With Palm Beach “Corruption” County in mind, lawmakers are moving toward stiffening local ordinances combating ethics violations.

Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, is backing a bill that allow counties to increase the current penalties for violations of county ordinances imposing ethical standards and financial disclosure requirements from 60 days in jail to one year in jail and double the fine from $500 to $1,000 per occurance.

The Senate Community Affairs Committee signed off on Aronberg’s proposal (SB 1980) this afternoon with a 9-1 vote.

Aronberg sponsored the bill at the behest of the scandal-plagued Palm Beach County Commission, which recently established an ethics panel in the wake of a federal corruption probe that landed three former county commissioners in prison. Palm Beach County Rep. Kevin Rader, D-Boynton Beach, is the House bill (HB 1301) sponsor.

Aronberg said the measure, which would apply to all counties if it becomes law, puts teeth into local ordinances.

“Living in Palm Beach County, I’m well aware this has become a priority for the voters in my district,” Aronberg, who is running in a statewide Democratic primary for attorney general against Senate colleague Dan Gelber. “Hopefully, this will help remove our reputation as ‘Corruption County.’”

Recognizing Palm Beach County day today, PBC home-boy Sen. Dave Aronberg recited some facts about the state’s largest county before giving a shout-out to some county officials watching the Senate session from the East Gallery.

Aronberg, D-Greenacres, introduced PBC Commissioner Burt Aaronson as “The Godfather of Palm Beach County.”

Aaronson was first elected to the commission in 1992.

Aronberg’s intro may be considered a dubious distinction, considering that three of Aaronson’s former county commission colleagues are in prison for corruption charges.

Palm Beach County Commissioner Jeff Koons asked utility regulators to approve Florida Power & Light Co.’s $1.2 billion rate hike, saying the utility is the county’s largest employer and needed the extra money to help the state go green.

The Public Service Commission yesterday instead slashed FPL’s rate hike to just $75 million and limited the amount of profit the Juno Beach-based utility can earn to 10 percent, far less than the 12.5 percent return on equity it sought.

“While no one - especially in the current economy - looks forward to higher electric bills, FPL’s proposed rate increase is necessary in order to make a greater investment in green technology, energy sources that will ultimately protect the consumer from uncertainties and bill fluctuations in the future,” Koons wrote in a letter to commissioners on Jan. 5 expressing his personal opinion on the rate case.

FPL President Armando Olivera said the company will immediately halt modernization projects at its Riviera Beach and Cape Canaveral power plants and cease moving forward with most of its efforts to build two new nuclear reactors at its Turkey Point facility.

He said the projects could have brought 20,000 new jobs to Florida over the next five years.

The Republican Party of Florida board of directors gave Chairman Jim Greer a vote of confidence today at their quarterly board meeting in Tallahassee.

Palm Beach County GOP state committeeman Peter Feaman and Charlotte County GOP Chairman Bob Starr cast the two votes against Greer. There were 27 board members in attendance.

GOP National Committeeman Paul Senft made the motion to take a vote of confidence in Greer “in the interest of party unity and for clarification.”

“We’ve got to not throw the party under the bus,” Senft said before making the motion.

Lawmakers are preparing to start a 10-day session on rail issues that in part could keep Tri-Rail on track.

The 49-page bill legislators will consider includes an extra $13 million to $15 million a year for Tri-Rail that’s been operating at a deficit since its inception two decades ago.

That’s “probably as good as we could get right now,” said Palm Beach County Commissioner Jeff Koons, who is also chairman of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority that oversees Tri-Rail.

That’s a big deal for leaders in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward counties where Tri-Rail runs. Federal officials have threatened to ask the counties to give back more than $200 million if Tri-Rail service is cut back as officials there have threatened.

Tri-Rail is paid for by the state, rider fares and the three counties in which it runs - Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade.

But the commuter line used by 15,000 riders daily has operated in the red by about $15 million every year.

Leaders in the three counties say they don’t have the money to make up the deficit and state lawmakers have refused to grant them the $2 rental car surcharge (also known as a tax) they’ve sought to cover their losses.

Now, state lawmakers are willing to fork over $13 million to $15 million a year to keep Tri-Rail on track to prove to federal lawmakers that Florida is serious about commuter rail. That way, the state will have a better chance at getting some of the $8 billion in stimulus money for high-speed rail projects.

The money will come from gas taxes and other fuel fees and should qualify as a “dedicated funding source” federal officials are seeking, Palm Beach County Commissioner Jeff Koons said.

“I think we ended up in the middle in the sense that we didn’t get our funding source but then a reallocation of those dollars is probably as good as we could get right now,” Koons said.

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.
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Haridopolos

The Melbourne Republican will assume the post after the two-year tenure of current Senate President Jeff Atwater ends next fall.

Atwater

Haridopolos’ ascension is a trifecta for the Palm Beach and Treasure Coast region and continue its domination of the top of the Senate for a total of six years.

