data showed that they are. 

And of course, there are more. 

A watchdog becoming dependent on government dollars is not an abstraction — it’s a pressure system. It doesn’t need an explicit quid pro quo; it only needs a steady check and a narrowing sense of who the “real problem” is. 

Bradshaw vs. the insinuation machine 

Back to the Bradshaw “story.” If corruption requires someone to gain something, where’s the gain? There isn’t one. An unpaid board volunteer made a legal donation and, if anything, paid a reputational price for insisting the hospital preserve community control. The piece asserts impropriety by headline implication — and by carefully avoiding context about her non-compensated status. What Bradshaw actually did was exercise her First Amendment rights to support a candidate who had just announced for mayor. 

Compare that with the TR silence around more obvious optics: the Mayor John Dailey’s Seminole Boosters money and the Doak vote 

In February 2022, Mayor John Dailey supported a $20 million Blueprint contribution for FSU’s stadium. In the run-up, his political committees hauled in more than $23,000 from Seminole Boosters/FSU-affiliated donors. That timing drew calls — from media and party organizations — for him to return the money before the vote. He didn’t. He defended it. Then the funding went through.  

By the way, instead of going to infrastructure and bathroom repairs, as promised, it went to a new Jumbotron. 

That episode checked every optics box the Bradshaw non-story does not: private benefit to a political brand; aligned donor pool; a decisive vote for a powerful institution; the public interest questioned in real time.  

Yet the “watchdog” outrage energy appears to have been rationed differently. 

Take a moment and try to Google all the critical TR stories on the Mayor’s swollen coffers. I’ll wait. 

Who’s paying — and from what pot — matters 

The City’s choice of fund sources is the tell. Airport RR&I Fund and Electric RR&I Fund are capital renewal and replacement funds — the buckets used to maintain runways, terminals, and the electric grid. Using them to underwrite a journalism nonprofit is… novel. Those funds are supposed to keep planes safe and lights on, not buy “community coverage.”  

What readers deserve, and what officials should answer 

For City/County leaders: 
• Who authorized using airport and electric R&R funds to pay the Red Hills Journalism Foundation? What was the procurement/legal theory 

• What contracted deliverables were produced — and where are they? 
• Did any official request or imply favorable coverage or targeted stories? 
• Why a nonprofit transfer instead of standard ad buys with deliverables and placement reports? 

Red Tape Florida has made public records requests seeking answers to these questions.  

Call the thing by its name 

Let’s retire the romance. Tallahassee Reports has never been “the free press” in the civics-textbook sense; it was a right-leaning outlet that held City Hall to account — until City Hall and the County started cutting checks. Now it uses public money to support … Democrats, like the mayor and his allies on the commission. 

Then TR hammers other commissioners and community actors who cross the insiders’ agenda. That’s not journalism. That’s a publicly funded spin factory with a byline. 

And suddenly the Bradshaw dust-up looks small. If you can funnel airport and utility funds into media influence, don’t point at an unpaid volunteer and cry “corruption.” Call it what it is: the city buying its own cheerleaders. 

Bottom line 

The City and County and Blueprint should end this arrangement immediately. This is such a brazen propaganda operation that 1980s Pravda “reporters” would blush. 

Until that happens, conservatives who once looked to TR for alternative news should now see it for what it is – a vehicle to defend the Democrats that makeup the majority on the Tallahassee City Commission … and to attack its enemies. 

November 7, 2025
Special Report by Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida

Imagine you play a round of golf at a private course instead of a city-owned golf facility. 

But when you’re done, the city still sends you a greens-fee bill … and then makes you swing by their municipal course clubhouse to fill out some paperwork before you can go home. 

That’s what Gulf County is doing to local businesses who choose to use private providers for inspection services, rather than the County. 

Gulf County is charging businesses $500 to do nothing. It’s a violation of state law and common sense.  

And Gulf County doesn’t appear to care. 

