When The Tributary chooses to cover a story, we make a commitment: We will see it through.
Whether it’s the election results of races we cover, staying with a story beyond an initial investigation, or reporting on impact long after first breaking the news, we believe that the community is best served when we see local news as a public good, not clickbait.
It’s been a busy year, and The Tributary has been with you for major events, from police accountability to the election and lawsuits against Jacksonville’s largest landlord.
As we welcome 2025, we wanted to look back at the year that led us here, with some updates on our most-read investigations.
The story: In October, Tributary investigative fellow Nandhini Srinivasan found that Florida Rep. Vicki Lopez’s votes benefited her son’s employer as she tried to help school bus camera vendor, BusPatrol, win new laws and contracts.
The impact (so far): After The Tributary – in partnership with the Miami Herald – published Srinivasan’s findings, the Miami Herald rescinded its endorsement of Lopez. (Lopez retained her seat for Florida House District 113 during the Nov. 5 election.)
The story: In the fall, Sheriff T.K. Waters pushed for the Jacksonville City Council to approve new legislation that would require elected officials to OK settlement agreements in lawsuits against their employees. This came after Waters claimed that he didn’t know the city settled a lawsuit regarding the shooting death of a FAMU college student by then-officer Josue Garriga – though emails show his office did know of the deal.
What happened: The legislation passed after JSO officials gave fiery pleas to the council about officer morale. Then, in April, Garriga was arrested for coercing an underage teenager into sending nude photographs and performing sexual acts.
He was sentenced in November to more than 24 years in prison.
The story: The 2024 elections were consequential locally and state-wide, and The Tributary’s entire team pitched in to make sure voters had the information they needed to make informed choices. We helped host candidate forums and wrote stories about the platforms of judge and school board candidates, with a story about Florida Supreme Court justice retention clocking in as the most-read.
Another top story broke down how Florida’s Hispanic voters emerged as the state’s most unpredictable electoral force, with dramatic swings between parties that reshaped the battlefield for 2024’s presidential election.
The impact: More than 200,000 of you read or watched The Tributary’s election coverage in the weeks leading up to the election. The team called every race accurately and first at our live online event and online at floridatrib.org!
The story: Last year, Tributary reporter Charlie McGee was the first to write about a novel and complex lawsuit brought forth against JWB Property Management – one of Northeast Florida’s largest landlords. The lawsuit accused JWB of violating the Fair Housing Act because the company used a glitchy tenant-credit algorithm to screen potential tenants, which led to renters being wrongfully denied homes.
The conclusion: The lawsuit was settled in November. As a term of the settlement, the company voluntarily agreed to alter its application process. JWB also clarified information provided on its websites that tenants with eviction filings can apply for tenancy with JWB and all applicants will be assessed on a case-by-case, individualized basis.
The story: In May of 2023, Tributary investigative reporter Nichole Manna dug into deaths at the Duval County jail and learned that the number of people dying in the jail each year tripled after the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office privatized medical care in 2017.
The impact: It was the first story that led to ongoing coverage of medical neglect in the jail and in September 2023, JSO ended its contract with its care provider and signed a new, more expensive contract with another private company called NaphCare. In 2024, for the first time in four years, the jail is on track to have fewer than 10 deaths.
Manna continued her reporting of jail conditions in 2024, writing about how the city ignored its decaying jail for years and questioned whether or not leaders can learn from past mistakes.
The story: Earlier this month, The Tributary’s fall investigative reporting fellow, Bea Lunardini, continued our ongoing coverage of health care in the Duval County jail. She found that if your spouse becomes deathly ill or injured in jail, it’s possible you won’t receive any information about your loved one’s condition.
The finding: That’s because NaphCare only gives incarcerated people the medical release authorization form on an as needed basis, instead of including it in an inmate’s in-take paperwork. If someone falls sick or injured and is unable to sign the paperwork, their family will be left in the dark.
