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

Petersburg, Sarasota.

[music] - Coming up, lawmakers said they killed the proposed cruise port near the Sunshine Skyway bridge.

But is the plan really dead?

The bill that passed may have actually given developers a new path forward in protected waters.

We look at what's concerning attorneys and opponents.

Florida schools are cutting teachers and closing buildings.

Million-dollar decisions.

Without the framework of a state budget, lawmakers still have not passed one.

A special session on redistricting gets delayed.

The new date handed down from the governor's office, and why it will also include vaccines and artificial intelligence.

And a new poll shows that Florida's political landscape may be shifting.

The poll finding that independent voters are moving toward Democrats in numbers not seen in decades.

Our panel weighs in on what's real and what's spin.

All that and more is next on Florida This Week.

[music] Welcome back, everybody, I'm Lissette Campos joining us on the panel this week.

We have Victor DiMaio, Democratic political strategist, Mark Proctor, Republican political consultant, and Alice Herman, investigative reporter for the Suncoast Searchlight Public schools across Tampa Bay are facing big cuts next year.

Typically, this is the time of the year that leaders are in the process of assigning teachers to their schools for the next academic year.

Instead, district leaders are eliminating positions, and in some cases they are picking which campuses to close.

Districts are having to navigate these big decisions in the dark as Tallahassee remains without a state budget to replace the one that ends on June 30th.

In Sarasota County, administrators are eliminating 180 teaching positions.

Teachers in year one will be the first to go.

In Pinellas, 250 teaching jobs are being cut in two campuses that are closing.

School leaders in Hillsborough just voted to shut down three schools, and Pasco cut nearly 400 positions for next year's plan.

The reasons are many pandemic money gone, inflation outpacing state funding for years, and a universal voucher expansion that has redirected billions of dollars away from the public school system.

Sarasota County alone lost nearly $45 million to the Family Empowerment Scholarship Fund.

- It's sad to think that we're uprooting people who have made a commitment to be here, and that's just really not fair.

They moved to this area and made a commitment to us to to work with us and do the best they can to educate our kids.

- Schools were counting on Tallahassee to address school funding quickly.

This week, however, legislative leaders killed the idea of an early special session.

House Speaker Daniel Perez telling colleagues, quote, when we have an update on the timing of the budget, we will notify you.

End quote.

For the second straight year, Florida's Legislature ended its regular session without passing a budget.

A $1.4 billion gap remains between the proposed budgets of the House and the Senate.

A special session is expected sometime next month, but the new school year won't wait.

And Alice, you have covered this story extensively in Sarasota.

What is it about the Sarasota story and the impacts that schools that are having on schools that's so different from the rest of the region.

- I think something that's really unique about Sarasota is the fact that it is a wealthier county.

It's a county that the state considers to be property rich, which means that under the state's sort of calculator for determining funding for public schools, property taxes cover about 90% of that.

The other 10% is coming from the state of Florida.

And something that I learned while reporting this story was that entire 10% had been redirected into the voucher program.

And so I think it's significant, and I think it's instructive to look at Sarasota because even in a wealthier county, again, where property taxes are covering a lot of the budget, they're now seeing dozens of teachers and support staff being cut and programs being cut and right.

- So in your reporting, you spoke with Rex Ingram in Anchorage, and he told you that he's worked for over 30 years in the area and that this is something he hasn't seen before.

Can you elaborate on that?

- Yeah, I was curious to see.

So I looked at the district's data and it and it looked like they were cutting more teachers than they had in years.

But I wanted a broader view.

I thought about the recession.

I'm sure there could have been cuts around then.

And I talked to the president of the teachers union, Rex Gingrich, and he said that he hadn't seen anything like this since, um, since he's been with the district.

- Victor, in South Florida, they are really bracing for a lot of a lot of cuts across the school districts.

You came in with some information on Broward County.

What's the latest?

- Today they announced they're going to cut 500 teachers and personnel staff in this and close a whole bunch of schools.

So to me, this is a direct result of two things that are going on.

