Over the past several months, TBT has brought you the story of systemic corruption within the Manatee County Code Enforcement department that was revealed by an internal whistleblower. While it momentarily looked as though the county would be forced to reform the toxic, top-down culture within the department, ultimately, that was not the case. Instead, the whistleblower was recently fired and it's looking like most of the actors who facilitated the corruption she exposed will get off scot-free.
Manatee County Code Enforcement Officer Tanya Shaw was initially assigned to investigate complaints from Myakka City residents in her sector who alleged that a neighboring property owner had begun extensive unpermitted improvements on what they were advertising to be the new home of the Sarasota Medieval Fair (nevermind that the two cities are separated by around 30 miles and a county line).
Shaw reported the violations she found on the site but says that after her supervisors found out that then Sarasota County Director of Development Services Kathleen Croteau was the owner of the property, she was ordered to close out the case with no findings. This led to other complaints and when Shaw refused to play ball the case was simply assigned to another agent who complied. Unable to accept that citizens were not able to use the prescribed relief for unauthorized improvements that negatively impacted their property rights just because they had been made by someone with the political...
We’ve spotted several social media posts sharing videos and stills supposedly of a power plant in Israel’s northern city of Haifa being “blown up” by an Iranian missile. While there have been repor...