>>This week on NewsNight.

The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season reaches its peak as Idalia moves across the state.

We'll look at the impacts.

And Orange County leaders debate whether to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of tourist development tax revenues on improvements to the Convention Center and Camping World Stadium.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] >>Hello, I'm Steve Mort, and welcome to NewsNight where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in central Florida and how they affect you.

Hurricane Idalia this week ushered in the start of the peak period in the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.

The storm made landfall Wednesday along the Big Bend as a dangerous Category 3 hurricane, unleashing catastrophic wind and storm surge and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people.

Idalia had already triggered widespread flooding along most southern stretches of the Gulf Coast, including in some areas which were hit hard by hurricane Ian last year.

Governor Ron DeSantis suspended his presidential campaign to manage the response.

>>The state of Florida immediately began response operations, including search and rescue, debris clean up and power restoration efforts.

There has been significant damage, particularly along Florida's Big Bend.

But the community is resilient and we are going to work hard to make sure people get what they need.

>>The governor spoke with President Biden ahead of the storm's arrival.

The White House has pledged full support for Florida in the recovery process.

>>We surged personnel to Florida to help the state move people quickly to safety and out of the danger zone and to help the governor and his team to the greatest degree possible in advance, in advance of the hurricane's arrival.

And I directed FEMA to redeploy resources, including up to 1,500 personnel and 900 Coast Guard personnel throughout the Southeast.

And let each governor I spoke with know, if there's anything, anything the states need right now, I'm ready to mobilize that support of what they need.

I don't think anybody can deny the impact of a climate crisis anymore.

Northwestern areas of central Florida, including Marion County, experienced some flooding.

Metro Orlando escaped the worst, though.

A FEMA staging area was set up at the Orange County Convention Center, with agencies throughout central Florida sending resources to other parts of the state.

>>They will be charged with helping with the search and recovery efforts in areas greatly affected by Hurricane Idalia.

>>Mayor Jerry Demings there.

Before we turn to our panel, the model's forecast is used to predict where hurricanes will go, proved remarkably consistent as a Idalia tracked towards Florida.

Heres Steven Lerner from Seminole County Emergency Management.

>>It's getting better.

So the National Weather Service has invested a significant amount of money and research to better and do better projections on storms as they come.

So, you know, were the receivers of that data.

So it really helps us in decision making.

You know, this storm in particular provided a little bit more difficulty because it did come so close to our West coast that the impacts to inland communities were still really uncertain until the last 8 hours of the storm.

So we prepare it as if it was going to make that eastward jog as every other storm has in the last ten years since we, you know, have been working through hurricanes.

It always seems as the last 8 hours, the storm makes that 40 mile jog to the east.

That really puts us into a bad situation for our residents.

So we prepare for that to happen every time.

So our staff was ready and pre-staged with equipment and and shelters on standby for our residents.

And I think we made the right decision.

It was a really good opportunity for us to work with new staff that may have not experienced this before and also it was a great opportunity for new residents to Florida and new residents to our community to really see some of the initial preparedness effects that they would need to take advantage of ahead of hurricane season.

>>Steven Lerner from Seminole County there.

Okay.

Let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studio this week, two reporters who covered the storm here in central Florida.

Steve Hudak, you cover local government for the Orlando Sentinel.

Thanks so much for coming in.

And Joe Mario Pederson, 90.7 WMFE News.

Thanks so much for coming in, as well, Joe Mario.

>>Thanks for having me.

>>Let me start with you first, if I can.

We saw those pictures just now from Perry from our friends at WKMG News 6 in the Big Bend as that storm came onshore.

We're getting a clearer picture now of the aftermath.

What are we seeing in that part of the state?

>>So, a lot of damage.

Thousands of homes and businesses that are facing damages.

You know, like we just saw Perry.

But Steinhatchee, Cedar Key also facing damaged buildings, flooded roadways.

Tampa and St. Pete also saw a tremendous amount of flooding.

You know, we saw seven feet of storm surge over in Cedar Key.

