Gov. Rick Scott said Tuesday he has little interest in a fellow Republican’s plan that guts the state’s Department of Health, while also closing Lantana’s A.G. Holley Hospital.

Even before he was sworn-in, Scott’s transition advisers gave him a blistering review of the DOH, dismissing it as a wasteful bureaucratic agency ripe for change. Legislation by Rep. Matt Hudson, R-Naples, would decentralize most of the department’s services, and give county commissions authority to run county health departments.

So far, though, the proposal looks like a no-sale with Scott.

“I’m trying to figure out what it does,” Scott said.  “Does it improve quality? Does it reduce costs? Does it improve service? If if it doesn’t do something that makes the lives of Florida’s citizens better, why would we think about doing that?

“I haven’t seen anything — the way it’s been explained to me — in the bill that does any of those things,” Scott concluded.

Several public health advocates blasted Hudson’s proposal Monday when it cleared a House subcommittee.

The measure would largely get the state out of the business of running county health departments, turning them over to county commissions to operate. State and federal dollars would be steered in block grants to county governments, based on population, which would gain more control over how the dollars are spent.

About 12,000 state Health Department jobs would be slashed, although supporters of the move said many would convert to county positions. A.G. Holley’s closure, seen as another cost-saving move, would shutter Florida’s last remaining tuberculosis hospital, most likely by January.

 

Gov. Rick Scott acknowledged Tuesday that he’s been lobbied by Florida members of Congress on the redistricting plan expected to be sent his way soon.

But the Republican governor didn’t want to mention any names.

“Oh, I don’t think anybody wants me to talk about any of those conversations,” Scott said, when asked if U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, was among those contacting him.

West last week announced that he would leave his battleground congressional district, straddling Palm Beach and Broward counties, to run this year in a proposed new district, which includes Martin and St. Lucie counties, and part of Palm Beach.

West’s decision emerged as part of a GOP three-step dance – touched off by U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, who said he’d run in a newly drawn, mostly rural and interior Florida district.

Former House majority leader Adam Hasner of Boca Raton completed the moves by announcing he was abandoning his U.S. Senate run to run in the district that West was exiting.

House and Senate redistricting leaders say they have kept their distance from members of Congress, mostly in an effort to comply with constitutional amendments approved by voters in 2010, which ban new electoral boundaries from favoring incumbents or parties.

Scott, though, said at least some in Florida’s delegation have reached out directly to the executive office. While Scott isn’ authorized to act on legislative maps, he can veto the congressional plan.

“I’ll review it when I get it,” Scott said of the congressional proposal. “I’ve had a few phone calls from some people that have had questions about it. My response is, ‘send me what your proposal is, and I’ll review it at the time.’

Senate Reapportionment Chairman Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said Scott’s contacts with unnamed members of Congress doesn’t strike him as out of line — or unconstitutional.

“Any citizen is entitled to petition their government for the redress of grievances,” Gaetz said.

Despite emotional testimony from county officials and prison employees, the House budget committee rejected a bid Wednesday to stop Gov. Rick Scott’s plan to close Jefferson Correctional Institution in rural North Florida.

The move was similar to the decision last December to close the state’s oldest lockup, Glades Correctional Institution, which similarly caused further economic upheaval in western Palm Beach County.

“This may be a 100-year event for this county,” said Rep. Leonard Bembry, D-Greenville, whose district includes the prison, told the House committee.

The Republican-led panel, however, sided with the decision by Scott and the state’s Department of Corrections, to close JCI, one of 11 lockups and work camps the administration plans to close because of a declining inmate population. Bembry sought to direct $10 million from the state’s prison privatization funding to avoid closing the facility, which is the county’s largest employer.

Close to 200 jobs will be lost — or about 6 percent of the county’s workforce. Jefferson County, which adjoins the state capital’s Leon County, has a population of 14,000. Dozens of residents packed the budget committee’s hearing room Wednesday.

“I’ve already cut the private prisons 9 percent in our budget,” said Rep. Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, chairman of the criminal justice section of the House budget panel. “If I cut them again, it would throw my budget out of whack.”

Julie Conley, Jefferson County’s economic development chief, and a former mayor, pleaded with the committee to find other areas to cut — saying there are few job prospects in her community. Conley said she understood the need to save money.

“But we ask that you do it some place that can more easily absorb the impact,” she said.

House redistricting maps slated for a vote this week put a number of incumbent Republicans in tough spots, including U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation.

