House Speaker Larry Cretul reversed his position on a measure that would make 911 calls exempt from public records.

Cretul, R-Ocala, had pushed the bill at the behest of Florida Farm Bureau President John Hoblick, whose organization contributed $30,000 to the Republican Party of Florida over the past two years. Hoblick was incensed about a 911 call aired after his son died after a night of drinking and using prescription pills.

“The issue of broadcasters using taped calls of desperate citizens seeking help from 911 remains a very important one. I’ve listened to many people on this matter, both pro and con, read news articles, correspondence, and editorials. There’s no question that the broadcasts provoke strong feelings. For now, it’s best to take a breather, turn our attention to the bill to improve 911 service in Florida—an equally important measure. I don’t think we need to move forward on the 911 tapes bill at this time,” Cretul said in a statement provided by his spokeswoman Jill Chamberlain.

The proposal outraged First Amendment advocates and some crime victims, including the family of Denise Amber Lee, who was murdered after the botched handling of a 911 call in Charlotte County, who want the tapes to remain available because they hold emergency dispatchers and law enforcement agencies accountable and because they are used to train dispatchers.

Denise Amber Lee’s family is backing a measure that would make Florida require training and certification of 911 dispatchers.

Chamberlain did not know whether the House sponsor Rep. Rob Schenck, R-Spring Hill, would pull the bill from his committee where it is scheduled to be heard later this week.

Thanksgiving Day shootings, Deerfield teen set on fire: Listen to more recent high-profile 911 calls


Take the Poll: Should 911 calls be kept off the air?

Denise Amber Lee’s six-minute 911 call that helped convict her killer is among the most notorious examples of 911 calls gone wrong, the calls that are now in House Speaker Larry Cretul’s crosshairs as he tries to create a public records exemptions for them.

Her husband Nathan Lee sent an e-mail to the sponsor of Cretul’s bill, House Government Accountability Policy Council Chairman Rob Schenk, pleading with the committee to shoot down the measure that would make 911 call recordings secret except for transcripts that could be available after 60 days. Lee also asked that his message be read at Schenk’s committee hearing the bill (PCB GAP 10-03) before it was voted on this morning.

Schenk made no reference to Lee’s message and did not read it before the measure passed by an 8-5 vote. And Cretul, who used a procedural maneuver to ensure the bill passed, never read it at all. He said he received it last night. Public records show that Cretul, his spokeswoman Jill Chamberlin and Schenk received it around 3:30 p.m. yesterday.

“I haven’t read the e-mail. I’m sure that he makes some excellent points,” Cretul, R-Ocala, said shortly before the House began session at 1 p.m.

Nathan Lee and his parents are pushing a separate 911 bill that would require uniform training standards for 911 dispatchers throughout the state. His wife was killed despite five 911 calls made in two counties, including one from a witness whose call was ignored.

Lee’s e-mail uses the botched handling of the eyewitness’ emergency call made on the day his wife was killed in 2008 to demonstrate why the calls should be available to the public.

“She provided the exact location of this event and even though there were, by all accounts, 4 police cars within a mile of this call, it was never dispatched. This call was, obviously, grossly mishandled and would have resulted in the saving of Denise’s life. Two days after this call, she was found in a grave, naked and with a single gunshot wound to the head. This call was hidden from the public and myself. And even hidden from the police department who was actively investigating the case and searching for my wife for two days. The subsequent internal affairs investigation shows the communication center and agency who took this crucial call were immediately aware that the call was about Denise. The call was suppressed. Had the eyewitness not contacted the North Port Police Department we may never have known about her call. And the prosecution would have lost the last eyewitness to see my wife alive,” Lee wrote.

Cretul said he supports the training and certification bill.

“But my whole interest in this issue has been watching what it also does to families and what it does to people that call in. They become suddenly out there for all the world to see,” Cretul said in an interview. “This is a very tough, very difficult issue. Very sensitive in all respects.”

Read the entire text of Nathan Lee’s message after the jump.
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A bill that’s one of House Speaker Larry Cretul’s priorities that would make 911 call tapes secret is on the fast-track in his chamber but lacks a Senate sponsor.

