A round-up of Sunday editorials from Florida’s leading newspapers:
Tampa Bay Times — Times recommends for St. Petersburg City Council: Kennedy, Rice, Nurse, Foster
St. Petersburg has survived the worst of the recession. Downtown is vibrant, development is gradually coming back and the crime rate continues to drop. City government is leaner, but services generally have avoided drastic cuts. But there are many challenges ahead, including resolving stalemates on a new Pier and Tampa Bay Rays stadium negotiations, building a new police headquarters and crafting a new master plan for the downtown waterfront. There are still stubborn pockets of poverty and a broader homelessness issue. And there remains a need to work regionally to provide better transit, improve public schools and reduce costs in the countywide emergency medical system. The next St. Petersburg City Council is going to have its hands full.
Four of the eight council seats are on the Nov. 5 ballot, including two held by incumbents seeking re-election. Candidates run from geographic districts, but in the general election all races are decided by voters citywide.
James R. “Jim” Kennedy Jr. | District 2
The challenger in the race to represent the city’s northernmost district has already bested the incumbent once — indirectly. Lorraine Margeson helped push the August referendum that stopped the new pier project, which incumbent Jim Kennedy supported. But serving on the City Council requires far more than focusing on a single issue, and Kennedy has the broader reach.
Kennedy, 56, was appointed to the council in 2007 after the death of the incumbent and was elected to a four-year term in 2009. The attorney remains the council member best versed in budget issues, is among the best prepared for council votes and routinely asks smart questions. Kennedy was alone in voting against a property tax rate increase last year that was too high, expressing concern the city’s tax rate was higher than surrounding communities. He understands the importance of transportation to the city’s future, from mass transit’s potential to bring jobs to inner-city neighborhoods to improvements on Gandy Boulevard in his district. He wants a national search for the next police chief, and he would like to reverse the city’s chase policy.
The Bradenton Herald — Promising sign on job growth: Port Manatee attracting interest
Manatee County’s economic outlook appears promising. The real estate market continues to improve as both existing and new homes and condos sell quicker than in the past several years. Home builders are busy once again — so busy some companies cannot hire enough qualified workers.
The tourism industry is setting records, with huge increases on Anna Maria Island in particular. Small businesses are expanding, too, as exemplified by several breweries and restaurants planning new locations in Bradenton and Lakewood Ranch.
Manatee’s unemployment rate is dropping as well, falling to 7.5 percent in August — down from 9.2 percent during the same month last year. (Numbers for September were not released last week because of the federal government shutdown.)
That report should be tempered by the fact that many of those new jobs — 900 out of 1,600 — came in the retail trade category. Those low-paying jobs in general merchandise, restaurants and other food establishments are not the target for the county’s economic development team but they are nonetheless vital.
The best news, though, is this: Port Manatee has made some significant inroads — again — in attracting the attention of major companies interested in exploring opportunities here. The port inked a pact with an automotive processing company that will import and export cars here and yield somewhere between 100 to 200 well-paying jobs. Another auto company has expressed interest in the port, too, one that produces Spanish expensive luxury sports cars. A mammoth Amazon warehouse is planned for Ruskin, and the port just won $6.5 million in state funds for improvements.
Pasha Automotive signed a memorandum of understanding with the port two weeks ago in what can only be called a pubic celebration. A company executive called the new relationship “an absolute jewel.” Pasha will finish the assembly of vehicles imported from Mexico and deliver those to American dealers as well as exporting cars to Latin American.
The Daytona Beach News-Journal — Obamacare’s individual mandate rolls out wobbly
The Affordable Care Act stumbled out of the gate on Tuesday, with the computer servers of health care exchanges crashing in many states, including Florida.
It was not a confident start to the largest expansion of government into the health care sector since 1965. It may be time for President Barack Obama, whose signature achievement so far has been this law known as Obamacare, to consider doing what he has done before: Delay implementation of a portion of the law, or the penalties involved, for one year.
One of the main reasons for the federal government shutdown is a dispute over whether to delay the individual mandate for one year.
That dispute should not hold up the budget, but Obama should listen to the many complaints about the rollout of the mandate.
The Tuesday rollout was not the happy but glitch-filled success that Google and Apple Inc. have had when they rolled out new products.
That was the spin from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Obama.
Obama said Apple had glitches with its new iPhone, but no one suggested that Apple cancel the iPhone.
It’s a bogus comparison. Obamacare is not a business product. It is being rolled out by the federal government, under power of coercive law.