Pruitt

The southeastern portion of Haridopolos’ Senate District 26 dips into St. Lucie County.

The three political leaders each previously served in the Florida House before joining the Senate.

A rate hearing to consider Florida Power and Light’s proposed $1.5 billion-a-year rate hike will continue, the panel overseeing the state’s utilities ruled.

The Public Service Commission hearing came to an abrupt halt earlier this morning when Commissioner Nathan Skop revealed that commission staffer Ryder Rudd had attended a Kentucky Derby party at the home of an FPL executive in Palm Beach County.

Skop asked that Rudd, who earns $92,000 a year, be removed from the case and other pending FPL dockets, including a $1.6 billion proposed natural gas pipeline.

Rudd had oversight of more than $4 billion in FPL cases pending before the panel, Skop objected. Skop also asked for Rudd’s resignation and questioned whether the current rate hike case should be dismissed.

PSC Chairman Matthew Carter ordered a recess and asked general counsel Patrick Imhof for advice on how to proceed.

Imhof told the panel that this morning’s rate hearing should continue but Rudd, who was never identified by name, should be taken off the case.

“Our recommendation is to remove the person in question from all FPL dockets pending review by the inspector general and review with the office of the general counsel,” Imhof said. But, he added: “There is no impediment to the rate case moving forward at this time.”

Carter ordered a lunch break so the commission, staff and lawyers representing the utility and consumers could have a “fresh start.”

The hearing is scheduled to begin again at 1 p.m.

Infighting within the state GOP has weakened the party so badly that it is verging on irrelevant, a former party chairman says — despite its overwhelming dominance in the legislature and its decade-long lock on the governor’s office.

Other Republican leaders charge that current party Chairman Jim Greer and, by default, Gov. Charlie Crist are out of sync with what grass-roots Republicans want.

“It would be hard to imagine us being any more impotent than we appear to be right at this point,” said former state Republican Chairman Tom Slade, who headed the party from 1993 to 1999. That was a period when the GOP took over the state House and Senate and sent Jeb Bush to the governor’s mansion.

Greer flexed his political muscles this year when he tried to use a parliamentary procedure to hamper former state House Speaker Marco Rubio’s candidacy to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez. Crist had jumped into the Senate race in May, garnering Greer’s support immediately.

That transformed what had been a whisper campaign against Greer into public criticism from county leaders and others throughout the state, who said the chairman had gone too far.

Rubio later characterized the Senate GOP primary as a battle for the “heart and soul” of the Republican Party in Florida.

But Greer, hand-picked by Crist, says the party is doing just fine and blames reports of its demise on a few disgruntled but vocal outliers.

“I don’t think that the party has anywhere near the problems that some are promoting in the state. In fact, I think this party in Florida is very strong and I see it each and every day,” Greer said in a telephone interview.

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Florida counties are suggesting something that sounds like a scarlet letter to warn innocents away from households with scary serpents.

It’s the latest twist in the tale of the python-induced paranoia that’s wound up with bounty hunters seeking the critters in throughout Palm Beach County on lands abutting the Everglades.

The July 1 death of a two-year-old girl who was strangled by a pet python in Central Florida set off demands for an open-season on the snakes, which have overrun the national park. Gov. Charlie Crist gladly complied and ordered the bounty hunt for the pests last week. (U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, has had the Burmese python infestation in his sights for some time).

Now, the Florida Association of Counties wants state wildlife officials to give them more control over dangerous animals. The association sent a letter to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission last week asking them to let counties notify neighbors where perilous pythons and other classified creatures reside.

Perhaps the counties have something like the sex offender registry on the Internet where neighbors can see where perpetrators live.

Will the pythons be forced to take up residence under bridges like sex offenders banned from living near schools, parks or other places where children congregate?

WEST PALM BEACH — A Palm Beach County grand jury, finding “a crisis of trust in public governance,” has recommended sweeping reforms to penalize corrupt politicians, open government to public view and create an Office of Inspector General as a watchdog to ensure that public funds aren’t squandered for officials’ private gain.

The grand jury report, released today by State Attorney Michael McAuliffe, called for dramatic revisions in how the county buys and sells land. It called for an end to noncompetitive, commissioner-controlled underwriter rotation as a way of selecting firms that underwrite bonds that fund county projects.

More here.

In her new role as Palm Beach County elections supervisor, former state Rep. Susan Bucher has cut $1 million from the office’s $11 million budget, learned how to design ballots and earned high marks from the Palm Beach County Voters Coalition, Post reporter Jennifer Sorentrue writes today.

“I have been watching over everybody’s shoulders,” said Bucher, who makes $134,000 a year. “I have dedicated my first year as one of learning from the bottom up. I want to understand how all of the operations work so we can make some calculated decisions for improvements.”

More here.