Gulf County is so comfortable with this clear flouting of state law that they wrote it into county code: “Private provider service being used for the propose (sic) of plan review will be assessed a Gulf County Planning Department review fee of $500.00.” Same plans, same counter, same door — extra fee and detour only if you use the private provider fast lane. That’s unequal treatment by design. 

What the law requires vs. what Gulf County is doing 

In 2002, lawmakers effectively “privatized” parts of permitting by authorizing licensed private providers to handle plan review and building inspections in lieu of local staff — so projects could move faster and departments couldn’t bottleneck the process. 

What Gulf County is doing instead. 

• If you use a private provider for plan review, you must stop at Planning, pay $500, then carry the file to Building. 

• If you use a private provider for inspections only, you go to Building with no $500  

• If you use the county for everything, you go to Building, no $500, no extra stop. 

That’s two tracks at the same counter. Extra money and extra steps only when you choose the state’s fast lane. If $500 truly covers Planning’s work, it should apply no matter who reviews the plans and it should be based on time and cost, not a checkbox. 

This email, obtained by Red Tape Florida, lays it out for all to see: 

Read it again. 

The permit itself is just $154.00. But because a private inspector is used, an amount more than triple the cost of the fee is assessed. 

Gulf County’s flouting of state law is clearly premeditated – how else would you explain how the naming of this $500 fee has, how shall we say … evolved? 

As you can see from this permitting plan review document below (business names redacted for fear of retribution) the words “Private Provider” are recorded on the document 3 separate times (circled in red by Red Tape Florida). One of those times it is handwritten at the top of the form: “$500 private provider fee to Planning Department.” 

The $1,816 (for a larger building project) is brazenly referred to as “the actual permit itself.” 

Later, when Gulf County realized this was the equivalent of confession, it changed the $500 fee to a LDR or “local development review” fee (a term only a true bureaucrat could create). 

Gulf County can call it whatever it wants, but it’s a $500 fee to NOT use government inspectors. 

Why this matters to homeowners and small contractors 
Every extra step slows a roof, a pool, an addition. After storms, days turn into weeks. Costs go up. Families wait. The Legislature created private providers to speed things along and mandated a fee reduction when private providers are used. Gulf County’s rule does the opposite and tells people they will be punished for using the tool the state gave them. 

How does it work in other localities? 

Nothing like Gulf. 

In nearby Panama City Beach, RTF has obtained a permit for a new pool which costs a total of $208.63. There is no punitive fee for using private providers. 

In Bay County, a $250 “planning compliance review fee” is added to ALL permits (another RTF story for another time) and the pool permit itself is $106 for a total of $356, still contrary to the state mandate, but lower than nearby – and much smaller – Gulf County. 

But in Gulf County it’s $500 for just the “you didn’t use us” surcharge, then another $154 for the permit itself, for a grant total of $654. Gulf County then has the gall to include a $60 “private provider discount” to the order, making the grand total a $595, which is about triple Panama City Beach and more than 60 percent higher than Bay County. 

What Gulf County should do now 

1. Suspend the $500 charge that appears only when private provider plan review is used. 

2. Publish the ordinance and the time-and-cost basis for any true administrative fee. 

3. Reduce fees by the amount of the cost savings realized by the County any time private providers do plan review or inspections, as the law requires. 

4. Remove extra handoffs that apply only to private-provider routes. 

5. Refund improper charges. 

A call for the state CFO to intervene 

Since Gulf County will surely ignore our call to change its process, it’s surely time for Florida CFO Blaise Ingoglia to intervene. The CFO’s state DOGE efforts have understandably focused on the “macro” of total budget expenditures by cities and counties. But, on behalf of local businesses under siege from defiant bureaucrats, we call on CFO Ingoglia to enter the fray on issues such as what Gulf County is doing to thwart business and protect its bureaucracy. 

How readers can help 
If you’ve been charged the $500, send a redacted receipt or invoice with the date, permit type, and whether a private provider handled plan review or inspections. If you were routed through extra steps only because you used a private provider, send that, too. If a neighboring county has a similar fee and a cost study, share it so we can compare apples to apples. 

