House Speaker Larry Cretul issued a memo this afternoon saying he plans for the House to vote on the bill on Monday and for the Senate to vote on it on Wednesday.
Cretul, R-Ocala, said he and Atwater have agreed in principal on the proposal, which apparently exists but has not yet been distributed to most lawmakers, if any.
Money for Tri-Rail will come from the state road project fund and money for Sunrail and other rail projects will come from doc stamps from home sales.
The proposed legislation would approve the purchase of track for the controversial Central Florida SunRail commuter rail project and would establish permanent funding sources for Tri-Rail and other rail systems.
The money for Tri-Rail would come from fuel taxes and other fees that pay for transportation projects. Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties where Tri-Rail runs would continue to contribute.
Money for SunRail and other railroad projects would come from real estate sales in the future if the legislation is approved.
The draft bill also fixes a problem that held up SunRail during the last legislative session dealing with liability.
State transportation officials have already signed off on a deal with CSX Inc. to buy 61 miles of track and upgrade some of its rail yards and allow transportation giant to continue to run freight cars on the commuter line.
Under the current proposal, CSX would be liable for accidents if one of its freight cars hits a car or pedestrian. In two-train crashes, CSX would have to pay the insurance deductible (up to $10 million) in accidents in which its employees are at fault.
Atwater and Cretul are preparing to issue the call for the session, he said in the memo.
The Florida Supreme Court rejected Gov. Charlie Crist’s request for a statewide grand jury to look into corruption.
Crist’s request did not meet the “minimal requirements” necessary to determine that a grand jury is needed, the high court ruled today, by failing to specify what crimes or wrongs occurred and where they took place.
Crist last month petitioned the court to empanel a statewide grand jury to focus on public corruption in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties and the judicial circuit that includes Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee counties.
The assignment – that the panel investigate public corruption from bribery to other seemingly unrelated crimes such as child pornography and drug offenses – sets forth a “monumental task” so broad as to possibly be untenable, former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerald Kogan, a veteran of anti-corruption efforts in Miami-Dade County, said when Crist filed the petition. (more…)
Lawmakers are expected to meet later this week in a special session to vote on commuter rail issues in an effort to tap into nearly $4 billion in federal stimulus money for transportation projects being doled out in January.
At issue is the controversial Central Florida SunRail commuter rail project that lawmakers failed to approve during the past two regular legislative sessions.
Florida Department of Transportation officials already signed off on a deal in which the state would pay transportation behemoth CSX Inc. about $500 million for 61 miles of track and upgrades to its railyards and continue to be able to haul freight on the line that would also be used as a commuter system.
The unions accuse FDOT of refusing to negotiate with them over language in a proposed bill that would effectively prohibit union laborers from working on the construction of new projects or on the SunRail line.
Mike Williams, head of the state AFL-CIO, called the effort “government-sanctioned union busting at its very best.”
FDOT officials have not yet responded to the accusations.
SunRail has the backing of prominent GOP lawmakers, including Gov. Charlie Crist.
The session is also supposed to include a fix for the financially ailing Tri-Rail line.
Mary Call Darby Collins, the widow of one of Florida’s most beloved governors and the great granddaughter of another, died Sunday after a long illness. She was 98.
Collins was married for 59 years to the late Gov. LeRoy Collins, who led the state through the civil rights era. She was the daughter of Richard Keith Call who served two terms as governor before Florida became a state.
Collins lived in her ancestral home, “The Grove,” a historic residence adjacent to the governor’s mansion.
She gave the residence, built in the 1820s, to the state with the caveat that she could remain there until her death.
Republicans didn’t even field a candidate in 2004 or 2006 for heavily Democratic congressional District 19. But with U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, leaving the Palm Beach-Broward seat in January, no fewer than three GOP candidates say they have collected signatures to get on the ballot for the special election to replace Wexler.
Contractor Ed Lynch, who was the uncontested GOP nominee last year and polled 27.2 percent against Wexler, says he has garnered the 1,163 signatures from registered District 19 voters to qualify for the ballot. FInancial planner Joe Budd and retired police officer Curt Price, both first-time candidates, say they also have met the signature requirement.
Candidates have to turn in their signatures to elections officials for verification by 5 p.m. today.
