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

Petersburg, Sarasota.

[Music] - In January, Florida makes history when Byron Donalds becomes the state's first Black governor.

Watching closely will be another governor who knows what it means to be a Florida first.

In 1987, at age 52, Bob Martinez became Florida's first Hispanic governor, just four years older than Donalds is today.

Years earlier, as Tampa's mayor, he says, the White House called.

President Ronald Reagan wanted him to switch political parties.

Wait until you hear who helped make his final decision.

His one term as governor has left marks that you can still see today.

Preservation 2000 began on his watch.

It went on to protect more than 1.8 million acres.

The program's successor, Florida Forever continues today, that salt water fishing license in your wallet that started in 1989.

The state created the Spaceport Florida Authority that same year, launching Florida's big bet on the space business.

Now approaching 92, he sits down with us to look back on all of it and to share what he tells young people today who hear the dreaded phrase, "You can't."

Our full conversation with Florida's 40th governor, Bob Martinez, is next on Florida This Week.

[Music] - Welcome back everybody.

I'm your host, Lissette Campos.

Former Governor Bob Martinez was born in Tampa.

He was the city's mayor and then Florida's first and only Hispanic governor.

Thank you so much for joining us.

- Lissette.

It's great to be here with you.

- Honor to have you.

You were the governor of our state, the 40th governor, from 1987 to 1991.

What would you say was your most wonderful accomplishment?

What would you say was, is the accomplishment that you're most proud of?

- Well, there's a there's a number of them based on based on the activities.

Obviously, the environment has been a big thing with me.

You know, Preservation 2000 was a ten-year program.

The state spent $3 billion and bought 1,550,000 acres.

It was the biggest land acquisition program in the United States at that time.

And then we have programs that clean up the water.

Tampa Bay really got cleaned up because of SWIM, which I advocated.

And SWIM stands for the Surface Water Improvement and Management Act.

Yes.

And also had the South Water.

We had the water management districts manage it rather than the state agency, and they did a wonderful job.

And what was what would you say was the relevance of that?

What was so different?

Grasses were dying.

Marine life was in decline.

A lot of it was caused by governments, wastewater treatment plants pouring their treated water into the bay.

And it was not totally cleansed in a way that a tertiary plant would do.

So as a result, water got polluted, grass died, seafood was not plentiful.

It affected manatees as well because they are grazers, they're eating grass all the time.

So in essence, I think that program saved the bays across the state.

And we're a big bay.

Like also Florida Bay is another big one that got saved.

- And you made sure that the Florida Bay was on there, as well as all 400 miles of the Tampa Bay, La Bahia de.

- Absolutely.

I thought it was so important.

And of course, wildlife.

You know, we had a lot of legislation passed having to do with protecting the panthers, the manatees, uh, making certain that there are paths for the not only the panthers, but for the bears to be able to transit themselves as their, as their nature calls for them to do.

Uh, we clean up the Suwannee River.

The Wekiva River on top of that.

Uh, we did the growth management that you had to grow in a fashion that you didn't destroy the natural resources of the state of Florida.

So I spent a lot of time on that subject.

And, uh, but in addition to that, one of the things that I think parents ought to be really, really thankful for is prepaid tuition.

- That's right.

Florida...The Florida Prepaid College Plan.

You launched it in 1987.

- Right?

And it allowed parents, family.

It didn't matter who to purchase contracts even could pay by the month.

You didn't have to pay it all up front, and the price of the tuition was guaranteed.

You wouldn't have to pay any more.

You could also buy as well.

A lot of people don't know this, but you could buy also for lodging and food.

That's right.

Most people don't do prices.

- Of today, not the price that they would be when your child is 18 and going off to college.

- And in fact, I, I personally have owned six of them.

And on several occasions I got a major refund because the price was less, the tuition price was less than the earnings of my investment.

So they gave me a refund on the investment.

- What was that like to put that together?

Because when you created the Florida Prepaid College Plan, and that was really a first.

How complicated was it?

- A developer by the name of Stan Tate out of Dade County approached me about this, and he had taken on as a mission for whatever reason, and together we worked it.

I assigned my legislative staff to be sure that we could get it passed.

I made certain I didn't want government to run it.

I wanted a freestanding agency unrelated to the governor's office, unrelated to the legislature, to run it, just like I did with the lottery.

I did the same thing with the lottery.

- Florida Lottery as well.

- We launched the year.

I didn't want civil servants.

I didn't want politics running those two agencies.

Uh, spaceports.

Another one the same way.

I felt that there were independent, free of the politics of the day.