Closing 
This isn’t complicated. Same plans, same counter, same door should mean the same treatment. The state built a fast lane to help people rebuild faster. Gulf County put up a toll and a speed bump. Take them down. If the County won’t do it, the state should. 

October 10, 2025
Red Tape Florida

A small item out of Dunnellon last week speaks volumes about how Florida’s permitting culture turns decisions into stalemates and pushes investment into quicksand. 

Track Line Rail LLC says it wants to shred old railroad ties on privately owned land in unincorporated Marion County, near the city of Dunnellon. Because those ties are treated with creosote, a petroleum-based preservative, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has permitting authority. That’s state law. But Dunnellon officials want the project stopped and have now formally urged DEP to deny the permit, citing health and environmental risks. 

So far, that sounds like an ordinary disagreement about land use. But look closer and you see the problem we highlight again and again: nobody is actually empowered to bring clarity or finality, and everyone has just enough jurisdiction to say no — but not enough authority to resolve anything. 

The site isn’t inside Dunnellon city limits. It’s in the county. Yet the city is intervening because residents are worried. The county hasn’t made a definitive public statement. The company says it’s following DEP’s process. DEP will evaluate environmental factors, but it isn’t in the business of judging economic or community fit. Meanwhile: confusion, delay, anxiety and rumors. 

Florida’s regulatory system increasingly functions like this: overlapping entities, unclear triggers, and long silence from the agency that actually carries the stamp of approval. When government actors can jump into a process without clear authority — or when authority exists but timelines don’t — the message to businesses and citizens is the same: get comfortable waiting. And while you do, assume the worst. 

None of this is about whether a creosote-related operation is good or bad. Reasonable people can disagree on environmental risk. The question is whether Florida has a permitting framework built for transparency and confidence or one that invites fear, mobilizes opposition before facts are clear, and rewards whoever can shout longest. 

Consider the incentives here. The applicant has no guarantee of timeline or decision standard. The city, despite lacking jurisdiction, can effectively stall the process by raising political heat. The county can keep its head down and avoid controversy. DEP, already stretched and slow on industrial reviews, is unlikely to act quickly under pressure. 

So what we end up with is not environmental stewardship or economic strategy — but bureaucratic drift that makes everybody feel underserved. 

If a project poses legitimate environmental risk, the permitting authority should say so promptly and clearly. If it doesn’t, the applicant shouldn’t be trapped in limbo while local governments without jurisdiction form a de facto veto. 

The lesson out of Dunnellon is simple: Florida needs clear decision timelines, transparent standards, and a single point of authority for land-use questions — even when multiple governments have interests. Otherwise, the state’s growth conversation becomes an endless loop of suspicion and stalling. 

Nobody benefits from a process that refuses to decide. And the more it happens, the more Florida earns a reputation for uncertainty — the most corrosive form of red tape there is. 

November 4, 2025
Red Tape Florida

Gulf County has now responded to Red Tape Florida’s reporting on its illegal $500 “planning review fee” for builders who use private inspectors. The response, signed by County Planner Doug Crane, is exactly what you’d expect from a government caught in the act: a lot of bluster, a little jargon, and not one sentence that makes the fee legal. 

Crane’s letter lists a dozen things the county does to “safeguard health, safety and welfare” — confirming ownership, verifying setbacks, checking FEMA zones, and so on — as if this were some special service for those using private providers. The problem? The county does every one of those things already for builders who don’t use private providers. And it doesn’t charge them $500! 

That’s not a “planning review.” That’s a selective surcharge, and Florida law couldn’t be clearer about it. 

Under Florida Statute §553.791(2)(a): 

“The local jurisdiction may not charge fees for building inspections if the fee owner or contractor hires a private provider … however, the local jurisdiction may charge a reasonable administrative fee, which shall be based on the cost that is actually incurred … for the clerical and supervisory assistance required.” 

