Showing posts with label Gwen Margolis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gwen Margolis. Show all posts

Monday, October 22, 2012

More on the Mary Ellen Klaas Syndrome and its negative effect on Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald readers: Fact-checking the Tallahassee bureau reporter, due to her sheer lack of curiosity and fairness about facts and context, is a full-time job; Her calling John Couriel a "sleeper" a month before FL Senate 35 race against Gwen Margolis is proof of how little attention she pays to what's going on, and her editors' sleepwalking ways



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More on the Mary Ellen Klaas Syndrome and its negative effect on Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald readers: Fact-checking the Tallahassee bureau reporter, due to her sheer lack of curiosity and fairness about facts and context, is a full-time job; Her calling John Couriel a "sleeper" a month before FL Senate 35 race against Gwen Margolis is proof of how little attention she pays to what's going on, and her editors' sleepwalking ways 

In a state that is, literally, drowning in them, Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee bureau reporter Mary Ellen Klaas is consistently one of the best (and therefore among the worst) examples of a print reporter who reveals so much more than they think about their own views and notions about public policy, simply by the patterns that emerge by the facts they choose NOT to include, by whom she chooses NOT to interview or quote, and by what she conveniently forgets to mention to readers or remind them of.

More often than should be the case in a state this large -the fourth largest in the country I remind you- and whose capital is so poorly misunderstood by the great majority of its own citizens, so many of whom have NEVER been to Tallahassee...
It's the closest thing we have in the Southeast United States to the Hermit Kingdom of North Korea.

Is there any state in the United States with a larger percentage of its full-time residents who have NEVER been to its state capital than Florida's?
Having grown-up in South Florida after being born in San Antonio and living for a few years in Memphis before my family moved here when I was seven, this odd-yet-true fact about the people who live in this state has always been my reality and one of the reasons I believe this state has always been so much less than what it ought to be.
Look at how it's laid out, like it's still 1845.

In the same way that all those years of my being at Indiana University in Bloomington showed me that Indianapolis was the most perfectly-centered state capital in the country, because it was almost impossible to ever find anyone who'd lived in the state for more than a year who not only hadn't been there, but who also knew where a lot of places were located, like good restaurants, good parks and good people-watching spots..
It's their particular reality like this dubious fact is ours and here's why I bring this up.

For those of you reading this far from South Florida who don't ever think about it, the Florida state capital is actually at roughly the same longitude as Cincinnati, Ohio and is actually farther west in the country than Detroit in the Midwest
I take it for granted but...

Well, getting back to Klaas, an example of the sort of thing I've written about in emails to friends, acquaintances and others "in the loop" in the past because her articles are so consistently and objectively ridiculous, both the first time you read them and in retrospect months or years later.

I would say that, conservatively, I have probably written about her in similar emails about 25 times in the past 5 years.
But I seldom mentioned them here.

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http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/senate-veteran-margolis-faces-fight-newcomer

ELECTION 2012
Margolis is outraised by surprise newcomer in Senate race  
A Republican newcomer is hoping his moderate message will unseat venerable state Sen. Gwen Margolis in a newly drawn Miami district.
BY MARY ELLEN KLAS, HERALD/TIMES TALLAHASSEE BUREAU
October 8, 2012

