- [Voiceover] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- Next on WEDU, the Pinellas County Commission votes to approve its share of funding for the new Rays baseball stadium.

But will it be enough to keep the team in St. Pete?

PolitiFact announces its annual Lie of the Year.

President-elect Trump has chosen Florida US Senator Marco Rubio to head the State Department.

So who will replace Rubio in the Senate?

And a Lakeland woman is facing terrorism charges for verbally threatening her health insurance company.

These stories coming up right now on Florida This Week.

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

Joining me on the panel this week, Colleen Wright is the St. Petersburg reporter for the Tampa Bay Times.

Danny Kushmer is a real estate broker and a businessman and a Republican.

Andy Oliver is the pastor of Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg and a Democrat.

And Mark Katches is the Vice President and Editor of the Tampa Bay Times.

Great to have all of you here.

I know it's a busy season, so thank you for coming on the set.

- Thank you.

- Well, this week the Pinellas County Commission approved paying for their part of a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium, telling team owners that what happens next is up to them.

The vote was five to two to approve the funding.

It's now up to the Rays to decide whether it wants to go through with building a $1.3 billion stadium and a massive new residential entertainment and business district on public land on the edge of downtown St. Petersburg.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, after the vote, the team ownership continued to blame the commission for delays they say will cause the stadium to open a year later than scheduled, resulting in increased construction costs.

According to the deal struck in July, the Rays are on the hook for all cost overruns.

Team President Matt Silverman released a statement after the commission votes saying, "As we have made clear, the county's delay has caused the ballpark's completion to slide into 2029.

And as a result, the cost of the project has increased significantly, and we cannot absorb this increase alone.

When the county and city wish to engage, we remain ready to solve the funding gap together."

So Colleen, you're the reporter on this story.

The Rays say that because there's a 49-day delay in the county vote to approve the bonds, that their costs have gone up tremendously.

Is that what they're saying?

- That is what they're saying because they say that the project is no longer in schedule and they cannot open a new stadium in 2028.

And these delays mean that the stadium would have to open in 2029, and that leads to increased costs that was kind of beyond their budget.

But at that Pinellas County Commission meeting, the city and the county's consultant was there, his name is David Abrams of Inner Circle Sports.

We wrote a story just recently about how he's worked on 25 to 30 Major League deals and he has never seen, you know, a delay of one or two months derail it into possibly around $200 million has been the figure that's been floated.

And he says he can't understand that funding gap.

But the Rays have been saying for a few months now, since October or so, that their costs have gone up, and they can't cover that gap.

But they won't say exactly what the gap is or how they're arriving at that number.

- Have they promised by a certain date to reveal what that number is?

- They have not, but now they have until March 31st to show that they are in the project.

They've got certain milestones they need to meet according to the contract.

And if they haven't met those milestones, then the deal automatically terminates.

So, it is in their court now.

- The deal that was announced in September, what does that deal say about any cost overruns?

- The Rays are on the hook for all of them.

And that was actually something that was sold to the public as this is a good deal.

We're talking a $1.3 billion stadium.

The Rays get the larger half, they're gonna take care of the larger half, $700 million, $600 million a split between the city and the county.

But in that deal, the Rays are also getting 65 acres of public land at a significant discount far lower than what that land was appraised for.

And they're also getting some help, about $142 million, for roads and sewers.

So, really, it was a pitch to the public saying, we'll take care of all this.

The Rays are also going to be responsible for like, any maintenance or repairs and insurance going forward.

But they're getting a lot of help with the stadium.

And their big pitch was any cost overruns, we've got them.

And here we are.

There's no shovels in the ground.

And they're saying just this delay on the county side, you know, following two back-to-back hurricanes, is enough to possibly derail the project.

- And you've got essentially two new makeups on the County Commission in Pinellas County and the St. Pete City Council.

You've got more skeptics on both of those bodies.

- Yes, and the way the county works is that right after the election, commissioners join the diocese immediately.

On the City Council side in St. Petersburg, those new members don't join until January.

The votes for bonds to finance the county's portion of the stadium were delayed because of the hurricanes, right?

We had two back-to-back huge hurricanes here in Tampa Bay.

So that vote was October 29th.

And the board, with its original members, you know, they had just agreed, you mentioned in July, to do this deal and approve the deal, actually voted 6-1.