An early estimate of damages this morning that put it at about $9 billion.

But again, it's an early estimate.

And in the coming weeks, that number is likely to grow.

>>It's a rural area that really hasn't seen a storm like this for a long time.

Steve, we got off, I guess, kind of lightly in the metro area of Orlando.

You covered how local government here responded, how did officials tell you things went?

Did everything go okay?

>>They thought the the impact was minimal.

As Mayor Demings often says, “we prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

” And this time, it happened.

>>I'm kind of interested, you know, was there a sense of apprehension among leaders?

I mean, we all remember Hurricane Ian, of course, last year where we suffered extensive flooding throughout central Florida.

Was there a feeling of, “oh, my goodness, this could happen again?

” Did it inform any of the decisions that were made, do you think?

>>Oh, I think it did.

I think it certainly it affected how they prepared.

For instance, in Orlo Vista, which had flooding, terrible flooding during Ian, the three main retention ponds down there were empty.

>>Yeah.

>>So, there was plenty of capacity.

I don't know if we'd had the same kind of storm as Ian.

We probably would have had some flooding, but not like we had last year.

And I think that's what the apprehension was.

Are we going to have people out of their homes again?

Because there were hundreds, thousands of people who lost their their places to stay for a long time.

>>And, of course, the concern for this season it's not over is we're now in the peak of hurricane season here.

Joe Mario, you're on the health beat at 90.7 WMFE News.

You and we've also covered recently the mosquito-borne illness outbreaks in some parts of the state, including malaria.

I've read some reporting that the rains from Idalia may exacerbate that problem.

How so?

>>Yeah, that's certainly a concern, right?

Malaria being one of those concerns.

We've seen that observed on the Gulf Coast.

Here in Orange, we have an advisory about Eastern equine encephalitis virus, right?

So the two things that you need for a prolific mosquito breeding season is heat and moisture.

And right now we got a lot of that, right?

Last year after Hurricane Ian, we had both of those things.

We had tremendous amount of flooding and as a result, we had five times the amount of mosquitoes that we would observe in a typical season.

I was talking to Orange County mosquito control just the other day, and I was asking them about the effects from this storm and could we expect anything similar to what we saw with Ian.

And they don't seem to think so, because of the way that this storm operated and the way that this season has been going.

Because it's been so hot, it's been pretty dry.

And now with the rain having passed by really, really quickly, they believe that the water's probably going to steep into the soil rather than just sit on top because of all of the inundation that we saw last year, right?

As compared to that, so they're thinking that this is really probably going to fuel a normal mosquito season, so much as that we don't see another one of these storms.

>>Well, we certainly hope that we don't see another outbreak of mosquito-borne illnesses.

And it's a story that we'll keep watching here on the program.

Of course, events like severe weather can be stressful for kids.

So Meet the Helpers is there for you.

It's a WUCF initiative designed to support the well-being of young children by introducing them to community helpers.

Our content assists families in preparing for and responding to emergencies throughout hurricane season.

You can find videos, preparedness resources, tips for caregivers, and even a hurricane tracker.

It's all MeetTheHelpers.org.

Okay.

Next tonight, Orange County leaders are debating whether to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in bed tax revenues on improvements to Central Florida venues.

>>Good morning, everyone.

>>Last week, Orange County commissioners put off making a final decision on whether to use future tourist development tax dollars to pay for an expansion to the county's gigantic convention center and improvements to Camping World Stadium.

Some members of the board said they needed extra time to consider the issue after a memo from Orange County's controller urged commissioners to exercise fiscal discipline.

>>We're talking about years and years into the future that that somebody else will be worrying about paying these debts off much like we're looking at the debts that were put here before we got here.

>>Bed tax revenues have been volatile in recent years, crashing during the pandemic, but breaking records in the two years following.

The summer months this year have seen a decline, but revenues are forecast to grow by 2% a year going forward.

Mayor Demings has proposed borrowing some $900 million for the projects, $500 million for the convention center, $400 million for the stadium.

