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

(gentle music) - Next on WEDU, several politicians who may want to run for president in 2024 come to Tampa, Democrats are losing the battle over party registration in Florida, and conservationists try to protect some endangered lands in Pinellas County.

Our guests are Florida Democratic Party Chairman Manny Diaz, Pinellas Republican, Barbara Haselden, WEDU's Ernest Hooper, and Tracey McManus, a staff reporter at the Tampa Bay Times.

These stories and more coming up on "Florida This Week".

(dramatic music) Welcome back.

Florida is growing fast.

According to the most recent Census Bureau numbers, Florida had a net migration of about 4000 people a week last year.

We see it every day as the roads become more crowded, and some of the natural beauty that many of us love is wiped away to make room for more development.

Conservationists are trying to protect some of the last remaining natural spaces in Pinellas County.

Two of those spaces are the West Klosterman Preserve in Largo, and the 74 acres of green space on the Anclote River in Tarpin Springs.

Tarpin Springs city commissioners approved construction of more than 400 apartments on that land along the Anclote River just a few months ago, but several new members were elected to the commission, and the commission has now voted to pause construction until a lawsuit challenging the project is settled.

Advocates for the Klosterman site, which is host to several rare and endangered species, are trying to raise $3 million to purchase the property and preserve it.

Tracey McManus is the Clearwater and North Pinellas County reporter for the Tampa Bay Times.

She's been covering the Anclote and Klosterman stories for several years, and she joins us now.

Tracey McManus, nice to see you in person.

- Thank you, Rob.

Thanks for having me.

- So are these the last developed major undeveloped parcels in Pinellas County?

- Well, they're certainly the largest.

The Anclote River property in North Pinellas in Tarpin Springs that has a proposed development for it right now, it's definitely the largest undeveloped property in north Pinellas.

And then the West Klosterman property that residents are also trying to save, it's 14 acres and it's right next to a 76 acre conservation area that's managed by Pinellas County.

So there's a lot at stake, and residents are very passionate about these properties.

- The Tarpin Springs city commission has reversed itself.

It voted once to basically let the project go ahead, and then now it's voted to halt the project because of a lawsuit by concerned citizens.

- Yeah, it has a fascinating history.

The Tarpin Springs city commission voted to approve an application in November for 404 apartments being proposed by Morgan Group Development, a Texas-based developer.

And there's a very active resident group called Concerned Citizens of Tarpin Springs, and they sued over the approval.

They have some arguments that they believe the city violated its comprehensive plan and due process by approving the project.

But after the approval in November, concerned citizens asked the city commission in December to halt the project, to halt permits, and they asked the commission, hey, let our lawsuit play out and until then, please halt the permits.

And the city commission denied that, they said no.

And then what happened was in March, there was an election, and three new city commissioners were elected who, during their campaigns, opposed the project.

And after the election in June, the concerned citizens came back and asked the city again to halt the permits on the project while the lawsuit plays out, and this time they approved it.

- And the developers are not happy about it.

They've taken this issue to court.

Who wins?

The old city commission or the new city commission?

Who's in control?

- It's a fascinating question.

The developer yesterday appealed, filed an appeal with the court, contesting the city's stay of the permits.

And it's an interesting scenario because now the city can file a response to the developer's appeal of the stay, and they're gonna have to defend the stay, when in December, they had denied the stay, and then in June they approved the stay.

So it's a tough situation.

- So the courts are gonna have to work it out.

And the West Klosterman Preserve is one of these last beautiful undeveloped areas.

It's where gopher tortoises are.

The people that are trying to save that are trying to raise about $3.2 million, and they almost got it because the legislature approved the money, the governor vetoed the money.

So where are they now?

- They're still trying to raise the funds.

The Pinellas County School Board owns the 14 acres and the resident group there is the West Klosterman Preservation Group.

And they've been rallying for a few years now trying to save the property.

They've been in talks with the school board, asking the school board to give them time before they put it out to developers again.

The school board gave them until July 1st to raise the funds, and the group thought they had it with the state money.

