A half-dozen local sports organizations are among the local companies and nonprofits that are backing efforts to encourage people to sign up as election workers for the November election. The Tampa Bay Sports Commission, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Tampa Bay Rays, Tampa Bay Rowdies and USF Athletics joined forces as #TeamTampaBay to participate in National Poll Worker Recruitment Day. The Sept. 1 event was established by he U.S. Election Assistance Commission and aims to raise awareness about the benefits and importance of poll working and to inspire more Americans to volunteer. There's a critical shortage of poll workers in part because of the pandemic, and because most poll workers are traditionally older and potentially more vulnerable to complications if they contract Covid-19, a news release said. Each of the local participating sports organizations said they would offer their staff paid time off to volunteer as a poll worker.
Governor Ron DeSantis has issued an order for the Florida Department of Health to sever its ties with Quest Diagnostics after discovering the lab had failed to report 75,000 Covid-19 tests from as far back as April. "The law requires all Covid-19 tests to be reported to the Florida Department of Health in a timely manner," he said in a statement. "To drop this much unusable and stale data is irresponsible." Without the backlog of Quest results, the positivity rate for new cases on August 31 is 5.9 percent; with Quest results, that number increases to 6.8 percent. Quest officials said that all individuals who tested positive for the virus were notified of their results.
Cast-Crete in Tampa has acquired Curbco Inc., a concrete contractor in Bradenton. Financial terms were not disclosed. Aberdeen Advisors, a mergers and acquisition firm in St. Petersburg, worked with Curbco founder Jim Kersey to find a buyer. Curbco specializes in concrete curbing, sidewalks, driveways, and parking lots, while Cast-Crete makes precast and pre-stressed concrete lintels and produces engineered products for the residential, commercial and institutional construction industry. Cast-Crete is a portfolio company of Stonebridge Partners, a private investment firm.
Four iconic St. Petersburg structures will be lit in red tonight as part of a national effort to raise public awareness about the economic plight of the live events industry in the Covid-19 pandemic. Jannus Live, the Palladium Theater at St. Petersburg College, the Salvador Dali Museum and the Duke Energy Center for the Arts/Mahaffey Theater will be among those participating in #RedAlertRESTART Day of Action. Since all live events were shut down in March, millions of people have been impacted in an industry that generates about $877 billion a year in revenue, a news release said. The goal of tonight's event is to urge Congress to pass the RESTART Act, as well as extend and expand pandemic unemployment assistance for 1099 workers, and federal pandemic unemployment compensation for the unemployed. The local effort is part of a national initiative that will involve more than 1,500 buildings in 50 cities. The buildings will be lit in red from 9 p.m. to midnight.
Residential evictions are on hold one more month in Florida. Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order Monday night, extending a moratorium on residential evictions and mortgage foreclosures until 12:01 a.m. Oct. 1. The governor initially halted evictions and foreclosures in April, not long after many workers were furloughed or laid off because of business restrictions intended to slow the spread of Covid-19. He's extended it on a monthly basis for several months, recently adding the condition that the moratorium applies only to tenants and homeowners "adversely impacted by the Covid-19 emergency."
Tech Data, an IT distributor in Clearwater, has a definitive agreement to acquire Innovix Distribution, a Hong Kong-based IT distributor in Asia. The purchase will expand Tech Data's business in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, and will accelerate Tech Data's growth in next-generation technologies, including cloud and security products. Tech Data is one of the largest companies headquartered in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area and the acquisition is a key milestone because it is the first major deal since Tech Data was acquired by funds managed by Apollo Global and became a privately owned company. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close before the end of October. Innovix, with more than 500 employees, currently is a part of Jardine Matheson Group, a Fortune Global 500-listed company, and has a distribution network that spans more than 8,000 channel partners in Asia.
The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority received a $120,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration through the Accelerating Innovative Mobility (AIM) initiative to support mobility and innovation in the transit industry. The funds will help integrate PSTA’s Direct Connect program, which connects riders in areas with low-frequency transit service to subsidized on-demand trips, into the Transit app. This project will offer riders a simple way to plan and book trips. With the grant, PSTA will build on that work to make the innovative PSTA Direct Connect program fully accessible from within Transit, PSTA’s official app. PSTA Direct Connect multimodal trips will appear as an option in Transit’s trip planner alongside fixed route bus service and other shared mobility options, and riders will be able to hail their Direct Connect ride from within Transit and make a seamless connection to fixed-route service.
Venues across the country will be lit red Tuesday to support the Save our Stages Act, RESTART Act and the fight to extend pandemic unemployment assistance for the 5.1 million event workers who lost their jobs when the shutdown began in March. Organizers of the Red Alert Day of Action ask that people share their stories of what live events mean to them by posting on social media with the hashtags #wemakeevents, #redalertRESTART and #saveourstages and including photos of their homes lit in red. They're also requesting people write to their elected officials to show support for the arts, entertainment and media industries.
Mnimise, an energy management and conservation service firm based in Tampa, has renewed and expanded an agreement with UK-based RSF Capital Partners LLP. RSF Capital Partners structured an initial facility of up to $400 million for Minimise, a news release said. The funding agreement is designed for the Minimise No Capital Outlay Plan Agreement, or NCOPA, being used at several Florida public schools. NCOPA is a financial model which allows the company to provide energy efficiency, energy management, energy production, health and safety upgrades and solutions to large public institutions and corporations at no cost.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has awarded two grants, totaling $689,094, to Pinellas County and the Community Health Centers of Pinellas. The new funding follows a $1.1 million award earlier this summer to ramp up Covid-19 testing. Community Health Centers currently serve as one of the main Covid-19 testing sites for Pinellas residents. "While Covid-19 positivity rates are declining in Pinellas, the virus is very much still with us, with the worst impacts disproportionately impacting low-income communities and people of color ... Community Health Centers are responding to this disparity by providing Covid-19 tests free of charge to all who need them," said Rep. Charlie Crist, D-St. Petersburg, in an announcement about the new grants.
Florida bars and breweries have until the end of the year to renew their liquor licenses. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order Friday that his office said is designed to help businesses adversely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The order delays the existing renewal deadline through Dec. 31, 2020 for the holder of any license, permit, registration, or certificate issued by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, for the purposes of engaging in the manufacturing, sale, or distribution of alcoholic beverages in Florida. Bars and breweries that don't serve food were ordered shut down earlier this year to control the spread of Covid-19, while establishments with liquor licenses that also serve food are limited to 50 percent capacity.
Two St. Petersburg companies are among the best employers in Florida, according to a new list from Forbes. Raymond James Financial (NYSE: RJF) placed No. 4 on the "best employers by state 2020" list, and Jabil (NYSE: JBL) is No. 23. BayCare Health System, headquartered in Clearwater, was the only other Pinellas County company on the list, at No. 72. Several Tampa employers also made the list: Moffitt Cancer Center (No. 8), Tampa General Hospital (No. 14), Bloomin' Brands (Nasdaq: BLMN) (No. 26), Rooms to Go (No. 75) and Hillsborough Community College (No. 98). Publix, headquartered in Lakeland and one of the largest employers in St Petersburg, ranked No. 34. Forbes partnered with market research company Statista to survey 80,000 Americans working for companies with 500 employees or more on criteria such as safety of work environment, competitiveness of compensation, opportunities for advancement and openness to telecommuting. See the full list here.