So, supporters on the commission who want the deal to happen said, you know what, we should wait and pause a little bit.

Because at that time they wanted to know where the Rays would be playing in 2025, because Hurricane Milton tore the roof off Tropicana Field.

So, they wanted some clarity there and get some answers.

And so they didn't, nobody there thought, well, one person did.

It was a 6-1 vote, but the majority of commissioners there thought, not a big deal.

Let's just delay it one time.

It was the only time the county had delayed publicly anything to do with the stadium.

And the Rays say that was enough to almost derail the deal.

- [Rob] Did they object at the time?

- The Rays were not present at that meeting.

- Andy, you've been an opponent, or should I say skeptic of the stadium deal all along.

What do you make of the Rays asking for more money, asking the county to chip in more, city to chip in more?

- I mean, first I think it's always important for us to name that this land in question was originally a thriving Black-owned neighborhood, stolen through redlining, and through eminent domain.

We received HUD money that was supposed to go toward housing that ended up going toward building parking lots for a baseball stadium.

And now we are selling the land at a loss to billionaires and funding their stadium.

And the mayor's calling this equity.

And so I think we set out to do something altruistic, but we did so with partners that again and again remind us with every single statement they make, they only care about the bottom line.

They only care about profit.

And so I really hope that the Mayor keeps to his promise of not giving one penny more.

He said that at a City Council meeting.

And as one public commenter said at that meeting, which I thought was great, she said the Rays are like a really bad boyfriend that's just not that into you.

You have to know when to walk away.

- Danny, this has united people who are conservatives and people who are progressives on the issue of not funding a stadium for a team owner who's wealthy.

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And I remember that comment of the boyfriend.

It was a great comment.

You know, Rob, if you go back in history, just shortly after I-75 was built through South Hillsborough County down to Tamiami Trail, there was a group of landowners called the Big Bend Area Group.

And they wanted to put together a program and donate all this land to create a Meadowlands South.

In other words, baseball stadium, a football stadium, and even an arena all at private money expense.

We're gonna donate the land, obviously, because people would come in, and the other parts of the land would be more valuable.

It was railroaded by, I hate to say this, but I think the Tampa Sports Authority didn't want the bucks to leave Tampa.

A public entity spending money on a public stadium for a private entity.

Whereas you had a group of people that wanted the private dollars to do that.

So, I struggle with this.

I realize the economic impact of it, but.

- What's your opinion?

Should the County Commission and City Council stand firm and not offer any more assistance to the Rays?

- The vote was taken.

I think the delay was good.

Probably what, half a billion dollars the public's giving the Rays already for this system?

No more.

- Mark, the Rays have been kind of quiet.

They do issue statements, but sometimes, as Colleen said, they don't show up for significant meetings.

What's your take on the Rays' stance on this?

- That's a great question because you have to almost wonder, did they even really want this?

Did they get a pang of buyers remorse after this deal was done and now the hurricane is just an excuse?

That's a question that people are asking.

John Romano just had a terrific column the other day asking the Rays to account for the dollars they think they really got as a funding gap here.

And it'll be interesting to see if they follow through with that.

But they're not winning the PR war right now on this issue.

I think you saw a couple of commissioners change their vote.

They didn't want to be the Grinch that stole baseball, but right now it's in Stu's court.

It's gonna be interesting to see what happens from there.

- And Andy, I want you to speak for all opponents, should the deal be renegotiated or just stopped where it's at?

- I mean, if it were up to me, yeah, we should start over.

- But you would renegotiate.

- But I do understand the politics of voting the bonds through to call the Rays bluff.

Because I think the worst thing that could happen is for them to keep the land and then not go through with the stadium.

- And Colleen, what's the penalty if both the City Council and the County Commission have approved the bonds, what kind of, what do the Rays face if they don't join into the agreement?

- Right now, the only party that has the power to back out of these agreements are the Rays.

And really that's been all up until now.

If the city or the county hadn't passed the bonds, it is possible, like Andy said, that the Rays could have kept those 65 acres that they got, you know, cheap.

And that was a big, big risk.

We are looking at a possibility where the redevelopment known as the Historic Gas Plant District could have been built and owned or possibly sold by the Rays group without a ballpark, and the Rays could leave town, or, you know, maybe that money would've funded a stadium elsewhere.

But now that we're to the point where both the city and the county have passed bonds, it is fully on the Rays now.

