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Mitch Perry Report for 4.22.15 — The president talks climate change in Florida on Earth Day

in The Bay and the 'Burg/Top Headlines by

It is Earth Day today, the 45th anniversary of the 1970 celebration, and President Obama is marking the occasion by visiting the Sunshine State today, down at the Everglades.

In his weekly radio address broadcast last Saturday, Obama discussed the threat of climate change in South Florida, saying that “rising sea levels are putting a national treasure — and an economic engine for the South Florida tourism industry — at risk.”

He went on to say that “the world’s top climate scientists are warning us that a changing climate already affects the air our kids breathe. Last week, the surgeon general and I spoke with public experts about how climate change is already affecting patients across the country. The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security.”
Rick Scott won’t be in South Florida to greet POTUS today, but his office did issue a statement calling on the administration to “find a way to fund the $58 million in backlog funding Everglades National Park hasn’t received from the federal government.” Not surprisingly, there was no reference to climate change in the statement.
In other news..
Former St. Pete Mayor Rick Baker is weighing in on the Pier story. In an op-ed published in SaintPetersBlog this morning, Baker says the selection committee should choose Destination St. Pete Pier, which of course, has been the people’s choice in various polls, including the city’s own. Of course, that’s not the sentiment among those in City Hall….

Tampa City Council Chairman Frank Reddick says he hopes to have Police Chief Jane Castor speak to the board soon to address the charges reported in a Tampa Bay Times report over the weekend regarding the targeting of black bicyclists in the city. Council members and others told Florida Politics their thoughts about the situation.(Meanwhile, Jane Castor responds in an op-ed.)

Are you familiar with the Trans Pacific Partnership? It’s a major trade deal between the United States and 11 South American and Pacific Rim nations that, and if enacted would be the largest trade deal since NAFTA was signed 21 years ago. Tampa Bay area U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor says right now she’d vote no on the deal.

Castor was in the Rose Garden of the White House yesterday afternoon, celebrating the rarity of a bipartisan piece of legislation signed last week by President Obama on the “doc fix.” Earlier, she celebrated the occasion at a Tampa health clinic.

Jeff Eakins gets a nice, two-year-plus deal to be the next superintendent for Hillsborough County Schools. And the district will conduct a workshop next month on recommendations coming from a task force on the issue of severe racial disparities in discipline and graduation rates for black and Latino students.

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Mitch Perry has been a reporter with Extensive Enterprises since November of 2014. Previously, he served as five years as the political editor of the alternative newsweekly Creative Loafing. He also was the assistant news director with WMNF 88.5 FM in Tampa from 2000-2009, and currently hosts MidPoint, a weekly talk show, on WMNF on Thursday afternoons. He began his reporting career at KPFA radio in Berkeley. He's a San Francisco native who has now lived in Tampa for 15 years and can be reached at [email protected]

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