Then that was vetoed, and put them in a bad situation.

So they're still trying to raise the funds.

I spoke with some group members recently, and they confirmed that the school board officials are now working with them to give them a little bit more time.

They've sent a letter to Pinellas County asking if there'll be county funds made available for the purchase.

We haven't had confirmation yet if there will be, so they're still working on it.

- I think a lot of Floridians hate to see Florida go.

They hate to see these natural spaces disappear.

A lot of people moved here five years, 10 years, 50 years, or they've lived here all their lives, and they see these beautiful areas torn down and making way for development.

What kind of feedback do you get on your reporting when you report on these issues?

- A lot of feedback.

I think people are really passionate about this, especially in Pinellas County, being such a densely populated county.

There's very few large green spaces left that are not developed.

And people feel a real urgency to protect these properties.

You know, it goes up against developer rights and property rights, and that's a big issue in Florida as well.

But people are organizing around it, especially in Pinellas County.

If you remember last year, residents really rallied and helped save 44 acres near Dunedin, the Gladys Douglas Preserve.

And the public, the city, the county were able to put funds together to buy that property, and now it's being turned into a preserve.

The city of Dunedin has taken the lead on that.

That's a huge success story, and I think a lot of other preservationists and environmentalists in the county, including the Anclote folks and the west Klosterman folks are looking at that as kind of a success story, something they're trying to replicate.

- Tracey, thanks for coming by the studios.

- Thanks for having me.

(tense music) - Well, the presidential election is not until 2024, but this week, several politicians who might run for their party's nomination were visiting Tampa.

Vice President Kamala Harris got a briefing at MacDill Air Force Base, Illinois Democratic governor, J.B. Pritzker, is speaking at the Democratic party's Leadership Blue event, and the first national summit meeting of the new group, Moms for Liberty, features both Governor Ron DeSantis and Senator Rick Scott.

Winning the Tampa Bay area and the I-4 corridor are considered crucial for any politician who is running state-wide.

Also, a new New York Times/Sienna College nationwide poll out this week shows that if the primary were held now, likely Republican voters favor Donald Trump, 49%, over Governor DeSantis, who took second place at 25%.

All the other names surveyed came in far behind.

Joining us now on our panel this week, Barbara Haselden is the president of the St. Petersburg Republican club, Manny Diaz is the Chair of the Florida Democratic party, and Ernest Hooper is a former reporter and host of the program "That's All I'm Saying", here on WEDU.

Nice to have all of you here on the set.

Thank you for coming.

- Thank you.

- Barbara, let's start with the report out in the Washington Post on Friday that says that President Trump may announce that he's running again for office in September, according to two aides.

Good idea for the Republicans?

- Well, I think that when you look at many, many polls, that he is polling way ahead of most of the, Governor DeSantis even, and I know that there are so many people that are really anticipating him to announce that he's gonna be running.

And if you even look at Alaska last Saturday, the thousands and thousands of people that are still turning up to his events.

So I think his popularity, in many ways, has actually grown since the November 2020 election.

So I would not think, I think it would be a good thing, actually.

- Manny, do you think that if former President Trump got in the race again, that that would help Democrats?

Would it stir up turnout for Democrats?

Or do you think it's gonna help the Republicans more?

- Well, honestly I think Democrats have to help Democrats and help themselves.

I mean, I played sports growing up, and you focus and you concentrate on what you have to do to win the game versus what the other side is doing.

Who knows?

I mean, personally, I would love to see a Trump/DeSantis race.

- Because they'd tear each other up?

- Yeah (laughs).

I can't wait to see what the governor's nickname is gonna be when that happens.

But in the meantime, we have a job to do, and that's got to be our number one priority.

- Okay.

Ernest, our governor, Ron DeSantis, has really not said much publicly about whether or not he thinks that the 2020 election was decided fairly.

A lot of Republicans think that election was stolen.

Our governor really has been on the fence.

He's been pretty quiet about it.

