Palm Beach County officials and leaders of a consortium of groups pushing for ethics reform say they’re near agreement on a package of reforms that include creating an independent inspector general’s office and an ethics commission.
One key element is a sort of ethical pay-to-play system for hiring the inspector general.
The original county proposal called for an independent panel to select the watchdog and the county commission to cast a final up-or-down vote on the nominee. Critics said the commission’s role would discourage the school board and other public entities from agreeing to come under the inspector’s scrutiny. The latest plan would allow any other entity to have a vote on the inspector if it contributes at least 25 percent of the inspector’s budget.
Gov. Charlie Crist appointed former newspaperman David Klement to fill a vacancy on the Public Service Commission.
Klement fills a vacancy created when former Commissioner Katrina McMurrian quit after Crist passed her over for reappointment.
Klement’s getting a jump on the $133,000 a year job – Crist had already picked him and Pensacola accountant and bar owner/manager Benjamin “Steve” Stevens to the panel. Their terms are set to begin Jan. 1.
Klement will be on the five-member panel in time to vote next week on whether the PSC should postpone a vote on Florida Power & Light Co.’s proposed $1.2 billion rate hike and a similar $500 million increase sought by Progress Energy Florida.
Crist asked that the panel hold off on the hearings and the votes on the rate cases until his new regulators are ensconced next year. But the PSC resumed the FPL case yesterday and is slated to finish up with it late tomorrow.
Klement spent more than four decades as a newspaperman and now heads the Institute of Public Policy and Leadership at the University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus.
Klement, 69, worked for 32 years at The Bradenton Herald.
He said earlier this month that he would bring his broad knowledge base to the panel.
“While I’m not a specialist, as many of them are, you need a generalist who understands more than how to balance the books or how to wire a house for electricity,” Klement said.
U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, reportedly removed his name from the list of cosponsors on a single-payer healthcare bill and another that calls for a review and renegotiation of U.S. trade agreements.
The decision to remove himself as cosponsor of the two bills suggests that Meek is moving to the political center. Meek is the clear front-runner for the Democratic nomination for former Sen. Mel Martinez’s (R-Fla.) old seat after Rep. Corrine Brown announced she would not challenge Meek for the Democratic nomination.
U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D- Miami, today picked up Senate endorsements from Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and U.S. Rep. Corinne Brown, D-Jacksonville, who had been exploring her own run for Senate.
Sink, a 2010 candidate for governor, is one of two Dems to hold statewide office in Florida. The other — U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson — hasn’t formally endorsed Meek, but was listed as a host for a Meek fund-raiser in Washington this month that was headlined by former President Bill Clinton.
Meek is the heavy favorite to win the Democratic Senate nomination, but former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre announced this month that he will also run as a Democrat.
Florida Power & Light Co. has spent nearly $4 million so far in its $1.2 billion rate hike request and expects to spend another $1 million before the case is over.
The Juno Beach-based utility originally expected to spend about $3.7 million on the case, according to records filed with the Public Service Commission.
But extra days have been repeatedly added to the case, originally scheduled to last two weeks back in August. It’s now supposed to wind up on Friday.
FPL spent about $1.5 million on consultants, $787,774 on overtime for FPL professional staff and another $450,996 for legal services, its records show.
And the company spent $523,815 thus far on employee-related expenses and $521,646 for other services, including nearly $340,000 on temporary help.
FPL is asking that customers pay for the original $3.7 million included in its rate hike request.
An FPL spokesman said the power company will not ask customers to fork over the extra $1.3 million it expects to spend on the case.
The filing includes total expenses from January 2008 through September 2009 and a projection for total costs through the end of the proceeding.
The hearing is supposed to finish tomorrow and the panel is expected to cast its final vote on the rate proposal on Jan. 11.
Testimony yesterday also revealed that the company’s director of compensation had no idea what the average Floridian’s wage is although she’s in charge of ensuring that FPL wages are fair.
