This is a production of WEDU PBS Tampa, St.

Petersburg, Sarasota.

[music] Coming up, state regulators have begun public hearings on Florida Power and Lights request to increase rates again.

Have you read the fine print in your new property insurance policy before signing it?

Your insurance company may bar you from hiring a public adjuster in the event of a claim dispute.

Joining us with his unique perspective on the insurance crisis is the director of the documentary Built to Last, and the owners of the Rays are talking new stadium in Tampa Bay.

Those stories and more are next on Florida This Week.

[music] Welcome back everybody.

I'm Lisette Campos joining our panel this week.

We have Pam McAloon.

She's the committeewoman for the Pinellas County Republican Party.

Consumer advocate and media media relations specialist Jackie Callaway.

Victor DiMaio, president of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida, and Jonathan Moore, an architect and president of Envision Advisors.

And he's also the state director of the American Institute of Architects in Florida.

Debates over electric utility rates are rising on two fronts.

In Tallahassee, the Florida Power and Light is defending its proposed rate increase of $9.8 billion over the next four years.

They argue the funds are necessary to strengthen infrastructure, but critics contend it would lead to unaffordable rates for residents.

FPL's rate proposal includes a nearly 11% profit return for its shareholders.

If approved by state regulators, it would be the highest rate of return of any U.S.

utility.

And in Clearwater, Duke Energy is facing down the city's push toward municipal power.

A study by New Gen Strategies and Solutions shows electric bills could be 7 to 18% lower than Duke Energy's rates.

Duke disputes these findings, and estimates that the cost of transitioning to be at more than $1 billion.

City leaders, though, are moving forward with a feasibility study.

Clearwater's 30 year agreement with Duke will end in December.

And now we want to start the conversation with our panelists.

I'd like to start with you, Pam.

You had a conversation with the mayor of Clearwater.

How are they looking at all of this now?

Well, they are doing the feasibility study.

And as you just stated, the contract is ending December 31st.

And after doing the feasibility study, they're saying that having it, um, you know, publicly owned instead of having private investment that there's a 10% discount off the top.

I mean, from what they're seeing so far.

So this is something that I think is going to move forward.

This is the Clearwater Gas Company.

Clearwater gas has been publicly owned for over 100 years, and it's worked for where gas distribution is concerned.

And of course, uh, the Clearwater would not be in the actual energy production, but the distribution that would certainly help to save money.

Victor, do you think that more municipalities will start looking at having municipal owned utility companies?

I don't know the big difference between the city owned when I lived in Tallahassee, when I worked for Governor Graham, the city of Tallahassee owned the utility electric utility at the time.

So I paid the city.

And the big difference is, do you have a for profit company that has to make a profit for their shareholders, or does city own it, where they can return the money to the people who live there?

And that's where that 10% difference comes from.

However, you have to consider, or the current person who has the contract isn't going to go away lightly.

Now, the city can use eminent domain to take control of the lights, the power generators, transformers, all that stuff.

They could do that.

It would be an ugly, long, expensive legal battle.

And then the city would have to literally either take their equipment or start from scratch.

And that's it's not $1 billion is probably conservative because now they can do a bond to pay for all that.

But the cost of.

Transitioning all the infrastructure.

So that would be that they're doing now is going to discuss all that stuff, and that's what they're going to have to figure out and decide which which way is going to be best for them.

Jackie, from the consumer aspect, um, a lot of folks don't understand the power in those Public Service Commission hearings.

Explain what what protections do consumers have at this point with what's going on with the request for a rate hike?

In general, any time a utility asks for more money, there are open hearings and they welcome public input.

The two week hearing that is going on right now in Tallahassee, as I understand it is closed to public input.

But what you can do is you can write the Public Service Commission and they actually read and take these comments into consideration.

Let's talk about how do you save money right now on your bill right now for people?

Because I'm going into conversations where people are just coming off their bills.

They've never had a $500 power bill, and they do now.

And this is with various entities, not just one.

There are different programs that each utility has, whether it's a hardship program, where they may help you cover the cost of a partial bill.

Depending on your income, you can do balance billing where your bill is the same every month.

You may have a little overage at the end, but at least you're not going to be a $500 bill in July or August.