- He has, and the new Secretary of State has also been kind of cagey about that issue, not admitting publicly that Joe Biden is the rightful president.

I think the Congressional investigation into January 6th is a factor in all of this.

I think President Trump is eager to get back out there and kind of take away some of the shine of that Congressional investigation, and announcing this fall, I think, would put him in a position to do that.

It's hard to tell how many people are really paying attention to the Congressional hearings, but you have to wonder, not so much those on the far right, but you have to wonder if moderates and those in the center are being swayed by the testimony that has come out about January 6th and the days leading up to January 6th.

- Barbara, do you think that the January 6th testimony has had an impact on voters?

- I think that it's been such a one-sided kangaroo court, so to speak, that anyone who's paying attention, it's designed not to pay a lot of attention so that you just might get the sound bites in the evening news, and those sound bites being things that are cherry picked that have happened that day that are bad against Trump and bad against the people that showed up.

I think if you were arrested for some crime or misdemeanor and you went to court and you were not able to have both sides testify, that is not due process.

- Manny, I think the question is where do the independents go, and do the January 6th committee hearings have any impact on that small sliver of American voters who are independent?

Where do you think they break down on this?

- Actually, the sliver is getting bigger.

I absolutely do.

I think that one of the factors that played a role in his losing, let's be clear, he lost the election, is the fact that a lot of people in the middle, which we're calling moderates or swing voters, independents, abandoned him.

They were with him in '16, in many respects, and they abandoned him in '20 because there was too much chaos.

Every morning you woke up and you didn't know what did he do last night?

Who did he tweet?

Did we invade Canada or Australia or Burma?

Where are we?

And I think people got tired of that.

So what I think this adds is more chaos.

I mean, Americans are exhausted right now.

You know, we went through COVID, and now we're fighting prices and inflation and all kinds of other stuff, and people are looking for something that is a little more stable, and I think the notion of saying we're gonna go through another four years of that is not something that that group of people would want.

- I want to ask you about what's happening in Tampa this week with the Democrats.

The Vice President was here in Tampa on Thursday, and now J.B. Pritzker, who had some pretty strong things to say after the Uvalde shootings about guns, the governor of Illinois is here, in his speech.

Does that say anything about his ambitions or what the Democrats think about what Joe Biden should do in terms of not running?

- No, no, in all these types of events we throw out the net and see whose schedule fits in to this particular weekend, and see who can join us, and he happened to step up.

So no, I mean, we're not making a statement in that regard.

Whether he thinks he should run or is running, he's certainly getting around, as well as others, and we'll see how that plays out.

But he's a long public servant, and people here are excited to hear him, and we're excited to have him.

- Ernest, I wanted to ask you about the issues.

I mean, Pritzker is pretty strong on the issue of gun control.

There are other issues that are percolating out there.

The governor, Governor DeSantis, says that he's a governor promoting freedom, and his position on masks and vaccine mandates indicates that.

There's the other issue of abortion.

Which are the issues that you think are gonna play the biggest in the fall elections when Democrats and Republicans battle it out?

- Well, I think the biggest issue is going to be inflation, rising gas prices, skyrocketing cost of groceries.

I think that has the ability to overshadow some of these other issues.

After those issues, and I think that's going to favor the Republican party.

It's definitely going to create some headwinds for the Democrats.

The other issues you mentioned, I think abortion has the potential to be a bigger factor now that Roe v. Wade has been reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The question becomes will those who are upset about that decision register and vote and become active?

I think there will be a lot of women, and there are a lot of women who are upset about that, but are they going to show up at the polls, and are they going to make that the determining issue in how they vote?

- That is a question.

Will they show up?

Barbara, what do you think about the issues?

Do you agree with Ernest that inflation and the cost of living, that's gonna be the big issue in November?

- Well, I do think that that's gonna be the big issue, and it's basically failing public policy of this administration that is trickling down to milk on the shelf and the ability to, of course, fill your car up with gas.

And I think that talking, going back to Manny, what you were saying about getting up in the morning wondering what that guy did yesterday.