There's nothing the city and county can do.

The Rays can either meet their obligations by March 31st, not meet those obligations, and the deal would automatically terminate, or they can cut bait today and write a notice of notice of termination letter and it would all kind of go back to the way it's been, which is what will happen to the Rays, and we'll be back to having no answers.

- Okay.

- Hey, Rob?

- Yeah?

- There is an interesting scenario here.

They were supposed to build this new ballpark in parking lot six, right?

And keep the Trop there to play in until 2028.

Well, if they don't go back to the Trop, they could tear it down right now, start the next phase of the development on land that was gonna be a ballpark for a few years, work with the city on the insurance money, and instead of going and playing any more games in the Trop, there's that $50 million pot of insurance money.

I think that's gonna be a source of conversation over the next few weeks to see if that could be part of the equation.

- Okay.

Well, PolitiFact, the fact checking organization based at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, named its annual Lie of the Year this week.

The designation goes to something that Donald Trump said during the presidential debate in September about Haitian immigrants in the town of Springfield, Ohio.

- In Springfield, they're eating the dogs.

The people that came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating the pets of the people that live there.

And this is what's happening in our country.

And it's a shame.

- [Rob] The problem with the statement was there was no evidence of it happening.

City and county officials said repeatedly that it was not true.

And when asked, the Trump campaign was not able to provide any direct proof.

What followed in Springfield was dozens of bomb threats at schools, grocery stores, and government buildings.

Some Haitians did not want to go out in public or send their children to school.

Danny, what do you make of the selection of that statement as the Lie of the Year?

- Well, you know, as a Baby Boomer growing up, reading the newspaper every single day, Tampa Tribune, the Tampa Bay Times, I really see this story from PolitiFact being the Lie of the Year as just ridiculous.

Did anybody that voted for Kamala Harris, and when Trump said that in the debate, did it change their vote?

Were they gonna be a Trump supporter, and then oh my goodness, he lied, and now we've gotta vote for Kamala Harris?

There's no way.

But what did happen over the past year, and possibly the entire last four years, was an administration and supporters that lied to us about the welfare of our current president.

Wall Street Journal just came out with a report yesterday where 50 staffers, anonymous, but you'll see more once the election, once the inauguration's over, 50 staffers have come out and said, we've got a problem.

Joe Biden is not with it.

In fact, and even after the debate on June 27th, Kareem Jean-Pierre said, he is sharp as tack.

After that debate.

So, we talk about a Lie of the Year, and PolitiFact would say it's a stupid comment, it was a lie, but it was a stupid comment that Donald Trump found and certainly gave out there.

It was silly, but was it really a Lie of the Year?

Does that rise to the Lie of the Year when you have a president that is running our country right now that we don't even know if he's there?

- Mark, I want to ask you, I mean, when a leader like this potential president says something like this that turns out to have no basis in fact, what should be our response?

You know, what should our response be?

- Well, it certainly, I will say that these comments absolutely did intensify the anti-immigration debate in America, and it was gasoline on the debate.

That said, you're right.

The fact is, at the end of the day, Trump actually got more votes in Clark County where Springfield is in 2024 than he got in either 2016 or 2020.

So, it didn't play out in the ballot box, certainly, but it was something that intensified the debate on the anti-immigration debate.

- Right.

Andy, you put up a sign at your church, and we'll just put it up on the screen now, it says, "No one is eating the pets."

When did you put that up and why'd you put it up?

- Because whether it's in the press or in the pulpit, like, our job is very similar, it's to tell the truth.

So, I got up early in the morning and changed the sign.

We got more outrage from that sign than anything else we've ever posted.

- [Rob] What kind of outrage did you get?

I mean, we got threats, we got angry phone calls, letters, and I think it's because Trump has mastered rallying his base, using these stereotypes to dehumanize immigrants or unhoused people, transgender folks, and others.

And if we let the dehumanization continue to reduce people to lesser than our pets, then there's not gonna be anyone around to stop the harm that's gonna come.

- Danny, I gotta ask you, though, President Biden did step aside.

Kamala Harris came in and and ran for president.

Wasn't that an acknowledgement that he wasn't up to doing another four years?

- Everyone denied it, so, no.

It wasn't an acknowledgement.