Number one is the immigration You can't track down.

The Trump administration has done trying to round up 11 million Hispanics that have crossed the border illegally.

In Hillsborough County, for example, where 70% of the kids almost are Hispanic and African American.

I've talked to thousands as president of the Hispanic Caucus that have called me personally and said, we are.

They don't even leave the House.

They are scared to death of even leaving the house and getting picked up, even if they're legal, even if they have, even if they're born here, even if they have their green cards, they're scared to death of leaving the house.

So they're keeping their kids away from school.

So that's resulting in the lower class sizes.

And the other part is on the voucher program you talked about, um, it started out years ago under Jeb Bush to be, you know, poor kids, you know, or failing schools.

Let's give them a voucher for a choice.

And that's very admirable.

Now, now it's turned to anybody with a pulse can get a can get a voucher.

And they three years ago, they already predicted that the budget is going to be blown out.

They're going to be running deficits because they're giving away so much money to millionaires and billionaires who could well afford to send their kids to private school.

And and this is blowing the budget mark.

- At this point, they are $1.4 billion apart.

Um, you know, constitutionally they have to pass the budget.

- That is their main purpose is to pass a budget.

And they haven't passed a budget.

Part of the problem or a big part of the problem is in 2024, Ron DeSantis ran for president.

Up until that point, he had the support.

Whatever he wanted, the Legislature went along with.

Now they're fighting.

The Senate and the House are fighting against what he's proposing.

And as a result, we're kind of in a stalemate position.

But constitutionally, they have to pass a budget.

- Well, they waste a lot of time.

- The teachers and the students and the administrators are certainly keeping a very close eye on what happens in the next few weeks.

- And it's so uncertain all over the state of Florida.

- We're going to go ahead and move along to our next segment.

There is a special session on the state schedule, but it's not about the budget.

As we've just been saying, it's for congressional redistricting and the agenda is getting very crowded.

Take a look, governor Ron DeSantis has now pushed the session back to April the 28th.

It's four days long.

Added to the agenda is a vaccine exemptions bill and the Artificial Intelligence Bill of rights.

Both of these died in the House during the regular session.

In terms of the redistricting, Democrats are firmly opposed to the redistricting.

They are calling it illegal.

Republican House Speaker Daniel Perez wants to see the governor's proposed map before committing to any plan.

Florida's constitution prohibits drawing new districts for Partizan gain or to help or harm incumbents.

Victor, I'd like to start with you.

How do you see all this playing out?

- It's a disaster.

It's a it's a train wreck because the congressional.

Right now the ratio is 20 Republicans and eight Democrats in the congressional delegation.

They want to make it 24 Republicans and four Democrats, even though, you know, it's true, there's a few more Republicans statewide, but not that many Republicans.

And what's happening now since Donald Trump is so immensely unpopular, if you're in if you're a Republican and your district is plus 4 or 8 and you now you have to absorb, let's say you take Kathy Castro district and cut her up and start giving all those Democrats in Republican districts, which they don't want to begin with.

Now that 4% edge they have is gone to zero, because we're going to get into in a minute, in the next one of the other segments about the independents, you know, switching to Democrats.

So that's going to make a lot.

It's going to backfire.

And that's what they're scared of.

And none of the congressmen that I've talked to on either side wants any change.

They liked it.

As bad as it is, they like to keep it just the way it is.

So now they know because now look as close as we.

As time goes on, people want to know who their what their districts are, who they got to talk to, who's their voters.

So now this is messing everything up.

And they have presidents because this the whole redistricting part is really the purview of the Legislature.

That's going to be the House and Senate the last time around.

The governor says, I don't like those maps.

He just gave them a map and they rubber stamped it.

But the problem is now DeSantis is at the end of his rope.

He has his the clock is ticking.

He has very little time left.

And they like Mark said, they gave him everything he wanted.

- This certainly isn't the only governor in the U.S.

who's doing this.

This is, you know, part of a national battle over the congressional maps.

You have Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Missouri.

