This is a production of WEDU, PBS Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

[MUSIC] Right now on WEDU, the Tampa Bay Rays pullout of the new stadium and development deal in Saint Petersburg.

So what's next for the team?

Policyholders may soon know more names and details on failed insurance companies if legislators pass a new bill.

And where were you when the coronavirus shut down Florida and the world five years ago?

We'll look back and see what lessons we've learned moving forward.

All this and more next on Florida This Week.

[MUSIC] Welcome back.

I'm Lissette Campos.

Joining me on the panel this week we have Bob Buckhorn, the former Tampa mayor and a Democrat.

We have April Schiff is a political consultant for Strategic Solutions of Florida.

She's also the Hillsborough Republican state committeewoman.

We have Yacob Reyes, who is a reporter with Axios, and we have Mark Katches, who is vice president and editor of the Tampa Bay Times.

Thank you for joining me today.

Thank you.

Appreciate you being here.

Well, folks, it is back to square one for the Tampa Bay rays and their efforts to build a new stadium in the Bay area.

The team announced that they will not move forward with a $1.3 billion stadium and redevelopment plan with the City of St. Pete.

So the big question now is what's next?

Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg was heavily damaged by Hurricane Helene and Milton in October.

That led to delays as city and county officials waited to see where the team would play the 2025 season.

the team reached an agreement to play at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa.

The spring training home of the New York Yankees, St. Petersburg and the Pinellas County Commission approved the funding to move forward, but the Rays claim that delays drove up costs beyond what they can afford.

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has said he wants to keep baseball in Tampa Bay, and there is interest in buying the Rays, at least for interested parties.

Say they have the means and several names have been mentioned, including Joe Molloy, a former managing general partner of the New York Yankees.

He says his group may be interested in pursuing the St. Pete Stadium deal that Sternberg declined.

Carter McKane, a Tampa lawyer, has stepped forward, saying he represents a group of out-of-state buyers.

Dan Doyle, the CEO of Tampa based office equipment company Dex imaging, has been floated as a possible suitor as well, and the Orlando City Dreamers say they have commitments from local investors for more than $200 million in minority ownership.

Their group has been working for years to bring a Major League Baseball team to the city of Orlando.

As of now, Stuart Sternberg has not offered to sell the team.

So, Bob, would you say that this puts Mayor Ken Welch in St. Petersburg in a very difficult situation?

When you read his quote, we tried everything.

We checked every box.

I really thought we had it this time.

First of all, welcome to the seat.

Thank you.

Yeah, we're excited to have you here.

You're going to do great.

Yeah, I think it's, um, I'm having PTSD because literally, I went through this with this group for three years, and at the tail end of my term, 17, 18 and 19, and we were not able to come to an agreement.

We all remember that great movie with Kevin Costner, The Field of Dreams.

Well, this is the land of nightmares for Mayor Welch.

I couldn't think of anything more disappointing, not only in terms of the ability to get this deal done, which obviously he thought he had, but also the hopes and the aspirations of the people who were displaced by the original stadium construction, predominantly African-American community and the gas plant district, whose hopes had been raised significantly by the prospect of this happening and them getting finally the promises fulfilled to them that were made 25 years ago.

So for Mayor Welch, obviously it's a catastrophic week for him as he heads into a potential reelect not that long from now.

Right.

And has alienated or managed to alienate not of his doing, but some of the very people that he will rely on, some of the very people he grew up with.

That's right.

He's a former resident of the gas plant district.

For whom that history is sorted.

It is a raw wound for many of them, and it's been a colossal disappointment.

Not surprising for anybody who has dealt with them.

And I think what they've accomplished is, in essence, to burn every bridge that they ever had and every relationship that they've ever had.

Mark, you all at the times have been covering this extensively, written many editorials.

The the one in November said, it's about time.

Let's get this deal done.

What are some big dates, important dates that we should be focused on?

Well, next week is going to be very interesting, but I think what I want to just get back to the fact that we got a situation here where the owner of the team has basically said he's going to take his ball and go home.

The problem is the home is in tatters.

Tropicana Field is still roofless, and next Thursday, the City Council is set to authorize funding to repair the roof.