So there's a lot of things people can do on their own.

One other thing I would say is that you can contact your utility, no matter who it is, and you can say, hey, could I get one of those free energy audits?

A lot of times they will send someone to your house for free, walk around your house and explain or give you ideas of a couple of ways that you could shore up your house that are not terribly expensive to lower.

Lower your bills.

Jonathan, you were talking earlier about the changes that we've seen in terms of efficiencies and and how that impacts the electric, the utility companies.

So new utilities, new appliances have better electrical efficiency.

I think that there need to be more incentives by electric companies to move to more energy efficient units.

Air conditioning, added insulation in your house.

And you're right, those energy audits are very, very beneficial.

I'm all for transparency with regards with regards to to profits, but electrical costs are going up.

The hurricanes cost a lot of money to improve the system.

We want all of our power lines underground wherever possible to protect from any of the the windstorms or the the water storms.

I...I'm on the fence here.

Right.

There's two big points that I have to mention the Florida Power and Light has the highest profit margin.

Shareholder, uh, of any company in there asking for any company in the nation.

And they're asking for the high.

They're asking for a $10 billion rate increase.

Now, in Florida, we have an office of the Public Counsel who argues, argues for us, the users.

And she's argued for half that amount.

She says, well, maybe $5 billion over the span of ten years is what the public counsel, who has a lot more data than any of us here want.

So there's a difference between $10 billion and $5 billion of what they're asking for and what the person who defends us feels like they should get.

Consumers have to analyze the realities and the facts and then decide what they're willing to give up.

Those appliances are more expensive, and that's where incentives from the electric company, maybe they could use some of that $10 billion to incentivize homeowners, business owners to move towards more energy efficient use.

Moving on to our next segment, a new policy from Citizens Property Insurance has many homeowners concerned.

The rule allows policyholders to cash their settlement checks without their public adjusters sign off.

This makes it harder for adjusters to receive their 10% commission from settlements.

Citizens claims the rule streamlines payouts, but critics argue that it discourages public adjusters from advocating for policyholders.

It's a tough conversation.

So many passions on either side.

Victor, you are in the insurance industry.

How do you see this?

My family was in the insurance industry for for many decades, and I work for the insurance commissioner's office in Tallahassee.

And I can tell you over the last half a dozen regular sessions and special sessions, the insurance companies have pretty much gotten everything they wanted.

And the biggest thing they've gotten is if you have a claim right now, technically, the insurance companies across Florida are only paying 50% of the claims.

That means out of every two people, they're only paying one of you guys, and the other guys you get zero.

And last time I was on the show, my Republican counterpart with was complaining because she had a claim for her place, and the adjuster came in from the insurance company and found two drops of water on a crack in the window and said, we're not paying anything.

That was $100,000 claim, so now, nightmare stories.

Exactly, and so now if and the big thing is, if you want to sue your company, you have to pay 100% of your lawyer.

So the thing called the public adjuster is what people are going to.

Many thousands of Floridians are going to because they can go in and arbitrate and say, no, this, this, this person has a legitimate claim.

You have to pay them, and this is what you have to pay him.

So that's the last thing.

Insurance companies want to have somebody to go against them on a claim that they don't want to pay because they're in the business of making money.

And the only way they make money is, is to have money coming in and less going out for public.

Adjusters will say that they are in the business of advocating on behalf of residents.

Jonathan, in your experience, um, you know, explain the role of public adjusters.

So I'm not a public adjuster, but I use many of them in some of our commercial and homeowner's association projects.

Insurance is complicated.

I will never claim to understand everything about insurance, and public adjusters are that that expert advocate for you.

Um, I think they know the industry.

They they know, uh, construction.

You know, we are dealing with a quickly evolving, uh, construction industry after the hurricanes.

There are lessons learned.

The building code changes every three years.

Well, let's talk about that.

The resilience of building codes.

You you talked about that.

That happens every few years.

The next one is in 2026.

2027.

And so what is the role that public adjusters have in that data and that fact finding?

I, I consider public adjuster as a a building industry expert.

I think they have a lot to say.

They were on the front line after the hurricanes, along with the insurance adjusters seeing the damage.

