Alimony Bill Dies Amid Acrimony
April 30, 2015
An alimony overhaul that brought together people once bitterly divided on the issue has created an even deeper rift between two powerful Republican lawmakers who blame each other for a failure to get the bill passed this year.
After a year of wheeling-and-dealing by lawyers, lawmakers and others, the alimony proposal died when the Senate refused to take up the House’s version of the bill, which would have established a formula for alimony amounts based on the length of marriages and the amounts of money spouses earn.
The acrimony over the measure involved a provision, pushed by Senate Appropriations Chairman Tom Lee, that would have established a “50-50″ presumption regarding child sharing between divorcing spouses.
The House proposal (HB 943) didn’t go as far as Lee wanted, and the Senate did not consider the measure after the House adjourned and went home Tuesday.
Lee said language about child sharing in the House bill was “poorly drafted” and “designed to create confusion in the courts.”
But House Rules Chairman Ritch Workman, who sponsored an alimony overhaul vetoed by Gov. Rick Scott two years ago and who worked on a revamp for more than eight months with The Florida Bar and representatives of an organization seeking to change the state’s alimony laws, accused Lee of being a “bully” and “hijacking” the bill for his own reasons.
The Family Law Section of The Bar supported the alimony overhaul but strongly opposed Lee’s child-sharing element, one of the reasons Scott gave for his veto of the 2013 version.
Workman said Scott told him this year “don’t bring back retroactivity and don’t bring back drama” if he wanted the governor’s approval. Workman also said Lee promised in March that he would not allow the child-sharing portion to kill the bill.
But Lee refused to back down from the requirement despite repeated attempts to amend it, Workman complained.
“We’ve been trying to give him language but he won’t budge. The only person refusing to negotiate and come off a rigid position is Tom Lee. And that individual is going to kill a bill out of spite because he didn’t get his way. Literally picking up his toys and stomping out of the sandbox and running back with tears and snot in his nose because he didn’t want to share his toys in the sandbox,” Workman, R-Melbourne, said.
Workman accused Lee of having a personal grudge about the issue because of Lee’s own child custody dispute.
“What he cares about is getting back at the judge that didn’t give him 50-50 time share 15 years ago or whenever he got divorced,” he said.
But Lee, who is divorced and remarried, said his views on the issue had nothing to do with his own situation.
“It’s reprehensible that he would go there. I actually have 50-50 custody of my children. So, nice try. But I do policy here. Am I informed by experiences I have in a wide array of things? Absolutely. But I’m never going to make policy on the basis of my own personal experiences. This has nothing to do with my own personal custodial arrangement,” Lee, R-Brandon, said.
Lee said the bill was doomed because the House left before he could work out his objections to the time-sharing guidelines. The House adjourned three days before Friday’s scheduled end of the legislative session.
“I couldn’t have tried harder to ameliorate his concerns. The truth is he made a fatal flaw early in the process when he committed something he couldn’t commit to and that was there would be no amendments on this bill that weren’t approved by the Family Section of the Florida Bar. He killed his own bill because he made commitments to an organization that didn’t need a bill,” Lee said.
Workman denied that he made that promise and accused the Lee of using his influential position as budget chief as “extortion” to get child sharing into the Senate proposal sponsored by Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland. Lee also did not include it in a separate bill dealing with family law that the House refused to pass.
“This is his ‘number one’ issue that he’s never run as a stand-alone bill. Not one time. He would not put it onto his own family law bill. He would only foist it upon Sen. Stargel’s bill and try to force his will through the weight of the power of his office. If it was so awesome for the families of Florida, if it was so amazing, why have you never run it as a stand-alone bill?” Workman said.
Workman, who is term-limited out of the House next year and is running for the Senate in 2018, made a mistake by trying to keep the bill from being amended, Lee said.
“Don’t come back now and cry me a river over a problem that he created for himself early on in the process. Hopefully there’s a lot of learning that comes out of this,” he said.
Lee said he intends to file the bill again next year if Stargel is not involved.
“If she isn’t, it will be Senate Bill 2. I will file it and if they don’t want to move it next year then we’ll move it in 2017 when he’s no longer a member of the Florida Legislature,” Lee said of Workman.
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Ransom Middle Chess Club Ranks In National Tournament
April 29, 2015
The Ransom Middle School Chess Team placed in the recent 2015 National Junior High (K-9) Chess Championship hosted by the United States Chess Federation (USCF) in Louisville, KY.
In the K-8 under 750 category, the Ransom placed 9th among 25 teams, and in the K-8 under 1000 category, Ransom placed 14th.
Ransom’s Tristan Taylor was 5th in the national tournament in the K-8 under 750 category, while Mile Gibson was 16th in the K-8 under 750 category.