So far the Palm Beach County elected officials going to the federal hoosegow have been white Baby Boomers. But as the county prepares to enact sweeping ethics reforms, County Commissioner Priscilla Taylor says she expects to see a more diverse group coming under scrutiny.
Amid murky and confusing reports on the stimulus and its effects, at least one jobs number is fairly concrete: Unemployment in the region increased by about 17,000 to nearly 100,000 between February and September.
Next week’s special session to prove the state’s commitment to commuter rail could go nowhere without concessions to unions.
Senate President Jeff Atwater is trying to round up support for a Central Florida commuter line by linking it to a financial fix for the flailing Tri-Rail to draw down federal money for a third project, a high-speed line linking Tampa, Orlando and Miami.
The bill’s been negotiated by House and Senate leaders and the governor’s office behind closed doors throughout the month.
But Atwater’s ability to pass the measure in the Senate could hinge on two key Democratic senators: Democratic Leader Al Lawson of Tallahassee and Tony Hill of Jacksonville.
The labor unions were part of a coalition that killed the Central Florida SunRail deal despite backing from powerful GOP lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Crist.
Now the unions are pressuring Lawson and Hill to oppose the measure that is expected to include a provision that would allow SunRail to operate without union workers and do away with some Tri-Rail union jobs.
It might be hard for Lawson and Hill to turn their backs on the unions next week.
A special session on rail issues is likely to begin in the first week of December.
Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Speaker Larry Cretul will likely call the special session “in the next few days,” according to a memos Atwater and Cretul sent to their members today.
The leaders told lawmakers to clear their schedules for Dec. 3 through Dec. 10 and that work would be completed before Hannukah begins on Dec. 11. The special session would coincide with the committee week already slated for Dec. 7.
Gov. Charlie Crist has pushed for the special session this year to take advantage of federal transportation money for state rail projects.
Lawmakers risk losing out on the funds if they wait until the regular session convenes in March to address the issues.
That special session would give them a third chance at reaching a deal on a proposed Central Florida commuter rail sytem, SunRail, and a financial fix for the flailing Tri-Rail commuter system.
Gov. Charlie Crist moved the special election to replace U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler ahead a week after Jewish voters complained the original election would have taken place during Passover.
The Jewish holiday ends on April 6, the date Crist originally picked for the special election.
“Originally, the special general election was inadvertently scheduled during Passover, and out of respect to the Jewish community, the special general election has been rescheduled to Tuesday, April 13, 2010,” Crist’s office wrote in a memo announcing the new election date.
The special primary election in the heavily Jewish Congressional District 19 will still take place on Feb. 2.
State Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, is considered the favorite to replace Wexler, who resigned to head the nonprofit Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation.
Deutch secured not only Wexler’s support but practically the entire South Florida Democratic delegation. He’s been endorsed by U.S. Reps. Ron Klein, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Alcee Hastings.
In Florida, any Republican strategy for statewide victory includes The Villages, the massive retirement community and GOP stronghold near Ocala. So one couldn’t help but wonder about the 2012 presidential sweepstakes when Sarah Palin visited The Villages today.
As the GOP’s vice presidential nominee in 2008, Sarah Palin drew tens of thousands at the retirement community. As the author and promoter of Going Rogue, Palin drew a smaller crowd today but one filled with enthusiasm.
Gov. Charlie Crist suspended suspected swindler Scott Rothstein – who raised more than $700,000 for the governor’s campaigns since 2006 – from a Judicial Nominating Commission today.
Crist replaced the disgraced lawyer with Ft. Lauderdale lawyer William Berger, not to be confused with former Palm Beach Circuit judge and former Rothstein law firm partner William Berger.
“He violated their trust in the most cold blooded, heartless way. He really does deserve to be shot like a rabid dog,” Berger said.
Rothstein agreed to permanently surrender his law license six days ago and will never practice law in Florida again.
Rothstein, a profligate political contributor, is accused of bilking investors and his law firm’s clients of up to $500 million through a Ponzi scheme.
Rothstein’s denoument led to the downfall of his prominent South Florida law firm, where Palm Beach County Commissioner Steve Abrams worked. Federal agents raided the firm, now in bankruptcy, earlier this month.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement found no evidence of wrongdoing in the exchange of BlackBerry messages between utility regulators or their staff and utility officials.
