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

(bright music) - Coming up next, the St. Pete City Council takes a look at the Rays baseball stadium deal.

A Palestinian group is banned on Florida University campuses.

Are lawsuits really the reason homeowners insurance rates are climbing?

And three Democrats file to run for the seat held by Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna.

All this and more next on "Florida This Week."

(bright music) (bright music continues) Welcome back.

Joining us on the panel this week, Sean Shaw is an attorney, a former state legislator, and a Democrat, Colleen Wright is the St. Petersburg reporter for the "Tampa Bay Times," William March is a writer and columnist for the "Tampa Bay Times," and Deveron Gibbons is a former mayoral candidate in St. Petersburg and a trustee at St. Petersburg College and Florida A&M University.

Nice to see you all.

Thank you for doing the program.

- Thanks for having us.

- Well, on Thursday, the St. Petersburg City Council had its first discussion about the proposal to build a new baseball stadium and redevelop the area next to Tropicana Field.

The Rays ownership is promising to put up about 700 million for the stadium.

The City and Pinellas County would put in a total of 600 million for the stadium and an additional 130 million for surrounding infrastructure.

Mayor Ken Welch says it's about the future.

- Economic, cultural, and jobs engine that will fuel our progress for decades to come.

- [Rob] But some on council are skeptical.

- It represents a transfer of wealth from the public to the private, and that's not what I'm here for.

- Colleen, you were there at that long meeting on Thursday.

So how many St. Pete City Council members are skeptical about the public subsidy for this new stadium?

- For sure two.

You just saw Richie Floyd.

You know, you could kind of expect that that was going to happen.

He's been pretty clear about his stance from the beginning.

But you also saw Council Member Lisset Hanewicz come out.

She's a former federal prosecutor and she had some intense lines of questioning that I think made everyone, you know, kind of think about this deal that it's maybe not so done of a deal just yet.

You also saw a question from Council Member Gina Driscoll about what about the other priorities in the city of St. Petersburg?

How will those be funded?

And the administration's response was, "Well, there will be challenges, and we'll have to face those challenges."

And there were some other questions that I think it was a rough day.

It definitely went rougher than I think the Pinellas County Commissions' discussion went a few weeks ago.

- So what are the specific concerns that the skeptical members have?

What are they, are they concerned that the city budget is gonna be diverted more towards the stadium and less towards things like affordable housing?

- That's certainly one of the concerns.

It's a lot of money when you look at the interest rates.

We all know about interest rates right now in the state of Florida.

The City is not immune to those.

And it's about kind of the payments that future generations will be on the hook for.

This is a generational project.

Altogether, $6.5 billion.

It's a lot.

We've reported in the past that even the City's contribution could swell to a billion dollars.

Right now, it's about 450 million between infrastructure and the stadium portion of the deal.

I think there's just a lot of details that haven't been worked out yet.

The City even kind of recognized that yesterday of, "Oh, you've given us a lot of things to kind of talk about and contemplate."

So I think City Council members just want a few more answers before this deal is fully signed and done.

- And on the other side, who are the folks that are in favor of this idea?

What are they saying about it?

- Sure.

I would say the biggest cheerleader right now is Council Member Copley Gerdes.

He said as much yesterday.

He's a fan of the Rays, fan of the deal.

He sees it as an investment and that, you know, we need an anchor tenant for that site.

The Rays, you know, are kind of an ideal anchor tenant, could attract other businesses to that area.

You know, unlike what's there now, right?

Is one stadium an surrounded by pavement, you know, for parking.

The council chair, Brandi Gabbard, was saying, you know, she's a realtor as well, so it's kind of everyone's day jobs kind of came out yesterday, and she was saying the same thing of like, you know, "We don't have to do the legwork of luring, you know, such an attractive tenant.

The team is here to work with us."

- How much private investment money is being promised?

- 700 million from the Rays.

And they've also committed to any cost overruns.

However, they're pretty adamant that there's a pretty strict timeline here that they have to have an agreement in place by, like, spring or so of next year to have a shovel in the ground by November.

But I asked them yesterday, you know, "Why is there such a strict timeline?

Couldn't the current deal be extended for like a year or two?"

And they said the deal would fall apart, that all their numbers are predicated on having a stadium by opening day 2028.