The Ransom Middle School students who participated are among the nation’s highest ranked middle school chess players. Participating were:
- Ryan Carty
- Dillon Conti
- Kaleb Hoskins
- Tristan Taylor
- Miles Gibson
- Justin King
- Tralon Gillis
- Alex Moorhead
- Devin Rising
- Lacie Scholz
- Connor Thompson
Two former students – Andrew Hoskins and Travis King – also took part.
Film Incentives, Uber Bill, Water Policy Among Session Casualties
April 29, 2015
New water policies, a revival of a tax-incentive program to attract film and television production to Florida and rules for app-based transportation services like Uber and Lyft were among the bills that likely died Tuesday when the House called an early end to the regular legislative session.
Also buried Tuesday was a proposed $690 million House tax-cut package that included reducing taxes on cable-television and cell-phone bills and providing the annual back-to-school sales-tax holiday. While tax cuts could be considered during a special session on the budget, the issue — a priority of Gov. Rick Scott — remains murky.
“I realize we just killed a tax bill that gave $690 million back to Florida’s families and businesses,” House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island said as he addressed the media Tuesday. “But at the end of the day, we did what we felt was right from the standpoint of just walking away and looking to go balance a budget with our Senate partners later on in the next couple months.”
Some lawmakers said they were unsure what the House’s move Tuesday means for their bills.
“We’re in unchartered waters,” said Rep. Ray Rodrigues, an Estero Republican whose measure (HB 1205) on a controversial drilling process known as “fracking” would require Senate approval without any changes.
The Senate postponed a discussion on the bill Tuesday. While the House went home Tuesday, the Senate will meet again Wednesday.
The Senate intends to vote Wednesday on a water-policy bill (SB 918), which includes work that lawmakers have pursued for two years to improve the state’s natural springs. However, Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, acknowledged the measure isn’t going anywhere.
“Tomorrow we’re going to send that bill to the House. Sadly that water bill is not going to make it,” Gardiner said.
Sen. Alan Hays, one of the architects of the water policy effort, said he was disappointed in the action by the House.
“It left us high and dry, unfortunately,” Hays said.
But not everyone is sad that the business-backed water changes have died.
“It is no great loss if the current versions are not passed,” Audubon Florida Executive Director Eric Draper, said in an email after the House adjourned Tuesday. “Everything good the bills do can be done under current law.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, 187 of the 1,751 bills filed for the 2015 session in the House and Senate had been sent to governor.
Even before the decision by the House to adjourn three days early, many bills were long shots for passage. As an example, a controversial proposal that would have allowed people with concealed-weapons licenses to carry guns on college campuses had stalled in a Senate committee.
And not everyone is bemoaning the death of hundreds of other bills.
The conservative group Americans for Prosperity-Florida, which has portrayed the film and TV incentives as a giveaway of “taxpayers’ hard-earned money to Hollywood executives,” applauded Crisafulli’s session-ending decision.
“The House rejected Medicaid expansion, put an end to crony handouts to the film and sports industries, increased pension reform flexibility and expanded access to school choice,” the advocacy group said in a news release.
Rep. Mike Miller, a Winter Park Republican who carried the House bill (HB 1046) to revamp the state’s approach to attracting film and television production, said “it’s dead.” But Miller then added he will continue to push for the measure.
“If I have a shot in the budget talks I’ll go right to it,” Miller said. “It’s an important industry in Florida, and I’ll do what I can within reason during budget talks; when and if they ever get started.”
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, said his efforts to pass a bill dealing with regulation of app-based rideshare companies could also be included in the topics for a special session.
“I don’t know that we’ve determined what will be included or not included in that call of a special session,” Gaetz said.
But the House decision to adjourn early drew cheers from the Florida Limousine Association, which has opposed Gaetz’s bill and wants businesses such as Uber and Lyft to follow the same rules as limousine companies.
“Florida legislators properly have placed consumer protection above any other priority in rejecting a bad bill that could have become a dangerous law,” said Rick Versace, president of the Florida Limousine Association.
Meanwhile, the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, expressed disappointment that the House failed to address insurance measures for the rideshare companies.
“Senate Bill 1298 would have helped to clarify the questions about insurance coverage and provide protections for rideshare drivers, passengers and the public from the time the rideshare app is turned on until the app is turned off,” said PCI spokesman Logan McFaddin in a release.
A big issue that remains alive is a bill aimed at reforming the state’s utility regulating body, the Public Service Commission.
The bill in part would limit future Public Service Commission members to three consecutive four-year terms and require commissioners to undergo annual ethics training. The bill also would require utilities to notify customers of the best available rates and prevent electric utilities from charging higher rates through extensions of billing cycles.