I mean, yes, he did bow out, but there's not one person in the administration, not even Kamala Harris, in fact, Secretary Mayorkas said the most difficult part about meeting with President Biden is preparing for it, because he's sharp, intensely probing, and detail-oriented and focused.

- Okay, but getting back to the Haitians themselves, if this caused bomb threats and people to be scared to go outside of their homes, they didn't want to be appear in public, doesn't the leader of the country owe it to everybody to try to make them safe?

- I would imagine that, yes, that's not a good thing for sure.

But was that even overblown in the story?

I would submit it probably was, and we talk about the supporters, and what Andy said, and I totally believe what he's saying, but there are 76 million supporters that voted for Donald Trump.

So, he got 76 million votes in this election.

So we talk about his base, that's 76 million people that chose that migrant, the influx of our illegal immigrants, is too much.

- These Haitians were legal immigrants who were welcomed to Springfield by the employers there.

- Some legal, certainly.

Absolutely.

But legal in what sense?

Are they legal because they filled out the CPB app and sought asylum?

- [Rob] They were legal under presidential order.

Anyway, so- - I think we can all agree maybe the real Lie of the Year is Brian Auld saying the Rays are here to stay, but.

(laughing) - Well, now that Florida's US Senator Marco Rubio has been named by Donald Trump as the next Secretary of State, the question is, who will replace Rubio in the Senate?

That decision is up to Governor Ron DeSantis.

Last week, Trump's daughter-in-law, Laura Trump, stepped down from her role as Co-Chair of the Republican National Committee, a move that fueled speculation that she could be tapped to fill Rubio's Senate seat.

However, when he was asked this week whether he expects DeSantis to name Laura Trump as Rubio's successor, the president-elect answered, no, I don't.

The Miami Herald reports Governor DeSantis has already begun vetting potential Senate appointees and has said that he's likely to make a decision on Rubio's replacement by early January.

So Danny, would Laura Trump make a good US Senator from Florida?

- I would imagine she would make a good US Senator from Florida, I will question that.

So, I'm not a fan of carpet backers.

I'm gonna go back to the old school terminology.

And quite frankly, I think our next senator from Florida should be someone that has a vested interest in the state of Florida.

- [Rob] Like who?

Who would you suggest?

- You know, I will leave that up to the Governor, but my goodness, we've got some great congressional leaders out there.

We have Byron Donalds, we have our Attorney General, we have our Lieutenant Governor.

There's a lot of people that I believe the Governor could look at.

And of course, you know, the speculation is, does he appoint himself?

Well, he certainly could.

- Would that be okay with you?

- I wouldn't be against that.

I mean, the man has done well as the Governor of the State of Florida.

- Okay, so Mark, Danny just mentioned a few people who were on, I think the Governor's list, Ashley Moody, the Attorney General, the Lieutenant Governor, Jeanette Núñez, and his Chief of Staff, James Uthmeier.

So, those are some of the people that the governor is supposedly vetting to select.

- I still don't think Laura Trump is out of the equation.

I think it will be interesting to see what happens if Hegseth implodes, I know that the Trump team is trying to rebound that pick and get him through the Senate.

But if that implodes, the Wall Street Journal has reported that DeSantis wants the Defense Secretary job.

It's a strong possibility that there could be a little bit of horse trading going on here.

He ends up in the Defense Department, and Laura Trump is a US senator.

- And one of the mysteries still is, DeSantis ran against Trump in the primary earlier this year.

And how much bad blood remains from that move?

We don't know.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Okay.

Well, a Lakeland woman was charged last week with threatening her health insurance company during a phone conversation after police say that she uttered the same words found on the bullet casings used in the killing of an insurance executive earlier this month.

According to police, 42-year-old Brianna Boston told a representative of Blue Cross Blue Shield, "Delay, deny and depose, you people are next," as they ended a phone call in which she unsuccessfully challenged the company's denial of her health insurance claim.

The words delay, deny and depose were written on the casings left at the scene of the shooting of United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, on a New York City Street on December 4th.

The words reflect the strategy some insurance companies allegedly use in dealing with expensive claims, delay the decision, deny the claim, and aggressively defend themselves.

Boston was arrested and charged with threatening to conduct an act of terrorism.

The charge is a second degree felony, and she faces up to 15 years in prison if she's convicted.

Boston says she does not own a firearm.

Bail was set at $100,000.

She bonded out last Friday.