But the chairman of the House Redistricting Committee, Rep. Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, fired off a statement Monday refuting lingering speculation that West was being singled out.

In both the House and Senate congressional plans, West loses a Republican-leaning section of his district in northern Palm Beach County to the seat now held by fellow Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta.

Rooney’s brother, Patrick, is a Republican state representative from West Palm Beach. The Rooney family’s ownership of  Palm Beach Kennel Club also has positioned them as political players in Tallahassee for decades.

“There are rumors that the Florida Legislature has targeted Congressman Allen West,” Weatherford said Monday. “This is patently false. I personally have supported and endorsed Allen West. I will continue to support this extraordinary member of Congress who has brought a much needed conservative voice to Washington, D.C.

“However, my personal support cannot and will not trump the Constitution,” Weatherford said, pointing out that the redistricting effort is guided by a range of state and federal standards.

West apparently doesn’t feel he’s getting the short end of the stick from state lawmakers. West’s chief of staff, Jonathan Blyth, told the Post last month his boss is taking a long view of the redistricting proposals, which may undergo further changes following eventual court reviews.

“This is the second minute of the first round of a boxing match,” Blyth said, when the House congressional maps surfaced and bore a strong resemblance to those out of the Senate.

While West loses a key piece of Palm Beach County, the redistricting plans push him deeper into Democratic-leaning Broward County.

Rooney’s district is reduced from a rambling eight counties to a more manageable four, under both the House and Senate proposals. But while still Republican-leaning, Rooney’s district doesn’t clearly favor the GOP, since it also acquires large portions of St. Lucie County that backed Barack Obama in 2008.

Palm Beach Post government reporter Jennifer Sorentrue will be live tweeting from the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office on Tuesday, Jan. 31, from late afternoon until midnight with up-to-the-minute updates.

Make sure to bookmark this page to follow the live updates and see them scrolling in the box below.

Or, if the box is temporarily not loading, simply click here to follow Jennifer (@sorentruepbp) on Twitter.

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Dozens of Palm Beach County poll workers schedule to be trained in advance of Tuesday’s presidential primary were forced move their class to another building after, election officials were told the room they were expecting to meet in would instead be used to host Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.
The Republican Jewish Coalition is scheduled to host Gingrich at 3:30 p.m. today at the South County Civic Center in Delray Beach.
The poll workers’ class was scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. in the same room, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher said.
Bucher said she was told she could move the poll worker training to smaller meeting room at the civic center, but declined fearing all of the media coverage would prevent the 62 poll workers from being able to reach the building.
Instead, Bucher has moved the class to a building across the street.

As promised, Senate budget chief JD Alexander met with more than two dozen prison workers who’d traveled to the Capitol to protest a prison privatization bill approved by his committee late Wednesday afternoon.

Alexander met with the workers after the committee approved the measure by a 14-4 vote and sent it on its way to the Senate floor to a full vote. They pleaded with him to reconsider the proposal that would privatize an 18-county region in the southern portion of the state and affect nearly 3,800 state workers, objecting that Alexander’s estimated $22 million savings are questionable because of “cherry-picking” by the private prison operators currently running seven Florida prisons.

“I don’t do this to hurt people. You all may not believe that but I don’t. I’m trying to figure out how to make all this stuff work,” said Alexander, R-Lake Wales, overseeing his chamber’s version of the state’s nearly $69 billion spending plan.

Private prison guards also do not have to undergo the same training as workers at the state-run prisons, union leaders representing the prison workers said.

The emotionally-charged meeting took place in a large conference room manned by the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Donald Severance and at least two of his aides. Alexander remained calm throughout the 45-minute meeting as the workers tried to persuade him with comparisons about per diem rates and then anecdotes about the fear they have about losing their jobs.

“The privatization has added stress on us,” Martin Correctional Institutional guard Sarah Babineaux said. “I lay awake at night…just thinking about what am I going to do.”

Babineaux has two children and custody of two nieces, she said, one of whom is a 17-year-old senior looking for a high school ring. “And I don’t know where to purchase it, what county, what high school.”

Private prisons cost less because they are able to “cherry-pick” inmates that are cheaper to supervise, the workers said. Alexander said he believed the inmates have been assigned appropriately and later said he would look into the issue.

“I don’t work for anybody but the people of Florida. You might believe that but I don’t. I’m not running for anything. I’m not ever going to work for these folks. I haven’t raised money in years. I have no interest in making money. I have an interest in trying to make a budget work,” Alexander told the group, led by Teamsters lobbyist Ron Silver, a former state lawmaker. “Everything…is to get as clean and unfudgeable a set of contracts as possible because I don’t believe we should contract for one and give them easier stuff. If that’s what they contract for, that’s what they get.”