So I think there's some more questions there.

- So I keep hearing March 2024 is the date that they've gotta have this nailed down.

- Mm-hmm, that's for the development agreements, for the binding, you know, all-systems-go, truly signed, sealed, delivered.

That's the Rays timeline that they would like.

- Deveron, you're a resident of St. Petersburg.

Tell me about, this is the gas plant area.

It's really important to the Black community.

A lot of ministers have thoughts about this.

What are you hearing about this project?

- So it's interesting you asked me that question, Rob.

My father grew up in the gas plant area.

Our church, most of the churches, most of the economic development that went on in that community was moved to put the Florida Suncoast Dome if you remember way back when.

And what I'm hearing basically is here we are again being promised a lot, but not seeing much detail on the plan or on the bone.

And quite frankly, you know, at the end of the day, you know, Colleen talked about an anchor tenant.

Well, we had Moffitt and the City screwed that up.

They were ready to go near that site with 500 credible, good high-paying jobs that could have gone near the site and the City screwed that up.

And so I don't know what this administration plans on doing, but they don't have much in the way of a plan.

They just keep moving forward.

And I think baseball is shortening that timeline because they wanna get a new stadium and that's the ultimate goal.

But at the end of the day, this site should be put into consideration to make sure they have jobs.

Jobs solve economic development issues, jobs solve crime issues, jobs solve all the affordable housing issues.

- But there are promises by the people that are backing this idea that a lot of the subcontractors who are hired will be disadvantaged people, including people of color.

- So subcontractors are great, but remember when they did this the first time, we were promised a lot of things.

There's not been one person in the baseball organization, whether it was Vince Naimoli or Stu Sternberg, that we have no person of color that's ever been in management at the team level, right?

The other thing is, if you look at the jobs, yes, there are jobs that are seasonal at best, but nobody has real management authority.

And then when you talk about the subcontractors, they're not the folks that can make a real impact in the community overall.

There was an African American developer that bid on this.

Why wouldn't he have been partnered with to make sure that we have real money, real opportunities in the community?

But instead what we want to do is the Rays wanna fund a museum that's not really a museum.

- Mm.

Is there any other news that we should know about that?

- Well, I wanna say, kind of to everyone's point, that it's a lot of public subsidy.

And this came up yesterday at the meeting as well, that there have been many studies, studies on studies, that show that governments and municipalities don't get much out of the investment of putting all this public money in and getting some kind of economic benefits out.

That was also a big sticking point yesterday of there's all these promises and, like, are they actually going to come to fruition?

It doesn't really seem like it's been done before.

Yesterday they were pointing out The Battery in Truist Park in Atlanta.

There's kind of, there's back and forth between economists on that of, you know, is it actually a success or not?

It's been five years or so.

And the overwhelming message is this time will be different, this time will be different.

And people want to see that happen, but I think we need a little bit more details.

- And that's what Richie Floyd kept saying from the (indistinct) yesterday.

- So Rob, just to, this is my last point on this, but to Colleen's point, this time will be different.

40 years ago as a kid, I saw this area, they built the Florida Suncoast Dome with a lot of promises.

40 years later, it's still a food desert.

There's still folks that don't have real high-paying, high-wage jobs or any jobs to speak of.

Housing is deplorable.

And so 40 years later, it's the same thing when we got those same promises before.

Why would this community keep falling for that?

It doesn't matter that the mayor's an African American.

What matters is show me in a contract where we're gonna benefit from this deal.

- Okay, and this is gonna be a big topic for the next several months.

Well, the DeSantis administration has ordered state universities to ban a pro-Palestinian student organization from all campuses, saying the organization illegally backs Hamas militants who attacked Israel earlier this month.

The state says the group Students for Justice in Palestine is supporting a terrorist organization.

Florida's university system chancellor wrote to university presidents Tuesday at Governor Ron DeSantis' urging directing them to disband chapters of the SJP, saying it's a felony under Florida law to knowingly provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

A legal group which backs Palestinians said the ban on the SJP is part of a broader effort by Governor DeSantis to suppress freedom of speech on campuses.

Meantime, the governor said that the United States should not take in any Palestinian refugees if they flee the Gaza Strip because they are all anti-Semitic, and he dismissed international calls for Israel to provide clean running water and utilities to the 2.3 million civilians living in the territory.

