- This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St.

Petersburg, Sarasota.

[Music] - Coming up, the bases are loaded for the largest commitment of taxpayer money to a sports stadium in our region's history.

But it's not a home run yet.

What needs to happen next for the Rays stadium in Tampa to move forward?

A Republican governor and some of the state's own sheriffs don't agree on government surveillance.

Why some local agencies think the benefits of Flock cameras and other monitoring tech outweighs the perceived risks.

Plus, Cuban immigrants in Tampa ended up on a deportation plane without a hint at where it was headed until hours into the flight.

How federal officials are justifying Cuban deportations to Africa.

These and other big stories are coming up on Florida This Week.

[Music] Welcome back everybody.

I'm your moderator, Lissette Campos.

Sitting on our panel today is Victor DiMaio, president of the Hillsborough County Hispanic Caucus.

Christopher Ingram is a Republican analyst and owner of Gulfstream Video Studio.

Tara Newsom is an attorney who always brings grounded legal expertise to our program.

She's also a law professor.

And Camille Knox, an award winning journalist, author, and founder of Wright Knox Press.

She's also the former president of the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists.

We begin with the Tampa Bay Rays likely future in the City of Tampa.

It's a deal that represents the largest commitment of taxpayer dollars to a sports stadium in the entire region's history, Hillsborough County Commissioners signed off on the $2.3 billion stadium late last week.

The county plan commits up to $796 million in public funding.

Their vote came a day after Tampa council members greenlit the plan, adding an additional $80 million from the city.

The Rays themselves are responsible for the remainder of the money, plus any cost of the overruns.

The money is committed, but there are still hurdles ahead.

Both the county and the city must approve the ballpark operating agreement by October the 31st.

Camille, I'd like to start with you.

What is the public sentiment on this?

- Well, there are a lot of thoughts amongst people who are familiar with the issue.

I think the biggest thing is that people are concerned, obviously, about the usage of that much money for one stadium.

And also people are saying that they're wondering if, you know, if the Rays don't come up with their end of the money, what's going to happen, and also with the referendum coming up soon with property taxes in November.

People want to know if this was done a little bit too soon and if it's done in haste.

And so they want to know if this was done at a time where we should have waited until after November 3rd.

- Victor, you've talked about this on the show for many, many months now.

Um, you know, it's notable that Bill Carlson on the Tampa City Council, who had said that he would not vote yes.

In the end he did.

How do you see all of this?

- That's very curious, because he said for sure he was not going to vote it.

But then he changed and said, if I can get a better deal, I'll try.

And he did.

Well, deals, you know, a better deal is always in the eye of the beholder.

My other friend, Guido Maniscalco, when he asked the finance.

Because the part of this deal is to lend $100 million to the Rays, which they're going to pay back.

However, Guido asked, how much is the interest?

Is about 40 million that the city's got to pay.

So this is this is a very complex deal.

The Rays hired every lobbyist with a pulse in the Bay area.

They really lobbied very hard.

I mean, there's a lot of momentum behind the scenes to get this done.

However, the polling is not very favorable because I looked at polling on the Amendment 6, which excuse me, Amendment 3, which will really do a number on the property taxes, taxes.

And it was ironically polling above 60%, which would make passage.

It was trending in the other direction.

But I think people are going to look at these things together as a whole.

For example, I'm fighting this $100 million process for the South Howard $100 million they want to spend there.

I think as a whole, people are going to look at that.

And if and I agree, we talked that they should have waited.

They should have waited until after November to see what happens.

But now I think they're moving when the polls I've seen are moving people in the direction of passing amendment three, because it's the only way they're going to restrain the spending of the of the government.

- But staying on the topic of the race ballpark, um, do you think that this is a good thing for taxpayers or a bad thing?

- Chris.

No, no taxpayer funding of any sports stadium for, you know, a private corporation that's owned by very wealthy individuals is the right public move in my book.

And I think that Camille and Victor both hit the nail right on the head.

They're going to have a really hard time selling amendment three as a no in Hillsborough County and the city of Tampa to their voters.

When we just said, hey, we can dump $1 billion for a ballpark and we have chronic problems with flooding, with roads, with other infrastructure needs in our community, we have a 40 year backlog on repaving streets in the city of Tampa proper.

I think this was a terrible deal for taxpayers, and I personally was leaning toward voting against amendment three because I think the long term repercussions of it, you know, it looks good on paper for me, but it's bad for everyone, you know, along down the line.