In what may be the sleeper legislative campaign of the season, Sen. Gwen Margolis, the veteran Democrat from Miami, is getting a run for her money — literally — from Miami Beach lawyer John Couriel in the newly drawn coastal district.
Margolis has loaned herself $160,000 to win re-election to Senate District 35, which stretches from Golden Beach to Homestead. But she is being out-raised and, thus far, outspent by Republican newcomer, John Couriel, a Miami Beach lawyer.
Couriel, 34, has collected $213,830 in campaign contributions to Margolis’ $174,093 and has won the endorsements of former Gov. Jeb Bush and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. A Harvard-educated lawyer, Couriel quit his job as an assistant U.S. attorney in Miami to run for the seat and vows to out-campaign Margolis, 78, a former state Senate president who was first elected to the state House in 1974.
“I’m hustling. I’ve never done this before but I’m not going to be out-worked,’’ Couriel said Monday during a break from walking door-to-door in Pinecrest.
Couriel has the trappings of broad Republican support, from the endorsements of party icons Rubio and Bush to a political committee running attack ads against his opponent. But there is one notable absence: his race is not among the must-watch contests receiving cash infusions from the Senate Majority, the political committees controlled by incoming Senate leader Don Gaetz, R-Niceville.
At a meeting with reporters last week, Gaetz singled out the races that could produce upsets and Couriel v. Margolis wasn’t among them.
“Sen. Gaetz and I are friends,’’ Margolis said Monday, noting that the Niceville Republican lived for years in her Miami Shores district and supported her.
Couriel says he is undaunted that he’s not getting more attention from Senate leadership. “I am assuming I need to do this on my own,’’ he said.
He said he’s running because he believes voters want a change. “The purpose of public office is not to honor someone by electing them to office. We elect someone to work for us and I’m running because I think I could do a better job.”
The district trends Democratic, with nearly 60 percent voting for Obama in 2008 and Alex Sink in 2010. But Democrats do not comprise a majority of the district — 45 percent are registered Democrat, compared to 28 percent registered as no party affiliated and 27 percent registered Republican.
Couriel believes he can reach independents and crossover voters with his moderate Republican message. He ticks off the statistics in previous races to make his case.
"Rick Scott doesn’t do well here,’’ Couriel said, but Republican Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater barely lost the district in 2010 and Rubio beat Democrat Kendrick Meek in the U.S. Senate race. "That tells me that many Democrats are soft.’’
Margolis has been a fixture in Miami Dade politics for decades, and Couriel must not only introduce himself to voters but bring down Margolis’ image in the process, an expensive task in the long coastal district.
“To effectively run an aggressive campaign against Sen. Margolis is going to take a lot of money,’’ said Christian Ulvert, a Margolis advisor and Democratic consultant.
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Here's the real kicker, which I described last Wednesday in yet another email to the same people who received a link to the first article above.
I swear, I'm not making this up. 
On Tuesday the Miami Herald endorsed a candidate for the Florida state Senate, John Couriel -a Miami native, Harvard Law School grad and currently an Assistant U.S. Attorney for Miami- whose first name they never mention -or anything else about him in their endorsement as it appears online!
So what the hell kind of endorsement is that?
John Couriel in FL Senate District 35 http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/15/3051440/state-senate-districts.html
More evidence of the very low state the Herald has fallen to before our eyes.
In this article from last week, the first time the Herald mentioned John Couriel since he  announced he was running, their reporter, rather ironically considering their poor coverage of local news and politics, chose to start the article thusly: "In what may be the sleeper legislative campaign of the season..."
Actually, it seems more like the reporter, Mary Ellen Klaas, is the one who is playing Rip Van Winklesince she reported last week that four weeks before the election, a first-time candidate has out-raised and out-spent a forty-year career politician with very high name recognition, and who was formerly the President of the Florida State Senate and after that, a Miami-Dade Commissioner.
(Margolis is someone whom I met a lot while growing-up in NMB and being very involved in county Dem politics and campaigns, including at functions in North Miami circa mid-1970's that my mother attended when I was Junior High age.
She's the very same woman who, while I was living and working for 15 years in Washington, D.C., before it was finally built decades after it was needed, strongly considering making the William Lehman Causeway Bridge, that connects Aventura to Sunny Isles, a toll bridge, unless she got her way on something involving tax revenues!
Imagine traffic on glacial U.S.-1/Biscayne Blvd. now next to Aventura Mall if there was a toll road next door -actually worse than it is now if possible, which IS very hard to imagine, given how many times I've felt like I was going to run out of gas (and patience) while creeping along one block at a time in the afternoonYou remember, don't you Aventura, Sunny Isles and Hallandale Beach? Imagine if she had had her way!)
The new district is so enormous and obtuse that on the north it goes from west of the Florida Turnpike in Hollywood, down to an area in Miami-Dade County where I lived in the early 1980's when back from IU for the summer, many miles south of downtown Miami, back before they were calling it PinecrestPlus, that district as currently drawn also includes Key Biscayne!
See for yourself: http://maps.flsenate.gov/de1/map.html?plan=fl2002_sen&district=35

