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

(inquisitive music) - Coming up next the legislative session stretches beyond 60 days.

Florida surgeon general says healthy children do not need to get the COVID vaccine.

Russian misinformation about Ukraine is being spread from Longboat Key.

And the Tampa mayor's facing controversies over her choice of police chief and a large, no-bid contract.

All this and more right now on "Florida This Week."

Welcome back.

The annual legislative session was supposed to end on Friday but was extended because work on the state budget took longer than expected.

What's clear is that culture war issues with the backing of the governor, abortion limits, limits on the teaching of black history, and limits about what can be said in schools about gays and lesbians did emerge as big winners.

Here to talk about what we know of as of right now is Politico Florida's Senior Reporter, Matt Dixon.

He's been covering this year's legislative session.

And Matt, welcome back.

- Thanks for having me.

- So, Matt, what would you say the most significant things that have transpired at the legislature have been so far?

If you were to name three this year, what would you say those are?

- Well, I mean, a lot happens when these guys come up to Tallahassee, but if there's some main bullet points that people should kinda focus on, I would sort of break it down as culture wars and cash.

There is $112 billion budget this year, which is by far the biggest in state history.

For context, the current year budget, the one we're currently in, is $101 billion.

So almost a $10 billion increase in one year, which is interesting for a Republican-dominated legislature.

And then, there's also, as you had mentioned, I say culture wars is a broad headline, but there's several different issues.

The abortion issue, issues related to critical race theory, there's legislation out there that opponents are concerned would ban books in local school districts.

And then, of course, the infamous "Don't Say Gay" bill, which is what opponents have branded legislation that would limit what could be discussed in public schools.

So those are sort of the sweeping top line things and really the issues that, I'm sitting in the state capitol right now, really the issues that are coming down in play to the very end of session.

- A lot of those culture war issues were those suggested by Governor DeSantis at the start of the session.

- Yeah, these are all Governor DeSantis-championed bills.

And they were notable at times actually that, you know, the governor can't actually file legislation.

He can't run legislation himself, so he's gotta find allies in the legislature to do it.

There were actually some awkward moments in committee at times this year where it almost appeared his own bill sponsors either didn't have answers to some of the questions or, you know, seemed to be a bit reluctant because those guys that the lawmakers are kind of on the front lines here, when they run a bill for the governor, the governor gets to hold the press conference, and then just sort of watch the legislative process play out.

But those guys have to go to committee meetings and be really in rooms full of, you know, contentious vocal opponents.

And there were some interesting interactions throughout the duration of the 68th legislative session is those guys tried to shepherd the governor's legislative package through the process.

- Are there indications that the groups that are on the other side of these culture war questions, are they gonna sue?

Are they gonna try to prevent these laws from becoming enacted?

The governor certainly is gonna sign them, but what do these groups, you know, like the LGBTQ groups, what have they said about the legislation?

- Yeah, I mean, I think without question, most of these bills are gonna end up in court.

There's actually sort of a joke among Tallahassee-based reporters that cover the capitol, you can sort of see a bill that's gonna have you in a courthouse in June.

The legislative session gets out a lawsuit, gets filed, and you cover a court hearing during the summer.

And I think we're gonna have a lot of those this year.

All of the bills that I just mentioned, I think are gonna be prime candidates.

Plus there's, you know, the legislature's finishing up redistricting.

There's already been a lawsuit filed on that.

So I think the legislative session is only gonna extend one day to Monday for the budget.

But sort of functionally, it's going to extend for months because there's gonna be some lengthy litigation that I think comes from the law-making period.

- There are gonna be some pay increases for people that are employed in government at both the local level and who work for the state.

How important was the Biden rescue money to making this $112 billion budget a reality?

- It was really helpful.

It was $3.5 billion the state still expects to get.

The state doesn't have that money but said that in a way is expected this spring.

And it funded a lot of big ticket items, $200 million for a gas tax break that Governor DeSantis wanted.

Interestingly enough, he wanted one all year.

He's gonna get a one month gas tax in October.