Translation: the only fee a county can impose when a private provider is used must reflect actual clerical or supervisory cost — not a made-up round number like $500 that conveniently lands in the general fund. 

Then there’s §553.791(17)(a): 

“A local enforcement agency, local building official, or local government may not adopt or enforce any laws, rules, procedures, policies, qualifications, or standards more stringent than those prescribed by this section.” 

Gulf County’s letter literally admits it’s doing exactly that — layering its own checklist and charging an extra fee that doesn’t apply to anyone else. That’s the definition of “more stringent.” 

Crane tries to justify the toll by saying it covers “staff time, documentation verification, and on-site evaluations.” Yet §553.791 says those evaluations are already part of the building process. The private provider handles inspections; the local government’s role is administrative oversight — not duplication for profit. 

And remember, Gulf County is so brazen about what it’s doing it wrote it right into its code: 

Let’s call this what it is: a toll for exercising a right the Legislature gave you. A $500 penalty for using a system designed to make housing more affordable and efficient. A county government that sees a reform meant to cut red tape — and adds its own roll of tape right on top. 

Representative Jason Shoaf is already watching. His exclusive statement to RTF last week made that clear: 

“I’m calling on all political subdivisions of the state to immediately suspend this practice and start following Florida law.” 

The Legislature built a fast lane. Gulf County built a toll booth. And no matter how many bullet points the planner adds, §553.791 says what it says — and Gulf County is wrong. 

October 24, 2025
Red Tape Florida

TALLAHASSEE — Here we go again: county bureaucrats who don’t like a state law are circling the wagons, slow-walking compliance, and now trying to rewrite reality to make it sound like private providers are bad for residents and business. The Florida Association of Counties’ Community & Urban Affairs Committee is pushing an agenda item dressed up as “citizen protection,” but its own packet undercuts the scare story it’s selling. 

The packet’s central claim is “secrecy” — that a contractor can use a private provider without the homeowner’s knowledge. So what? Homeowners hire licensed professionals precisely to make hundreds of technical decisions they don’t micromanage — which inspector to schedule is no different from which truss detail to spec. 

The use of private providers, with or without homeowner signoff, is specifically permitted in Florida statutes. Private providers are licensed, certified, and insured to the same state standards as their public-sector counterparts. We all know that the private sector almost always moves more quickly and efficiently than the government. If a homeowner wants to be notified, that’s a contract choice between owner and contractor — not a pretext for counties to kneecap a lawful option. 

We’re told private providers were “designed for bigger cities” or post-hurricane spikes, as if rural counties were never in the picture. But the packet also reminds readers the Florida Building Code is meant to apply uniformly across jurisdictions and that private providers have been in statute since 2002 – that’s 23 years! Translation: this isn’t a Miami carve-out — it’s statewide policy that counties have had decades to implement. 

On oversight, the sales pitch is “lack of control.” The FAC agenda item tries to bury reality in the fine print, which lists the controls: sworn plan certifications; phase-by-phase inspections; 10-business-day permit timelines after affidavit; sworn certification of code compliance upon completion; and since 2024, mandatory, published audit procedures with results posted for the public. 

If “no oversight” is your talking point while you quote the oversight, maybe the talking point needs an audit. 

The fiscal bogeyman is even thinner. The packet declares “devastating financial impacts” on Gulf County and its residents, offers no numbers, and then quietly notes that when an owner elects to use a private provider, the permit fee must be reduced to reflect the county’s actual cost savings — with only a reasonable administrative fee allowed. If the math is so devastating, show it. Otherwise, this reads like counties protecting fee revenue, not homeowners. 

And, of course, what we know is that it’s the private sector that is taking it in the teeth on this. Gulf County is charging businesses $500 for the use of private providers – and doing absolutely nothing in return. 