On Oct. 1, many servers in 34 states crashed. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services runs the exchanges in 34 states, including Florida, where people across the Sunshine State reported problems getting started.
The Florida Times-Union — City Council chooses a higher quality of life
It wasn’t pretty at times, but the City Council took the broken and unworkable budget proposed by Mayor Alvin Brown and turned it into a solid financial framework for the next fiscal year.
The Gainesville Sun – Sound and fury
Noise pollution is an underestimated health threat.
The World Health Organization links a variety of health problems to noise from industrial sites and other sources. They include hearing loss and less obvious problems such as heart disease from sleepless nights.
As anyone whose neighbor has thrown a loud party knows, noise at night is just plain annoying. The best response is trying to get the neighbor to quiet down on your own and involving the police if that doesn’t work. Trying to force the neighbor to move isn’t a productive reaction.
The Gainesville Renewable Energy Center, the formal name of the biomass plant and company that owns it, is a much bigger noise problem than a loud party. Since the plant started running a few weeks ago, residents of the nearby Turkey Creek neighborhood have described a roaring sound like a jet engine that keeps them awake at night.
But police readings show that noise in the neighborhood falls below city noise ordinance thresholds of 60 decibels at night and 66 decibels during the day. By way of comparison, 60 decibels is the sound of an air conditioner at 100 feet and 70 decibels is the sound of a vacuum cleaner.
GREC officials say most complaints have been related to the loud process of starting the plant, which happens more frequently during testing. They’ve agreed to limit startup to between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. during testing. Once the plant is fully operational, Gainesville Regional Utilities will be responsible for the timing of startups.
The Lakeland Ledger — Lakeland Police Scandals: It’s Not Working
Two of Lakeland’s city commissioners put their fingers on the problems of the Lakeland Police Department, Friday, and the reform effort by Police Chief Lisa Womack with the concurrence of City Manager Doug Thomas.
Part 1 of 2
“It’s not working,” said City Commissioner Don Selvage on Friday morning. He spoke during a City Commission agenda-study meeting. Study sessions prepare commissioners for formal meetings, such as that scheduled for Monday at 9 a.m.
“We, still, as a commission, have not grasped the magnitude and the severity of this problem in our community,” said Commissioner Howard Wiggs to reporters after the meeting.
Not only were Selvage and Wiggs the only commissioners to recognize the urgency in solving the string of police scandals that appeared in January and continues to unravel, they were the only two of seven commissioners who voted against supporting Womack. The other five commissioners voted to continue supporting Womack, at least until presentation of the Lakeland Police Advisory Commission’s final report, scheduled for Oct. 21.
Indeed, Commissioner Edie Yates nearly headed off Selvage, who had made clear his desire to make a statement about the Police Department and Womack.
“I would like to propose that we go ahead and just have a vote — thumbs-up, thumbs-down — to decide whether to wait until Oct. 21 and hear the report from the board that you all commissioned,” Yates said.
Of the Police Advisory Commission, she said, “I just feel like we are castrating that commission if we don’t allow them to do their work after we assigned it to them.”
Nonetheless, Selvage spoke.
The Miami Herald — For mayor of Miami Beach
Michael Gongora has learned the lessons of good governance
A 1980s renaissance let Miami Beach bask in all the attention that its sunny Art Deco preciousness drew from film producers, models, developers and goo gobs of tourists. Three decades later, Miami Beach maintains its good-time aura, but it has its costs, and there are serious, big-city challenges that its elected leaders must confront.
Beneath all the fabulousness remains a city that, as always, must provide a decent quality of life for its residents, solid services, safety and economic stability.
When voters go to the polls in November, they will be casting a vote for the person who can help shepherd Miami Beach in the right direction, with a civil tongue and the ability to deftly balance competing priorities.
Three men are vying to replace Matti Herrera Bower — Steve Berke, Michael Gongora and Philip Levine. They don’t bring wildly varying visions for making Miami Beach a city that works for its residents, business owners and visitors. But only one displays a solid readiness to assume the top job: Mr. Gongora, 43, currently the Group 3 commissioner.
Mr. Berke, 32, says that he is a former comedian who now is a television and film producer. This might be the perfect background to be the subject of a reality show, which he is, but it’s not a foundation upon which to take on the mayor’s duties.
Mr. Levine, 51, is a successful businessman who says that he “will invest as much of my personal funds as necessary for my campaign to remain competitive.” His critics accuse him of attempting to “buy” the election. However, it’s his money to spend it as he sees fit.