Key Biscayne?That's f-ing preposterous!!!Hollywood to Key Biscayne? Why?
Why do you think -so that Hispanics can vote for Hispanics, Blacks can vote for blacks and Jews can... and some reporter somewhere in the future can opine about why it's hard to find someone with voter wide appeal in South Florida who is not a demagogue.
In South Florida politics, outside of municipal races, you don't need to be smart, savvy, hard-working, conciliatory or even have good ideas that can make it possible for you to get positive things done, you simply need to be one of three favored ethnic demographics -that's it!
So given Couriel's not-insignificant accomplishment, why did Klaas and the newspapers NEVER write anything about him and his efforts all year, before last week?
http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=%22Couriel%22

Like how he managed to accomplish all this?
Why the apathy and indifference?
That's the media landscape we live in in the year 2012 in South Florida.
It's forever the dog that doesn't bark!
Yeah, plus everyone's an expert after the fact!
Not a sheep dog or a watch dog but rather a lapdog! 

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The FL redistricting story you NEVER saw in the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, or on local Miami TV -who was Missing-in-Action?


Above, one of candidate Scott Fortune's very effective videos I posted on the blog last year from his documentary about the social and economic problems associated with gerrymandering in perhaps the worst drawn congressional district in the country, FL-3, home of Rep. Corrine Brown. http://youtu.be/m2l4WUZ_lcE

The FL redistricting story you NEVER saw in the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, or on local Miami TV -who was Missing-in-Action?


How many of South Florida's State Senators on the 27-member Senate Reapportionment Committee DIDN'T attend important redistricting meetings?

Funny that you asked since it seems like a reasonable question that you'd think might've occurred to people who actually have giant printing presses and modern high-tech TV studios, doesn't it?
Especially given all that shouting a few months ago about what was and wasn't compact and contiguous and the importance of keeping communities intact and not divided.

In other parts of the country that might be something curious reporters pursue, but here in South Florida, not so much.
Five of the scheduled six Comm. meetings have been held the past three months.

Vice-Chair Gwen Margolis -October 18th and November 2nd, November 15th
Oscar Braynon, II -November 2nd, November 15th
Rene Garcia -November 15th,
Larcenia Bullard -October 18th

What is the the purpose of being on the Comm. if you can't/won't show-up for the meetings?

And poor Anitere Flores has been an island onto herself, attending ZERO meetings, whiffing on September 22nd, October 5th, October 18th, November 2nd, November 15th. Zero for five.
Why? Because she was pregnant.
Then why not refuse the appointment so that someone else could participate?



The last scheduled meeting of the Comm. is a week from today, next Tuesday, from 1-6 p.m., and the agenda is:
Consideration of proposed committee bill:
SPB 7032 by Reapportionment—Congressional Districts of the State,
and, Consideration of proposed committee bill:
SPB 7034 by Reapportionment—Apportionment



The Florida Legislature convenes in full session on January 10th.

And talk about being oblivious on Monday night, with all sorts of news coming out of Tallahassee
about proposed redistricting maps in Florida, both for the Florida legislature and for Congress,
http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2011/reports/redistricting/ with Florida gaining two new House seats, and where some of the maps favored by the FL Senate have longtime incumbents being drawn-out of their current districts, something that opponents have been saying for months would never happen -inc. Rep. Alcee Hastings- guess which second-tier TV market had zero news stories about it Monday night?
Yes, Miami/Ft. Lauderdale of course

Channel 4/WFOR-TV
The CBS affiliate has two -2- redistricting stories on their website since December of last year, and none of them have video or even have an author's byline.

Channel 6/WTVJ-TV
The NBC affiliate has two generic stories since last December, no video.

Channel 7/WSVN-TV
The FOX affiliate has one story on their website, from August 15th, with no video.

Channel 10/WPLG-TV
The ABC affiliate has two stories on their website
and is the only one of the four that had anything about the proposed maps that were released, albeit, very little info that we didn't already know in a seven-sentence story.
But they had no on-air stories about it.

It also may interest you to know that none of the four English-language Miami TV stations had a single news story on their websites about the redistricting in Miami-Dade and Broward for county commission seats.

That feeble effort, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is the South Florida news media as the year 2011 begins to recede, and we all know that even worse news-reporting is ahead the rest of the year.


