One of the biggest local political stories in the Tampa Bay area last year was the revelation that Pinellas County Commissioner Norm Roche had been penning highly charged online comments about gays, race and other hot issues anonymously to the comments section of the St. Petersburg Times website.
The man who broke that story, the Times' David DeCamp, announced yesterday he is the latest reporter to leave the paper to head off for a communications job. His will be working for Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown.
That announcement was made yesterday in J-Ville. DeCamp is no stranger to the region, having worked for the Jacksonville Times-Union from 2000 to 2006. The 37-year-old will make $100,000 annually and begin work on March 26.
In an email exchange Monday afternoon, DeCamp declined to comment regarding any of the questions CL posed for him, instead giving us the telephone number of Mayor Brown's chief of staff.
As has been noted elsewhere in the blogosphere, DeCamp stood out at the paper, not only for his solid reporting on Pinellas County government over the years, but for posting on the paper's Bay Buzz blog, something that other Times local government reporters have been reluctant to do, for whatever reason.
This article appears in Mar 15-21, 2012.