The legislative rundown is similar sleight of hand. The “loss of local control” language is pinned to a bill that died. The one that passed in 2025 tweaked single-trade inspections and allowed limited post-start use of providers — hardly a system meltdown. Panic without provenance is politics, not policy. 

And take a look at who submitted the item: Gulf County — via Brad Bailey. Readers of Red Tape Florida will remember Bailey from our reporting on Gulf’s flat $500 “review” fee when owners chose private providers. Bailey is not a licensed plans examiner nor does he have a building code administrator license, which makes him an odd face for an anti–private provider push built on technical authority. The through-line isn’t safety — it’s bureaucracy protecting its turf. 

Bottom line: Florida’s private-provider law gives owners a legal, licensed, insured alternative to the use of local building departments – who often can’t or won’t deliver timely reviews and inspections. The packet trying to kneecap that option reads like a brief for preserving status quo revenue and control — not for protecting consumers. If counties want new tools, say what and why. But stop flouting the law, stop inventing problems, and stop pretending homeowners and small builders are the threat. 

FAC shouldn’t embarrass itself further by advancing this item — a straw house, built on sand by an unlicensed builder. 

Here’s a better idea – tell Gulf County start following the law. 

October 17, 2025

If you don’t have a choice to pay it, it’s not really a fee 

Property-tax scrutiny is pushing cities and counties toward a quieter revenue source: fees. In theory, fees are better than taxes because they connect what you pay to what you use. In practice, many of today’s “fees” are compulsory, appear on the property-tax bill, and climb steeply — functioning like taxes by another name. 

Start with public safety. Kissimmee just created a $150 annual fire assessment to fund a shift to a 42-hour work week and new hires; commissioners framed it as the only realistic way to cover rising costs without jacking up the millage. Nearby Ocoee doubled its fire fee from $69.50 to $139.23 per “fire protection unit,” explicitly to avoid a property-tax increase.  

The Tallahassee–Leon fire-services fight hinges on the City’s push for a massive fee hike: in June, commissioners backed a roughly 22–25% increase set to take effect in September; after the County voted 5–2 to reject it, the City floated a pared-back 9.98% “Plan B,” then on Sept. 17 voted to sever the interlocal fire-services agreement.  

Stormwater is on the same path. Last year Orlando approved a multiyear schedule that lifts the typical residential stormwater bill toward about $21 a month by 2028; city staff said the jump was overdue after years without increases. Oviedo adopted annual stormwater hikes through 2033 that will push typical monthly charges well over $40 to finance a backlog of projects.  

If these were simply user fees, you’d pay at the counter and opt out by not using the service. That’s not how they work. Florida’s “non-ad valorem assessments” are levied by local governments, posted on the same bill as your property taxes, and collected by the tax collector. Courts have long noted that special assessments aren’t ad valorem taxes, but they can still be imposed broadly when there’s a defined “special benefit” to property. That’s why fire and stormwater assessments can reach properties that otherwise pay little or no property tax. Orlando even spells it out plainly: stormwater is billed as a non-ad valorem charge on the annual tax bill.  

Meanwhile, state leaders are floating big property-tax changes for homesteads, which only increases the incentive for locals to lean on assessments and fees instead. Whether or not those Tallahassee debates go anywhere, the local shift is already happening.  

Here’s the rub: calling something a “fee” doesn’t make it feel any different to the family writing the check. A doubled fire assessment and a steep stormwater hike reduce disposable income just like a millage increase would. The main difference is political optics — fees face less backlash and are easier to target, so they’ve become the preferred tool to backfill public-safety payrolls and rebuild aging pipes. 

None of this argues for starving core services. Fire protection and stormwater systems are essential, and costs are rising. But honesty demands we treat compulsory assessments like what they are: tax-like charges that deserve the same transparency and accountability as any millage increase. 

Three fixes would help. First, add a single “all-in burden” line on local dashboards that shows the combined annual impact of millage, assessments, and utility charges for a typical home. Second, require a true pay-for-performance link—publish the service improvements tied to each increase (response times, staffing levels, flooded-street reductions) and report against them quarterly. Third, sunset schedules automatically unless councils re-vote after a public check-in. 