Well, we wonder every day what this president has done yesterday, especially overseas, and it's his policies that are gonna come back in November and in 2024, and are going to play out.

Because we've got a lot of digging out to do.

I think there's really only one person that I can think of on a short list that loves a fight, and that's Donald Trump, as far as getting in there and just looking at this whole list of problems and start ticking them off to get us back in the economy we were in.

- Manny, if you look at the issues of abortion and freedom, if you look at inflation, if you look at guns, which one do you think is gonna motivate the most voters in the fall?

- Well, I agree with the group.

I think the economy right now is the number one issue.

I think inflation is an issue.

By the way, I think Florida inflation is an issue because Republicans have been in control of the legislature, as you know, for the past 20, 25 years.

We are now the most expensive housing state in the country.

Every time I run into somebody, yesterday I was at a meeting, the first words out of somebody's mouth, my home owner's insurance went up 40%.

My utility went up by this, my car insurance.

Our cost of living, forget about what has happened in the last year, essentially many of those things are completely out of our control, would have happened if Trump was president, would have happened if anybody was president.

We had a pandemic.

We put 300, 350 million shots into arms within 150 days of him taking office.

We all started to feel comfortable.

What happened is when the pandemic hits, business shuts down.

So I always like to give people the example of cars.

We were talking about cars earlier.

So America produces 50,000 cars.

All of a sudden the pandemic hits, every car company shuts down.

The companies that provide the parts for the cars shut down.

There is no production.

Everybody's at home.

Nobody's buying a car.

Now, all of a sudden, we feel good about ourselves again to get out and start joining the economy and buying cars.

But in that period, we only manufactured 50 cars.

Now 50,000 people want to buy 50 cars.

What do you think that's gonna do to the price of a car?

And that's essentially the first thing that happens.

And that happens for the first part of last year.

Things were slightly more expensive because of that boom in the economy, which, by the way, set all kinds of records in terms of job growth and everything else.

Then as we're trying to get over that, then we have a war in Europe.

And inflation, in case you haven't checked, around the world, certainly in the European countries and in the developed countries, is much higher than even ours, because they're suffering just as much as we are.

The price of gas has gone up $2 since the war started in Ukraine.

So yes, is it a problem?

It's a huge problem and we have to try and try and try to fix the problem.

He's offered several suggestions and done several things.

I still, by the way, have not heard a plan from the Republicans as to how they would fix the problem.

- Let's go to another topic.

The voter registration numbers for Republicans in Florida are looking better and better.

For the first time in state history, the GOP now holds the lead, a 176,000 registered voter advantage over Democrats.

And the numbers appear to be growing.

Just a few years ago, in 2016, Democrats had 330,000 more registered voters here than did the Republicans.

So Manny, why are Democrats losing this, and what are you doing to turn that around?

- Well, this is a shell game, okay, which by the way, is not from the Democrats, because the Democrats in the last 10 years, absolutely blew it.

They stopped going out there and doing voter registration drives, and you see the result of it.

But this notion, the Republican party announced at the beginning of last year that by the end of the year, they would have an advantage of so many voters.

That's kind of interesting, isn't it?

Here's the game.

There are voters that are called active voters and inactive voters.

To become an inactive, when you look at the Secretary of State's numbers, which is what you use, they show active voters.

There are lots of people who are inactive voters who are still eligible voters, and that's the game they played, because if they send you, if your neighbor calls the supervisor of elections and says, you know, I think Rob moved.

I haven't seen him in a while.

They'll send you a little card, and if you don't respond to that card in 30 days, you are now an inactive voter.

You have no idea.

Now, all you have to do to become an active voter is show a sign of life.

So if you vote at the next election, if you call and you say, I'm alive, they'll put you back on.

But that's the shell game.

So it hasn't been a function of they've been working harder than we have, because they haven't.

But here's the bottom line.

The bottom line is there are more no party affiliates registering than Democrats or Republicans.