But now I'm absolutely going to vote for amendment three, because the politicians in Hillsborough County said, we don't need any more money.

We got enough to spend on a on a ballpark.

- The legalities of this are of the deal are very complex.

So if the financing district that's going to be established, that's part of the agreement.

If that doesn't come to fruition, can the Rays walk away from this?

- That's a hiccup.

But there is also the community benefit agreement that actually dedicates certain amount of money in St.

Pete.

Listen, I'm from St.

Pete, been here, done that.

I've gotten this close to the deal, so deal's not done until a deal is done.

But the community benefit agreement is another hurdle that they have to get to in St.

Pete.

It was a $50 million deal for affordable housing for, you know, economic impact for marginalized individuals.

So we haven't seen that satisfied either.

So but there is something to note here.

Certainly the Rays have a real vested interest in the City of Tampa.

And including the mayoral race, they put in $400,000 into Bob Buckhorn's race for mayor in March.

And that's a very crowded field.

So they're playing the long game, and they think they're going to be able to take it to the finish line.

- And I would add to that, because you brought his name up, too, Bill Carlson, who is also running for mayor.

I think he made a huge mistake in voting for this, because he no longer can separate himself, himself from the rest of the pack that are kind of the leaders in this race.

Buckhorn is a big stadium proponent, even though he hadn't had to vote on it.

But and Bill just took away, you know, he lost support because he was distinguished as being opposed to this, or so we thought.

And then he ended up voting for it.

- And look at the mayors' races.

- You know, this is this is a big metropolitan area with amendments.

Three could have had a better shot.

But now, I think with these things going on, there's a big mayor's race going on right now in St.

Pete.

Uh, I've talked to Bob Henriques, who's considering running for mayor, so that's not set in Tampa.

So I mean, this is going to affect this is affecting a lot of things.

I mean, and the rates are a big part of it because it's a lot of money that they're going to be spending.

- We're going to switch gears.

Now turning to the fight over surveillance that's now playing out at both the state and the local level.

Governor Ron DeSantis has ordered Flock, license plate cameras and other similar devices removed from Florida state highways within the next 30 days.

He calls the technology, quote, out of control.

- We don't want in the state of Florida is to have a digital AI surveillance state where everything we're doing is being tracked at all times.

- Here in Tampa Bay Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco is going even further than that.

His department will end its entire program by September the 30th after county commissioners raised objections.

But Pinellas, Hillsborough and the City of Tampa Police Department are holding firm.

- Misinformation about what ALPR is and what it does is unhelpful.

Misinformation breeds suspicion and adds to contempt, as it has here.

- Tampa police and the Hillsborough Sheriff's Office are taking the very same stance.

They will only shutter cameras on state roads, with no broader changes planned.

Pinellas County takes up the issue of Flock and other cameras at a commission meeting that they have scheduled for October the 8th.

Tara, I'd like to ask you, what are the legal concerns here?

- Well, the main issue is that Flock cameras really reveal where you live, where you work, where you worship, where you seek medical attention, where you even exercise your political right to associate.

So you've got a First Amendment issue and you have a Fourth Amendment issue.

But the Supreme Court has actually established that what you do in public, that's okay to be monitoring, but this is an aggregate of what you do in public.

It's an infrastructure surveillance infrastructure that takes all those data points and creates a picture of your life.

And so when we really look at the Constitution and say, well, what can protect us from the state, knowing all of our moves, we first go to the Fourth Amendment and you're free from a search and seizure without a warrant.

So this aggregate, that's what's really the question here in front of the courts is, is this aggregate picture, this mosaic of our lives actually going beyond the constitutional safeguards that were intended to be protected by the Fourth Amendment and the chilling effect with the First Amendment, can we freely assemble with other people, go to political events without a list being created and curated that might be used in a way that is nefarious?

- Law enforcement agencies who have been using this for for decades say that it is an important tool that they have to find missing children to find victims of human trafficking to solve cases.

How does that compare?

- I can't help myself.

I got to talk about Benjamin Franklin and paraphrase.

He said, if you're willing to give up essential liberty for safety, you deserve neither.

And that's really the case here.

Of course, we want the, uh, folks and authorities to have the tools that they need to solve problems like missing children.

But we don't necessarily want to give up the essential liberties that we hold so dear.