Too often he talks as if the sky is falling, but that’s not true. Despite the city’s most pressing financial challenge, an underfunded pension liability, Miami Beach has its highest bond rating ever, and its reserves are fully funded. That speaks well of the current administration’s fiscal stewardship. In addition, Mr. Gongora played a role in wrangling some initial pension reforms from labor union contracts that will result in immediate and long-term savings for the city — $5.6 million in Year One; $145 million over 30 years. And he says he is working with the city manager and police chief to correct problems in the police department.
Of course, the quest to expand the convention center looms large over this election. Now that an appellate court has told Miami Beach to give voters more details of the deal on the ballot, there is every chance that the city — and taxpayers — can negotiate a better return. Mr. Gongora, who voted to approve the Tishman deal, has been in on the vetting since the start, giving him better grounding with which to get the best deal.
Voters should also factor in a candidate’s temperament and tone. At a candidates’ debate last week, Mr. Levine said he would change the culture in City Hall “from one of being mañana, lazy, pushing things forward, kicking the can down the road.” Many Hispanics in the audience thought that this was a public expression of what seems to be an “us vs. them” undercurrent on the commission, in the administration and, now among the candidates. Mr. Levine later said that, to the contrary, he considers Hispanics part of his base of support. The clarification was appreciated, the initial statement, however, was insensitive.
For Miami Beach mayor, the Herald recommends MICHAEL GONGORA.
The Orlando Sentinel — More changes necessary to corral sex predators
It’s difficult to say what’s more disturbing about the system for protecting Floridians from sexual predators:
It could be the fact that Sun Sentinel reporters Sally Kestin and Dana Williams found that during the past 14 years, 594 known deviants attacked again after being released from prison.
But just as disturbing is that no agency in Florida, no lawmaker — no one — was aware of the extent of this problem until it was brought to light in August by the reporting of Kestin and Williams.
But the agencies, and the lawmakers, have now read plenty about the problem. They have heard from outraged Floridians.
And in a nonpartisan way, the lawmakers have pledged to put the issue at the top of the legislative agenda for the next session.
There will be multiple bills brought up in the next legislative session to address the sentencing and monitoring of sexual predators, and how to better identify them and protect the public.
Because of a review of Florida’s Sexually Violent Predator program released last month, Department of Children and Families interim secretary Esther Jacobo ordered some immediate changes to the program, including:
•Expanding the offenses that trigger an automatic psychological evaluation — murder and kidnapping — to include attempted kidnapping and attempted murder.
•Requiring screeners to forward cases to courts whenever questions arise about whether a sex offender should remain confined.
•Shortening contracts with outside psychologists hired to evaluate offenders from three years to one.
Lawmakers say plenty more changes are coming, too.
A particular focus will be strengthening and getting rid of loopholes in the Jimmy Ryce Act, which requires the state to evaluate convicted sex criminals before their release and recommend for civil detainment those who have a mental disorder that makes them likely to re-offend.
Don Ryce and his wife, Claudine, lobbied for the law after their fifth-grade son, Jimmy, was kidnapped, raped and murdered by Juan Carlos Chavez in south Miami-Dade County in 1995.
“We need to keep child molesters away from children,” said Florida Senate President Don Gaetz. “It’s just that simple. We don’t need to hold six months of hearings to know that we have a problem.”
It’s good to hear Florida lawmakers vow to address the problem and make sure necessary changes get made.
They say this critical issue will get their focus from the start of the next legislative session. For safety’s sake, the public must hold them to that promise.
The Ocala StarBanner — Slow and Steady
If there has been one constant throughout the more than half decade of discussion about how to ensure the long-term health of Munroe Regional Medical Center, it is that each step taken by hospital trustees has been slow and steady.
Now, as they near the completion of contract negotiations with Naples-based Hospital Management Associates on a 40-year lease deal that will pay the Marion County Hospital District, Munroe’s owner, more than $400 million in cash and building and maintenance improvements, trustees should continue to adhere to the slow and steady strategy more than ever. Every indication is they are doing just that.
The trustees spent more than a year evaluating prospective companies to manage Munroe, and HMA in partnership with UF Health Shands came out the winners. Since then, however, HMA has been besieged with controversy and internal upheaval. It is facing investigations by both the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Most of its executives have be ousted. Its entire eight-member board of directors has been replaced after a revolt by its biggest shareholder, Glenview Capital, over the various legal entanglements and lower-than-expected earnings.