An effort to move the date of Florida’s August primary is drawing mixed reviews among lawmakers and elections officials.

Citing concerns and questions, Senate Ethics & Elections Committee Chairman Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, postponed action by a subcommittee Monday on his bill (SB 1596) that would postpone the primary a week, from its scheduled Aug. 14, to Aug. 21.

Diaz de la Portilla said the proposed later date, which would also delay candidate qualifying a week until June 11-15, is aimed at giving those running in redistricted House, Senate and congressional districts more time to decide their political candidacies.

But the delay causes a host of other problems, according to some elections supervisors. Ron Labasky, lobbyist for the Florida Association of Supervisors of Election, said 22 of the 67 supervisors opposed the move — with some saying it could force them to rework contracts for polling places or cause personnel problems.

In Hillsborough County, elections officials have balked because the delay would push the primary election close to the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Security for the convention is expected to cause wide-ranging traffic problems in the city’s downtown area, Labasky told the committee.

Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher is among those opposing the primary delay, saying she’s having enough trouble educating voters on new laws, new districts and revised requirements without throwing in a date change.

 

Former state Sen. Dave Aronberg — a Greenacres Democrat — looks poised to become the first candidate to jump into the race to succeed outgoing Palm Beach County State Attorney Michael McAuliffe.

Aronberg has scheduled a West Palm Beach news conference Thursday at the county’s historic courthouse, where he expected to announce his candidacy.

“It’s an exciting time,” Aronberg told the Post. “It shows you that even when you lose a race and it looks like a door has closed, it can be a new beginning.”

Aronberg has been working as an assistant statewide prosecutorl for Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Republican, since December 2010. Aronberg, who earns $92,000-a-year,  is based in Palm Beach County and oversees efforts to combat prescription fraud and abuse.

 Aronberg, who served eight years in the Senate, lost a 2010 bid for the Democratic nomination for attorney general. While in the Senate, he had pushed for creation of the prescription drug database that is now a central part of the state’s efforts to crack down on so-called pill mills, which have proliferated across South Florida.

“No matter what job I’m in, I’m not changing my focus,” said Aronberg. “It’s always going to be about public safety and fighting prescription fraud.”

McAuliffe surprised local officials Tuesday when he announced he would not seek re-election, instead taking a job with the energy company Oxbow Carbon. Aronberg had been mulling a Democratic primary challenge to McAuliffe, but now appears set to be the first candidate running for the open seat.

Aronberg, 40, has said he had considered running for state attorney several years ago, when longtime state attorney Barry Krischer announced he would not seek another term in 2008. But by then, Krischer had positioned McAuliffe to run as his successor.

Aronberg, who earned his undergraduate and law degrees at Harvard, grew up in South Florida. He formerly worked as a special assistant in the U.S. Treasury Department and as an assistant attorney general.

Gov. Rick Scott said this morning he wants lawmakers to outlaw Internet cafés rather than regulate them as Senate leaders are proposing.

“I don’t believe that the Internet locations are legal or should be legal,” Scott told reporters this morning. “It’s an area that I think doesn’t make sense. I don’t believe in it.”

A House committee passed a measure banning the “casinos on the corner” yesterday but the Senate appears to favor a proposal that would regulate the cafés which operate as “sweepstakes.” Customers pay for Internet time, which they can use to browse the Web or play the games in which computer time or credit is won. Critics say the games are highly addictive and prey on the poor.

Palm Beach County commissioners recently issued a moratorium blocking any new cafes from opening in unincorporated areas.

Scott rejected suggestions that the games are not as bad as the Lottery. Scott’s administration wants the Lottery to sell more tickets this year to help pay for public schools. Scott said the state authorized the Lottery years ago.

“It generates money for our schools. We’re not going to change that,” he said.

A measure banning Internet cafes in Florida cleared its first hurdle in the Florida House over the objections of two Palm Beach County Democrats and setting up a stand-off with the Senate that wants to regulate the “casinos on the corner.”

Lawmakers need to shutter the cafes because they prey on the poor and elderly and are highly addictive, said bill sponsor Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood.

Plakon also cited reports showing that welfare recipients are using state-issued debit cards to at ATMs at the facilities to underwrite their gambling habit.

Lawmakers can pass his bill (HB 3), do nothing or regulate the facilities, which could cost the state $200 million a year by invalidating a deal Florida has with the Seminole Indians, Plakon said.

