The fine print

The City of Plant City (thecityofplantcity.com) is an independent work of satire and parody. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, licensed by, or in any way connected to the City of Plant City, Florida; its City Commission, Planning Board, or Community Redevelopment Agency; Hillsborough County; the State of Florida; or any economic development council, chamber of commerce, or other public or quasi-public body.

The name of this site is part of the parody. It is chosen to invoke the form of an official municipal website in order to comment on one. No reasonable reader should take this site to be an official source, and every page carries a notice saying so.

For actual municipal information — utilities, permits, agendas, meeting schedules, public records requests, or contacting an elected official — go to the real city at plantcitygov.com.

This site is published as commentary and criticism on matters of public concern: local land use, municipal procurement, economic development, and the relationship between public officials and private development interests. It uses parody, exaggeration, invented figures and fictional characters to make that commentary.

To the extent any material here references or evokes a real entity, that use is intended as commentary, criticism, parody and reporting under the fair use doctrine, 17 U.S.C. § 107, and as protected opinion under the First Amendment.

Statements on this site about the character, motives or private conduct of any official or organization are satire, opinion and commentary, and are not assertions of fact. Statements about documented events are published only alongside the record supporting them. Numbers, names, dockets and quotations throughout the site are invented for the parody unless a source document is presented with them.

Berry is a fictional character. Berry is not a journalist, is not employed by a news organization, and does not hold any public office. Quotations attributed to Berry are authored as parody.

No statement on this site is intended to assert that any identifiable living person has committed a crime, breached a duty, or engaged in any specific act of misconduct. No defamation of any person or entity is intended.

Nothing on this site is an official record, an official notice, or legal, financial, engineering or planning advice. Do not rely on anything here for any decision of consequence.

This site does not hold, produce, or respond to requests for public records. A request under Chapter 119, Florida Statutes, must go to the records custodian of the agency that holds the record. General descriptions of that law on this site are commentary, not legal advice.

Berry does not publish the identity of a person who sends a tip without their agreement. That is an editorial commitment, and it is one this site takes seriously.

It is not a legal privilege. Email sent to this site is ordinary email. It is not protected by attorney-client privilege, by any reporter’s shield statute, or by any other confidentiality rule, and it may be readable by your employer, your email provider, or anyone who obtains lawful access to it. It could be subject to subpoena.

Do not send anything whose disclosure would put your employment, your safety, or your family at risk. Do not send material you obtained unlawfully. Do not send documents you are contractually or legally barred from sharing. If a matter genuinely needs protection, speak to a lawyer or an established news organization with counsel before you send anything to anybody.

By sending a question, tip or message you agree it may be published in whole or in part, edited for length and clarity, and responded to publicly. Nothing sent here creates any obligation to publish, respond, or act.

Original text and artwork on this site are © the site’s author. Any third-party name, mark, logo or excerpt that appears is used for identification, commentary and parody only, and remains the property of its owner.

If you own rights in material reproduced here and believe it is used unlawfully, send a notice identifying the work, the URL where it appears, your contact information, and a statement of your good-faith belief that the use is unauthorized. Claims are reviewed and material is removed where the claim is well founded.

If anything on this site reads as a factual assertion about a real, identifiable person or organization, that is an error and it will be corrected or removed. Corrections are published where the original ran.

Write to berry@thecityofplantcity.com with the page, the specific line, and what is wrong with it.