That’s not to say Slattery didn’t provide some brilliant answers regarding benchmarks of salaries in the utility industry, on which FPL bases its compensation.
The average annual salary of the utility’s 12,000 workers is more than $90,000 Kathleen Slattery told the panel.
The average Floridian’s wage is about $40,000, something Slattery did not know.
She also was unaware that state workers have not received a pay raise in three years.
But Slattery did tell the panel that FPL workers are scheduled to get between 2.4 percent and 3.4 percent pay hikes over the next two years.
That’s skewed because more than 440 FPL employees pull down more than $165,000.
As noted Wednesday morning, Quinnipiac University’s latest Florida poll finds former House Speaker Marco Rubio narrowing the gap from 29 points in August to 15 points now in his Republican U.S. Senate primary race against Gov. Charlie Crist.
That poll found Crist with a comfortable lead in a hypothetical Senate matchup against Democratic frontrunner Kendrick Meek, but found Meek with a narrow lead in a Meek-Rubio matchup.
A Rasmussen poll of Florida voters released later in the day finds Crist with 14 point lead over Rubio in a GOP primary, down from 22 points in August.
Rasmussen has Crist leading Meek by 12 points (compared to 20 points in the Quinnipiac poll). And while Quinnipiac gives Meek a 36-to-32 percent lead over Rubio, Rasmussen finds Rubio beating Meek, 46-to-31 percent.
Five Florida Power & Light Co. executives brought in more than $1 million in 2008, an FPL official testified today.
FPL Director of Compensation Kathleen Slattery told the Public Service Commission that three of the utility’s highest paid executives earned $3 million each that year and paid its top earner $10 million, $7.5 million of which was picked up by FPL.
The state Fraternal Order of Police is endorsing state Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, in the 2010 Democratic primary for attorney general.
Aronberg is running against state Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, for the Democratic nomination to succeed Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum, who’s running for governor. GOP candidates for AG include Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp.
Says FOP Florida President James Preston: “Dave Aronberg’s history of commitment to public service, and his legislative record of giving special attention to the area of public safety has earned this valuable endorsement. His experience as an assistant attorney general and his leadership in the Legislature as an advocate for public safety and on behalf of law enforcement make him a perfect fit to serve as Florida’s next chief law enforcement official…We are confident in the leadership that Dave Aronberg will bring to the office of Attorney General.”
Florida Sen. George LeMieux delivered his first Senate floor speech this morning, with excerpts in the video above and a full 18:44 video version here.
“We cannot afford the government we have, let alone the government that the majority in this Congress wants,” said LeMieux, who took office last month after being appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist to replace the retired Mel Martinez.
“Our national debt is close to $12 trillion and growing. Every day we spend more than $700 million on interest payments alone. The Federal government needs to address this issue before we saddle our children and their children with a debt that will suffocate our ability to provide government services and our nation’s prosperity.”
Florida International University student Hannah Giles and guerrilla videographer James O’Keefe created a national uproar last month when they released a series of undercover videos showing ACORN workers in Baltimore, Washington, New York, San Diego and San Bernardino, Cal., offering advice on setting up a brothel and concealing the income.
Florida Power & Light Co. made a second multi-million dollar concession this morning in hopes of nailing down a $1.3 billion rate hike.
The state’s largest utility is scrapping about $37 million in executive pay from its proposed base rate increase, letting customers off the hook for the pay.
Comedian Jackie Mason backs Republican Ed Lynch in the special congressional race to replace U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, in the heavily Democratic, heavily Jewish Palm Beach-Broward District 19.
“He’s a great humanitarian, even though he’s not Jewish. How often to you see a Gentile who’s a great humanitarian? He happens to be Hispanic, but he’s crazy about Israel and he would do anything for Israel,” says Mason, who also lauds Lynch’s business experience and stance on health care in the video.
Lynch, who got 27.2 percent last year against Wexler, says he met Mason after the election. He said Mason’s mother-in-law lives in District 19. Wexler is leaving in January to head the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation.