Cretul is pushing the measure on behalf of Florida Farm Bureau President John Hoblick, whose 16-year-old son died from a lethal combination of alcohol and illegal prescription drugs. Hoblick, out of town when his son Jake died, heard his older son John’s 911 call on the news.

House staff and the bill sponsor Rep. Rob Schenk, R-Spring Hill, kept the Speaker’s blessing of the bill hush-hush until this week when Cretul told a St. Petersburg Times reporter that Hoblick asked him to do something about the 911 calls.

Cretul used a seldom-used procedural maneuver today to guarantee that the measure (PCB GAP 10-03) passed. He temporarily assigned one of his lieutenants, House Speaker Pro Tem Ron Reagan, R-Bradenton, to the committee. Cretul didn’t need the insurance, however; the Government Policy Accountability Council approved it with an 8-5 vote.

Despite the Speaker’s clout in the House, the bill lacks a Senate sponsor.

Sen. Garrett Richter had originally agreed to run a companion for Schenk. But an open government shell bill he had sponsored that could have been used for Schenk’s bill was designated to be heard in the Banking and Insurance Committee, which has nothing to do with the 911 calls, he said. Richter backed off the bill even before controversy surrounding it - some victims and First Amendment lawyers staunchly oppose it - began this week. The Naples Republican said he won’t sponsor the measure.

A controversial measure making 911 call tapes secret passed its first test this morning over the objections of Democrats and civil rights advocates.

The measure (PCB GAP 10-3) is the brainchild of House Speaker Larry Cretul and appears on the fast-track in his chamber although Senate support appears limited.

The purpose of the bill is to spare victims of tragedies from reliving their traumas when frantic 911 calls are repeatedly broadcast on television or blogs, argued bill sponsor Rep. Rob Schenk, chairman of the Govermental Affairs Policy Committee that passed the bill with an 8-5 vote this morning.

The tapes would only be available to those who make the calls but others would have to go to court to get them. Transcripts of the tapes would be available after 60 days.

But Rep. Rick Kriseman, a St. Petersburg Democrat, objected that the transcripts are not available to the victims of the 911 calls unless they made the calls themselves.

Kriseman, a lawyer, also said automobile manufacturer Toyota may not have responded to quickly to runaway cars without the 911 tapes.

“Had it not been for the recording, the pressure that’s now being put on Toyota would not have happened. Because it was through that recording that we learned about the problem with the gas pedals and all the other associated problems. That’s a protection that we’re losing by putting this in place,” Kriseman said.

But Schenk argued that the bill is necessary to protect victims.

“It’s not about Tiger Woods and what did or did not happen on Thanksgiving with him. It’s not about any other celebrity. It is simply about when someone makes a 911 call they are generally in one of the most vulnerable states they will ever be in in their life. There is a tragedy. There is an emergency. There is something traumatic happening at that very moment. I’ll tell you just from personal experience I’ve had to make a 911 call. The events that happened during that time I will never forget. Quite frankly, I would not want to relieve that over and over again watching on TV or reading about it in the media,” Schenk said.

“That’s what this bill is about. It’s not about any celebrity. It’s not about any sensational news story you read about. It is purely about taking into consideration victims who make a 911 call, guarding them from the fact that reliving that event over and over again that was already traumatic to them.”

Schenk later refused to elaborate on the nature of his 911 call.

With Florida suffering from its highest unemployment in three decades, pumping life into the state’s dismal job market is at the top of almost every lawmaker’s to-do list this year.

“It’s been an economic tsunami,” Gov. Charlie Crist said of the collapsing housing market and spiraling unemployment that has slashed Florida’s tax collections by 17 percent since he took office three years ago.

Crist, like his fellow Republicans in charge of the state Senate and House, will largely look to tax cuts and incentives to spark job creation as the legislature begins its annual spring session Tuesday day.

Story here.

While former House Speaker Ray Sansom gets grilled on Monday over accusations that he wielded his influence in many improper ways, current House Republican leaders will be strolling the Bermuda grass of the Palmer Legends Country Club in The Villages.

House Speaker Larry Cretul and designated future speakers Dean Cannon and Will Weatherford are hosting a Republican fundraiser at the Arnold Palmer-designed course on Monday and Tuesday.