If local government needs more money, make the case and show the results. But let’s retire the fiction that calling it a fee makes it anything less than a tax in sheep’s clothing. 

October 14, 2025
Red Tape Florida

St. Pete said the permit backlog would be gone by March.  

It’s October. 

A year after Hurricane Helene walloped Tampa Bay, St. Petersburg homeowners are still telling the same story: roofs tarped, repairs stalled, and permits stuck. In March, Mayor Ken Welch said the post-disaster permitting backlog would be cleared by the end of that month. But as recently as this week, residents told reporters they’re still waiting — and the city still hasn’t said how many permits remain in limbo.  

City Hall points to progress. Officials say they’ve issued more than 14,500 post-disaster emergency permits worth roughly $300 million and expect to return to “blue-sky” (normal) review times imminently. That’s real volume. It’s also not what matters to people who’ve watched one “two-week” timeline roll into the next while rainwater creeps behind tar paper.  

Here’s what’s missing: numbers that mean something to a homeowner — outstanding permits by type, median days in review, and how many applications are kicked back for correction. FOX 13 says it repeatedly asked the city for the exact number of pending permits and got no answer. The public also deserves clarity on staffing: how many reviewers have been added, how many vacancies remain, and how much overtime has been authorized to burn the queue down.  

Some residents have even received code-violation notices while they wait for approvals — the worst-case collision of bureaucracy with real life. If the city is truly on the cusp of clearing the backlog, it should be easy to publish the scoreboard: a daily-updated dashboard that shows count-by-permit-type, age-of-backlog, and projected clearance dates. Pair that with a plain-English “what to expect” timeline for common storm repairs and live office hours (virtual and in-person) where reviewers troubleshoot stuck applications on the spot.  

There’s also a records piece here. Red Tape Florida has filed public records requests for: 1) the weekly backlog report (or closest internal equivalent) since January; 2) reviewer staffing levels, vacancies, and overtime records since November; 3) the number of code citations issued to properties with pending storm-repair permits; and 4) the city’s internal memos on the promised March clearance. If those documents match the rhetoric, great — publish them and show your work. If they don’t, own it and reset expectations with dates and data. 

To be fair, St. Pete’s permitting office was already strained before Helene — demand surged along with construction, then two storms in two months pushed the workflow past its limits. But “we’re working on it” no longer works. Homeowners need finish lines, not press conferences. St. Pete can win back trust quickly with transparency, triage, and a little humility: tell people exactly where they stand, exactly what’s missing, and exactly when they can expect an inspection. Then hit those dates.  

October 2, 2025
Red Tape Florida

Florida’s plan-review machinery is shifting in three places. If execution matches the headlines, applicants should see fewer re-review loops and faster close-outs. The question isn’t whether the moves sound good; it’s whether they move the metrics. 

Pinellas County 
Pinellas is waiving penalty fees for after-the-fact permits through Dec. 31, 2025 — an incentive to bring unpermitted storm repairs into the light. That’s good policy. It reduces underground work, gets inspectors on site, and lets homeowners fix paperwork without a punitive double-fee. The base permit still applies; the stick is gone so the carrot can work. What to watch: number of amnesty applications, median days from filing to inspection, and first-cycle pass rates. If those improve, this is a textbook compliance win. 

Miami-Dade 
Commissioners are reshuffling parts of environmental review as DERM is re-established as a stand-alone department. Supporters call it streamlining; skeptics worry about two lines instead of one. Treat this as an operations test: who owns the critical path end-to-end, and what are the posted service-level targets (days to first comments, re-review counts)? If the county publishes a single-owner RACI and hits SLAs, great—if not, applicants will just see a different badge at the same chokepoint. 