There'll be a sales tax holiday on gas purchases, and several skeptics or cynics have noted that's one month before the election.

So I'm guessing folks will hear a lot about that in October.

There's also a ton of higher education construction projects.

That's where I think the biggest silo of the federal money went to, universities and colleges for construction.

So there's gonna be a lot of cranes on campuses moving forward 'cause some of that Biden money.

- So around Florida, people are seeing their homeowners insurance jump pretty sharply.

There's also been rises in auto insurance, and also we've got a real problem with housing affordability here in Florida.

Did the legislature address those issues in any sort of measurable way?

- The property insurance one is the most notable because the answer is objectively no.

The Senate had a proposal to deal with a handful of property insurance-related issues.

The House fully thought that the Senate's proposals to reign in costs would sort of water down coverage and hurt specifically low-income homeowners.

So that actually fell apart at the very end of session.

They were negotiating to the final minute and it fell apart.

And it had actually been talked here a little bit, The Senate President had mentioned it to some reporters, the idea of a special session specifically focused at property insurance.

I mean, not only is it a huge issue, it's, you know, a pocketbook issue and it's really an imploding market in Florida.

But we're going into the 2022 midterms and without question, inaction in Tallahassee is going to be something voters hear about.

- And not much on housing?

- No.

They fully funded the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, but last year, as housing advocates are pointing out, they passed legislation in 2021 that made the pot of money for affordable housing smaller.

So Republican majorities and Governor DeSantis have rightly been saying that affordable trust, excuse me, Affordable Housing Trust Fund is fully funded, but it's not as much money as it may have been in the past.

And there was no sweeping reform legislation.

It was kind of a budget conversation this year.

- One last question, we only have about 30 seconds, the legislature seemed to have opened the door to a whole new realm of lawsuits.

It made all sorts of new lawsuits possible in the State of Florida, which has not really been the Republican.

The Republican trial lawyers haven't been getting along, but this year, the legislatures opened the door for more suits by trial lawyers.

- You're right, and that's changing.

And it's widely believed that House leadership and House Speaker, Chris Sprowls is an attorney, and he was supported by the Florida Justice Association, which represents trial attorneys.

So sort of the broad dynamic in the legislature this past two years is that the Senate was more friendly to traditional business groups that generally backed Republicans, but they would feud with the House on issues over lawsuits because there was some more influence in the House for trial attorneys than is historically the case.

So the House, you know, I have to count up the number of new lawsuits put in.

I don't have a number off the top of my head, but the House lost some of those battles, but the House also won some of those battles.

You're right, lawsuits are in play.

- Well, Matt Dixon, the smoke still hasn't cleared.

We hope to have you back, but thanks for coming on and giving us the latest about the legislature.

- Of course, thanks so much.

(gentle music) - This week, Florida Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo recommended against COVID vaccinations for healthy children.

His position contradicts federal public health officials and the American Academy of Pediatrics, whose advice says all kids should get the shots.

The new Florida Department of Health guidance says healthy children ages five to 17 may not benefit from receiving the vaccine.

The guidance adds that children with underlying health conditions or comorbidity should consider a COVID 19 vaccine in consultation with their healthcare provider.

But that guidance coming from Tallahassee contradicts the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommends Corona vaccines for every one, five years and older, saying the shots provide strong protection against hospitalization and death.

As of last week, 40 children in Florida between the ages of zero and 15 have died from the disease so far.

And here to talk about the science is Dr. Michael Teng, an associate professor of molecular medicine and dean of internal medicine at the USF College of Medicine.

And Dr. Teng, welcome back.

- Thanks for having me on again.

- What do you think about the recommendation that children of five to 17 who are healthy don't really need to get the COVID-19 vaccine?

- Well, I mean, as you've mentioned, it goes against all the advices with the CDC, the healthcare professionals who really know their stuff about vaccination and protecting children.

So there have been some vocal people that say that because the virus infection seems milder in children that they don't need the vaccination.

But you know, children are still ending up in the hospital with COVID.