“The regulation bill would be the effect of us authorizing 1,000 gambling locations in this state,” Plakon said.

To help persuade the Business and Consumer Affairs Committee to support his bill, Plakon pointed to a San Francisco newspaper that pilloried Florida lawmakers for failing to shut down the cafes.

“This is San Francisco laughing at us,” Plakon said. “San Francisco, mind you members, is laughing at us.”

Cafe customers purchase Internet time, which they can use to browse the Web or play free “sweepstakes” games, in which computer credit or time is won. Those credits can be redeemed for cash.

Palm Beach County commissioners recently issued a moratorium blocking any new cafes from opening in unincorporated areas.
Industry backers say shutting the cafes down would put thousands of workers in the unemployment line.

“What strikes me is the jobs. It seems like some funny, fuzzy math but there are thousands, possibly tens of thousands of jobs at risk,” said Rep. Joe Abruzzo, D-Wellington, on the losing side of a 10-5 vote.

Rep. Mack Bernard, D-West Palm Beach, voted against the measure but said he was troubled by the bill needed more information about the ability the use of welfare money at the cafes.

“This is one of the sickest votes I’ve taken since I’ve been here,” Bernard said.

State regulators won’t give a Panhandle horsetrack permission to have slot machines without legislative approval or changes to the state constitution based on an opinion issued by Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday.

Her non-binding opinion also puts in doubt a local bill Palm Beach County and the Palm Beach County Kennel Club are seeking to get slots approved at the dog track. A referendum on the slots will go before county voters in November.

Bondi issued the opinion in response to a question from state gambling regulators regarding Creek Entertainment Gretna racetrack in Gadsden County. Voters there and in Washington County will decide on Jan. 31 whether they want to allow their local pari-mutuels to offer slots, something the Gretna owners are banking on.

But Bondi said the referenda would only be valid if they are first authorized by the Legislature or in the state Constitution, and Department of Business and Professional Regulation officials said they would comply with her opinion.

Lawyers for PBKC and the Gretna track rejected Bondi’s opinion, accusing her of being biased against the slot machines and promising that the courts will ultimately decide on the issue.

“This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that an Attorney General has opined, for political issues, on a gambling issue outside of their authority,” attorney Marc Dunbar, one of the owners of the Gretna track, said in a statement. “Fortunately the Supreme Court has ruled on many occasions that these advisory opinions have no binding affect and more times than not are eventually rejected by Florida courts. I look forward to meeting her in court where law, not politics, will ultimately decide the issue.”

Gov. Rick Scott followed through Thursday on his plan to take a fresh tough look at some of Florida’s oldest governments — the 1,600 special districts that command $15.5 billion in taxpayer money.

The Post reported last month that Scott was planning to sign the executive order, setting in motion a review of the districts by his Office of Policy and Budget. The analysis will gauge whether districts are serving the purpose they were formed to meet, spending taxpayer money prudently, and operating transparently.

Palm Beach County, with 94 special districts, has among the most in the state. Special districts trace their roots to pioneer days in Florida, and provide environmental, health care, fire control, port, community development, and urban renewal services.

Florida’s five water management districts and more than 30 hospital districts are exempt from the review — since they have already undergone similar scrutiny.

Scott’s first foray into special districts came when he signed into law legislation that reduced property-tax revenue by $210 million at Florida’s water management districts. The South Florida Water Management District, the state’s largest, took the biggest financial hit, which also cost almost 400 employees their jobs.

“Floridians have a right to know what they’re being taxed for and how that money is spent,” Scott said. “This review will bring to light these questions and allow us to identify ways to save taxpayers money and increase accountability.”

Officials at special districts anticipated Scott’s move — which he has been hinting at since last summer, when he expressed “shock” at the amount of dollars that are controlled by Florida’s districts.

 “Central to the discussions that will take place throughout the review should be that Special Districts are created upon public demand, and help Floridians when local or state governments were either unable or unwilling to provide crucial services or infrastructure to a community,” said Clete Saunier, president of the Florida Association of Special Districts.

“As the review gets underway, we look forward to working closely with the governor and his team to show Floridians how their tax dollars are being put to good use every day,” he added.

A dozen Palm Beach County leaders huddled Wednesday with Rick Scott, lobbying the state’s chief executive on Tri-Rail, Medicaid spending and efforts to boost the troubled Glades economy.