Redistricting Maps Drawn by the Senate

On November 28, the Senate Reapportionment Committee published proposed committee bills redrawing district boundaries for congressional and state legislative electoral districts.

Congressional PlanSenate Plan
Palm Beach Post
Change ahead for U.S. Rep. Rooney, state Sen. Benacquisto under redistricting plan
State Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto and U.S. Rep Tom Rooney figure to have their political futures affected by the redistricting plans looming for Florida.
By JOHN KENNEDY, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 10:37 p.m. Monday, Nov. 28, 2011
Posted: 8:43 p.m. Monday, Nov. 28, 2011

TALLAHASSEE — At least two Palm Beach County lawmakers face changing political futures under new district maps unveiled Monday by the Florida Senate.

U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, a two-term Tequesta Republican, and state Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, a Republican who formerly served as a Wellington village council member, are moving in opposite directions under the proposals.
Read the rest of the article at

My last blog post on redistricting was last Tuesday, titled, No Fair Districts here: Surprise! NAACP's proposed 2012 map keeps HB & Hollywood divided: Blacks given to Frederica Wilson, Jews to DWS; told ya!


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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Wednesday's Broward Ethics Comm. meeting to be webcast

The Broward County Ethics Committee
will be holding a meeting Wednesday from
9:30-11:30 a.m. at County HQ on Andrews Avenue,
but the big news is that the meeting will actually be
webcast.
http://www.broward.org/ethicscommission/schedule.htm

The agenda for the meeting is here:
http://www.broward.org/ethicscommission/08122009agenda.pdf

Public comments are scheduled for 11 a.m.

As of today, I plan on being there and will bring
along my handy camera/camcorder to capture
any of the human melodrama, wit or comic
oddities that I spot there, if any, while I'm
checking it all out.
Plus any lobbyists that I happen to recognize
in the audience -or behind the curtains.


I called the always-helpful Dee Platt at Comm.
Sue Gunzburger's
office yesterday and here's
what Dee wrote back about how to watch the webcast.

If you scroll to the bottom of the Ethics Commission
website, and click on “Live Meetings Webcast”
at the time of the meeting, it will open up a new
window for video central and it will show the
webcast.

http://www.broward.org/ethicscommission/welcome.htm


Ethical problems involving Tallahassee and the cozy
relationships among the powers-that-be and their
pals
was the topic du jour about 18 years ago.
Plus, the whole Caesar vs. Ceasar debate.

Miami Herald

SOME LAWMAKERS, LOBBYISTS ENJOYING COZY BUSINESS TIES

From Herald Staff and Wire Reports
August 20, 1991

Twenty-six of Florida's 160 state lawmakers have business relationships or own property with some of the 3,000 lobbyists who represent various interests at the Capitol, state records show.

"It probably is one of the more nagging problems we still have," says Bill Jones, lobbyist for Common Cause of Florida. "If you're out here trying to influence somebody . . . it's another way to ingratiate yourself."

The Tampa Tribune reported Sunday that these relationships take on all sorts of shapes. They include:

* Senate President Gwen Margolis, D-North Miami Beach, who for several years has owned a $70,000 piece of land in Tallahassee with Capitol lobbyist Phial Blank, who has represented several interests in South Florida.

* A few legislators who bought townhouses years ago with fellow legislators or staffers, only to have their roommates go into lobbying.

* A few legislators who work for companies that employ lobbyists -- such as state Sen. Javier Souto, R-Miami, whose employer, Burroughs-Wellcome, has a North Carolina-based lobbyist, John Bowdish, registered in Tallahassee.

They also include relationships which, one of the lawmakers involved concedes, pose ethical questions.

Rep. Norm Ostrau, D-Plantation, who last year fought for ethics reforms, guaranteed a business loan with lobbyist Mitchell Ceasar so their wives could open a cookie shop in The Fashion Mall at Plantation. Ostrau also shares office space with Ceaser in Plantation.

Ceasar's lobbying clients include Port Everglades. However, Ostrau has been one of Broward's most vocal critics of the port's spending practices, and has advocated a takeover by the county.

Yet Ostrau recognizes he probably shouldn't have gotten involved in the business arrangement. The cookie shop was sold after it lost money.

"It's definitely a cozy relationship," Ostrau said. "I didn't think it was something to avoid altogether. I didn't think it was something that would be a problem."