And it's still a dangerous virus, you know?

- So what's the danger of somebody, let's say somebody is resuming normal activities.

They're going to school, they're going to sports, they're going to birthday parties, maybe they're going to religious events, what's the danger if somebody goes unvaccinated and, you know, is meshing with all these other people?

- Yeah, so it's actually, there was a recent report out from the CDC that the rate of transmission, at least in a series of schools in Arkansas, is much higher in schools for COVID.

So if you have masks or vaccinations, you can actually lower that transmission within the schools.

These are places that our children spend hours a day, and many of our school buildings are not that well-ventilated, so there's not a lot of airflow.

And this is a place where you can actually transmit the virus pretty easily.

- So doctor, we've had politicians say in the last few days, and they've been saying it pretty frequently over the last year or so that this kind of masks, when you wear them, you're just wearing 'em for COVID theater.

When you hear a non-scientist make that claim, you as a scientist, what do you hear?

What do you say when you hear that just wearing this mask is theater?

- Well, it certainly goes against all of the data that have come out.

I mean, the one thing about this pandemic is that we have wanted to know whether masks work or not, and there's mounds of data out there that masks do work and masks work even better when everybody's wearing them.

It's not as good if you are wearing it and nobody else is wearing it.

But you know, now with the availability of these high-quality masks, these KN95s or the N95 masks, you can get pretty good protection even if you're in a crowd of people who are unmasked.

So it's just really against all the available data.

- And what about the cheaper masks like this?

Does this provide much protection?

- Yeah.

As the quality of the masks goes up, the level protection goes higher.

But the step between not wearing a mask or wearing a kind of a loose-fitting cloth mask to a surgical mask like you have in your hand or, you know, like a KN95 like this, every step helps.

- So doctor, the final question is, are we out of the woods?

I mean, are we like gonna see a return to normal and that are we putting COVID behind us?

- Yeah, this is a great question.

My personal belief is that because we still have a lot of people globally that have not been vaccinated that are not immune, we're going to see continued circulation of this virus in those communities.

And that's likely to give us another variant, which will cause another wave of infections.

We're going to have these waves of infection until we can get, you know, a large-scale population immunity.

- And we don't have that yet around the world?

- We do not.

There are a lot of low middle income countries that have not been able to vaccinate their populations yet.

And, you know, even in our country, we have pockets of places where there is very low vaccination rates.

So even in the United States, we can get significant transmission in those populations.

- Well, Dr. Teng, thanks a lot.

It's always great to see you.

Thank you for coming on the program.

- Yeah, thanks for having me on.

It's a pleasure.

(gentle music) - After Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine, some of the world's major technology and cable companies have started to crack down on Moscow-controlled media.

One of those outlets, RT, the Russian state television network, was removed from Apple News and DIRECTV, and Roku, and banned in the European Union.

Earlier this month, RT America closed its US-based studios, and laid off its staff.

But one of the places where the Russian state news channel can still be found is on the platform of a company with its US headquarters on Longboat Key in Sarasota County.

And the Sarasota County Commission voted to give that company $825,000 in cash subsidies.

Laura Finaldi is a reporter and columnist for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

She's been following the story in Sarasota County and joins us now with her findings.

And, Laura, welcome to "Florida This Week."

- Hi, thanks for having me.

- So tell us about Rumble, which carries RT.

What kind of company is Rumble?

Is it like a cable news network?

What is it?

- Yeah, it's a streaming service.

So they bill themselves as a technology company.

And the CEO has said in the past that basically what they are is quote, "like immune to cancel culture."

That's kind of their thing.

And they bill themselves as neutral, but they're extremely popular among right wing users.

So about a week ago, when news reports started to emerge that RT was getting banned in the EU, and that it was still remaining on Rumble, the company issued a statement basically saying they don't censor anything, and censoring is just as bad as what authoritarians do.

And it's pretty popular, like I said, among right wing users.

Actually, yesterday, Donald Trump, Jr. just tweeted about it because I guess on YouTube, there was a podcast episode that the Former President Trump was interviewed on, and it was removed from YouTube.