The question is how do we prevent that with the next building code?

How do how do we take those lessons learned and incorporate it to make a stronger building?

Hopefully bringing insurance rates down.

And this is a topic that our viewers have have asked us so many questions about.

And so, Jackie, my next question goes to you.

You know, there are insurance companies that come in and they are not licensed in the state of Florida, but yet they operate like Lloyd's of London, for example.

And so what I'm hearing from many of our viewers is that when they're looking at their new policies, there's a new paragraph in there that's basically a conditional property endorsement that basically reads that a condition of the premium paid.

It is understood and agreed that a condition is that the insured shall not retain or use the services of a Florida licensed public adjuster to inspect, evaluate or adjust any loss covered by the policy.

Well guess what?

You don't have to go with that insurance company in the last 4 or 5 years since the pandemic.

A number of insurers are writing business.

There's a lot of competition, which was not the case eight years ago when so many were going under because they were becoming insolvent.

So I say I wouldn't go with that.

And there's so many other insurance companies and they're competitively priced.

I price my homeowner's insurance every single year, and I'm looking at three or 4 or 5 different quotes that are all within a few hundred dollars of each other.

This is not that much different than when, a few years ago, we saw one large insurer in Florida actually telling people who they had to go to.

If you guys can imagine that your house has just been run into by a car, it's been hit by a hurricane, the tree has fallen into your kitchen, and they're telling you who to pick.

When you know that you have a contractor that's rock solid, that's fixing the space where you live and breathe and sleep.

Another thing I'll say is that there's a House bill proposal right now that's saying that public adjusters cannot act in an adversarial fashion, and that seems to be vague.

Language, to me, is adversarial mean you're advocating too hard on behalf of the homeowner.

So again, shop your policy around.

Do not get tied into language like that.

Well, the last word we're talking about, Citizens Insurance.

I have to chuckle because they kicked us off.

We have never made a claim, and we were kicked off of the policy because our property became too valuable.

We were above the level in Pinellas County, and yet they were insuring there, insuring more valuable homes down in Miami-Dade.

And I said, oh, so we're being kicked off the policy.

Okay, well, it is an insurer of last resort.

I know they've had their issues.

And I think another thing, and this is this is this is my opinion.

Um, there's been a lot of litigation, you know, in the state of Florida and there's been tort reform through Tallahassee.

Maybe that's going to bring some relief there, too.

And that's something that the insurance companies have, um, pointed to as a need for different changes that they've received.

So the new owners of the Tampa Bay Rays have finally come out openly laying out their vision for the future.

The Major League Baseball team is once again renewing its push for a permanent new ballpark.

The Rays turned a new page at a press conference on Tuesday.

The team's new leader stepped out to share their plans for the franchise's future, including the desire for a new stadium.

We are honored and feel privileged to be the new owners of the Tampa Bay Rays.

This moment is not just about ownership, it's about stewardship.

Patrick Zalewski, co-chair, made it clear the club is after a, quote, world class ballpark, end quote.

The target to complete that goal would be Opening Day 2029.

The search for a suitable area would encompass all of Tampa Bay, they said, but did not elaborate on any one city or county.

Their plans outline the ideal site as roughly 100 acres, combining a stadium with retail, dining, entertainment and community infrastructure.

We're making an enormous investment in buying the Tampa Bay Rays because we believe in you.

We believe in your culture.

We believe with the previous regime has created, and we want to build to sustain it.

Repairs at Tropicana Field are already underway.

Half of the damaged roof panels are very close to complete.

The Rays will fulfill their lease obligations with the City of St.

Pete, which ends in 2028.

The new owners say they're exploring ideas from other teams to.

Zalewski pointed to the Braves Battery district outside their stadium as a model for how mixed commercial development can boost both fan experience and revenue.

Victor, I'd like to start with you.

You've referred to that mixed use as urban play.

Um.

Explain that.

Well, first of all, the Rays staying in Tampa was the best news.

I heard about that.

That that has to happen.

Um, this stadium needs to be a catalyst for community development.

While whether it's under the control of the Rays or the City of St.

Pete or Tampa or Hillsborough County, all of the proposals out there are really exciting proposals.