They were included on a short list of recommendations drawn up by a citizens task force which studied dozens of applications for bed tax funding.

>>I believe that we need to make some decisions now.

The cost of any of these projects is going up and up and up.

The cost of time is working against us.

>>Tourist development taxes levied on hotels and short term rentals have funded other priorities in previous years, including the Dr. Phillips and Amway Centers.

>>All right, Steve, this is your bailiwick.

You've been covering this issue in detail for the Orlando Sentinel.

For people who might not be familiar, first of all, with tourist development tax and how it works, give us a sort of a little primmer on what it is and what those revenues are generally used for.

>>Well, if you stayed at a hotel or an Airbnb, that's the 6% tack on cost.

That's the added cost that you pay for that staying in that room.

Last year, it raised $336 million in the last fiscal year.

I think that is roughly like 28 and a half million dollars a month.

That money goes to pay things like debts on the convention center.

It has been used to fund VisitOrlando, which is the marketing arm for tourism in Orange County.

But it's also been used to fund improvements to Camping World, the Amway Center.

And it also funds a lot of smaller, smaller arts groups.

But the bulk of the money goes to the Convention Center.

>>Yeah.

Well, let's talk about the actual plans then for the Convention Center and Camping World Stadium that we're talking about now.

What's proposed?

>>Well, what's proposed right now is the Convention Center had put forth an expansion, another expansion that would add, I think, another million square feet.

And it also would give some flexibility in how they could have more shows at one time it in the in the North-South building so that the edifices like the size of the Pentagon.

We say that oftentimes times in the paper.

Most of this expansion is around the North-South building.

>>Joe Mario, TDT revenues are expected to climb, right, going forward.

And we heard that just now.

So why does the comptroller, Phil Diamond, sort of, urge fiscal discipline?

And Ill ask you both about that.

>>The comptroller is basically saying that “if it ain't broke, don't fix it, ” right?

He's urging this discipline because, you know, as you said, we were expecting, we were hoping that there's going to be a climb in revenue, especially with the opening of, like, Epic Universe, right?

But the comptroller has said, you know, discipline is how we got to where we are.

It's how we've gotten through financial difficulties.

You brought up, you know, the challenges that we saw following the pandemic.

And those things are, you know, things that you can't account for.

He wants to make sure that we can navigate through those dangers.

>>Yeah.

>>Let me jump in here, please.

One of the things that the comptroller does is he uses, he likes to use that thrill ride analogy.

It's a like a roller coaster.

Most of the time it goes like this.

Sometimes it goes like this.

And we, during 2020, when we had COVID, it went like this.

So they're concerned that a lot of little things can have things that we might think are little, can affect tourists coming here.

Like we had, as you pointed out earlier, we've had like almost two years of record breaking tourist development collections, but they've started to tail off.

And there are some little reasons why there might be that might be happening and maybe some big ones.

One could be the cost of things.

Another could be the oppressive heat that we had this summer.

>>Yeah.

>>Another might be and I don't mean to throw politics into this, but some some conventions have canceled because they cite the political animosity in Florida.

>>The Sentinel's editorial pages have been very critical of this convention center expansion.

I mean, what is the hit on expanding a facility that, as you mentioned before, is already the size of the Pentagon?

>>Well, the overall convention industry, according to experts outside of central Florida, they will tell you that it's not what it used to be, that people have found other ways to gather, whether it be by Zoom, WebEx, whatever.

They can have virtual meetings.

They don't have to be in-person meetings.

So the industry as a whole has seen a slackening.

You know, it's just not it's not quite the same.

I think Mark Tester, who's the executive director of the Convention Center, said, would argue with that.

He would say it's rebounding and it's surging again, but it's not the same as it was ten years ago.

>>I mean, as Steve mentioned, Joe Mario, I mean, Mayor Demings is a leading proponent of expanding these venues, Convention Center, Camping World Stadium.