County Commissioner Steve Abrams, and vice-chairman of the Tri-Rail board, effectively asked the governor to leave the commuter rail alone. The Florida Department of Transportation has floated the idea of turning operation of the money-losing rail line over to a public-private partnership.

“I think the best solution is to have local control,” Abrams said, during a 20-minute meeting between county officials and Scott and Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll.

Abrams, who said he’s a daily rider on Tri-Rail, also invited Scott to join him on his commute between Boca Raton and West Palm Beach.

Scott didn’t exactly agree, but he did ask, “Would they really let me run a train?”

For his part, Abrams, a lawyer, steered clear of promising to put Scott behind the wheel.

Margie Walden, executive vice-president of the Alliance of Delray Residential Associations, urged Scott to rethink the Legislature’s move last spring to seek federal approval for putting Florida’s 2.7 million Medicaid recipients into managed care programs. A five-county, HMO pilot program has been in place since 2006 in Broward and four other counties with mixed results, Waldren pointed out.

Walden said feared the move could hurt “super-seniors,” which she said are those over the age of 85 — a population that represents many of those who moved to south Palm Beach County as retirees in the 1980s, and have grown old there.

“We have very deep concerns,” Walden said.

Scott, though, didn’t sound likely to back away from the Medicaid rewrite — which still is awaiting approval from the Obama administration. Cost of the program, which is shared with the federal government, will absorb close to one-third of the $66.4 billion budget Scott has recommended for next year.

“The problem we have with Medicaid is that there just isn’t enough state money,” Scott said.

Shannon LaRocque, an assistant county administrator, also urged Scott to consider what the state could do to spur the economy in such communities as Belle Glade and Pahokee. Both communities are plagued by high unemployment — worsened by Scott’s closing last year of Glades Correctional Institution, the state’s oldest prison.

The development of a new, inland port on Lake Okeechobee remains a goal of county officials — although it hasn’t gotten much beyond the blueprint level.

“It’s going to bring great hope for jobs in that area,” LaRocque said.

 

Trying to fix what they call a glitch in a state gun law that went into effect in October, two Delray Beach Democrats are pushing a measure that would make it illegal to bring firearms into child care centers and public buildings.

Sen. Maria Sachs and Rep. Lori Berman filed bills that would change a new law approved by the legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Scott that went into effect in October. The new law, which includes civil penalties and removal from office for local officials who ignore it, forced state agencies, municipalities and counties such as Palm Beach to scrap hundreds of measures dealing with guns.

After the law went into effect, state police were also forced to reverse their policy and allow firearms to be brought into the Capitol although weapons are still barred from legislative committee meetings. The same law applies to local government meetings – guns are permitted in the building but not where officials are publicly gathered.

“The same rule should apply to the building where the meeting is taking place,” Berman said.

Under the new law, people are allowed to bring guns into child care centers but are still barred from bringing them into public schools or college and university campuses.

“If you’re not allowed to carry a gun into a school where children are five years old, I’m sure the law should extend to those who are four, or three or two,” Sachs, a former prosecutor, said. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

The Palm Beach County Commission, which unanimously voted to support the bills (SB 1340, HB 1087), last month filed a lawsuit against Scott and others over the law, arguing that it is unconstitutional and that the sanctions “are simply a form of political bullying that serves no governmental purpose” and have a “chilling effect.”

Commissioner Shelley Vana, a former state representative, stood beside Berman and Sachs at a press conference announcing the proposals this morning.

She said their effort will make Floridians, especially children, safer and called it “another major step in rectifying a tremendous wrong and helping local governments keep their citizens safe.”

The measures are unlikely to gain traction in the GOP-dominated legislature, especially in an election year. The National Rifle Association pushed the new law last year.

But Sachs said the issue is one of public safety, not partisanship.

“I know Palm Beach is a pretty progressive county…but I know that every other county will follow us,” she said.

Just as the Senate last week revamped its proposed redistricting maps, the House also introduced 11 proposed changes Wednesday night to the dozen House and congressional district proposals it unveiled in November

The amendments include changes to all seven of the proposed congressional maps; and four of the five redrawn boundaries for the state House.

A noon deadline Wednesday had loomed for filing amendments, which are scheduled to go before the House redistricting subcommittees Monday — the day before the 2012 legislative session opens.

The amendments aren’t dramatic changes to maps already floated.

In the congressional plans, House redistricting staff said the changes are designed largely to keep municipalities whole. In Palm Beach County, districts touching Glen Ridge, Palm Beach Gardens and North Palm Beach are adjusted to let residents of each of these communities vote for the same member of Congress.