And and I think the stadium should spawn those multi-family, both low income and market rate restaurant retail, um, all of those to sort of entertain the fan but build a community.

Jackie, from the consumer perspective, what are some of the things that they should be looking at when the conversations start about financing and paying for the stadium?

I don't think that people in the Bay area can stomach one more tax.

That's just my thought.

Um, I don't think that they want to carry any more than than they are already carrying.

And as to Jonathan's point, I'm thinking also along consumer lines and what the space entails.

How many jobs are we going to get out of this?

And even more importantly, because people who live in our area cannot afford the cost of living or the cost of homes.

So how many jobs are we going to get?

Are they temporary jobs or are they permanent jobs?

And most importantly, what are we going to be paying these people?

As Jonathan mentioned, we have a dearth of affordable housing.

We've got to see some of that brought with us, and maybe a green space or two or something cultural that people who are not necessarily baseball fans can go and enjoy this.

Pam and Victor, you know, there's so much conversation around, will it be Tampa?

Will it be St.

Pete?

Will it be the area that's close to the Port Tampa Bay?

Um, you know, how do both of you see this?

And are we focusing on the right thing, the location, instead of something else?

Pam, I'd like to start with you.

Well, I think I'm going to go with what?

What people have told me in my own community.

And that is, are the race going to be staying in St.

Petersburg before we get involved?

And I agree with Jackie.

Um, more taxes.

People are just strapped, you know?

They're still recuperating from the hurricane.

As you hear Pam talk about some of the details of this.

Where do you.

Well, there's a lot there's.

Well, you know, as Yogi Berra used to say, they ain't leaving.

So right now.

And the reason is because we're the 12th largest market in the country.

So there's a lot of eyeballs watching it.

And the race right now are protected in Orlando.

There's no baseball there.

There's no baseball in Jacksonville.

When I was in Tallahassee a couple of years ago, I saw Rays baseball.

So you take two thirds of the state, you know, that goes from the 12th largest to like the top five market in the country.

So that's a lot of money there.

Now, they used to have a the the money part of it changed because the TV contract, which was 1 billion to 1,000,000,005 that got torn up because of the buy and sell and the company that had the sports, the network went belly up.

So now they're looking to have not just the stadium and make money in the stadium, but have an area around the stadium like they have in Atlanta.

So all the development, the hotel, shops, restaurants, all that stuff will will go into the team and they would be they could pull that money together to pay those $100 million salaries that the good players cost.

So the demographics have changed from TV to having the real estate, and that's why they came up.

The biggest curveball I heard when I went to the the press conference was that they want 100 acres.

So that in Tampa, having been born and raised there, there's very limited areas.

They're talking about the ACC project.

I don't see ACC working because where the heck are you going to do with that whole college campus?

They're going to tear all those buildings down, sell it all that owns to the state now and then you got to build a campus for those people to go.

Now there's 100 acres there.

Westshore Plaza is up for sale.

That's not 100 acres.

I think it's maybe 65.

It's not the Ybor, the area that was talked about.

That's only 35 acres.

They talked about the fairgrounds.

They did a study years ago saying Tampa is better than Pinellas because it's closer to Orlando.

It Brightline has a line coming into Tampa.

People from Orlando can come watch a game.

Which now that project may be in jeopardy as well.

But that eventually will happen.

It makes more it makes sense to do a Tampa Orlando connection for that.

But but but but that's the thing.

Finding that 100 acres so they can buy as one big piece and then hog all that money go into paying for the baseball team.

So that's where I was going to say that someone told me and, and and he's he's a relative.

And he said, you know, here we go again.

Um, it's private investment at public expense.

So hopefully it will work out.

I mean, these are grand ideas, but, um, I know the jury is out because people are still skeptical.

Well, in the last five seconds, I say we did pass the city tax.

But now now you've got the Yankees won a piece of that pie.

Then you want, uh, the Buccaneers there 30 years up.

They want a piece of the pie.

So we don't know how much of that pie is going to be spread around and how much they're going to get.

So promise that you will be back so that we can continue all these great conversations.

It's so nice to have you.

Thank you so much.

Now on to a documentary airing on WEDU this month investigating systemic failures in home construction regulations in the housing market, plus failures in the property insurance industry.

