The meeting we said we’d write up, and eleven more.
Coalition wins, recaps, petition counts, press mentions, and the occasional honest mistake we publicly corrected. Updated weekly.
- Wins
Short-term rental cap passes Pinellas County Commission, 5–2.
After eleven months of testimony and three commission meetings, the cap on whole-house STR conversions takes effect July 1. Six coalition members spoke; one wrote the amendment language.
- Recaps
May Monthly Meeting recap — petitions, school board, and the rare quiet Tuesday.
47 members present, 14 RSVPs to canvasses, three new working-group sign-ups, and one extended argument about how to publish scorecards in plain text instead of PDF.
- State
Amendment 4 signature drive crosses 18,000 in Pinellas.
Statewide, the abortion-rights amendment needs 891,523 valid signatures to make the ballot. The coalition is two-thirds of the way to our Pinellas County contribution.
- Local
The school-board candidate forum we waited three years for.
Five candidates, ninety minutes, six questions submitted by coalition members. Full video, transcript, and our scorecard live now. Election is August 18.
- Press
Bolts Magazine profiles the Coalition in long-form feature.
Reporter Cassandra Wells spent four months attending meetings, canvasses, and a budget hearing. Headline: "How a Florida coalition rewrote the playbook for local power."
- Local
Quarterly Member Social pulls 180 neighbors to Dunedin.
Three hours, no agenda, no microphone. We grilled, we ate, we played board games. Two new working groups formed informally between the food and the parking lot.
- Wins
County publishes machine-readable meeting minutes for first time.
After a year of asking, the County Commission Clerk's office launched a JSON feed of all commission meeting minutes back to 2010. Quietly, without fanfare. We noticed.
- Recaps
April Monthly Meeting recap — budget, budget, more budget.
92 members, county FY27 budget briefing, two heated public-comment exchanges, and a 38-minute discussion about whether to add a coffee budget to the Coalition's own books.
- Press
Tampa Bay Times Op-Ed: "The coalition that keeps showing up."
Editorial-board piece by editorial writer M. Castellanos on the role of organized local groups in keeping county-commission decisions visible.
- Federal
Rep. Bilirakis town hall: 320 constituents, two minutes per question.
Coalition members submitted 41 questions in advance. Six made it to the floor. The full constituent-question log is posted publicly with the office's written follow-ups.
- Recaps
March Monthly Meeting recap — voter-registration drive launches.
64 members, a Florida Rights Restoration Coalition guest, and a fresh push to register 2,500 new voters in District 13 before the August primary deadline.
- Wins
Library funding restored after coalition-led public comment surge.
County Commission reversed the proposed 14% cut to Pinellas library system funding. 38 coalition members spoke at the budget hearing. Vote: 6–1 to restore.
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