{"id":315624,"date":"2026-06-22T14:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T14:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/315624\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T14:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T14:20:09","slug":"soho-business-alliance-sues-tampa-over-public-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/315624\/","title":{"rendered":"SoHo Business Alliance sues Tampa over public records"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1324\" height=\"993\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-11-at-2.19.22-PM.png\" class=\"attachment-261461 size-261461 wp-post-image\" alt=\"This is a picture of a flooded street along Swann and Audubon.\" large=\"\" decoding=\"async\"  \/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe South Howard Flood Relief Project proposes the construction of box culvert under S. Howard Avenue. Courtesy of the City of Tampa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Listen here:<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last Friday, the South Howard Business Alliance filed a lawsuit against the City of Tampa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They argue the city failed to provide records requested under Florida\u2019s Public Records Law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The alliance requested backup materials used to justify the <a href=\"https:\/\/shstormwater.com\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/shstormwater.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Howard Flood Relief Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The plan calls for the construction of a new major stormwater drainage system. It is designed to relieve flooding along South Howard Avenue and nearby neighborhoods.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nearly 35 businesses make up the coalition. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They oppose this initiative, arguing a lengthy construction process would disrupt access to the district.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some of the documents the alliance requested are engineering reports, design build contracts, alternative analyses and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe put in the first request for the backup documents to justify the project 3 months ago, and there\u2019s a statutory time limit associated with public records production, and they missed those deadlines several times,\u201d said Stephen Michelini, the General Manager of the SoHo Business Alliance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Michelini adds they sent an urgent request letter nearly two weeks ago, warning they would file a lawsuit if the city didn\u2019t release the records.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The suit further argues the city charged the group unreasonable fees for the records. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Michelini said the costs amounted to almost $20,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In an email to WMNF, the City of Tampa wrote it does not comment on pending litigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The city council is set to vote on the project by the end of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The South Howard Flood Relief Project proposes the construction of box culvert under S. Howard Avenue. Courtesy of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[833,13811,16452,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-315624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-lawsuit","tag-public-records","tag-stormwater","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}