On Tuesday, the House refused to accept changes the Senate made last week to the bill (HB 7109), which included requiring the commission to hold meetings every two years in the service territories of electric utilities.
Senate sponsor Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, said the House vote — the final House floor action before Crisafulli ended the session — puts him in a tough position.
Latvala can advise the Senate to remain firm against the House or he can seek to remove the changes the Senate made to the bill. Passing the bill could lead to $600 million in savings for Duke Energy Florida customers.
by Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida
Florida Prison Reform Scuttled As Lawmakers Head Home
April 29, 2015
A push to reform the state’s embattled prisons agency was one of the casualties of the House’s early termination of the legislative session Tuesday, but Senate leaders aren’t dropping the issue.
Senate President Andy Gardiner said his chamber won’t take up a House prisons measure because it lacks an oversight commission included in a Senate plan (SB 7020). But Gardiner said he will dispatch his own committee to investigate problems in the corrections system that prompted lawmakers to propose the overhaul.
“We will put our corrections committee on the road within a couple of weeks and they will go and do their own investigations. I can subpoena people. We’re not done with that,” Gardiner, R-Orlando, told reporters late Tuesday afternoon. “It’s unfortunate that the House did what they did. Usually these last three days is when you’re negotiating. They just walked away.”
Senate Criminal Justice Chairman Greg Evers, R-Baker, and Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, had been in talks with House leaders about the prison reforms as late as Tuesday morning. The House measure, passed last week, lacked the Senate’s proposed independent, governor-appointed commission that would have taken over investigations of prison wrongdoing now handled by the Department of Corrections’ inspector general.
The House had floated a compromise that would have created a joint select committee to oversee the prisons. But House Speaker Steve Crisafulli’s decision to shut down his chamber three days before the scheduled end of the session put an end to prison-reform talks.
“We’re not taking up the House bill. There’s no oversight to it. The agreement that we had for oversight did not come through. So at this point that bill is dead,” said Evers, whose district includes three prisons and who made several surprise visits to institutions throughout the state.
Lawmakers began exploring the prison overhaul in response to widespread reports about problems and abuse in the corrections system. Those reports have included allegations about cover-ups involving inmate deaths, complaints from inspectors who say they faced retaliation for exposing cover-ups and complaints from guards and others about a culture of intimidation against whistleblowers.
Earlier this month, an FBI investigation resulted in the arrest of two prison guards and one former prison worker who were allegedly members of the Ku Klux Klan. They were accused of plotting to kill an ex-inmate after he was released from a rural North Florida institution.
Evers said he believed lawmakers could have reached consensus on the measure if the House had remained in session longer.
“It’s a disappointment to me for the people of the state of Florida. I felt reasonably sure we would have ironed out the differences. Absolutely,” Evers said.
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Cobb Awarded Tommy Weaver Memorial Scholarship
April 29, 2015
Northview High School Senior Kendal Cobb has been awarded the Tommy Weaver Memorial Scholarship.
Applicants were required to fill out a brief application and write an essay explaining why the scholarship was important to them and how it would make it possible for them to continue their education.
Cobb was awarded the scholarship Tuesday night during the annual Northview DCT banquet. She plants to attend Pensacola State College and become a nurse.
The scholarship fund was established in memory of Tommy Weaver, DCT/Ag instructor and assistant coach who passed away in March 2012.
Pictured: Tommy Weaver Memorial Scholarship winner Kendal Cobb with Northview DCT instructor Brandy White. Submitted photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Owe Fines To The Library? Now You Can Pay Online
April 29, 2015
West Florida Library Public Library System cardholders can now pay fines and fees online with a Mastercard or Visa. Both credit cards and debit cards are accepted.
In order to make a payment, patrons should visit the West Florida Library website at MyWFPL.com and log into their account. The service is available 24 hours per day. Step by step instructions on making a secure payment are available on the library’s website and available at all library locations.
House Alters, Approves Online Registration Bill
April 29, 2015
Before heading home Tuesday, the House approved a bill that would allow Floridians to register to vote online, a proposal opposed by Gov. Rick Scott’s elections chief.
The measure (SB 228) will go back to the Senate because of a late change tacked onto the bill by Rep. James Grant, R-Tampa.
Rep. Dwight Dudley, D-St. Petersburg, called the amendment — which would require a risk assessment to be conducted before the online voter-registration system could go public — a “thinly veiled attempt to kill this bill.”
However, Sen. Jeff Clemens, a Lake Worth Democrat who is sponsoring the bill, said he is fine with the change and expects the measure to get Senate approval. Though the House adjourned and went home Tuesday, the Senate will meet Wednesday.