Run like a business that they would perform well and they have.

- So the Florida Lottery you started in the in 1988, the year after Florida Prepaid College.

Both go into funding education.

Are the programs everything you had hoped they would be.

- It exceeded anything, particularly the lottery.

It exceeded anything we had expected.

The lottery oddly enough, Florida's constitution prohibited lottery and casino and gambling.

But at the time I ran for governor, there were two efforts to amend the state constitution.

Once to make.

One was to make lottery legal.

The other was to make casinos legal.

Casino failed.

Lottery passed.

So it fell to my administration to implement it, and that was, I forgot maybe it was passed in '87.

I think part of it was became operable in early '88.

And finally the whole thing got operable, I think, by late '88 or early '89.

And of course, one of the biggest in the nation, of course, our population now is one of the biggest in the nation.

But yeah, there were two successful ones.

And I thought those two should run like a business and not like a government agency.

And I think I was right in promoting it that way.

- So during your time in Tampa as mayor, you did something that I. I think that if it happened today, there would be chaos in politics.

You were a sitting mayor of Tampa and you decided to change your party affiliation.

And it was President Ronald Reagan who kind of really tried to convince you.

Tell us about how did that happen?

- Well, I'll tell you the full story.

[laughter] Uh.

Around 1980, uh, Senator Paul Laxalt from Nevada.

who is a Basque ancestry.

- Spaniard.

- Came to visit with me and he was a very close friend of President Reagan and he's Basque.

My ancestry is Spanish, so they thought that affinity may work in getting me to change parties.

So he came in and obviously knew a lot of what I was already doing and says, you know, you're you kind of manage like a Republican.

You don't manage like a Democrat and you ought to change parties.

So my answer was, look, it's a nonpartisan office.

I got registered as a Democrat, as a 21 year old at the university.

While I was attending the University of Tampa.

There was no Republican Party at that time in Hillsborough County.

So when I signed up, I marked D, and it's been that way ever since.

And so I said, well, I'd like for you to think about it.

And I thanked him for all the praise they gave me and so forth and he left.

Well, he didn't seek reelection, so I didn't see him again.

So '83.

- 1983, you got an invitation.

to the White House.

- Well, first was Orrin Hatch.

- Okay.

- He came to do the same thing that Paul Laxalt did, and had a news conference.

You know, about my mayorship and stuff like that.

So I got reelected, and on July 9th, I get a call from the White House.

And I'd been in the White House before with Jimmy Carter when he was when he was president.

And he said, saying that the president would like for me to meet with him on, uh, could I make it on July 29th?

I believe it was 26 or 29, uh, that he'd like to meet me.

So I knew what it was all about.

Didn't say what it was, but I knew what it was.

The City of Tampa didn't have anything pending with the federal government.

I wasn't seeking anything from the federal government.

And, uh, so I decided to buy my own plane ticket and pay my own costs, since I knew this was political, that this was not city.

So sure enough, I fly to Washington, I think it was at 2 o'clock meeting or something like that, and going to the Oval as I walk into the Oval Office, when I got called in, uh, President Ronald Reagan gets up from behind the desk and Vice President George Bush was also in the office.

So he walked up to me and said, uh, Bobby, I'm Ronnie, because people still call me.

A lot of people call me Bobby, including my wife.

Mary Jane still calls me Bobby.

So he had been briefed that people are close to me, still called me Bobby.

Well, I didn't respond, Ronnie.

I responded, Mr.

President.

Yes.

You know, and we shook hands and we talked for a few seconds while we were standing.

And then Vice President George Bush came up to give me his hand.

And we shook hands and.

And we sat down and talked.

I don't know, maybe 20 or 25 minutes about one thing or another.

Federal issues.

And we talked about, uh, illegal strikes because I had broken the sanitation strike when they had a wildcat strike.

And that's what brought the attention to them more than anything else.

Uh, so after about 20 minutes of this banter back and forth, finally the president says, you know, mayor, you and I are much alike.

So I said, "Here it comes."

He said, uh, "I was once a union leader and you represented the union."

Uh, you had to break a wildcat strike, and I had to break the wildcat strike by the air controllers.

Uh, I was once a Democrat, and now I'm a Republican.

And the only thing you haven't done like me It's become a Republican and I wish you would.

So I said, Mr.

President, I'm honored that you would feel that way.

But this is a major decision, and I don't make a major decision without my wife.

And I will let you know.

Should I make that decision?

Uh, as soon as I can.

So, of course, when I got out, there was, I don't know how many newspeople they had, you know, they had been informed that I was there.