Others say there is nothing wrong with their business relationships:

* Margolis co-owns a $70,000 parcel of Tallahassee property near a golf course with Blank, who represents several clients including Alamo Rent A Car and Amoco Corp. Blank was among the lobbyists who persuaded the Legislature to ante $1 million for a stadium for the Lipton International Tennis Championship on Key Biscayne. Both say their business ties had nothing to do with the legislation.

"I have several million dollars worth of property," says Margolis, a real estate broker. "A little $50,000 lot isn't going to influence me."

Blank: "The fact that she owns a piece of land with me has nothing to do with the way she handles issues I talk to her about."

* Rep. Peter Deutsch, D-Sunrise, is a lawyer. In private practice, he was representing Invex, a Dade company forming a community development district. He hired Wade Hopping, a Tallahassee lobbyist, to provide legal advice.

"It's a very technical area of the law. Wade Hopping is the expert on this. He has created more of these than anyone else," Deutsch said. "I honestly do not recall Wade lobbying me in 10 years."

Hopping wrote in a letter to the Legislature's lobbyist registrar: "The business relationship is one separate and apart
from legislative matters and is essentially a straight-forward attorney-client relationship."

* Close friends Rep. Elaine Gordon, D-North Miami, and lobbyist Roberta Fox, who represented South Dade in the Legislature, have jointly owned a Tallahassee townhouse since 1979. During legislative sessions from 1987-89, Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, paid them $25 a day for the use of a sofa-bed in the living room, a report filed by Fox shows. Frankel didn't stay there in 1990, but returned in 1991. She paid no rent this year.

"I do not believe that the value of Rep. Frankel's ability to reside in the townhouse is a gift from me or value from me under the law," Fox wrote to the lobby registrar, "because she in effect is the guest of Rep. Gordon."

As for her own friendship with Fox, Gordon says: "We talk politics. We don't talk on the level of, 'I need your help on a bill.' That's verboten."

* Next door, lobbyist Linda Cox -- a former legislator -- owns a townhouse with longtime friend Rep. Anne Mackenzie, D- Fort Lauderdale. They bought it in 1980, when Mackenzie worked as Cox's legislative aide.

"If I told you how many times we've had that baby on the market so we wouldn't be in the business of owning a townhouse together, you wouldn't believe it," Mackenzie said. "We can't get rid of it."

* Dade lobbyist Ron Book also represents Lipton, among many clients. Book and state Rep. Ron Silver, D-North Miami Beach, have invested together in a company, Linc International, providing information in medical emergencies.

Silver says he had an idea about starting such a company years ago, and when Book found someone starting one he put Silver in touch with them.

Silver says the fact that he supported a state appropriation for the Lipton stadium and numerous other Dade projects has nothing to do with Book. "I supported the Lipton tennis tournament before Ron Book ever got involved as a lobbyist."

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Gov. Crist wisely vetoes SB 1706; Go Shayla!

Just before 10 pm Wednesday night, Aaron Deslatte of the Orlando Sentinel posted to their Central Florida Political Pulse blog the good news that Gov. Charlie Crist had wisely vetoed SB 1706, an ill-conceived bill that had previously passed both houses in Tallahassee unanimously.

It was the Gwen Margolis bill -gift on a silver platter to developers- that would have resulted in an unfair burden on taxpayers while the "build out" dates for large-scale development projects were
extended to three years.

My previous comment on this topic was on June 15th, Crist urged to veto developer-friendly Margolis bill/SB 1706 that'd weaken growth mgmt. reforms
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/crist-urged-to-veto-developer-friendly.html

Deslatte's post also includes the governor's rationale for his veto.
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/files/1706.pdf

______________
Orlando Sentinel

Central Florida Political Pulse blog
Crist vetoes development-friendly bio-tech bill
posted by Aaron Deslatte on Jun 25, 2008 9:56:18 PM

Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a bill Wednesday that critics claimed would have set the clock back on Florida's recent growth management reforms.
The bill, SB 1706, would have broadened a 2007 law that delayed the "build out" deadlines for large-scale development projects like airports, shopping centers and planned communities for three years. The aim of the bill, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Gwen Margolis, was to give developers who've already got state and local approval for their projects more time before they have to complete them -- and help pay for the extra traffic they put on surrounding roads.
But the governor said he was blocking the bill because...