Those three have already changed their congressional redistricting maps.

California Democrat led California responded in kind.

Virginia is the one that is going to be looked at next.

And DeSantis was even asked, was this special session on redistricting moved?

So it's closer to that April 21st special session when voters in Virginia will vote whether to give the authority back to the Democrat led Legislature?

- Yeah, no, it's a. Vic said.

I've talked to a lot of people in Tallahassee, and the general consensus is it's never going to happen.

He may come up with something, but in Tampa Bay area, you'd have to dilute, uh, uh, Luna, Bilirakis, Lee and Buchanan seat, putting more Democrats in there and more Republicans than Kathy Castor.

And they're all nervous that is going to so much dilute their, uh, their voting base that they're not in favor of it.

- And their dirty little secret, I apologize for hurt you is that Democrats don't want Republicans in their in their district.

And Republicans do not want Democrats in their districts.

So they're happy the way things are.

This has been ironed out over a lot of hashing.

So they'd like it just the way it is.

And they do not want to change.

- And meanwhile, the voters are just scratching their heads saying, what's going on?

- You're coming right up against, you know, the qualifying period is in June.

So I mean, that's right.

- It's a.

- Kathy Katz is going to be my representative or Bilirakis.

- Well, a new poll has really interesting results.

Take a look.

A new poll is raising some eyebrows in Florida politics, while others are simply shrugging off the results.

The survey polled nearly 1800 Florida voters on the races of governor, Senate state attorney general.

It found that all three contests are within striking distance for Democrats, with independent voters surveyed saying that they would likely swing to the left.

And these are in numbers that pollsters say they haven't seen in decades.

That same poll found that President Trump earned a negative approval rating by more than six points overall.

Among Nonparty voters, his favorability sits nearly 40 points in the negative.

It's important to note that the poll was done by two Miami based firms with Democratic leanings.

Um, how do you see this, Mark?

So these numbers are not good news for the Republican Party.

- Definitely is a warning sign.

And I think that it's going to make the races a little bit more competitive in Florida.

However, the Republicans still have a million vote, you know, voter advantage.

Um, a couple of points about the polls.

There are Democratic polls.

So I read, you know, kind of read their cross tabs of, you know, they added additional weight to Republican leaning.

But I think the most important thing in that was it said that, um, an NPA voter, the ones that are more likely to answer are the ones that are leaning Democrat, not Republican.

- So they.

So let me just clarify.

Edge Communications and MW Communications were the ones that conducted the poll.

Both have been aligned with the Democratic Party.

Typically, the survey they conducted these surveys in all ten Florida media markets from March 27th to April the 3rd.

They polled 1834 likely voters, and 100 of them responded in Spanish.

So the results are very interesting.

46% of respondents said that they would vote for a Democratic candidate.

- And we don't need a poll.

- We have this just recent election that took place between Brian Nathan, a Navy vet, a, you know, an electrician, a union guy versus a lady named Tomko was from it happened right here in the Bay area.

- In Hillsborough in Palm Beach, a district that had.

- 10,000 more Republicans, 10,000 more Republicans.

And the results were crystal clear.

This we don't need a poll for this.

Every Democrat enthusiasm level on the Democratic side is super high right now.

And the Republicans and the independents, independents broke probably 80% for the for the for the Democrat.

But what's really interesting is the Republicans voted for the Democrat in this district.

- So my point is going to be.

- That's crystal clear.

My point.

And that made national news.

- And I'm not going to say anything that you won't agree with that elections are based on turnout.

So the turnout is going to be based on the TDS versus the MAGA.

I think the MAGA right now, the Make America Great Again Trump is probably a little fatigue amongst the voters and the TDS, the Trump Derangement Syndrome.

They're out of control.

So it's all going to be in November going to boil down to getting your vote out.

- The other thing I wanted to ask both of you on this poll, they asked the voters, who would you vote for, for governor or for state attorney general?

Right.

And so Democrat David Jolly is now in a statistical tie with GOP Representative Byron Donalds.