And so that's really the crux of this.

And I think the courts have to really parse out whether that infrastructure surveillance actually goes beyond what we have accepted as a normal police officer jotting down our license plate.

It's different when you have an AI taking these pictures of you and putting together a whole profile.

- Chris, I'd like to get your take on this.

- I think just a very simplistic standpoint, though, I think Tara alluded to it, but with some additional information about how it's aggregated.

But the bottom line is people getting upset about all this as though it's an invasion of their privacy.

There is no expectation, a reasonable expectation of privacy when you're out in public and all of these cameras are out in public.

And so I think that's the government's basic basis for these cameras.

With all due respect to Sheriff Gualtieri, whom we saw in the clip, you know, part of the reason why people have a problem with this today is because of the misuse of these cameras by law enforcement agencies and particularly independent cops, you know, using it to spy on their girlfriends and ex-wives and that kind of thing.

There need to be stronger statutes on the books.

So when cops do wrong with this type of information that they face severe consequences.

- A case in Sarasota that reached the national headlines in USA Today, the Sarasota Police Department firing and arresting Officer Cory Waiters.

He allegedly used the camera to scan for the woman he was dating at the time to scan for her vehicle at least 335 times over the course of two months.

At least that's what he's accused of.

Um, Pasco County Sheriff's Nocco also said he's going to remove 60 Flock cameras.

Then you've got Hernando County saying we're going to take them out of our county's county streets.

Um, how do you how do you see this?

- Well, you know, Grady Judd's all for you.

We were on a show one time.

You said the funniest, the most dangerous part in Polk County is being between a camera and Grady Judd.

So he's all for this.

- Which is funny because he also, his agency does not allow body cams on its deputies.

- Yeah, I know right.

So what does that tell you is that he likes, you know, looking at people.

It's a very But to me it's a very slippery slope because I saw a documentary in China and they don't just look at your tags, they look at the people, they actually take your face.

And with these massive data centers are being built all over the country.

They profile you, right?

They profile you.

They can file in China if they have your face.

And if you're a Chinese citizen, you get stars, you get points and they send you like little bonuses.

I mean, if that isn't 1984 all over again and that's a slippery slope we have to be careful of, regardless of what Grady Judd says.

- It is a political hot button.

It's a lightning rod just like data centers.

We filled the library in St.

Pete, full of Republicans and Democrats, old and young, from all spectrums coming out to say, this is really offensive to our Fourth Amendment liberties, and it's galvanizing them.

And it could be an issue that can cross over in the November election.

- It started with the data centers.

- I mean, they're the most conservative Trump Republicans you've ever seen.

I saw on 60 Minutes in Texas.

They can't stand living next to these data centers that are making noise and spewing.

- People can't stand Flock cameras.

So here we come.

- We send the data centers out to China.

Then you know, they're spying on us.

- Well, one of the things that have has caused problems with the Flock cameras is people are saying that even ICE can use these cameras.

And so let's talk about ICE for a minute.

Immigration roundups in the Tampa Bay area have landed Cuban detainees thousands of miles away in Central Africa.

The Tampa Bay times reports that U.S.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is doing it under a policy known as third country deportation.

At least 36 Cuban immigrants were reportedly on the flight last month and remain in the capital city of Bangui without passports.

32 year old Cuban Yasmany Moreno ran a small trucking company between Tampa and Miami, and he is telling the Tampa Bay Times that the group feels forgotten and very afraid of what comes next.

- They have us here detained in this facility.

We can't leave.

We don't have documents.

We're suffering and missing our families in a continent we don't know another culture.

There's a lot of violence here.

We can't leave.

I don't have any criminal record.

Only traffic violations.

- Ice detentions had a record month nationally.

The agency made nearly 50,000 arrests in the month of July.

That's the highest single month of the Trump administration's second term.

Roughly 1 in 5 of those arrests happened in the state of Florida.

The Department of Homeland Security told reporters that it's, quote, using all lawful options as part of these deportations, which is the largest in our history.

Camille, I'd like to ask you, you've covered this story and you've you've brought up the issue of the human rights concerns that some folks are pointing to in this.

- Right.

So I think first of all, some people didn't even know that the United States had a third party deportation agreement.

So to find out sort of that people are being deported and then mid-flight finding out they're being taken to one of the poorest nations in the world is alarming.