And Donald Trump, Jr. yesterday tweeted, "Why don't we upload it to Rumble?"

because that's just what they're known for.

They don't wanna censor anything.

So yeah.

- So it's kind of the go-to network for people on the Trump side of the political spectrum.

What about left wing?

Does it carry left wing or liberal perspectives or just exclusively on the right?

- I'm pretty sure it contains Liberal perspectives as well.

It's just a lot of, you can get away with saying a lot more stuff on Rumble than you can on YouTube, perhaps.

Like, they just don't want like anything, a lot of free speech arguments and anything that would normally or that would be deemed as like might get you canceled from another platform, they wanna give you somewhere to express those beliefs on Rumble.

Like about a month ago when Joe Rogan was under fire for his COVID comments, they offered him, the Rumble CEO actually offered him like a hundred million dollar-deal to come there instead of Spotify.

So that's just kind of what it is.

- Sounds like they've got a lot of money.

Any idea why they chose Sarasota?

- The big thing was that Florida's climate is pretty business-friendly.

It's known for being business-friendly.

So that's pretty much the only reason that I know why they chose Sarasota.

I haven't actually been able to speak with the company.

We did send them a couple questions last week when this whole situation emerged, but I haven't heard anything back from them.

But they are based in Canada and their US headquarters is now on Longboat Key.

- All right, so they're on Longboat Key.

They're carrying Russian state television as a source of that kind of information, which we know has really not told the full story of the invasion of Ukraine.

But the Sarasota County Commission voted to give them $825,000.

What was the purpose of that?

And have they gotten the money yet?

- They have not gotten the money yet.

So basically what happened was the Sarasota County EDC came to the commission in October and presented them, saying that they wanted to give some sort of incentive package to a new, what they called a technology company, that was coming to town.

And the identity of the company was not disclosed at the time of this county commission meeting under state statute, like it's allowed to be private.

So what happened was the county commission voted to move forward with a draft agreement with this company.

And the name of the company came out after that vote took place.

No money has been given yet.

The way it works is you have to prove that you've created a job in order to receive the money.

And they haven't actually come up with a formal agreement as of right now.

Like, nothing's been signed.

They're still working on that agreement, like they just basically voted to move forward with the draft agreement.

So they were just told there's a technology company that wants to come to the area.

They're gonna have a lot of high-paying jobs.

I think it was about 41 management-level jobs at $170,000 per person, and then 124 non-management jobs at about $80,000.

So there was a situation actually a few years ago, part of the reason that they don't just give you the money is there was a company in Sarasota called Sanborn Studios.

This happened about a decade ago.

They were given about, I think it was 650K to create jobs and nothing ever happened.

It never materialized.

So the county actually sued them for the money back.

So that's why you have to prove that you've actually created a job in order to receive the incentive money just for that one specific job.

So it can be up to $825,000, but again, it depends on the actual amount of jobs that are created.

- All right, well, Laura Finaldi, thanks a lot for coming on "Florida This Week."

- Thank you for having me.

(gentle music) - It's been almost three years since she was elected mayor of Tampa.

Now, Jane castor is facing controversies over her choice for a new police chief and over the building of a new city government center in East Tampa.

Charlie Frago is the Tampa City Hall reporter for the Tampa Bay Times.

He's been following the latest on the chief of police and the proposed city center and joins us with the latest.

Charlie, welcome back.

- Thanks, Rob.

Glad to be here.

- Let's start with the appointment of Mary O'Connor to be the new police chief in Tampa.

Is her appointment in trouble?

Has there been pushback from members of the city council?

- There has been.

You know, Tampa has a seven-member city council, and at this point it's unclear if Acting Chief O'Connor has the four votes she would need to be confirmed by council.

- Some on the city council had other ideas about who should be the chief.

Butch Delgado was the interim chief, and some thought he would be the right one to select.

When does this come to a head?

- The vote's scheduled for March 17th.

So next Thursday's council meeting.