Um, according to the people who were surveyed and then in the state attorney general race, um, former Democratic state Senator Jose Javier Rodriguez is leading the incumbent, James Othmer, who's a Republican.

Do you believe that the issues with the hope Florida and other things may have hurt James Uthmeier?

- Yeah, because that was a joint investigation between the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald.

So even the people in South Florida that read the Herald and here in the Bay area, they read the times saw, and it was a two year investigation where they took all the money that was spent on TV, and they thought it was 10 million.

They're trying to be $30 million of medicaid money that was rerouted to a political committee to kill the lawsuit.

Right.

So that's been that's everybody knows that.

So Uthmeier.

But, you know, I think the arrogance of the fact that I'm you know, I'm that they're going to win is they're going to be in for a rude awakening.

And I think Donalds being pushed by Donald Trump, who.

The bottom line is this Donald Trump is this is driven by the top of the ticket, which Donald Trump is on the ballot, but he's immensely unpopular.

in this war in Iran going on right now.

When people are paying $4 a gallon for gas.

A lot of things can change.

- Though, from now to November, which is what markets.

- Do today.

But, you know, we've still got several months before the campaign.

And if the economy gets better and people may forget that, all right.

- We can place a bet then.

So no betting, no betting.

- So we're going to move on to another story that we've covered here in Florida This Week.

What's going on in Sarasota?

For months, Tampa Bay residents have rallied against a proposed cruise port near the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

And in March, it looked like they had won.

Governor DeSantis, alongside State Senator Jim Boyd, signed Senate Bill 302 to protect the aquatic preserve for generations.

But the company behind the project, SSA Marine, has been silent.

No statement from them, no withdrawal of its plan.

Requests from several media outlets, including the Tampa Bay Times, have gone unanswered, emails obtained by Suncoast Searchlight, show.

Environmentalists warn Senator Boyd that his bill wasn't tight enough.

Critics say that key language appears to have left the door open for large scale development in these protected waters.

Independent attorneys are agreeing with watchdogs, and they say that the final law is actually weaker than most people understand.

Alice Herman is here.

You broke this story.

Tell us about.

You know what this means.

What exactly in the language makes critics so nervous?

- Sure.

So, um, the amendment that Senator Boyd put into this broader bill on coastal conservation called SB 302, basically outlines under what circumstances it's permissible to dredge in Terra Ceia, which is an aquatic preserve.

Um, and it, it, there's basically a list of caveats to the no dredging rule.

Um, A, B and C are pretty benign, like dredging to get rid of stagnant water, for example.

And then number letter D in the amendment says that it's permissible to dredge for the creation of a Marina.

And that was something that I think really stood out to critics and opponents of the initial cruise port idea, because it originally, like, this is an aquatic preserve.

It is protected under state law.

And, and before this bill was passed, there was no exception, no exemption to limits on dredging for marinas.

And now that's in that's enshrined in state statute.

And so when, um, uh, governor DeSantis signed that bill into law, there was a lot of fanfare around it because it was presented as the bill that would block the cruise port.

And so, you know, I just I was curious about it and how it was passed and looked into it a little more deeply.

- About the reporting process, the going over the different emails, who are the emails between?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So, um, I had requested emails to and from Senator Boyd's office and different groups that I thought might be lobbying around it.

So the lobbyists associated with the companies that had proposed this cruise port and also some of the environmental groups.

And what I got back were dozens of emails and, and one really stood out.

It was one from Tampa Bay Waterkeeper, which has opposed the cruise port idea and really led efforts to stop to block it.

Um, and the director of that group wrote in an email to Senator Boyd's office, basically, look, this, the way this is written doesn't sufficiently protect Teresa and in fact, could leave the door open.

I'm not quoting this directly, but paraphrasing, you can read my report for the direct quote.

But but I looked at that and I thought, well, that's interesting.

There was a red flag that was raised before this was passed.

Let's get a second opinion from, you know, attorneys and other advocates.

- Was there ever a response from Senator.