- A few years ago, though, Andrew Gillum promised to spend a million dollars to register people to vote.

I know you've got a program, $15 million to go to every county in the state to try to energize people, but how's it working out?

- Well, that's a campaign plan, that's not a registration plan.

But yes, we're very excited.

It's the first time Democrats have ever gotten together around a table, all candidates state-wide.

- Barbara, why do you think, I mean, do you agree with Manny, these aren't the real numbers, or do you think that Florida is now a red state?

- Well, I think we got to talk in the, I'll call it the green room, and I think that Manny's a very nice man.

I think it's difficult for us to agree on much of anything because we're just coming from a different place.

And I did research last night on the voter registration, not only in the state of Florida, which the facts are the facts are the facts, okay, the numbers are there.

But if you even look at Pinellas County, back in 2020, November of 2020, the Democrats had 4643 more voters in Pinellas County.

Today the Republicans have 6165 voters for a swing of darn near 10,000 voters in Pinellas County.

St. Pete, which we all know is very, very Democrat, also is losing ground.

I live in St. Pete, and in 2020, November, at the time of the election, the Democrats had an advantage.

They had 40,000 voters advantage, and now they have 36,000 voters, so their lead has shrunk by 4,000 even in the city of St. Pete, which is pretty surprising considering so much that's going on in St. Pete, that we have Republicans either switching their party affiliation or moving to the area.

And people are coming from the northern states, all over the state of Florida, that's what we're getting pretty much is north, and people are apparently registering as Republicans.

- Ernest, we only have 30 seconds.

Is Florida now a red state, do you think?

- I still think it's a purple state, but I think the Democrats have to explain the complexities of our economy and get that message through.

The Republicans clearly are gonna say this is the fault of Joe Biden's policies.

You have to keep emphasizing that message, that inflation is a problem across the globe.

You have to keep emphasizing that message about the supply chain.

Who's gonna be able to do a better job of telling their story?

That's what the midterms are gonna come down to.

- Fair enough.

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

Barbara, let's start with you.

Your other big story of the week.

- Well, I think that it just came out in the paper, in St. Pete Times two days ago, I guess, that the Bus Rapid Transit is gonna be opening in October in St. Petersburg, and that is the most heavily used and most efficient east-west thoroughfare in St. Petersburg, three lanes one way, three lanes the other way, all the way across the peninsula with traffic light timed, and that's all been destroyed by this Bus Rapid Transit.

And that's PSTA, and what we have seen over the last eight years, especially PSTA, is we have seen a plummeting ridership, we have seen their operating expenses go from 60 million a year to 111 million a year that they just introduced for their next budget.

So their operations, the costs are going up, their ridership is plummeting, their fare recovery, which we don't have time, probably, to talk about what fare recovery is, plummeted, and yet they're expanding and taking lanes?

This is gonna have a dedicated lane.

So it's 10 miles across and 10 miles back, so this is gonna be 20 miles of a lane loss of this three lane, one-way functional, and it's also because they're gonna give the buses the light advantage, you know what I'm saying.

- Over cars.

- Yeah, over cars.

Then all of the timed lighting is gonna be ruined.

- Ernest, your other big story of the week.

- What does Meek Mill, Jay-Z and Governor Ron DeSantis have in common?

- [Rob] I give up.

- They all believe in probation reform.

This week, Ron DeSantis signed a bill that is going to reform probation in Florida, and it was a bill backed by an organization led by Meek Mill and Jay-Z, two hip hop icons.

It's going to shorten probation periods, and also allow people on probation to do their visits virtually.

And so it's gonna make a big difference for those who are facing probation, and hopefully get more of those people back into the workforce.

- All right, well thank you all for a great show.

- Thank you for having us.

- Thank you.

- And thank you for watching here, watching our program.

We want to remind you that Floridians who want to vote in the upcoming primary elections must register by July 25th.

Primary election day is August 23rd.

You can register online at registertovoteflorida.gov.

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And to comment about this show, please send us an email.

Our address is ftw@wedu.org, and from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.

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