To read the rest of the article, see:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2008/06/crist-vetoes-de.html#comments

After checking the URL to see if there were any more reader comments before I went to sleep, I went to their front page and saw something the likes of which the Herald wouldn't do in a million years, since it involves well-displayed color photos on their website, one of their most glaring weak spots compared to Tribune newspapers like the Sentinel, the Sun-Sentinel or the Baltimore Sun, the latter of which I still read online every day to keep up on all things Mid-Atlantic and Orioles-related.

Since there were so many awful stories overnight there:
a.) the very suspicious death of prominent Orlando-area developer Steve Walsh,
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-bk-steve-walsh-dead-062508,0,1308559.story and
b.) the news that the 17-year old son of Orange County mayor Rich Crotty was involved in a serious car accident yesterday afternoon that's left a nine-year old girl seriously injured,
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-bk-tyler-crotty-accident-062508,0,7980670.story

I was happy to see something of a positive nature, and that was a great photo gallery the Sentinel
assembled of U.S. gymnast Shayla Worley, late of Orlando Boone High School, who was on last year's world championship team.
She seems to have a good shot at making the Olympic team if she continues her weekend Trials performances at Camp Karolyi -my new favorite phrase. (Except her fall from the uneven bars, of course.)
See her website at: http://www.shaylaworley.com/index2.html

If Shayla and Jana Bieger of Coconut Creek both made the Olympic squad, it'd be great to have Florida so well-represented in Beijing in such a high-profile TV sport, though that'll likely come at the expense of seeing more about some other American athletes in less popular spectator sports, like archery, since Gena Davis won't be on the team.

But why do I have a feeling that Shayla might wind up in Athens as a GymDog?
http://www.georgiadogs.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=8800&SPID=4004
Because genuine talent always seeks out the best competition, which is one of the reasons why the GymDogs have won four NCAA titles in a row, including last month's in Athens.

Wish the Dolphins had their attitude and hustle and weren't so soft.

Meanwhile, Tuesday over at The White House:
http://www.georgiadogs.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=44931&SPID=4004&DB_OEM_ID=8800&ATCLID=1482549

Shayla Worley photo gallery from the Orlando Sentinel, all 55 photos worth, is at:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/olympics/orl-shaylaworley-pg,0,3578503.photogallery

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Crist urged to veto developer-friendly Margolis bill/SB 1706 that'd weaken growth mgmt. reforms

This interesting item was up on the Orlando Sentinel's Central Florida Political Pulse website on Saturday, yet surprisingly, considering how much traffic there usually is to the site once the Sunday morning TV chat shows start up, there were still no comments on it by 11:45 a.m. today, Sunday.

Upon reading the bill, I also better undertood the transit component as well.

In case the link below for Comm. Teresa Jacobs' letter on behalf of the Florida
Association of Counties
within the post doesn't work, try
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/files/veto_letter_to_gov_crist_re_1706.pdf

Bill history and votes of SB 1706: Relating to Developments of Regional
Impact [RPCC]
at:
http://www.flsenate.gov/session/index.cfm?Mode=Bills&SubMenu=1&BI_Mode=ViewBillInfo&BillNum=1706

The bill passed House 115-0 on April 30th, passed Senate 37-0 on April 25th.

__________________________________________________________________
Orlando Sentinel
Central Florida Political Pulse blog
Commissioner Jacobs asks Crist to veto developer-friendly bill
posted by Aaron Deslatte on Jun 13, 2008 4:33:47 PM

Orange County Commissioner Teresa Jacobs, in her capacity as president of the Florida Association of Counties, asked Gov. Charlie Crist Friday to veto a developer-friendly bill she argues would weaken past growth management reforms.

The bill, SB 1706, extends the "build out" dates for large-scale development projects like airports, shopping centers and planned communities for three years. The aim of the bill, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Gwen Margolis, was to give developers who've already got state and local approval for their projects more time before they have to complete them -- and help pay for the extra traffic they put on surrounding roads.

But granting a blanket, three-year pass to developers means locals could have to find other ways to pay for the traffic growth that occurs around those projects.

To see the rest of the post, please see:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2008/06/commissioner-ja.html