Why is he so keen and I'll ask you about this as well, Steve, on allocating future TDT dollars and why sooner rather than later?

We heard him there say, you know, we need to do this right away.

>>He expressed earlier this summer that, you know, he's keen on spending, you know, 100% of all of this.

>>Yeah.

>>Because he you know, he said that we will lose any anything that we don't spend any funds to the state.

So that's why he's been so gung-ho about this.

>>And he's also concerned, I guess, about costs, right?

The costs going up?

Inflation is high.

>>Right.

In fact, the convention center expansion that they're getting ready to approve when they first approved it in 2019, pre-COVID, the project was $608 million.

It is now pegged to be $825 to $900 million.

Now, that's why the mayor has suggested that they only do a part of this expansion.

Like that flex space, the ballroom, they're not going to probably do that.

But that's that's part of it.

And I think there's some fear from in the mayor's thinking that the legislature will somehow try to take some of that money.

So let's commit as much as we can that we as we can.

I don't think everyone agrees with that.

>>I should say when I say “inflation is high ”, I mean, in Florida, inflation outpaces the rest of the nation where inflation has come down fairly significantly.

I just wanted to ask you about something you alluded to before, which was conventions pulling out of Orlando and Orange County.

I mean, is there concern, do you think, the state and local level, that sort of lightning rod issues in our state of late might have an impact going forward?

Or is that likely to blow over do people think?

>>I think that the people in Tallahassee think it's going to blow over.

They don't think it's -- They think it's like -- it's a stunt.

It's like they're saying it just to make a point, right?

Some of the Black groups that have canceled some of the LGBTQ groups that have canceled conventions, they're serious about this.

They don't -- they have warned their members about coming here, coming to the state under the particular political climate.

So I know that at after the state of the county address that the mayor had, he stood in front of the cameras and said, “Look, we're welcoming.

We're not all of this.

All these things that you've heard about Florida, that's not central Florida.

We embrace everybody.

We love everybody.

” >>But also, it doesn't really seem to matter whether it's a stunt or not, right?

Because a lot of these events, they book out years in advance.

>>Yes.

>>So, you know, what is it?

Con of Thrones pulled out and their event isn't until next year.

So, I mean, you know, whether it is a stunt or not, that's still likely to have an impact in the coming years down the road.

>>Yeah, of course, it's not just those two venues that we've been talking about, the Convention Center and Camping World Stadium that are sort of looking for money - TDT tax dollars.

What are some of the other venues that are interested in money from that pot?

Well, there's the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, the UCF campus.

They want to have this sports village.

So there are also the arts groups that are looking for portions of this money.

I think a lot of these things, some of these things will get funded.

I don't believe they're all going to get funded, I think, because when they first put there were 50 some groups that applied for some money and that total of like $3.8 billion, that can't even be partially funded.

I mean, only a small portion of that can be funded.

So the task force that the mayor appointed chose of the top of their recommendations were the expansion of the Convention Center and upgrades to Camping World Stadium.

I should also mention that Orlando would like to see Amway Center renovated a little bit so they can get better shows, better concerts.

Better, you know, better everything.

>>Well, you're across the story and we'll actually put a link to your reporting up on our website.

In the meantime, be sure to join the conversation on social media.

We're at WUCF TV on Facebook, X formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.

All right.

Finally tonight, a check in on a story we told you about earlier this year.

In June, Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law what's known as the Residential Tenancies Bill in effect since July.

It supersedes local regulations governing the relationship between landlords and tenants.

For example, Orange County's Tenants Bill of Rights.

Previously, landlords in the county had to give at least 60 days notice before terminating a lease.

Now it's just 30 days under the new law.

Supporters, including landlord groups, say it makes rules clearer statewide, but opponents say it strips protections for renters and will exacerbate Florida's housing crisis.

Heres Cynthia Laurent, the housing justice campaigner for the social justice advocacy group, Florida Rising.

>>One thing that we know for sure is that several portions of the Tenant Bill of Rights has essentially been dismantled.

