A Police Chase and Taxing Times
I've seen two great stories this week in the St. Petersburg Times. "A Chase, an Outcry, then Shots in the Dark" by Thomas Lake and Molly Moorhead is the kind of brilliant narrative that the Times regularly offers. Lake and Moorhead weave together a dramatic story featuring a fatal car chase, a near race riot, a dead sheriff's deputy and a troubled former NFL star. The result is a compelling way to advance a murder trial that starts this week. www.sptimes.com/2007/04/15/Tampabay/A_chase__an_outcry__t.shtml
As taxpayers filed their returns this week, the Times' Bill Varian, Janet Zink, Aaron Sharockman, Mike Donila and Will Van Sant detail in "The Money Vat" how local governments are spending their growing revenue. The package includes charts where readers can easily see where their money goes and which governments have increased their spending the most. Varian, Zink, Sharockman, Donila and Van Sant's stories also show the trends across the region, such as the 55 percent increase in average salaries for county employees since 2000. Tax stories are newspaper staples this time of year, but this is one of the best I've read. www.sptimes.com/2007/04/15/Tampabay/The_money_vat__Where_.shtml