And I know they gave them any kind of an idea what the subject was going to be about.

But all they wanted to talk about was politics.

So I'm assuming they had been hinted that the meeting was about politics.

- Oh my gosh.

- So I dodged there for about 20 minutes.

All the questions.

They didn't get the answers they wanted.

I mean, I just gave generic answers and then they followed me to Washington National caught me at the, you know, going into the airplane back then, as you know, you could just walk right to the.

- Airplane door of the airplane.

- And then when I got home, they were waiting for me as well.

- Did you talk to Mary Jane?

And she said.

- Well, we talked about it for about a week or so.

So on July 29th, I think in the morning, uh, I called the White House and told the White House to let the president know that I was walking over with my wife, Mary Jane, to change party affiliation.

So they must have notified the media because I didn't and I knew they would.

So Mary Jane and I walked from City Hall... City Hall to the courthouse and reregistered as, uh.

- As Republicans and history was made.

Yeah.

You have had an amazing career, uh, with such a legacy that few can really replicate.

What would you want the next generation of Hispanics in Florida to know about our state.

- Well, I'm going to tell you what I what I do when I talk to young people, uh, high school or college level.

And I look out there and I see a lot of students that appear to be of minority background, either by race or ethnicity either way.

And, uh, I tell them what I was told when I was moving my way up by some of those I went to school with who still were thinking about yesterday instead of tomorrow.

So you may hear that because of your race, you can't succeed or you may here because of your ethnicity, you can't win.

And that was in my case, some believing that because of my ethnicity that I couldn't win in a race where there are not enough people ethnically voting to get me elected.

Then you'll hear while you're not of wealth.

And if you're not of wealth in this country, you cannot succeed.

And of course, I was not of wealth.

I wasn't poor, but I wasn't wealthy.

So someone with your background, how are you going to access people that can raise the money you need to make a major campaign for governor?

Then I tell the students all those things I heard from those who felt they couldn't get out of where they were, and none of it was true.

When I won and when I lost, I carried the Panhandle the most non-ethnic group you can find because there was no no truth to it.

So I want you to understand there is no truth.

If they're trying to tell you, you can't do something, it doesn't mean you'll succeed at what you want.

Not all of you are going to be mayor.

Not all of you are going to be a governor.

Not all of you are going to be a drug czar.

But you're going to be somebody if you believe in yourself.

- That's a very strong message.

- I kind of in the speeches, when I talk to a lot of the groups that are, you know, I think may need that kind of, of a, of approach.

- I'd like to continue with you.

You mentioned drug czar.

Um, that part of your career, once you left office of governor, then you were tapped by President George Bush Senior to be a member of the cabinet.

Tell us about that.

And when you walked in through the White House again, but now you're a cabinet member.

Did you think how.

- In the world.

- Did I get here?

- Well, it was a fortune.

When I was a governor and the Governor's Association, I chaired the drug and the drug Committee dealing with the drug issue.

And of course, Florida at that time also, we had a lot of drugs being brought into the state.

I actually appointed Doug Hughes, the first drug czar in the United States to help me when I was governor.

He was a Metro Police Department deputy chief in Miami and did a wonderful job as my drug czar.

So already before the fed appointment, Doug had already done that in the state of Florida.

- And you became only the second.

Second one was Bill Bennett, who did a real great job as drug czar and, - the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

- Yeah.

Title really was director.

But during Bill Bennett's term, the media quickly changed.

The director didn't sound right.

Right.

So they changed it to drug czar.

And, uh, I did that for two years, and I thought President Bush would get reelected.

But Mary Jane decided it was time to go home.

So we're going home.

Or the Bush had won or not.

We thought he was going to, but he didn't.

And but I enjoyed it.

And I did a lot of international travel.

And, uh, fortunately, we had a nephew and niece that lived not far from where we lived in Washington.

And when I had my travels, Mary Jane would go and stay with them because she didn't like to stay there with our dog mascot was our.

And, uh, and I did have to travel quite a bit to Latin America.

I was there often.

- So looking, looking back at your career, which, by the way, viewers should know that he only retired about a year ago, right?

Amazing.

So you've been at the local level as mayor.

You've been a business owner as well.

When you were younger, local level mayor, then the governor, then in the White House cabinet traveled internationally.

Um, at what level of government do you feel that we can get the most done and how do we make governing better?

- Well, you know, it's a Uh, most people, including myself.

You keep talking about the federal government.

That gets all the publicity.

Quite frankly, you overwhelmed every day with whatever is happening with the federal government.