- We cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees.

I am not gonna do that.

If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all anti-Semitic.

None of them believe in Israel's right to exist.

None of the Arab states are willing to take, you know, any of them.

The Arab states should be taking them if you have refugees.

- And according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, neighboring Arab countries have already taken in millions of Palestinian refugees.

The top three countries already housing the refugees are Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

So Deveron, let me start with you.

Ben Sasse is the president of the University of Florida.

That's one of the campuses where this group operates.

What is he saying about disbanding the SJP?

- Rob, I'm glad you asked that question.

I'm a proud Gator as you know, but I will tell you, I was really proud to see this letter written by the president of the University of Florida where he not only says, "We will protect all of our students and protect their right to free speech," but he also goes on to say, "This is always true.

Our constitution protects the rights of people to make abject idiots of themselves."

And let me just start out by saying what Hamas did was horrific.

Terrorism in any way, shape, or form is wrong and nobody should stand, every life matters.

Watching women being raped and children being beheaded is just wrong.

I think that the president of the University of Florida took the right position by saying that he's gonna protect every student.

I think the governor is making a very strong stance on protecting all the rest of the students that are going to campus or that are on campuses across the state because we don't know where this will end up.

We don't know whether we will, we've seen terrorism on US soil for the first time in 9/11.

You know, and we don't know where this is gonna end up, where this act may end up.

But I will tell you that any form of terrorism, any group that supports things of this nature is just wrong.

- But Sasse is not saying he's gonna stand up to the governor and disband the SJP.

He's saying that he stands for- - I think that he's taking a very strong stance in that direction that he will more than likely agree with the governor and disband that particular group but he will give them the right for free speech off campus.

- Sean, is the governor right?

Should this group be disbanded?

- No, the governor's not right.

This is his self-coined term for this state is the free state of Florida, but it's only free if you believe what the governor believes.

If you do not believe what the governor believes, this state is not free at all.

And that's across a litany of topics, not just this.

It's abortion, it's Black history, it's all kinds of things.

The name of this group is not Students for Hamas.

It is Students for Justice in Palestine.

I wasn't aware that Palestine is a terrorist organization.

So I don't know what the legal girding behind this is, but that doesn't matter.

What's more important is that he said no one should come into this country from Gaza 'cause they're all anti-Semitic.

- What do you make of that?

- That's what this is about.

That is such an obnoxious statement, not only for a governor of a state to make, but for someone running to be president of the United States to assert that every refugee from here is anti-Semitic, it's not only egregious, it's dangerous, it's not befitting the, how are you gonna solve the Middle East process and that's the statement that you make as President of the United States?

That is an outrageous statement to make, but that's what is behind this.

He believes what he believes.

He believes that you ought to believe what he believes, and if you don't, you got a problem in this state.

That's what this is about.

And we know that colleges are the incubating place for ideas and like President Sasse said, "You can go be stupid, but you have that right under the constitution of the United States."

This country was born out of conflict and born out of the freedom of speech.

And for him to act like he's the king and to come and tell you what's important, what's right and what's wrong, that's the problem a lot of us have with him.

It's that he's just, he's so focused on him and what's right, he doesn't leave room for anyone else.

- William, the governor's position is if you provide material support to a group that's a terrorist, that that's illegal and that's why he wants to ban this group, SJP.

But has it been established that this student group is providing material support to Hamas?

- Not that I'm aware of, and I've read of everything about it that I can find.

Ray Rodriguez, his justification for banning the group cited a law that, as you said, allows them or requires them to ban groups that provide material support.

The material support that he cited was a simple statement that the organization considers itself to be part of the Al-Aqsa Flood, which is their name for this terrorist attack.

But have they sent them money, food, medicine, ammunition?

No indication of that.

Now, this group is an anti-Semitic group according to the definition that, as I understand it, is accepted by the US State Department and what that means- - What is it?

- Well, you can criticize the government of Israel without being anti-Semitic under this definition, but you cannot say that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state, which Students for Justice in Palestine has a pretty well documented history of saying just that, that Israel should not exist as a Jewish state.

Anti-Semitism may be abhorrent, but it is not illegal, either in Florida or nationally.

So what is the justification for disbanding this group and treading pretty far into First Amendment territory?