“I wouldn’t call it mischief,” Clemens said of the amendment. “Is it something that could have been addressed by the secretary of state? Probably. But I think there are some members in the House who have reservations about how we’ve run technology in the state.”
The Senate approved the measure 34-3 on Monday before sending it to the House.
The House voted 100-9 on Tuesday to approve the bill. The measure includes $1.8 million, which must still be approved as part of the budget, and requires the state Division of Elections to develop the online voter-registration application by Oct. 1, 2017.
Grant pointed to well-publicized technology troubles in other state programs as a need for his amendment.
The state had expensive problems with the 2013 rollout of an unemployment website as well as problems this year with the educational-testing platform used with the Florida Standards Assessments.
Secretary of State Ken Detzner opposed the bill as it moved through legislative committees. In part, he said his agency will be busy next year overseeing what is expected to be the largest election in state history and is already undertaking a two-year rewrite of the statewide voter-registration system.
Detzner has also said his office would be under deadline pressure to coordinate the required online registration changes with 67 county supervisors of election and the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
Detzner has also warned the system would have to be built to ward off cyber-attacks from “forces of evil.”
Proponents say the bill will make it easier for service members from Florida to register and update voting records.
Rep. Matt Caldwell, a North Fort Myers Republican who sponsored the issue in the House, said supervisors of election will still have to verify each application as they do with all other voter-registration forms.
by Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida
Pictured: Precinct 33, located a the First Baptist Church of Bratt. NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.
West Florida Eliminated From 4A State Playoff Series
April 29, 2015
The defending 4A state champion West Florida Lady Jaguars are out of the state playoffs. The Lady Jags lost to the Walton Braves Tuesday 6-0 in the Region 1-4A quarterfinal.
Farrah Nicholas pitched six innings for West Florida, allowing eight hits and six runs while striking out three. Hitting for the Lady Jaguars were Kayla Miller 2-3 and Ealon Pyle 1-2.
NorthEscambia.com photos by Gary Carnley, click to enlarge.
Wahoos Drop Another One To Biloxi Shuckers
April 29, 2015
It was Fat Tuesday at Pensacola Bayfront Stadium but the Biloxi Shuckers did all the partying.
With the stadium decorated in purple, green and gold balloons, the Shuckers had five runs cross the plate in the second inning and the celebration was on. Biloxi, the Southern League South Division leader at 13-6, won the game, 6-2, and now has taken seven of nine from Pensacola (5-13) this season.
Pensacola Manager Pat Kelly credited Josh Smith for coming back and retiring 13 in a row after giving up five runs in the second inning.
“Our bullpen has been pretty taxed the last couple of days,” Kelly said, pointing out reliever Drew Hayes got called up to Triple-A Louisville and Layne Somsen started Sunday. “He became Josh Smith again. That’s the Josh Smith I’ve known and seen the last couple of years.”
Smith ended up throwing seven innings giving up six runs, three earned on six hits, no walks and striking out four.
If Pensacola had turned a double play to begin the second inning, Biloxi would have had no runners on base with two outs. Instead, Biloxi loaded the bases and Nick Shaw doubled to score two runs and Yadiel Rivera singled to score two more. In all five runs crossed the plate.
Rivera, the Milwaukee Brewers No. 13 prospect according to Baseball America, increased his on-base streak to 18 games and is hitting .367.
Blue Wahoos third baseman Seth Mejias-Brean singled to increase his on-base streak to six games. Wahoos shortstop Juan Perez, who had a nine-game hitting streak end Monday, hit a triple and scored his first run of the season on a single by center fielder Beau Amaral.
The Blue Wahoos are hitting .206 as a team, which is 10 points higher than the Jacksonville Suns, in the Southern League.
“Hitting is contagious but so is not hitting,” Kelly said. “These guys really feed off each other. There hasn’t been one guy go in and swing the bat good every time. It just takes somebody getting hot.”
The final game of the six-game series with the Milwaukee Brewers Double-A affiliate Biloxi Shuckers is scheduled at 6:35 p.m. Wednesday. LHP Wandy Peralta (1-1, 2.30) takes the mound for the Wahoos and is scheduled to be opposed by the Shuckers RHP Jorge Lopez (1-2, 5.25).
Fire Marshal Investigating Midday Fire In Molino
April 28, 2015
A suspicious midday fire Tuesday in Molino is under investigation.
A passerby reported the fire in a mobile home in the 5000 block of Highway 95A, south of Cedartown Road. The first firefighters on scene reported smoke showing from the trailer. The fire was quickly extinguished.
The Florida State Fire Marshal’s office was called to investigate the cause of the fire. There were no injuries reported.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