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham has sent out an end-of-year call from the newly created Florida Conservation Coalition, urging environmental activists to buttonhole their legislators before the Jan. 10 session begins.

The coalition was unveiled last month, with plans to lobby Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-led Legislature to revive state funding for water quality programs, the Florida Forever land-buying program and Everglades restoration, which supporters say have been staggered by budget cuts since 2007.

In his email blast to activists, Graham condemns last spring’s policy changes and spending reductions.

“In three short months of 2011, the Governor and Legislature set Florida’s once proud conservation laws and programs back four decades. In so doing they have handed us a very heavy lift. But what choices do we have? We surrender, or we fight back,”  Graham said.

He concluded, “Our immediate job is to convince the Legislature that they went too far and must correct and reverse its misguided actions of 2011.”

The coalition includes Audubon of Florida, 1000 Friends of Florida, the Nature Conservancy, Florida Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, Trust for Public Land and League of Women Voters.

 

Lake Worth Democratic Rep. Jeff Clemens said Wednesday that he will run for state Senate next year — likely in a central Palm Beach County district he expects to be created in once-a-decade redistricting.

Clemens, a former Lake Worth mayor elected to the House last year, has seen the voters in his current district fragmented into as many as four proposed House seats under maps drawn by that chamber. Clemens loses a sizable chunk of his district to a proposed Hispanic-oriented seat that all five of the House proposals would create in the Palm Springs-Lake Worth area.

Although the Senate’s own plan for redrawing itself does not include the central Palm Beach County Senate district in which Clemens envisions running, the lawmaker said he thinks final maps will.

“I believe these maps that have been produced are unconstitutional and that subsequent amendments and court proceedings will change them dramatically,” Clemens said. “If the final maps create a Senate district largely east of (Florida’s) Turnpike in central Palm Beach County, I intend to run for the Senate.”

The Senate’s sole redistricting plan so far actually reduces from six to five the number of Senate districts that course through Palm Beach County.  But it does turn District 34, a Broward-Miami-Dade County district held by term-limited Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston into a Palm Beach County-dominated seat.

Rep. Joe Abruzzo, D-Wellington, is looking to run in that seat — if it endures.

“I have no intention of running against Joe Abruzzo,” Clemens said Wednesday.

Instead, Clemens expects either the Legislature — or the courts, under expected challenges — to draw the district where he plans to be a candidate next fall.

“Obviously, there are a lot of if’s to this,” Clemens said.

A pair of Palm Beach County Democrats are teaming with a Central Florida Republican senator to sponsor legislation aimed at teaching school children about the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Reps. Lori Berman of Delray Beach and Joe Abruzzo of Wellington are sponsoring the measure (HB 1027) requiring that Florida schools provide instruction on events surrounding the attacks and their longer-term impact on the nation. Sen. Thad Altman, R-Viera, plans to sponsor the proposal in the Senate.

“The best defense of our nation is through the education of our children. We must teach the history of 9/11 to avoid a recurrence of these tragic events,” Abruzzo said.

Berman said events leading up to and unspooling after that day are a key part of the nation’s history. She likened the need for school children — who were infants, or born after the attacks — to understand the day’s meaning, the way others recall Pearl Harbor, 70 years after that attack.

“It is vital that our students, representing the next generation, understand the meaning of what transpired,” Berman said.

With Gov. Rick Scott emerging for many environmentalists as a surprising defender of Everglades restoration, one of the issue’s biggest advocates is taking its case to the state Capitol next month.

The Everglades Foundation announced Monday that it will host a two-day water supply summit in Tallahassee, Jan. 17-18, hosted by NBC News’ Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd.

 The state capital summit comes on the heels of last year’s America’s Everglades Summit in Washington, D.C. That huddle featured state and federal leaders, supporters of the Everglades, and had former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw hosting a discussion on the challenges facing Everglades restoration.

 ”Anytime you can bring together people who care deeply about Florida’s economy, the Everglades and the future of our water supply, you create an opportunity to find answers that will work,” said Paul Tudor Jones, the hedge fund millionaire and Everglades Foundation chairman.

Scott proposed spending $40 million for Everglades clean-up work in the budget proposal released last week.  The money would be steered toward the effort Scott unveiled in October plans to build reservoirs, unblock flow ways, control seepage and expand man-made wetlands by 2022.

The governor’s proposal stretches the already stalled clean-up plan another two years. But it was designed to answer federal environmental officials critical of the state’s slow action on the project, which once was scheduled to be completed by 2006.