You get the least from local government.

It has the least coverage.

But think about it.

Local government, they control your life, not control.

They provide for your life.

Whether it's traffic, whether it's water, whether it's sewer, whether it's they touch you every single day.

While state and federal doesn't do that every single day.

So really, the most important government on a day to day basis to the average citizen is our city and county governments for all that they do for you to get to work, to get back home, to pick up your garbage, to have water coming to your house, taking your wastewater away from your house.

And it goes on and on and on, but it gets the least coverage.

You know, it's always the federal government.

And then the state government gets all the all the coverage.

The drug office was different.

It was a policy office, so I didn't run programs.

I ran ideas and encouraged other departments to do the work that the president wanted on the drug issue.

So it was a talk, talk, talk to talk all the time.

And on our Latin American partners, sometimes we're not cooperative.

And I had to go down there to make sure they got cooperative, because the president told me to tell them they'd better be cooperative.

- So you had quite, quite great powers of persuasion, a great people skills.

A lot of folks don't know that before you entered politics, you were in education.

And then you also ran a Spanish cafe...a Cafe Sevilla in West Tampa that you bought from your uncle.

How did those years doing that really form your leadership style?

The skills that you took with you to the highest levels of government?

- Well, an education.

You learn, you learn from those who you were talking to.

But you also learn to present ideas in a way that it can be remembered, which is what politics is all about.

To present ideas that can be remembered, that they understand.

So the six years that I taught and they were all high school.

So these are young adults.

You had to be pretty creative for them to be interested in what you were saying.

So I would say in learning how to present probably education, the years I did teaching probably was the most helpful.

The years that I was in the restaurant was memorizing names.

You want to memorize every customer that came in.

So when the next time they came in, you would greet them by name.

He says, you know what?

I'm going to keep coming back here.

They remember me.

So that helped me a lot.

And I met a lot of people in all the years that I was at the restaurant every day.

Lunch and dinner.

And when it came time to run for mayor, I had an army of people that knew me.

Some were in a position to provide the necessary campaign funds that you need to run for office.

So in essence, those two things gave me the background to move into politics.

And of course, the years that represented the teachers.

I learned all about the government, state, local, federal because I had to do all three.

- And you also learned, I would say I would venture to say to make tough decisions.

As mayor, you were really one of only a few.

If if there are any others that lowered the millage rate for taxpayers.

How did you do that?

Because we have important decisions to make in the midterm about our own property taxes and different things.

How did you do that?

You reduced the millage rate from 9.7 to 4.5.

- 4.2 something like that.

There was a whole series of actions.

- What can we learn from that?

- A lot of it had to do with contracting out some services that could be done cheaper outside of government.

Uh, some cases were bringing in consultants to provide new methods of doing the work like I did with parks and playgrounds.

Uh, in some cases, the equipment, the sanitation workers had a driver and two people hanging out the back.

When I got elected, I went and got the side loaders.

So that dramatically reduced costs.

Uh, I lobbied with nine other big city mayors and the Florida League of Cities to have a fifth cent sales tax passed, and half of that penny came to cities and counties to reduce property taxes.

To get the money, you had to reduce the property taxes by the value of the sales tax revenue that came to you.

So that was a dramatic drop.

The city was operating the library system when it always did.

From the time the city got created, but most of the growth was in the county.

So I wanted the county to take over the library system, not the city, since now it was a county residents that had most used the county didn't want to do that.

So once the legislature had a law passed mandating that the county take the library system, so there weren't our millage down again.

Yeah.

And then we had the growth of buildings that we see in the background as we have this great conversation downtown.

A lot of that took place while I was mayor.

And, and as a result of that, millage would keep coming down and our bond ratings went up at the same time.

And at the same time, we were able to build the Straz Center, which was then called the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.

We did the convention center as well.

We did the redo the zoo from the ground up again because we had it torn down.

- All of that happened when you were right.

- And, uh.

- Buildings that so many of us are used to seeing and don't really think of.

- Well, it's been a long time ago.

Yeah.

And, uh, uh, then there were obviously smaller, uh, products.

Well, refuse-to-energy plant to get rid of solid waste where you burn it to create energy.

I did that one as well.

So, uh, so as I look around the city, you remember that because I live here?

Yes.

You when?

So what did you do around the state?

Well, you told them about Pensacola.

I'm gonna have to think real hard what happened in Pensacola.

But I do remember all the major things, all major legislation that passed while I was while I was governor.

- We so appreciate you joining us, Governor Martinez.

- Thank you very much.

I enjoyed talking with you.

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