- [Rob] St. Patrick's day.

- St. Patrick's day.

- [Rob] O'Connor on St. Patrick's day.

- That's right.

- All right, the other big issue, I think that's facing the city is there's a proposal to move many city departments to Hanna Avenue in East Tampa.

And that has run into controversy too.

Tell us about that controversy.

- Well, this has been going on for about a year.

About a year ago, Mayor Jane Castor's administration introduced this proposal very late in the city council meeting for a pretty big project, $108 million project, which is the largest capitol project Tampa has done in a generation, at least maybe about 30 years.

And the idea is that the city owns about 11, 12 acres on Hanna Avenue in East Tampa.

And they'd like to put a massive municipal center there, almost like a second city hall.

Has about 500 or so city workers, would have a garage where they could do sedan maintenance, other activities for the community.

And this has gotten some criticism because it had originally been a much smaller project.

- Yeah, my understanding was three departments initially were gonna move out there.

- [Charlie] That's right.

- And the cost was at that point about $10 million.

This is in 2015.

- That's right.

- [Rob] Now, it's ballooned to $108 million and about a dozen city departments are gonna move out there.

And one of the complaints is there should have been an open bidding process since the cost of the project has gone from about 10 million to 108 million.

- That's exactly right.

Yeah, this started late last year.

Some black community leaders, including Yvette Lewis of the NAACP, Stanley Gray of the Urban League, James Ransom of TOBA, and others came to city council and said this should have been rebid.

It went from a $10 million project to 108 million, increase of over tenfold, and it's in East Tampa and minority contractors needed, you know, a fair shot at this.

The Castor administration responded officially in a memo this week from City Attorney Gina Grimes that the city followed state contracting law, in their opinion, that contracts evolve all the time.

They get bigger, they get smaller, and this is just what happened with the Hanna Avenue project.

- Yeah, I understand the company is DPR that's got the contract.

It's a non-union company and some of the construction unions have gone to city council and complained that the city's hiring a non-union company.

- Well, the issue that has come up with council is union-related certainly.

It's an apprenticeship program.

The city has passed an apprenticeship ordinance so that big projects like this, city projects, are required to have a certain percentage of apprentices on the job.

And DPR didn't have an apprentice program set up when they were awarded this contract late last year, November of 2021.

- So when will this come to a head?

When will this decision next appear at Tampa City Council?

- This will also be coming up fairly soon.

March 31st is when the city council's asked for Mayor Castor's staff to appear and explain the project to kind of answer some questions that have been raised.

Gina Grimes, city attorney, said in her memo last week that wouldn't happen.

I asked Mayor Castor about it yesterday when she was at a McDonald's coffee tour in Seminole Heights, and she said that she felt kinda like it's been vetted enough, although she wasn't sure if they would come on the 31st or not.

- So one last question, when this project was proposed initially, it was suggested that the Tampa Police Department would move from Downtown Tampa, prime real estate location on Franklin Street, out to Hanna Avenue, is that still in the works?

Will the Tampa Police Department move?

- The latest is it won't.

That was part of the original plan they presented to city council members back in March of 2021.

There was some pushback on that, not only from a little unease among perhaps some members of council, but also some members of the community.

And so it was also predicated originally that the big blue building downtown, the headquarters, would be sold.

That property would be sold that would help pay for this Hanna Avenue project.

That hasn't happened.

So it's unclear where the police department's gonna end up.

It probably won't be at big blue for all that much longer though.

- They're likely to move, but where?

- Likely to move, but where?

- Where is the question.

- Yeah, that's still an open question.

- Charlie, it's so great to see you.

Thank you for coming by.

- You too, Rob.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

(gentle music) Well, thanks for joining us.

Please send us your comments at ftw@wedu.org.

You can view this and past shows on line at wedu.org or on the PBS app.

And "Florida This Week" is now available as a podcast.

You can find it on our website or wherever you download your podcast.

And from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.

(inquisitive music) - [Narrator] "Florida This Week" is a production of WEDU who is solely responsible for its content.