House Speaker Larry Cretul’s offer to black lawmakers who will miss the first two days of the special session because of a conference they are attending is not a compromise, his spokeswoman Jill Chamberlain said.

And if there was any doubt, Cretul made it clear at a press conference this afternoon that the lawmakers should be in Tallahassee as they are constitutionally required.

“I’ve been doing this a long time, both at the local level and now for the past seven years at the state level.
This job comes with a lot of demands and a lot of requirements. And oftentimes some inconvenience, an inconvenience on both a personal level and a professional level,” Cretul, R-Ocala, said. “It’s just part of the job. Any time that you’re elected or have a role of responsibility you have to keep in focus just what the duties of the responsibility are…It is our job as being part of the Florida Legislature. It is our job not only constitutionally but personally to be sure that we don’t inconvenience and neglect what we’re here for.”

The black members are hosting the National Black Caucus of State Legislators’ annual conference in Ft. Lauderdale, an event that began today and lasts through Saturday. Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, is chairing the gala which was two years in the planning.

Cretul said he’s letting two members participate in a committee meeting tomorrow by telephone and will hold a briefing late Sunday or early Monday for any members who want to attend.

And he’ll allow them to file amendments on the floor.

But Cretul already had planned the briefing and would have allowed the floor amendments anyway, Chamberlain said, even before House Democrats began demanding that the session be delayed until Monday to accommodate the black caucus.

Cretul insisted time constraints determined that the session would have to begin tomorrow and end by next Friday.

House Speaker Larry Cretul offered a compromise of sorts with black lawmakers after refusing to delay the special session to accommodate a scheduling conflict.

The black members are hosting the National Black Caucus of State Legislators’ annual conference in Ft. Lauderdale, an event that began today. Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, is chairing the gala which was two years in the planning.
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House Democrats asked Cretul repeatedly to postpone the session, which begins Thursday and lasts through next Friday, until the conference ends this weekend.

He turned them down saying that he had promised Senate President Jeff Atwater the House would send a bill over to the Senate by Monday afternoon.

Now, Cretul is having a briefing session for the black lawmakers - all but one of whom are Democrats - next week and will allow them to offer amendments to the bill on second and third reading.

“They weren’t backing down. We weren’t backing down. So this avoided a confrontation,” said Rep. Joe Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach, who is attending the conference.
But, he added: “We’re not happy with it.”

He said it was disrespectful of GOP legislative leaders to schedule the special session during the time when they knew the conference was taking place.

Cretul and Atwater have offered excused absences for black lawmakers who are at the event.

“We would be totally embarrassed, nationally, by not being here. We have people from the White House here, from Congress here, from all over the nation,” Gibbons said. “It would be like we invite them to dinner at our house and then we’re not going to be home.”

Democrats in the House, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and black state lawmakers are asking legislative leaders to put the brakes on a special session on rail until Monday to accommodate the black lawmakers’ national conference being held this week in Ft. Lauderdale.

Many of the state’s black House and Senate members will be at the event as hosts of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators’ annual conference. The conference has been in the works for two years and many members have already plunked down the cash to attend the fete that runs from Wednesday through Saturday.

Too bad, House Speaker Larry Cretul wrote in a memo today sent to all House members.

He said the black lawmakers - all but one of whom are Democrats - can get an excused absence but that’s about it.

“We all share the burdens of public office, which can be especially frustrating during this season. However, it is our duty to assemble when the needs of our state require it. I am confident that this Session is important to Florida. The issue before us means jobs for Floridians and building part of our state’s transportation future. I appreciate your willingness to undertake these important duties,” Cretul, R-Ocala, wrote.

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The third time may be the charm for the controversial Central Florida commuter rail project called SunRail.

A special session dealing with SunRail and South Florida’s ailing Tri-Rail system will begin Thursday at 9 a.m.

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.

PDF: Summary of proposed statewide rail transit legislation

House Speaker Larry Cretul asked federal officials to intervene in gambling talks between Florida and the Seminoles, saying negotiations “are at an impasse.”

Cretul wrote a letter today to National Indian Gaming Commission Chairman George Skibine, who met with the speaker and the House’s chief gambling negotiator Bill Galvano yesterday, asking the feds to fine the Indians or shut them down.