Frankly, Ron DeSantis, since he's been a candidate for president, has shown a great ability to seize on any issue that's getting a lot of attention and do something about it that puts him on the side of the Republican base.

The protests, the anti-Israeli protests on college campuses, have gotten a lot of attention, a lot more attention than the numbers or the significance of them really would justify.

And DeSantis, in his candidacy, is seizing on this, looking for a way to put himself on the side of the Republican base on this issue.

- Just real quickly, Sean, we'll ask you a question.

Is the governor too far ahead?

There were reports this week that the governor sent weapon aid to Israel right after this horrible Hamas attack on October 7th.

But the governor seems to be more pro-war than either the Israelis or the Americans.

Many Israelis and Americans are not gung-ho about this war.

Reuters reported that Israeli citizens were asked if the Israeli military should immediately escalate to a large-scale ground offensive.

29% of Israelis agreed, but 49% of Israelis said it would be better to wait, 22% were undecided, in the poll published in the "Maariv" newspaper.

And here in the US, US involvement has little popular support domestically.

Only about 1/3 of Americans say it's a good idea to move American troops close to Israel and Gaza.

Another minority say, about two in five, 39%, think sending weapons to Israel is a good idea.

There is, however, majority support in the US for sending food, water, and medical supplies to Gaza.

62% of the American public says it's a good idea.

15% say it's a bad idea.

Is the governor too far ahead on this?

- I think he is.

Listen, if you've seen the Republican debates, you know what he wants to do.

He likes to act tough.

And that's what this is.

This is an act tough thing.

And to William's point, this is what he does.

He acts tough, he thinks this is what the base wants to see, and he revs it up.

And listen, I would juxtapose this with Ukraine and I would, the hypocrisy of one being bigger than the other, the Republican position now is not to give any more support to Ukraine for the most part.

- Rob- - Deveron, just quickly, we only have about 10 seconds.

- Very quickly, the only thing I would add is I hear my good friend Sean Shaw, but I would tell you that the governor has a unique right and responsibility to protect citizens and I think that's where he is headed on this particular issue, is to protect all citizens to make sure no one is harmed.

We don't know what's coming.

He may be out too far out front on some of the issues, but I think for the most part, he wants to protect the Floridians in Florida, so.

- Okay.

All right.

Well, the state's homeowners insurance crisis continues to grow worse even after the legislature had two special sessions to try to fix the problem.

The Insurance Information Institute says average premiums in Florida have now climbed to $6,000 a year.

That's a 102% increase in the past three years.

Some new companies are entering the market, but some are offering to take policyholders off the state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corporation only if the customer is willing to accept a rate hike of 70 or 80%.

The state's insurance commissioner said some companies wanted hikes of 300 to 500%.

The two special sessions made it harder for homeowners to sue insurance companies.

The "Tampa Bay Times" reported this week that there is no hard data proving that frivolous or excessive lawsuits have caused premiums to rise.

- Sean, there was gonna be a special session, yet another one, about insurance, but they've decided to take the question of insurance off the November special session calendar.

Do you think that the state has made the case that it's frivolous lawsuits that are driving up the cost of homeowners insurance premiums?

- No, it's frivolous unless it's your roof that blows off.

It's frivolous unless it's your house that burns down.

It's frivolous unless you get hit by a hurricane.

That is not the case.

And, you know, I love you, Rob, but I am tired of coming on these shows for the last 20 years talking about the insurance problem in Florida.

And it's the same formula every time.

Insurance company says, "If you do X, rates will go down."

X has been get rid of fraud, X has been get rid of sinkholes, X has been get rid of lawyers, X has been all of these things, yet we still pay outrageously high premiums.

The only thing we haven't tried is really, I think, to hold the insurance industry somewhat accountable.

They're the ones that charge these things.

But whenever we have a special session, it is always the consumer's gotta give up something.

It's always you got less coverage or you gotta do something.

It's always us that have to give up something.

And yet we still have these high premiums.

You'd have a case if when you made these changes, rates went down.

Maybe that's a straight line that we could draw.

But this is not that thing.

And their solution to the insurance crisis is to prevent you from getting a lawyer if the insurance company does something bad to you.

That's all well and good until something bad happens to your house.

