The controversial Central Florida commuter rail bill stalled in Senate transportation approps this morning.

And to the 73 people who had signed up to speak on the deal between CSX and the state (the price of which keeps changing depending on who’s asked): you might want to cancel your weekend festivities.

With just a few minutes until the scheduled 11:45 a.m. end of the Senate Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee meeting, and without enough support to demand a vote at a time certain, Chairman Mike Fasano postponed the bill until the next meeting, slated Monday.

The audience booed.

“That is very disrespectful ladies and gentlemen,” Fasano, R-New Port Richey, scolded. “We have 73 people who want to speak on this bill and I’m not going to deny one of those individuals to speak.”

But after a whispered exchange between Senate Majority Leader Alex Diaz de la Portilla and Fasano, and a quick behind-closed-doors consult, things changed.

Fasano announced that a new calendar may be set later today and that a meeting could be scheduled for Saturday.

Tags: state budget, State House, State Senate

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 11:57 am and is filed under legislature, state budget, State Senate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.