The film is called Built to Last: Buyer Beware.

The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council did a mock projection of what a category five hurricane would do to this area, and the numbers are staggering.

The downtown area could get up to 26ft of water.

Half a million buildings destroyed, over 840,000 households displaced and 2000 people killed.

If a hurricane like Ian were to have a direct hit on Tampa Bay.

You would see hundreds of thousands of structures damaged.

Uh, probably a million people displaced and damage that would be on the avenue of billions of dollars.

The one hour film premiered at this year's Gasparilla International Film Festival in Tampa.

And joining us in the studio is the film director and producer George Segal.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me on.

I really appreciate it.

Describe for our viewers the mission that you started out with to make this film.

It's a gigantic wake up call.

As I was in the TV news business for 20 years as a weatherman, as a reporter, and we used to cover these things all the time, and you'd see disasters and victims, and it's the same story every time with what it's like for the victims.

And so I wanted to make a film that showed people how stacked against you the odds are of things being successful.

A house is your biggest investment.

You put everything into it.

You put all your chips in and say, this is my forever property, but you don't realize how well that house is built.

You don't realize how your neighborhood is going to handle water when the water comes pouring in, and then you don't.

You think your insurance company is going to be there to write you a check when the damage comes in, and I want to wake people up, and that was the goal of the film to really get their attention.

And I think we're doing that.

How long did it take for you to amass all the pieces.

Over a year?

Probably a little longer than a year.

I mean, it takes a lot of time because you have to get people set up for interviews.

Then you have to find victims that want to share their story, which is very difficult.

So a lot of pieces go into place, and when you're making a documentary film, you have to get a release from everybody.

You can't be TV news where you just walk up and you're doing a story on something, and you can just roll your camera.

Everybody in there has to have agreed to be on camera.

What would you say were the biggest lessons learned from doing the film?

The biggest lessons are be careful when you live in Florida because it's it's crazy what we deal with.

You know, we had two hurricanes here in Tampa last year that that could have been direct hits and destroyed us.

We went to Sanibel Island, which people have been there.

It was Paradise.

And now it's so depressing to see what happened there.

We went up to Mexico Beach, which got hit by a category five hurricane.

And so when you visit all these places, you see you're living in a vulnerable place.

And one of the worst things I hear after a disaster disastrous people go.

Maybe this will serve as a wake up call.

We should be awake.

This has happened so many times here and in other parts of the country that there shouldn't need to be a wake up call.

We should already be doing things better.

What's what's been the reception to the film?

How are you hoping that this will be used as an advocacy tool?

I think it's eye opening for people.

I think they come away.

First of all, most people have never read their insurance policy.

Most people have no idea what is actually covered in their policy until they need it and they pull it out there.

So I hope people do that.

I hope people start challenging their builder when they're building a house.

Ask a million questions, don't take their referral of, hey, these are happy customers.

You want to find the unhappy customers.

Those are the ones that have a better story to tell because they might have had a bad experience, but you're not going to get the builder pointing that out.

Go to the neighborhood and actually see the house after a rainstorm.

See the neighborhood.

What happens?

Talk to people.

Talk to the local floodplain manager.

You almost have to become your own investigative reporter because it's a bottom up thing.

If we're waiting for the legislature to pass rules or laws that are going to be helpful for us, we could wait a long time.

But if we all start doing a better job as individuals and say, I'm going to make better decisions, I'm not going to take the garbage that somebody is shoving down my throat.

That's how we solve this problem one by one.

And if we can wake people up and have them see that you if you're not your own best advocate, nobody's looking out for you.

You have a problem.

Great to see all the different voices that you brought into the documentary.

So excited for you.

So excited to see this.

Again, congratulations.

Wishing you much success.

Thank you.

Because it's heartbreaking when you see and you've experienced this yourself.

Once you become a victim of disaster, some people never get recovered from it.

It changes you.

It really does.

Thank you again for joining us, George.

Wishing you continued success.

built to last will debut on WEDU during prime time on October the 16th, with an encore presentation on the 28th.

The one hour documentary will also air on our sister station WEDQ on channel 3.4.

That's all our time for now.

On behalf of the entire team here at WEDU, thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you next week.