Here in Orange County, specifically, there was a notice of rent increases.

And because of HB 14-17, now tenants don't receive -- don't have to receive a notice of rent increases.

This is extremely important because if your rent was increasing by 5% or more, you would receive advance notice from your landlord so that no longer exists.

There were also protections against different types of discrimination, some that are codified in federal law, but some that aren't.

And the ones that aren't codified in federal law, those protections are not guaranteed to folks who live within the county.

What we've seen, because we are regularly in the community, we have members that we speak to regularly, is that folks are paying $1700, $2200 for what is not really a habitable living space and not receiving services that anyone would expect, if you're living in an apartment building.

So not only is it a concern of displacement, but for folks who are housed, their living conditions are deplorable.

But there are no longer tenant protections at the local level because of House Bill 14-17.

>>Cynthia Laurent there.

Okay, Steve, let me come to you first on this one.

We've heard Orange County leaders and you and I both covered this story, including Mayor Demings talking at length about the housing situation in central Florida.

Have they had anything to say since Governor DeSantis signed the Residential Tenancies Bill about how it might affect our region?

>>Well, they don't think it's good.

>>Yeah.

>>But the main thing that we're faced with is a lack of inventory.

And even though everything Cynthia Laurent said is true, but it doesn't it doesn't matter in the sense that if you don't have places to put people, that's not good.

>>Not much you can do.

>>Yeah, we're still like 30,000 units shy of what we need.

So they've been trying to, you know, increase the affordable housing options.

But they're just -- it takes time to create those.

>>Yeah.

Joe Mario, the whole I mean, the whole state has been grappling with with the rising rents and that inventory shortage that Steve mentioned.

I mean, how many municipalities are we talking about that have had ordinances in place that are preempted now?

>>So Jason Garcia from Seeking Rents has done some great reporting on this.

And, you know, in his research, you know, he's identified 30 communities that will be affected and to really like paint that, that's about 1.5 million people that that's potentially affecting.

>>One of the concerns, Steve, is that HB 14-17 will make renters more vulnerable to eviction.

How much of an issue were evictions prior to this new law?

And I think you've done some reporting on that and all that concerns -- or are the concerns that this will become more of an issue valid?

>>Evictions are an issue simply because housing is not affordable to a great deal of the number of renters right now.

So they're doing they're spending more than a third of what they earn.

Some people pay upwards of 60% of what they earn for housing costs.

So I think evictions are on the rise.

The numbers kind of bear that out.

We had a surge in last year because there were moratoriums in place during the COVID years and that those those protections, those moratoriums went away.

So there was new filings.

You could file them, but before but you couldn't prosecute them.

So now those things can be prosecuted.

So I don't know.

I don't know what the numbers are right now, but they're up.

I know that.

There were several pieces of legislation, Joe Mario, that touched on housing in the last session, including one that allows landlords to sort of charge nonrefundable fees instead of refundable deposits.

Remind us what that does and why landlords say it's it's a good thing.

>>Right.

So the reason why they've been in support of this is they think it facilitates the process of starting your rental agreement, right?

Instead of paying this tremendous amount of money, you know, you've got to pay the first month's rent the last month.

>>Some people might don't have that.

>>Right.

Exactly.

It's that deposit, right?

That you don't necessarily have to do.

So instead that they are intent on charging these smaller fees, which they're in support of because they see this as a easier way to get people into apartments, right?

But also, you know, you can use these fees to pay for things like insurance or small repairs around the property.

Opponents against this have said that this probably gives landlords too much power because there's no cap on these fees.

>>Well, the housing issue continues to be a sticky problem for our region, and we'll keep following it here on the program, for sure.

A reminder, you can find much more from the NewsNight team on our website.

It's all at WUCF.org/NewsNight.

But that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Stephen Hudak from the Orlando Sentinel.

Joe Mario Pedersen from 90.7 WMFE News.

Thanks so much for coming in, guys.

Really appreciate your time today.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

From all of us here at NewsNight, take care and have a great week.

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