- Um, I mean, the email that his office received, the email acknowledged receipt.

- He did acknowledge receipt.

Okay.

- Yeah, acknowledged receipt of the email.

When I reached out to Senator Boyd's office, I got a statement back saying that from attributed to Senator Boyd reaffirming his opposition to the cruise port idea and saying that the bill does defend against that.

And they said that, you know, Tampa Bay Waterkeeper had proposed this language too late in the game.

- And that's something that we've heard from so many voters who showed up.

Um, who said that they, they really thought that they had more time to weigh in on this.

- Well, like I said, the newspaper, uh, dug into this as well through his sources.

They found that this entire thing was a scam from day one, because they bought this property for $18 million and a few months earlier there was some piece of property I think Mark had told me about up in North Florida, that the state paid $68 million for a property that had been bought for a pittance before that.

So these guys, they bought this property and they started doing their homework and says, man, we can't do anything with this.

So let's flip it.

Well, you can't flip a property.

You can't do anything with it.

- That's the that's the allegation.

Mark, do you agree?

- Yeah.

It's a Florida statute 704 which is a conservation easement.

Which of the state pays the owner of the property not to develop.

They still own the property but it protects the conservation and it's happening all over the state.

So even though they were offered money originally, I think they're holding out for potentially more money.

But there are several other properties.

There's 700 acres at the rattlesnake and not Cohen tract is another 328 acres.

And then you got the SSA Marine and the Slipknot.

That all could potentially make a lot of money from not having it.

- Well, I think the bottom line for me is that this company, SSA Marine, made a really big purchase.

They spent $18 million on a on an island, an undeveloped island in the aquatic preserve.

Are they going to just sit on it?

Do they want to sell it back to the state?

Do they want to develop it?

We don't know.

And we also don't know because they're not talking to the public right now.

- So I would suspect that what would happen is they're going to charge a you're taking away a private property rights that you're not allowing us to the property.

I'm just saying what they're going to probably are.

- And this is, this is one of those shows where it's so hard to pick in the time that we have all the stories, because there's so many things that are going on.

I know that you all are following other big stories this week.

Go ahead and share with us.

- So the big story is, and I got a postcard that went out this week that, uh, they're already attacking county commissioners over the potential raised stadium that's going to go.

And there was a hearing this week, a, you know, public hearing.

And Ken Babby, who's the CEO, had sent out a demand letter wanting to vote on it right away.

So stay tuned.

It's a big it's a big issue is where are the rays going to go?

- Victor, what's a big story you're watching?

- Well, to me the this week the mayor's race of Tampa started shaping up because you have the former mayor, Bob Buckhorn, uh, who officially announced he's going to run.

He had a PAC.

He raised almost $2 million.

It was a big brouhaha about that.

Um, and then, um, um, Bill Carlson jumped in as well.

So that's shaping up.

But the fact of the matter is there's two just $2 million is not scared anybody out.

There's people jumping in this race like.

- We have ten at last count.

- Right.

And, and I hear and I heard from Bob Henriques.

He's still looking at the race.

This may this may not you know, he's very popular.

He's got Hispanic name would do well in West Tampa.

So the last I want to make this really good point.

The last three mayors race was not decided by the guy with the most money because David Strasser raised $6 million in loss before him.

Dick Greco had all the money in the world and lost.

And before that, Frank Sanchez raised a record $1 million for the first time.

Pam Mario jumped in a couple of months before the election and wiped the floor with him.

So just because you got $2 million, you got name does not guarantee this because you got a small turnout.

- Alice, what's your big story?

- Um, I'm continuing to look at the cruise port issue and, um, just locally, uh, have a couple of stories that I'm working on related to the sheriff's office and, um, immigration enforcement.

- So all great stories and thank you again and we appreciate your patience.

There's just so much to pack into the show.

Thank you again for coming.

As always, we thank our panelists, Victor DiMaio, Mark Proctor, and Alice Herman.

On behalf of the entire team here at WEDU.

Thank you so much for watching.

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