- All right, well, Pinellas County Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna now has three democratic opponents.

(air whooshes) Luna is in her first term and is a favorite of the MAGA wing of her party and she denies that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

The "Tampa Bay Times" reports this week a former employee of the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, Whitney Fox, announced that she's running for the seat in Florida's 13th Congressional District.

Earlier this month, Democrat Mark Weinkrantz, a retired pilot who ran for Pinellas County Commission in 2014, filed to run.

And John Liccione, whose website describes him as a technology executive, filed to run in June.

So William, all the districts in Florida are gerrymandered, I think it's fair to say.

This district was gerrymandered 7% in favor of the Republican party.

Do any of these three Democrats have a chance?

- It's very difficult to say they don't have a chance, but they've got a pretty steep hill to climb.

As you pointed out, the district was arranged to elect a Republican.

It has 38% Republican voter registrants compared to 31% Democrat.

Anna Paulina Luna won it by about that amount.

She won it by about eight points against Eric Lynn, who was a pretty solid candidate.

- [Rob] Who had a lot of money, yeah.

- A lot of money and probably more history with the community than she did possibly a lot of people would have said about her resume.

And again, he lost by about eight points.

As your report said, there are three candidates filed right now.

The early indications are that the early front-runner looks like Whitney Fox, but Jennifer Griffith, the chairman of the Pinellas County Democratic Party, tells me that she has heard of other potential serious candidates also looking to race.

Wouldn't name them.

One of the three, John Liccione, the Democratic Party organization in Pinellas County will not sanction or recognize him as a Democrat because of legal problems in his past.

He claims that that is an unfair and unjust decision on their part.

But that means that he won't be allowed to put material on the party's website.

He won't be listed as a Democratic candidate on their campaign material.

So that's going to be a tough obstacle for him to overcome.

But the big obstacle for Democrats, as you started off saying, is just the shape of the district.

- Deveron, Paulina Luna, is she in trouble?

- I don't see her being in trouble at all.

In fact, I will tell you, Rob, that the Republicans have increased their base in the county by 6% over the last couple years in registrations and I think she's gonna be even safer than before.

And quite frankly, I know that people had some issues with her in the very beginning, but I think she's gone to Washington, kind of settled in, and done a pretty decent job.

We've worked with her at St. Petersburg College on several things.

She's on the Natural Resources Committee and the Committee On Oversight and Accountability.

Seems to be working out well.

I don't think she's in trouble.

- All right, before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

Sean, your other big story?

- Well, it's always political season, right?

And so I've noticed a whole bunch of stories about the governor's primary here in the state in 2026 on both sides.

And so I think people are lining up on the Republican side, it'll be interesting, and people are lining up on the Democratic side and this has a potential to be four, five ways on both sides and to be an interesting primary battle on both sides.

So that's what I think we ought to start paying attention to, even though it's in 2026.

- A ways away.

Colleen, your other big story.

- We're just getting started on this Rays deal.

We have a long way to go.

Next week, the City Council will actually consider holding a meeting to discuss putting the Rays deal to voters on the March election for, the primary election for president.

Depending on that discussion, voters might see the deal on their ballot.

- Very interesting.

William, your other big story.

- Well, we're looking at 2024 school board races on both sides of the bay increasing, an increasing trend toward highly partisan, politically-oriented school board races.

There are at least four, probably five races in Pinellas and Hillsborough County together.

Four of them where Ron DeSantis has specifically called for school board members to be ousted.

But a total of probably about five where you're going to see Republican-oriented candidates pushing the philosophies that they've pushed in school board meetings recently.

- There'll be more money going into those races too.

- A lot more money coming into them from party sources.

- And Deveron, your other big story.

- I would agree with Sean Shaw.

It would probably be the gubernatorial race coming up down the road.

- Even this far away?

- I think this far away.

You're gonna have Byron Donalds and you're gonna have Wilton Simpson and- - Matt Gaetz.

- Matt Gaetz and (indistinct) and Driscoll, I think it's, and even Chevron Jones.

So I think it's gonna be interesting to watch.

- Lots of big names.

All right, thank you for a great show.

Thank you for watching.

Send us your comments at ftw@wedu.org and like us on Facebook.

We'll see you next week.

Thanks for watching.

(bright music) (bright music continues)