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 by Michael C. Bender
Three-quarters of Floridians support Gov. Charlie Crist’s $536 million bid to buy farmland from U.S. Sugar Corp. for Everglades restoration, according to a poll commissioned by the deal’s backers.
The Everglades Foundation’s poll of 600 likely Florida voters found that of the 75 percent who support the deal, 41 percent “strongly support” it, said pollster Jim Kitchens, of The Kitchens Group.
House Speaker Larry Cretul asked federal officials to intervene in gambling talks between Florida and the Seminoles, saying negotiations “are at an impasse.”
Under Crist’s latest plan, the Seminoles would have paid $150 million a year to the state for education in exchange for Las Vegas-style slot machines and blackjack and other card games at its Hollywood and Tampa casinos as well as its Brighton and Big Cypress locales in Broward County.
The Seminoles have continued to run the games even without an agreement with the state, irking GOP House leaders and Attorney General Bill McCollum, who accuse the tribe of breaking the law. (more…)
About 30 members of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party’s Policy Committee were unanimous Tuesday night in backing state Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, in a special congressional election, county Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel says.
Deutch is the best-known Palm Beach County candidate who has announced for the Palm Beach-Broward seat of U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, who’s leaving in January to head a Middle East-focused think tank.
Another well-known Palm Beach County Democrat — West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel — is also considering the race.
Asked about Frankel, Siegel said: “As good as she is, and as great a representative as she would make, I don’t think she would find any support among the organized ranks of the party.”
The Democratic party’s policy committee includes top party officials, “zone leaders” responsible for get-out-the-vote efforts and presidents of Democratic clubs. A formal vote wasn’t taken, Siegel said, because of party rules against making endorsements in primaries.
FPL finally relented after much discussion during previous testimony questioning who was picking up the tab for flights for the utility’s executives, their wives and guests to high-flung destinations like Napa Valley and a helicopter flight from Palm Beach County airport to another to avoid traffic.
The result: customers won’t have to foot the bill for about $16 million in corporate flights as the Juno Beach-based energy company had originally proposed.
“It is important to note that aviation costs have had zero impact on the rates customers have paid. Going forward, we have removed the costs from the case because we do not want to allow this issue to continue to be a distraction. This means that aviation costs will continue to have no impact on customer rates,” FPL spokesman Mark Bubriski said in an e-mailed statement.
Today’s FPL hearing is slated to last 10 hours and finish up on Friday.
Testimony is expected to go through 8 p.m. tonight and finish up on Friday.
FPL Group Chief Financial Officer Armando Pimentel sat patiently as the hearing started just before 10 a.m. as both sides argued about accounting for plane flights.
Opponents of the increase questioned how the Juno Beach-based power company’s allocated charges for the jets and helicopters. They want to know whether customers are paying to ferry FPL executives, their wives and guests to destinations including Napa Valley and Louisville during the Kentucky Derby.
The hearings have gone on intermittently since August under a cloud of suspicion about possible conflicts of interest.
It’s not the first time the regulatory agency has been rocked by allegations of close ties with the utilities.
Gov. Charlie Crist has a 15-point lead over former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio in the 2010 GOP Senate primary race — down from a 29-point August advantage, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll.
The latest poll shows Crist with a 50-to-35 percent edge over Rubio. It was 55-to-26 for Crist in August. Rubio is still largely unknown to half of GOP voters.
Crist beats the Democratic Senate frontrunner, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami, by a 51-to-31 percent margin in the poll. Meek tops Rubio 36-to-33 percent in a hypothetical Senate matchup.
In the 2010 governor’s race, Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum has a 36-to-32 percent lead over Democratic CFO Alex Sink. McCollum has a 43-to-7 percent lead among Republicans over state Sen. Paula Dockery, a potential primary challenger.
Gov. Charlie Crist’s Chief of Staff Eric Eikenberg will leave the governor’s office to become the campaign manager of Crist’s U.S. Senate campaign, he said today. Crist announced earlier today that Shane Strum would take over as chief of staff.
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