I think people are obviously concerned as well about the human rights aspect of this, because a lot of people who are trapped in some of these situations are unsure as to how they're going to get out, when they're going to get home and why this happened to them in the first place.

So Victor.

-As a Cuban American and president of the Hispanic Caucus, I mean, I'm personally very offended by this.

And frankly, there's a humanitarian crisis going on in Cuba...and Cuba.

And as a bit of news, just before one in the year, I called a friend of mine who has some very good connections with the government.

And the Cuban government has accepted people to go to Cuba, this gentleman's Cuba, they could send them back to Cuba.

There was remember the famous there was a lady here in Tampa who came with her child to immigration, and they plucked her up and took her to Cuba.

Yes.

Remember that we talked about that.

- But in most cases, the island of Cuba has not been receiving deportees back.

- They're accepting more now because, you know, because the situation in Cuba, because there are people are leaving Cuba.

So they're accepting them in Cuba.

There's no reason in the world they should have said this guy to Africa.

This is this whole this whole look, we were told from the American.

We're going to get murderers and criminals and everyone's for that.

But to get these numbers up to 50,000, they're grabbing people off the street that, you know, it's a.

- Constitutional crisis is what it is.

- And we have a thing called due process in this country, and that's in the Constitution.

And these people are not getting any kind of due process.

- You and I are on the same page.

- I mean, I talked to immigration lawyers every day.

I mean.

- There's three constitutional problems here.

The first is, is what Victor just said.

It's procedural due process.

And the Fifth Amendment promises all persons in the United States.

That doesn't mean citizens, okay?

It means all persons and due process includes notice.

So some people are being picked up.

They have six hours to, you know, find evidence and defend.

and that's been seen under the courts as not a due process at all.

And then you have separation of powers.

Come on.

The Congress has put out the Immigration and Nationality Act.

It sets out very structured pathways on how ICE is supposed to go forward.

This is not one of them.

So the president, exercising the executive power beyond what Congress wanted is a separation of powers issues.

And then you have a substantive due process violation here.

This is the geopolitics of cruelty.

You have a real issue when you have a country who is ignoring human rights violations, that their own case law says that they have a responsibility to honor.

And this is, some people could say, even a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, because you have no assessment of the risk of where these individuals are going to be set off.

And quite frankly, the strategy of ICE saying, we dropped them off and once we dropped them off, they're no longer ICE's problem.

You know, that tells you everything that you need to know about their understanding of what due process is.

- Chris, you know, I agree this is a humanitarian issue and there are a lot of legal issues that need to be considered constitutional issues.

I think what's going on here, though, is the Trump administration is trying to send a message.

If you come to this country illegally, we're going to make it really miserable for you.

And, you know, they might be taking a blind eye to due process.

And that certainly should not be tolerated.

We as Americans should all insist on our rights to due process be upheld, whether we're citizens or not, as Tara aptly noted.

But this is a political issue, and the Trump administration is just trying to send a message to the rest of the world.

Like, if you come here, we're going to make it really uncomfortable for you.

- Sadly, it's turning a lot of people off, and people are very upset about the way it's going about doing it, and not just because of.

- Political.

- Theater.

Right.

Look, and I hate to bring up Grady Judd again, but all people, the most conservative, right wing conservative guy I know was on TV saying, look, if a guy has been here for ten years, he's paying his taxes, his kids are going to school.

- Well, the.

- Gentleman didn't cause any problems.

Why are we just dumping them out of the times?

- Reporter, you know, interviewed several of them over using WhatsApp.

You have the gentleman who we heard that soundbite from, he's 32 years old.

He's been in this country since 2016.

He's the one that had the trucking company.

And he said clearly in the interview, he said, the only thing I've ever had is a parking ticket.

- You know, I would just say, with all due respect to what Victor said.

Grady Judd said, um, ultimately it comes down to we are a nation of laws and we have to enforce the laws.

Now, you could argue whether or not this is being enforced, aptly, is.

- The ultimate law of the land.

So avoiding the Fifth Amendment is not.

- And I and I agree with you on that.

But what I'm saying is, is that whether someone's here for ten years or ten minutes, if they're here illegally, the government is not in a position to say, well, we'll make an exception for you because you've been here longer, but not for the person that was here ten minutes.

- Later, not following Congress.