So, Andy, the question is, do the charges match the offense?

- I'm gonna borrow a line from our newspaper people here.

I don't think we should bury the lead.

I think the real story here is about a system that requires you to pay out an arm and a leg for insurance, and then if you were to lose an actual arm or leg, is going to deem that prosthetic medically unnecessary.

We pay twice as much for healthcare as other developed nations, yet we rank dead last.

And I think saying Brian Thompson was someone's husband, someone's father, it humanizes him.

But ironically enough, his job was to dehumanize others, making them data points on a spreadsheet rather than people.

And those denied care are also someone's mother, someone's child, someone's best friend.

Murder is wrong.

Threats of murder are absolutely wrong.

But this CEO's decision accelerated the deaths of thousands.

And I think that's the real story.

- But you're not suggesting that Thompson's death was justified?

- Absolutely not.

- Yeah.

All right.

But should this woman in Lakeland be charged with terrorism for what she said to Blue Cross Blue Shield over the telephone?

- I'm gonna leave that up to the lawyers and legal scholars.

But again, I think the conversation needs to be more about our system that's broken.

- Okay.

Health insurance.

Okay.

Danny, you get the last word on this one.

- Well, you know, I thought Obamacare was supposed to help all of the insurance industry, to make it all better and affordable to everyone.

And apparently it hasn't done that.

But I will tell you this, all free speech is free speech, but is not all protected.

So, that woman said something that she shouldn't have said.

It was a threat.

- So, if she says you people are next, that's enough to send her to prison for 15 years.

- No, but it's certainly enough to get her into court system and charge her.

And maybe there's a lesser system, maybe there's a community service, maybe there's something, but she does need to, that was a threat.

And threats should not be in our public.

- Would it make a difference if she had a gun?

- No.

It doesn't make any difference.

A threat's a threat.

- Okay.

Well, before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

And Colleen, let's start with you.

Your other big story of the week?

- Folks are always asking me, what is the next step in the Rays?

What are they going to do?

March 31st, I just wanna highlight that that's a in-writing date to look forward to.

We will know by then if we have a deal or not.

We could find out ahead of time, it's possible, but that's the very end.

So maybe the light's at the end of the tunnel.

Three more months.

- Okay.

Danny, your other big story?

- Hey, recently the AP just reported, back in 2000, the Supreme Court, I'm sorry, Congress passed a bill allowing $23 billion for Everglades restoration.

So in the report it says water flows are increasing in the wetland areas and around Tamiami Trail, native species such as storks and other wading birds are coming back.

Habitats and swamps are coming back.

Regions that were dominated by invasive species are going away.

And finally, the flamingos that blew in from Hurricane Idalia are staying in the Everglades.

So that's a good story.

- Mark, your other big story?

- Well, the Times broke the story this fall about the governor's plans, the administration's plans to put golf courses, pickleball courts, hotels, on precious native habitat throughout the state.

That drumbeat of stories from Max Chesnes and Emily Mahoney led to universal bipartisan outrage and put the brakes on that plan.

But Max and Emily have a story we just put up online right now.

It's gonna be in Sunday's paper, that really gets to the background of how that story emerged and how it fell apart.

- Yeah.

Where did that idea come from?

Yeah.

Okay, Andy, you're other big story?

- Today I presided over the funeral of 91 people who are homeless in our county.

Those are the people that died this year.

Those are the ones we know about, at least in Pinellas County.

It's a mortality rate of over 12%.

And I think it's important that we realize this isn't accidental, it's by design.

It's about policies that make housing a privilege rather than a right.

And these outcomes are the choices of lawmakers and landlords and developers, and even voters.

And so from the pulpit of that funeral, I called on Mayor Welch and the city to invest far more money in our response team that seeks to find housing-first solutions for those that are without homes, and to repeal all of our anti-vagrancy laws that are actually killing people.

We've gotta do better.

- And the number of deaths is up by 12% this year, over last year?

- 12% of those who are homeless died this year.

- Died this year.

Okay.

Thank you all.

That's it for us.

Thanks to our guests, Colleen Wright, Danny Kushmer, Mark Katches and Andy Oliver.

If you have comments about this program, please send them to ftw@wedu.org.

Our show is now available as a podcast.

From all of us here at WEDU, have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, a Joyful Kwanzaa, and a wonderful Winter Solstice.

(upbeat music)