FDLE issued the three-page report today, long after Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs also found no laws had been broken.
The report was released as the Public Service Commission held a workshop to discuss a 17-year-old statewide grand jury report recommending changes to how information between the PSC and the utilities is exchanged to clear up the perception that there isn’t enough distance between the regulators and the utilities they regulate.
The PSC has operated under a cloud of suspicion since late this summer at the beginning of hearings on Florida Power & Light Co.’s proposed $1.2 billion rate hike.
On the opening day of the hearing, it was revealed that the agency’s lobbyist Ryder Rudd had attended a Kentucky Derby party at the Palm Beach Gardens home of FPL VP Ed Tancer. Rudd later quit.
Two commissioners suspended their aides for swapping BlackBerry messages with an FPL lawyer and another fired hers for giving his secret BlackBerry identification number (PIN) to an FPL lawyer.
Three of the five Public Service Commissioners were absent today at a public discussion of how to clean up their beleaguered regulatory panel.
And one of the two who did bother to attend won’t be on the panel much longer – Chairman Matthew Carter’s term is up on Dec. 31 and Gov. Charlie Crist didn’t reappoint him.
Carter scheduled the staff workshop for today – two days before Thanksgiving because the PSC has a busy schedule and it’s a work week like any other, he said.
The peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that are a staple of state prisoners’ diet aren’t just nutritionally filling.
They’re also saving money and jobs, according to the Department of Corrections.
DOC officials came to the rescue of Tampa peanut butter manufacturer Ernest Turbeville, whose business was flailing when he sent an e-mail to Gov. Charlie Crist earlier this year.
Turbeville was unsuccessful in getting DOC’s food vendor to contract with his Sunshine Peanut Company.
By the time he wrote to Crist in March, DOC had already fired its vendors and taken food service back in-house.
Turbeville said he could keep the 14 workers at the Jackonsville-based company on the job for about three weeks.
The agency signed on with Turbeville, according to a press release issued by DOC this morning, and saved the state $200,000 by buying the peanut butter from him.
Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, responsible for the state’s checkbook, is promoting her penny-pinching prowess by going paperless.
Sink, a Democrat who is running for governor, says she’s saved taxpayers at least $1 million this year with her “Going green, Saving green” campaign to reduce the amount of paper generated by her offices.
Just one portion of the tree-saving program saved 3.7 million sheets of paper by doing away with hard copies of financial data available on a secure web site.
That $22,000 savings is about 1,217 feet of paper – the equivalent of three-and-a-half Capitol buildings (345 feet high).
Sink announced the money-saving initiative at a press conference this morning and to demonstrate how deep their green is her office did not distribute press releases on paper but sent them only by e-mail.
Attorney General Bill McCollum and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink’s campaigns are one-upping each other with photos of the gubernatorial candidates grinning alongside accused mega-swindler Scott Rothstein.
First, Sink’s campaign released this pic of GOP McCollum and the disgraced South Florida lawyer.
Sink’s campaign staffers must have missed this photo of the Democratic favorite that McCollum’s campaign folks distributed to the press this morning.
But neither of the governor hopefuls’ photos is as chummy as this of current Gov. Charlie Crist, Rothstein and his wife Kim at their wedding last year.
U.S. Sen. George LeMieux ruled out a run for attorney general next year but was less definitive when asked today about challenging Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012.
Republican LeMieux was interested in the AG race before Gov. Charlie Crist appointed him to serve the final 16 months of former Sen. Mel Martinez’s Senate term. LeMieux has said he won’t run for a full Senate term next year when Crist seeks the seat.
In response to an audience question at today’s Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch, LeMieux said he can’t serve in the Senate and run for AG.
“This is the most important time in American history for Florida to have two senators. So as much as I would like to be attorney general — it’s a wonderful position, I was the deputy attorney general (when Crist was AG) — I don’t think I can do both.”
He continued: “As for 2012, the future will take care of itself. I’ve got to do the job I’m doing now and hopefully the best job I can and then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do…We’ll make whatever decisions we can for the family after my time is over.”
Where's the money? Use The Post's interactive database of who wants and who's getting federal dollars.
Use these interactive graphics to find and contact Palm Beach County and Treasure Coast legislators.
