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FLORIDA’S BEST NEWSPAPER
Associated Press (2016)
Donald Trump Jr.
Report:
Email
told of
scheme
An email to Donald
Trump Jr. is said to
have implied help
from Russians.
New York Times
WASHINGTON — Before
arranging a meeting with a
Kremlin-connected Russian
lawyer he believed would offer
him compromising information about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Jr. was
informed in an email that the
material was part of a Russian
government effort to aid his
father’s candidacy, according
to three people with knowledge of the email.
The email to the president’s
son was sent by Rob Goldstone, a publicist and former
British tabloid reporter who
helped broker the June 2016
meeting. In a statement Sunday, Trump Jr. acknowledged
that he was interested in
receiving damaging information about Clinton, but gave
no indication that he thought
the lawyer might have been a
Kremlin proxy.
Goldstone’s message, as
described to the New York
Times by the three people,
indicates that the Russian government was the source of the
potentially damaging information. It does not elaborate
on the wider effort by Moscow
to help the Trump campaign.
There is no evidence to suggest that the promised damaging information was related
to Russian government computer hacking that led to the
release of thousands of Democratic National Committee
emails.
But the email is likely to be
of keen interest to the Justice
.
* * * * TUESDAY, JULY 11, 2017 | $1
Property values surge
Gains of at least 8 percent are projected throughout the bay area, boosting revenue.
BY RICHARD DANIELSON
2017 taxable property values (compared to 2016)
Fueled by new construction
and rising home sales, the total
value of taxable property around
the Tampa Bay area is projected
to grow 8 percent or more this
year.
In Hillsborough County, that
growth is expected to bring taxable values — that is, the total
value of property minus homestead and other exemptions —
back above 2008 levels for the
first time since the precarious
$86.2B $80.5B $27.3B
Times Staff Writer
Hillsborough
County, up 8.83%
Pinellas County,
up 7.86%
Pasco County,
up 8.07%
$30.7B $17.4B
Tampa, up 9.28%
St. Petersburg,
up 9.42%
Source: Property appraiser’s offices in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties.
highs of the real estate bubble.
Still, they remain under the precrash peak in 2007.
“The numbers over the past
few years reflect a more healthy
and sustainable real estate
market,” Hillsborough Prop-
erty Appraiser Bob Henriquez
says. “You see a slow and steady
growth in value, rather than the
fast runup in values that you saw
before the Great Recession.”
The outlook is even brighter
for the Tampa Bay area’s two big-
gest cities. The taxable value of
property is expected to grow 9.4
percent in St. Petersburg and
nearly 9.3 percent in Tampa.
Countywide in Hillsborough,
Henriquez projects growth of
about 8.8 percent in taxable
Facebook
Joe Hudek was arrested
Thursday after allegedly trying
to open a plane’s exit door.
Flight
melee
shocks
friends
One calls reports of
Joe Hudek’s actions
en route to China “so
out of character.”
BY TONY MARRERO
Times Staff Writer
LUIS SANTANA | Times
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“This is so cool,” the Beatles legend says as he puts
on an enthusiastic show for generations of fans.
BY JAY CRIDLIN
Times Pop Music/Culture Critic
INDEX
Vol. 133 No. 352
© Times Publishing Co.
P
TAMPA
aul McCartney no longer sprints. When
the 75-year-old hit the stage Monday
at Tampa’s Amalie Arena, waving and
“Woo!”-ing and firing off enthusiastic
double thumbs-ups, he ambled in his relaxed Liverpudlian way, bouncing and bobbing and taking
his time.
But when his band struck the iconic, Pavlovian opening twang of A Hard Day’s Night, you
half expected the thousands of screaming, smart-
phone-waving souls in the building to bum-rush
the stage.
No matter that A Hard Day’s Night premiered
53 years ago this week, and no one who saw it in
the theater is in much shape to go chasing the
Cute One down a crowded city street. The Beatles
are forever, and this show sold out the day it went
on sale.
It was McCartney’s first local gig in 12 years, not
that long in the span of a lifetime, but since then, so
much about music has changed. So many influences, peers and acolytes of the Beatles are now gone:
.
See MCCARTNEY, 3A
Hillsborough’s homeless count falls by 15 percent
Experts credit a shift toward permanent housing and added services.
BY CHRISTOPHER O’DONNELL
AND RICHARD DANIELSON
Times Staff Writers
TAMPA — After several years
with barely a dent in the number
of people living on the street, the
homeless count in Hillsborough
County fell by 15 percent in a single year, reports the Tampa Hillsborough Homeless Initiative.
The count, conducted in February, identified roughly 1,550
people living either on the street
or in temporary shelters, down
See VALUES, 5A
ROCKIN’ RETURN
Paul McCartney performs Monday during his sold-out show at Tampa’s Amalie Arena. It was his first local gig in 12 years.
More heat
.
Paul McCartney plays Tampa
See TRUMP JR., 2A
TODAY’S WEATHER
value. In Pinellas and Pasco, the
countywide increases are each
about 8 percent.
The numbers are good news
for local officials because growing values allow local governments to collect more revenue
without raising property tax
rates.
“It helps,” Tampa Mayor Bob
Buckhorn says. “Obviously, the
increase in values translates to
an increase in property tax revenues, something that we desper-
from 1,817 the previous year.
The biggest drop, some 26
percent, was in the number of
unsheltered people, a group
that includes those battling poor
mental health and substance
abuse who often refuse help.
Homelessness was also down 5
percent among veterans.
The news comes at a time
when a similar census in Pinellas County showed a 2 percent increase to roughly 2,800,
according to a survey conducted
by the Pinellas County Homeless
Leadership Board.
Hillsborough’s point-in-time
count was conducted by about
330 volunteers who, over a 17hour period, canvassed the homeless in parks, streets, abandoned
buildings and those living in cars.
The results show that the
county’s shift away from transitional housing, where people
are kept for up to six months, is
working, said Antoinette Hayes.
See HOMELESS, 4A
LOREN ELLIOTT | Times
A 2014 event for homeless veterans helped put Mike Dorman
in an apartment. Now he’s studying for an associate’s degree.
TAMPA — Nick Rich stopped
by Joe Hudek’s house last week
to say hello and give him some
money he owed him. It was a
good time to repay his buddy,
who was leaving soon for a trip
to China.
Hudek was excited about the
journey and seemed his mildmannered self, Rich said.
The next day, Rich awoke from
a nap to find his phone “blowing up” with calls and texts from
alarmed and baffled friends.
Several sent links to news stories chronicling the arrest of a
man he couldn’t imagine was the
same Joe Hudek he knows.
According to authorities, the 23year-old Plant High School graduate tried to open an exit door on
an airborne Boeing 767 heading
from Seattle to Beijing, triggering
a brawl with flight attendants and
passengers who used wine bottles
and zip ties to subdue him.
“It’s so out of character,” Rich,
who has been friends with Hudek
since elementary school, said in
an interview Monday. “Everyone
who knows him knows something went wrong here and they
need to get to the bottom of it.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office
charged Hudek with interfering
with a flight crew. Records show
he was being held Monday at a
federal detention center in Seattle.
He did not speak during a court
appearance Friday, and his attorney did not return a call from the
Tampa Bay Times on Monday. He
faces up to 20 years in prison and
a $250,000 fine if convicted.
Friends reached by the Times
said they’re stunned by the allegations against a man they call
“JoJo” and describe as kind, generous and laid-back.
“I know physically that was
JoJo’s body, but we’re all just
shocked because that’s not
the JoJo anyone knows,” said
Tara McGowan, who saw the
.
See FLIGHT, 5A