As all this is unfolding, Nashville-based Community Health Systems, which owns or manages 135 hospitals in 29 states, made a $3.9 billion buyout offer to HMA shareholders. With HMA’s 71 hospitals in 15 states, the new merged company would become the nation’s largest hospital company.
The Pensacola News-Journal — Shutdown leaves civilians holding the bag
About 400,000 – or about half of the Defense Department’s federal civil service force is taking the brunt of the current partial government shutdown without pay.
Those federal workers should be furious.
But what other agencies consider their civilian workers more or less essential? NASA, although known for having the “Right Stuff,” only considers 3 percent essential.
While the Veterans Administration (and State Department), think that 95 percent is about right. Basically, the VA is saying they can’t shut down hospitals.
NASA represents the bottom of the totem pole. Over on Florida’s Space Coast, engineers at the Kennedy Space Center were stopping prep work on a narrow-margin launch window for its Mars science orbiter.
Across the spectrum, about 2.1 million federal workers (60 percent) are still on the job and getting paid.
But overall, the morale of the civil service community is probably pretty low about now. Does this bode unfavorably for the future need for skilled government service workers – especially after the Baby Boomer retirement avalanche fully kicks in?
Will government service take a major hit over the dysfunction and uncertainty of sequestration that politicians created?
These are the same people who haven’t passed a U.S. government budget in all five years of the Obama Administration. Why should we have expected it to happen now?
Although a great many civil servants reportedly live paycheck-to-paycheck, this shutdown isn’t just a “temporary inconvenience,” as one House Republican intimated in a lack-of-clarity moment.
It is about political snipe hunting; and federal workers are the ones left holding the bag.
Government employees are not bargaining chips, as a Washington Post blog stated succinctly last week. They are people with aspirations, dedication … and real mortgages.
At issue is whether or not we have enough confidence left in “Uncle Sam” to still govern in this era of political cronyism – where constituents in certain states, with high-profile lawmakers and lots of electoral votes, get exemptions from mandated regulations while the rest of us are forced to comply.
The Palm Beach Post — System failed Priscila Perez-Gaspar by keeping Steven Barnes out of prison
In April 2008, a suburban Lake Worth man named Steven Barnes was arrested for driving with a revoked license. It’s a common offense –more than 15,000 people in Palm Beach County are similarly cited each year – but Barnes’ case was extraordinary. He had been arrested six times on charges of driving drunk. So extreme was his behavior that his license had been revoked for life in 1996. Yet he kept driving.
This time, he was facing hard time: up to five years in prison. Instead, prosecutors offered a deal for just eight days in jail. With credit for time served, he pleaded guilty and left court a free man.
The Panama City News-Herald — Phase in flood rates
Floridians living in flood-prone areas don’t have to worry about just the water rising. They also are in danger of being swamped by a sudden surge in their flood-insurance rates.
It’s up to Congress to regulate the flow to a more manageable level.
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) subsidizes flood insurance for at-risk property owners. Like Citizens Property Insurance, the NFIP for years has been charging rates that are artificially set below the true market cost — they don’t reflect the actuarial value of the risk involved.
And like subsidized hurricane insurance, the NFIP has encouraged overbuilding in disaster-prone areas because it reduces the cost of risk. All those additional insured properties further strain the financial ability of the program to cover losses.
The NFIP doesn’t have sufficient financial resources to pay out claims. It already has had to take out $25 billion in loans to cover damage from Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. The nation, already up to its ears in borrowing, can’t afford the program to go even deeper into the red.
Congress last year passed much-needed reforms to the NFIP to make it solvent. That primarily means making insurance premiums match the risk by removing subsidies from properties in flood zones. The legislation drew broad bipartisan support — until the bills came due Oct. 1.
That’s when sticker shock hit.
Some property owners who bought their homes after the reform passed have seen their annual premiums increase nearly tenfold overnight — such as from $1,500 to $12,000. Other long-time owners have seen more modest hikes that nevertheless take substantially bigger bites out of their budgets.
The Tallahassee Democrat – This is greatness?
It’s time to assign some blame in this government shutdown mess. So, let’s place it squarely where it belongs: on everybody.
This is not a disagreement about government funding, or even about the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. No, this is a battle that has been brewing for years, with our nation’s capital slowly breaking into factions that each seem to have only one goal — wiping out the opposition.
It’s the Bloods and the Crips in business suits, and we the citizens are caught in the crossfire.