And I do have to say that in light of the fact that we celebrated our 250th year Declaration of Independence and our 239th year of signing of the Constitution on September 17th by totally throwing out this idea of liberties, the idea that many of these people are actually in the legal process of seeking asylum, and they're not even being afforded due process and the separation of powers.

Ignoring those for this idea that internationally we're going to flex.

It's doing nothing but weakening our rule of law.

- This is certainly something, an issue that is dividing even voters who have said that there should be more done in terms of strengthening U.S.

immigration law.

So it's something that, of course, we'll continue to follow before our time is up.

I do want to go over the other big stories of the week.

This is the time where we ask each of you to share some of the stories that you're tracking.

Camille, I'd like to start with you.

- Sure.

So school choice is opening up in Hillsborough County.

I think it's opening up in other surrounding counties as well.

That includes choice and magnet schools as well.

Obviously, public school has been going on for a week or two now, but it's going to be interesting to see what the teacher shortage, because there's still a large number of teachers and educators who are quitting the field for various reasons are stressed out.

They're underpaid, overworked.

There's a lot of things that they have to do and hoops they have to jump through just to do their daily jobs from what they're saying.

So it's going to be interesting to see how that affects which schools people choose to send their children to for this lottery.

That will be for 27 and 28 for next year.

- Tara.

And you've got an education story as well.

- Camille.

I think we're all watching education.

We certainly saw DeSantis try to put his thumb on some school board races a couple of years ago wasn't successful.

And now Sarasota, this last primary really showed like a clean house of the Moms of Liberty.

And even the conservative candidates down there are actually changing their view on how their sort of faith walk should be inside the school board.

And then we just saw Hillsborough County be really upset that they were used as political theater.

When Secretary Kennedy came and sort of used the students as props in his discussion about vaccines, I think this is going to become a real issue in the gubernatorial election.

And if David Jolly actually wins, I think you're going to start to see his appointment power trying to change up how DeSantis has had a stronghold on education.

You might see new college be revamped and some other college boards have a refresh.

Certainly something that we need to look at.

- Victor, you're following something in the South Tampa business community.

- The Soho Business Alliance I mentioned earlier is fighting this $100 million pipe that they want to send from Swan to Bayshore and gutting all the other projects all over the City of Tampa to fund this one project.

So a lot of people, there's people lined up.

Obviously, people in parkland estates are mad because their homes got flooded.

But, you know, I heard Brooklyn say, you know, we could spend billions of dollars and never really solve every flooding problem because we live in Florida, we have hurricanes.

You know, what can you do?

So.

- Chris, you have a positive story.

- For a lighter note, nothing heavy here.

Amber Uhler, who is on my show heartbeat of Tampa Bay, was Miss Michigan in the Miss USA pageant.

And she did not win the pageant, but she was elected by her peers of the other contestants as Miss Congeniality.

So shout out to Amber.

We're super proud of her.

She has an amazing story.

She lost 170 pounds in the last three and a half, four years, and she's just a really an amazing gal and we're just super proud of her.

Tampa girl here she was Miss Michigan, but she's a Tampa girl.

- That's right.

Michigan is her home state and she and her husband, uh, are.

Jamison Uhler is a former colleague of ours on the news here.

And congratulations to her.

It was great to see that happen.

- We're super proud of her.

- Thank you again to our panel today, Camille Knox, Tara Newsom, Chris Ingram, and Victor DeMaio.

One reminder before we go.

The Atlantic hurricane season is now in its historically busiest stretch.

This week, the National Hurricane Center named its fifth storm of the season.

Take a look here.

This is what Tropical Storm Edouard brought to the East Texas Louisiana border after forming in the Gulf.

NOAA recently updated this year's predictions.

Between 7 to 13 named storms are forecasted by the end of this hurricane season.

One thing to keep in mind before disaster strikes is the My Safe Florida Home program.

It comes with a free wind mitigation inspection for all applicants, and those who are approved receive grants of up to $10,000 to help harden their homes from storms.

- This year, the number of people applying is not as high as it's been in the past, although preference is given to seniors and folks with low income.

Right now, I would submit that anyone who is at 120% of the median household income for their county and that house is less than $700,000, has a decent shot at getting a grant.

- Since it began, the My Safe Florida Home program has performed more than 109,000 free home inspections and approved more than $570 million in grants.

For more detailed information as well as the online application, visit mysafeflhome.com.

That's it for Florida This Week.

We know you've got plenty of choices for your news and information, and we thank you for choosing us.

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