The fight over whether Republican Gov. Rick Scott should sign or veto a controversial $419 million K-12 public schools bill is escalating to new levels: Ad wars.
A labor union-backed political advocacy group debuted an online video ad Tuesday, asking Scott to veto HB 7069 because it heavily favors privately managed charter schools over traditional public education.
But the liberal-leaning Fight for Florida Inc. takes quotes from Scott and a Republican senator out of context in trying to make its case that the legislation is bad policy.
Fight for Florida says in its ad that HB 7069 is “an assault on our public schools” that will “send [tax dollars] to unaccountable private corporations, while stripping our public schools of needed resources.” (Charter schools are public schools, too; however, they’re managed by private companies or organizations, rather than overseen by a district school board.)“We join outraged parents and conservative leaders to ask Governor Scott to veto this bad bill,” the ad’s narrator says. “7069 is bad for taxpayers and bad for Florida families.”
Tampa Bay Times: Adam Putnam calls for special session on medical marijuana
Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Republican candidate for governor Adam Putnam wants state lawmakers to come back to Tallahassee in a special session to finish the work on medical marijuana that they started but didn’t finish earlier this month.
“I think that it’s important for the elected officials to have done their job during the regular session,” he said Tuesday. “Since they didn’t, I think a special session is in order.”
Lawmakers failed to reach agreement on sweeping legislation that would have put into state law the will of 71 percent of voters who supported medical pot. A breakdown in backroom negotiations among top members of the Legislature meant they left their regular session this year without putting a system into place, kicking the issue to the Department of Health, which Putnam and others have been critical of.
“I think for a constitutional amendment’s implementation, it’s important for the elected officials to do it, not the bureaucrats at the Department of Health,” Putnam said.
Tallahassee Democrat: Trump budget would kill Amtrak in Pensacola
Pensacola’s hopes of installing Amtrak service would be killed under President Donald Trump’s budget.
The proposal would abolish Florida’s three daily long-distance routes — Auto Train, Silver Meteor and Silver Star — as well as end any hope of restoring Amtrak passenger rail service to Northwest Florida.
The president released his $4.1 trillion budget for 2018 on Tuesday. The proposal calls for terminating federal dollars that support Amtrak’s long-distance services. Grants to Amtrak would be slashed from about $1.4 billion to $774 million.
More than 950,000 Floridians rode Amtrak during the previous fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. The service’s Auto Train runs from Lorton, Virginia, to Sanford and the Silver Meteor and Silver Star both run from Miami to New York.
Outgoing City Manager Yvette Harrell demanded and received not one but two checks for $5,908 each to cover retroactive pay from a salary raise — without getting the required approval of a state board overseeing Opa-locka’s financial crisis.
Board member Frank Rollason, a veteran administrator who regularly reviews the city’s bills for approval by the governor’s office, said he discovered Tuesday that Harrell was paid the second installment on her back pay without the board’s permission.
Rollason said the nine-member oversight board, appointed almost a year ago by Gov. Rick Scott, did not approve Harrell’s employment contract or her recent separation agreement.
“Absolutely, she should not have been paid,” Rollason told the Miami Herald. “She is not entitled to anything.”
Harrell has refused to talk to the Herald since the paper reported last week that she received the first check May 10 for $5,908 over the objections of finance director Charmaine Parchment.
from Watchdog.org
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