Crist this week said he wanted lawmakers to address the gambling compact in a special session in December.

Cretul’s letter indicates that’s not going to happen.

The Florida Supreme Court last year tossed an agreement signed by Gov. Charlie Crist and the Seminoles and lawmakers this year failed to pass a revised version of the pact.

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.
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Gov. Charlie Crist helps cut the ribbon at the Waldorf Astoria Orlando this month at Walt Disney World. (AP)

Republican Gov. Charlie Crist released a memo Tuesday showing he approached Republican leaders in the legislature, including Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, before approving $20 million in cash incentives for a Port St. Lucie animation company.

Crist did not have to brief the leaders, but the governor said he was uncomfortable with the legislature’s decision in the frantic final days of the lawmaking session this year to remove the few restrictions on the state fund that provides economic incentives to private businesses.

“I regretted that,” Crist said of removing oversight. “It’s important to have both branches involved.”

Rest of the story here.

Read his memo to Atwater and House Speaker Larry Cretul here.

The press release from Wyndcrest/Digital Domain, the company that received $20 million in incentives, here. And the memo from Port St. Lucie attorney Roger Orr regarding the company’s potential land is here.

And even more background on the issue here.

UPDATE: Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, has also notified his chamber that local projects will not be included in the state budget. Atwater said the decision was due to “the continuing fiscal challenges our state is facing and our need to focus efforts on solutions to balance the state’s budget.” “I look forward to working together with you in seizing the opportunities and tackling the great challenges that lie ahead.”

It’s third year in a row members have been told they cannot request money for local projects because of the meager tax collections.

“We again hope to avoid creating unrealistic funding expectations in our communities given the continuing decline in expected state revenues,” state House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, wrote in a memo this morning.

Read the memo here.

Fear not, bookworms.

House budget negotiators raided nearly $13 million from transportation spending to keep money flowing to county and local libraries.

That would bring the total for county and local libraries back to $21 million if the Senate signs off as expected at the next horse-trading session at 8 p.m.

Without it, the libraries would lose about $8 million in matching federal aid.

Palm Beach County would have to fire librarians and scale back on new books and other materials if the cut stays, county officials say.

Money for libraries is one of the budget issues unresolved that House and Senate budget chiefs are negotiating until noon tomorrow.

After that, House Speaker Larry Cretul and Senate President Jeff Atwater take over.
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Lawmakers have yet to cut a deal on gambling proposals affecting the Seminole tribe’s casinos, dog and horse tracks and education spending.

No money from changes to the gambling compact with the Seminoles is yet included in the budget, Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander said this afternoon.

“We agreed to put it in conference and let the conferees figure it out,” Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said.

Money from a potential gambling compact would be added into the budget if the conference committee reaches agreement.

Other details in the preliminary budget agreement:
- $30 million total cuts to state worker salaries. The House had wanted a sliding scale of up to 7 percent for all workers; the Senate would have hit employees making more than $100,000 with a 1 percent cut. The Senate wants a graduated scale starting with employees who make $65,000 or more. Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Speaker Larry Cretul will ultimately decide what happens there.

- $110 million cut to universities. The Senate’s budget maintained spending at last year’s levels; the House had wanted about $260 million in cuts. Alexander said the agreed-upon amount would be more than covered by the $125 million in the budget from an 8 percent tuition hike included in the budget and the differential that would allow universities to raise tuition up to 15 percent per year until it reaches the national average.

- $400 million raid on trust funds, including $100 million from road projects. That’s $300 million less than the House sought from the transportation trust fund.

- The Senate agreed to the House’s $800 million hike in fees, but tag fees won’t be included. The Senate budget originally had about $500 million in fee increases.

- $1.7 billion in working capital and reserves, depending on how much the gambling agreement brings in.

- Buck-a-pack cigarette tax and $1 an ounce tax on loose tobacco but cigars will likely come out of that.

Budget negotiations should be more open, Senate President Jeff Atwater said this morning.

Atwater said that the Senate rules governing which talks should be public and when that should happen might need to be changed to at least give the appearance of openness.

“It’s necessary,” the North Palm Beach Republican told reporters after a briefing with the Senate Democratic caucus. “It’s important for us to be as open as we can in this process.”

