Tampa Bay Times: Another FHP official retires early because of illegal quota on tickets
A growing controversy over illegal ticket quotas at the Florida Highway Patrol has cost a second high-ranking trooper his job — this time the agency’s No. 2 official.
Lt. Col. Mike Thomas, the FHP’s deputy director, took early retirement as of Sept. 1 and accepted responsibility for an internal email that encouraged troopers to write at least two tickets an hour, even though quotas are forbidden by law.
“This was a grave error on my behalf,” Thomas said in a letter of retirement dated Monday and released Tuesday. “I made this mistake and take responsibility for my actions. This error has negatively impacted the patrol’s image, which was never the intent, but I feel it is in the best interest of the patrol that I retire.”
Thomas added that he felt it was detrimental to describe “goal setting, or the setting of expectations, as a quota.”
What led to the abrupt end of a three-decade career was Thomas’ one-paragraph email on May 31 in which he told six high-ranking colleagues “to encourage our members to maintain our 2.0 citations per hour ratio as we attempt to provide a safer driving environment for Floridians.”
Orlando Sentinel: Duke Energy goes big on solar, drops nuclear charge for customers
Duke Energy will build nine or more solar plants and delete a controversial nuclear charge from customer bills, according to a widely lauded plan announced Tuesday.
With 1.8 million customers in 35 counties, Duke is the Orlando area’s biggest power provider and the second-largest in the state; the utility, however, has lagged behind other major utilities in solar energy and had drawn criticism for a pair of nuclear disappointments.
The Florida president of Duke Energy, Harry Sideris, said the proposed initiatives worth $6 billion were filed Tuesday morning with the Florida Public Service Commission after months of outreach.
Miami Herald: Why is Florida home to the worst drivers? Where do we start?
We don’t use turn signals. We block the box, then complain about traffic. In other places, drivers negotiate serpentine canyon roads with knee-high guardrails or streets icy enough to host a Florida Panthers game. Here, 10 minutes of rain can turn the turnpike or Interstate 95 into a demolition derby.
So when financial site SmartAsset.com sifts through the 2016 numbers to say Florida has the nation’s worst drivers, there’s a strong sense of “tell us something we don’t know.”
Besides, haven’t we heard this before?
Yup. A year ago when SmartAsset’s breakdown of 2015 numbers ranked us 50 out of 50 states. We can’t get any lower without the numbers folks including Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Guam.
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