St. Augustine 
The city nudged short-term-rental registration fees for the first time since 2020. Staff say it’s cost recovery to fund inspections and oversight—not policy deterrence. That can be positive if the dollars are ring-fenced for throughput: an added inspector, faster re-inspections, and fewer recycling plans back to applicants. Ask to see the cost allocation and how many inspections the added funding will buy each month. The proof is in backlog shrinkage and complaint resolution time. 

Bottom line for applicants: these are three different levers—amnesty, accountability, and capacity. Pinellas is the cleanest quick win if communication and scheduling keep pace. Miami-Dade needs a published owner and SLAs to be more than musical chairs. St. Augustine’s change will earn trust if the money clearly buys measurable speed. 

Scorecard to track over the next quarter 

• Pinellas: amnesty uptake, median days to inspection, % first-cycle approvals. 

• Miami-Dade: before/after org chart, single process owner named, SLA performance. 

• St. Augustine: inspection backlog trend, re-inspection lag, complaint resolution time. 

September 26, 2025
Red Tape Florida

Final part of a series

It’s easy to feel discouraged when examining what hasn’t materialized around the MagLab. There are no recognized clusters of private-sector R&D, no noticeable proliferation of startups, and no regional plan in place to activate this scientific powerhouse as an economic engine for North Florida. 

But that reality is not set in stone. 

The MagLab’s scientific output is elite. Its researchers are top-tier, and the facility’s presence in Tallahassee—backed by substantial NSF and state investment—is a rare asset. 

And there are signs of life. 

The Motor Drive Systems and Magnetics (MDSM) annual conference was held in Tallahassee for the first time this year and is returning in 2026. 

Companies such as Biofront (disease testing kits) and Piersica (new battery technologies) have a toehold in Tallahassee. 

What’s missing is a comprehensive strategy: a bold, shared vision among FSU, FAMU, TSC, the city, the county, state government and the business community. One that moves beyond resting on the lab’s reputation – and empty slogans like “Magnetics Capital of the World” — and actually delivers tangible results. 

That means: 

• FSU must open the gates — removing barriers to private-sector partnerships. 

• The city must prioritize infrastructure, particularly power and site readiness for innovation-driven firms. 

• The Chamber and economic development agencies must treat the MagLab as a keystone and persist when it comes to getting alignment among all the stakeholders listed above. 

• And speaking of economic development, a collaboration between local government and the private sector must dramatically rework how OEV interacts with prospects to create a much higher level of agility and creativity. 

• Leadership must emerge – that can convene stakeholders and tackle the issues that have led to 30 years of stagnation. 

In the short term, here are 5 more quick wins that could be achieved in the next 24 months. 

1. Launch the MagLab Commercialization Challenge 
   An annual, high-visibility competition offering seed funding, lab access, and expert mentoring to startups or companies that can develop market-ready products from MagLab research. Winners commit to establishing or expanding operations in Tallahassee, turning lab breakthroughs into local jobs. 

2. Launch an “Innovation Sites” Map 
   Publish an online, publicly accessible map showing shovel-ready industrial parcels, with details on power capacity, broadband speed, and zoning — the same intel site selectors demand on day one. 

3. Secure a Signature Industry Partner 
   Land one high-visibility corporate tenant in advanced materials, clean energy, or biotech that actively uses MagLab capabilities, and announce it prominently. 

4. Host a National Tech + Science Summit in Tallahassee 
   Use the MagLab as the anchor venue for a multi-day, industry-heavy event — following the MDSM model but broadened to attract venture capital, suppliers, and manufacturing prospects. 

5. Set a Goal – and Achieve it 
   Commit to recruiting at least five MagLab-related companies and creating 250 new private-sector R&D/manufacturing jobs by the end of year two — and publish progress quarterly. 

Conclusion 

There is no way around it – Tallahassee’s inability to build an economy around the MagLab is a massive underachievement. 

But it’s not too late to turn things around. 

It starts with acknowledging how little has been done so far … and recognizing just how much is still possible through collaboration, humility, creativeness and energy. 

September 19, 2025
Red Tape Florida