Atwater held a meeting with Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, Sen. Mike Haridopolos and Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson this weekend inside the Capitol.

Meetings between three or more senators are required to be noticed and open to the public. The Capitol was locked over the weekend.

Atwater said the meeting was unplanned and the group happened to be in the Capitol at the same time and that he ran into Lawson after the Democrat grabbed some ice cream in the Senate member lounge.

Budget leaders have yet to order a public conference committee to begin hashing out their differences.

But throughout the week, House and Senate leaders have traded written budget offers dealing with “allocations,” or how much revenue they will have to spend. The back-and-forth proposals have included high-level proposals in which the House agreed to a cigarette tax, a measure which was never heard in committee.

The longer the behind-closed-doors negotiations drag on, the more questions are being raised about the lack of transparency in crafting the state’s $65 billion budget.

A grand jury last week condemned the budgetary process, saying it was not open enough and gave powerful lawmakers the ability to sneak items into the budget with little or no oversight. That grand jury indicted former House Speaker Ray Sansom for putting money for an airport hangar into the budget during a private meeting with his Senate counterpart when he was the House budget chairman.

“Part of the concerns that have been raised is that people think we’re running a parallel side-by-side track, that I might just be having conversations on allocations when someone else is actually getting into specific line items and trading bills.
That’s not going on. The longer that thins has gone on the greater that perception may be created that people think that’s actually taking place and it’s not,” Atwater said.

“If it would be helpful that the allocation process could be more open I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” he said.

He said that his conversations with House Speaker Larry Cretul about the cigarette tax were not “in any way some kind of mysterious kind of conversation.”

“I think everyone in Florida knows we’ve been discussing the tobacco surcharge,” Atwater said.

Lawmakers can’t complete their business on the budget before the session is slated to end next Friday, Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson said this morning at a caucus meeting.

“It’ll be probably almost impossible for us to get out of here really next week,” Lawson, D-Tallahassee, said. “It looks very doubtful that we are going to be able to do that.”

Lawson based his prediction on a conversation with Senate President Jeff Atwater late last evening, he said.

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Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, said the state House would consider the Senate’s cigarette tax hike and gambling package as a way to boost slumping state tax collections, if Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, would accept about $500 million in budget cuts from the House.

Listen to Cretul’s message here.

The message is significant, because the House has refused to discuss tax increases this year.

But Cretul said he doesn’t want to approve a budget that will lead to future shortfalls. The current Senate budget, he said, would hand lawmakers a $2 billion shortfall in 2011.

“The availability of stimulus dollars will begin to decline and the state’s budget deficit will once against expand,” Cretul said. “We need to look at the state budget from a three year perspective.”

Senate and House lawmakers still have not met in formal budget negotiations, which were scheduled to start Saturday. Before the two chambers can meet, Cretul and Atwater must agree to a set dollar amount for the budget. Only then can conference committees meet to hash out how the money will be spent.

Or, in the House’s case, not spent.

Lawmakers have until Tuesday, April 28 to agree on a budget in order to finish on time on May 1.

Rep. Steve Precourt, R-Orlando, logs on to www.PostOnPolitics.com during House session Friday to read the grand jury indictment of former House Speaker Ray Sansom, R-Destin. (AP Photo/Phil Coale)

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House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, spent about 30 minutes with the “Leadership Gainesville” group on Tuesday and said he was looking forward not just to the end of session, but the end of his House career altogether.

Cretul, who became the most powerful lawmaker in the House about two weeks before the start of session, has passed out calendars to all House members that count down the days until the end of session.

But on Tuesday, Cretul said he was already looking forward to the end of the 2010 session, when he’d be termed out, able to spend more time on the porch with his grandchildren and eventually return to the process to lobby his elected officials.

Cretul received a few chuckles from the group at the end of the Q&A when he said, “I hope that was worth your time, I guess.”

Here’s how he left them:

“Seventeen days can’t come soon enough for a lot of us,” Cretul said. “This was a position I didn’t necessary seek or campaign for. But circumstances put me here.

“Everyday has been different. Everyday has been new. I can’t say everyday has been exciting. It’s been scary sometimes. But anyway, we’ll get through this, because we’ve got a good group of members and a good Senate and we’ll be out of here.”