Sunshine State News: ‘The Dean’s List’ Talks Florida Politics

By  //  May 3, 2015

The top political radio talk-show host focused on Florida politics,‭ ‬conservative pundit Ed Dean,‭ ‬is‭ ‬joining Sunshine State News as a senior editor.‭
The top political radio talk-show host focused on Florida politics,‭ ‬conservative pundit Ed Dean,‭ is a Sunshine State News senior editor.‭ You can hear Dean every weekday starting at 5 p.m. on SpaceCoastDaily.com

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Welcome to The Dean’s List — an Ed Dean-style look at who Florida’s political achievers were (and weren’t) in the last seven days. What you see here is strictly my opinion, not necessarily the editor’s or the rest of the staff at Sunshine State News.

Jeb Bush, Steve Crisafulli, You ‘Done Good’; Ken Hagan, Buddy Dyer — Not So

THOSE WHO MADE THE LIST:

Jeb Bush
Jeb Bush

• Former Gov. Jeb Bush. Up in New Hampshire, Bush said he supported an education bill that would prevent setting curriculum standards at the federal level.

“We don’t need the federal government involved in this at all,” Bush told the audience.

Amen to that.

Steve Crisafulli
Steve Crisafulli

• Florida House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island. Crisafulli’s op-ed in the Tampa Bay Times opposing Medicaid expansion was spot on.

He points out the facts: 3.7 million Floridians are covered by Medicaid at a cost of $23.5 billion per year, which is around a third of Florida’s budget. That’s not sustainable. The speaker was right to adourn the House and continue to reject Medicaid expansion.

• Port St. Lucie City Council. Not able to make a bond payment and pay its bills, Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute of Florida (VGTI), a biotech research center, is giving the city of Port St. Lucie an ultimatum: hand us $21 million in a bailout or we’re leaving.

The Port St. Lucie City Council is firm, not caving in to VGTI’s demands, which also include the city taking care of three years of mortgage payments plus additional operating money.

The city has already gone above and beyond the call to help VGTI, borrowing $64 million as an incentive package to build and furnish VGTI’s facility.

The company is contracted to repay the money with interest over 30 years. But if there’s a default, the taxpayers will be left with the bill. Good for the City Council for cutting VGTI off.

• Broward County School Board. A Broward County judge sided with the Broward County School District and ruled teachers who did not have tenure by July 2014 must be paid based on annual evaluations.

Needless to say, the Broward Teachers’ Union opposed the ruling.

But Broward County teachers will be paid based on performance instead of tenure. State law ensures highly effective teachers can earn greater increases though merit pay instead of through tenure. Best of all, students will be rewarded with high performing teachers in the classroom.

THOSE WHO DIDN’T MAKE THE LIST

• Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan. Because of term limits in the county charter, Republican Hagan will be termed out of office by 2018. But Hagan wants to exploit a loophole that would allow him to stay on the commission as late as 2024.

Ken Hagan
Ken Hagan

The county charter states no commissioner who serves more than six years and two consecutive terms in one of the four defined districts can run for another term in any of those districts. So Hagan is thinking of leaving his current seat in midterm and running for an open seat next year.

This would start a brand new term.“The ultimate arbiter of term limits is the ballot box,” Hagan insists. Does that count when voters support term limits at the ballot box?

• ‘Community Planning’ Consultants. The Tampa-based consulting firm Tindale Oliver advised Brevard County Schools to implement a countywide impact fee to raise funds.

There’s even a recommendation that the impact fee on a single-family, detached home might be set at $10,193, more than double the current $4,445.

That’s simply not acceptable and should be rejected, no questions asked.

• Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. The Orlando mayor wants money for a downtown soccer stadium. Now with lawmakers out of Tallahassee, Dyer is a little concerned because he wants state money for the project and Tallahassee might not come through.

Buddy Dyer
Buddy Dyer

The $85 million project was originally explained as a “locally funded” project. Not anymore. The cost is now $115 million and Orlando is ready for a handout.

“We’re not ready to say goodbye yet to potential state funding,” Dyer said. Well, Dyer should say goodbye to it and figure out what went wrong.

Eric Draper
Eric Draper

• Florida Environmental Groups. Still fighting over what Amendment 1 actually meant and insisting Tallahassee is ignoring the voters, Eric Draper of the Florida Audubon Society began sending Gov. Rick Scott and state lawmakers bottles of polluted water to get their attention back to land purchases.

Republican lawmakers say the constitutional wording allows the use of the funds for “environmental purposes” rather than specifically for Florida Forever and other programs.

Environmentalists keep talking about buying land that “could be used” (future tense) to help clean up our waterways. But before Florida buys new lands, the money should be used to clean up the current holdings — exactly what Scott and fiscally minded Floridians are thinking.

Ed Dean
Ed Dean

THE-DEANS-LIST-150-17Ed Dean, a senior editor with Sunshine State News whose talk show can be heard on radio stations in Jacksonville, Tampa Bay, Daytona Beach, Orlando, the Space Coast, the Treasure Coast and South Florida from West Palm Beach to Miami. It can also be heard in parts of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.

You can reach at ed@sunshinestatenews.com. Follow him on Twitter: @eddeanradio.

CLICK HERE To Hear the Ed Dean Show Every Weekday Starting At 5 p.m. On SpaceCoastDaily.com