Here in Leon, Franklin and Jefferson counties, nearly 400 children — and about 100 workers — have been affected as the shutdown has closed nine Head Start centers. If those 3- and 4-year-olds can’t go to their child care, their parents can’t go to school or to work. So the shutdown not only is inconveniencing children — it is endangering the livelihoods of struggling families and indeed putting our future at risk.
A little farther south, the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge is closed, erasing the economic activity generated by boaters, anglers and bird and butterfly watchers who come from all over the country. Elsewhere in the state, tourists have lost access to Everglades National Park, the Big Cypress National Preserve and more.
Nationally, more than 800,000 workers have been furloughed. More than that number are working without pay.
And that’s just the headlines.
Veterans, cancer patients and small businesses are feeling the impact. We know of a local caterer who is left wondering when the government will pay him for an event that already has taken place. The shutdown touches nearly everybody in some way.
And why all this pain?
Because our president, our representatives and our senators refuse to do the basic job they were elected to do: keep our government running.
In Washington, national monuments — the symbols of our great history — are closed. World War II veterans initially were kept away from the very memorial honoring their service, and Republicans and Democrats took advantage of that embarrassment to take even more shots at each other.
The Tampa Tribune — Homeowners need relief from massive flood insurance rate hikes
Congress needs to hit the pause button on the federal flood insurance reforms that are threatening the financial well-being of thousands of homeowners in the Tampa Bay area.
Calls by tea party soldiers for Congress to resist any delays ignore the stark realities many homeowners are facing, some of them in modest homes miles from the state’s shorelines.
Congress should act quickly to adopt proposals by members of the Florida delegation — Democrat and Republican — to delay the reform’s implementation for a year. That’s an adequate amount of time to study the flaws and offer a fix that eases the burden on homeowners facing rate hikes many are unable to pay.
As we said a month ago, the 45-year-old National Flood Insurance program unquestionably needs reform.
But testimony this past week from county property appraisers, Realtor groups, mayors, and homeowners makes it abundantly clear that the reforms under the Biggert-Waters Act are flawed and threaten the Tampa Bay area’s fragile housing recovery.
Consider the case of Colin Elston, a retiree who bought a house in Treasure Island in June. He was unaware of the reforms on the horizon and budgeted $2,000 for flood insurance. He now faces a $12,000 bill that could drive him into foreclosure.
In Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, many of the homes being hit with huge increases are valued at under $130,000, not exactly luxury waterfront mansions. In Pinellas, about 1,000 of the affected owners are low-income seniors.
In Hillsborough, 80 percent of the affected homes are not on the water.
The federal flood insurance program was created to help homeowners deal with natural disasters but has encouraged construction in flood-prone areas.
Congress passed Biggert-Waters in 2012 to address a $20 billion deficit in the program, which is supposed to be supported entirely by premiums but has been borrowing money to cover losses.
The reforms are meant to strip the government subsidies that have kept rates artificially low for homes in flood zones. Many of the increases are being phased in over years. But even those annual increases are too steep for many to afford, in some cases jumping from $2,500 to $15,000 a year.
When older homes are sold, the subsidies are dropped entirely and the new rate is immediately assessed at the full flood risk. Some homeowners feel trapped in homes they can’t afford and can’t sell because of the flood insurance rate.
Realtors fear the sudden change in rates will depress a recovering housing market.
Florida’s congressional delegation is trying to bring some relief, but is up against the political dysfunction that has deadlocked Washington.
U.S. Reps. Bill Young, Kathy Castor and Gus Bilirakis have voted for legislation delaying the rate hikes for a year. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson has sponsored a bill delaying the hikes for a year while a Federal Emergency Management Agency affordability study is completed. But the Senate has not acted on the bill.
The measures are not meant to continue unsustainable subsidies. The lawmakers want to find a way to help owners stay in their homes while paying a reasonable rate for the flood risk. Alarmed by the scope of the problem and the effect it might have on communities, state and local officials are also considering ways to mitigate the steep increases. Florida has been a donor state to the program over the years, paying billions of dollars more in premiums than the state has received to cover claims. The homeowners who paid into the program deserve some relief.
Lawmakers need to delay the reforms for a year, and then spend that time creating an affordable program that pays off the debt without bankrupting the homeowners.
This is not about benefiting wealthy homeowners in waterfront mansions. It’s about helping thousands of middle-class families who played by the rules but now find themselves faced with insurance bills they can’t afford.