Some of the first steps that need to be taken to get Tropicana Field back in game ready for 2026.

That's likely going to cost over $20 million just to fix the roof, but there's way more damage there beyond the roof that's going to take some time to repair.

Um, it's it's the the other key thing to what you just said, Bob, is that no deal to get anything back on track is going to happen anytime soon.

They've burned their bridges with the city.

The county commission doesn't want anything to do with them.

The mayor over here is, uh, is is a lame duck who's only got a couple more years.

Nobody wants to start down a road of a negotiation with a team that has credibility issues right now.

And then three years from now, you know, she's gone.

The mayor's gone in two years, so it'll be a new mayor's problem.

Problem to solve in Tampa.

If the team is going to make a move over here.

So even if the rays do nothing, this the deal is set to terminate on the 31st.

If they don't meet certain criteria.

The deal will terminate.

And then they've made a pitch to come back and play at the trop for ten more years.

Okay.

Asking for money from the county commission and from the city.

A couple hundred million each to make major renovations.

To keep the team at the trop for ten more years.

No, there's no appetite for that from the commission or from the city right now.

The the other big story, right, is the insurance.

We go from baseball to insurance.

Lawmakers in Florida are advancing a bill that would shed more light on why and how insurance companies go out of business.

The insurers own risk and solvency assessments would be available for public inspection.

That includes names, benefits and compensation of executives.

Homeowners insurance companies often have thousands of outstanding claims when they go out of business.

The records were made secret in 2020.

Tucked into House Bill 1409 passed when insurance companies were on shaky ground now after several devastating hurricanes.

Policyholders want more details on companies that leave them with outstanding claims.

April as a victim, both of us are victims of the last hurricane season.

What are you watching closely when you see them talking about bills going through the legislature?

I think that, um, this the legislature has got to pay a little bit more attention, maybe a lot more attention to the citizens of the state of Florida versus the insurance companies.

The legislation that they passed in the recent years was supposed to give relief to the policyholders, but in fact, it did not do that.

And no, I don't know of any policyholders that have seen that relief yet.

So they've allowed the insurance companies to conduct business in Florida under a model that allows them to send all their profits out of the state and not expose that.

So they they've actually alleged that they were losing money, when in fact they were offloading billions of dollars out of the state.

A lot of times when these insurance companies go out of business, the executives in the insurance company are extremely well compensated before that happens.

And so it's very unfair to the policyholders and I, I have done so and will continue to do so, is urge this legislature to be a lot more cautious about taking care of the policyholders versus the insurance companies, because the insurance companies are definitely taking advantage of the policyholders.

There are so many people, particularly after the last two hurricanes here, that they can't repair their homes.

They are stuck because the insurance they're not paying like they should pay.

They're challenging every single claim that comes through.

And these people don't have the means to repair their homes without their insurance.

That's why they've been paying these huge premiums for so many years.

So it's extremely unfair.

And I think that the legislature has an opportunity to make it right, and they should do that.

Jakob, the team at Axios has been covering this extensively.

Have so many interviews with homeowners who are have some really terrible stories.

And from the political aspect you were saying earlier, you don't think you don't see it as a Republican versus a Democrat.

How how are you all covering this?

What are you seeing?

Well, I think what we're seeing here is so back when these these bills were passed in 2022, the idea was to to make the state more hospitable to companies.

But they never promised that they would provide any kind of relief to consumers.

And when this legislation was pushed through a report that the Tampa Bay Times first reported on, when that came out right recently that talked about how the companies were shelling, like putting all this money away, right, while claiming broke and essentially these bills that were passed like they lined their pockets even more.

And so what we're seeing now, right when DeSantis was questioned about that, he stood firm and he, you know, reiterated that he would pass these these same reforms again.

But what we're seeing with the Republican House and the Republican Senate is that they're willing to do something different here.

And so what I see this as is a continuing divide between the state legislature and the governor.

You don't see it as a Republican versus Democrat.

No, Bob.

Democrats don't even have a voice up there.

And we haven't had a voice for 30 years.

I mean, the legislature has controlled Tallahassee for literally 30 years.

Um, in an effort to open up the marketplace and make it more competitive, they absolutely put the screws to Floridians because they sided with the insurance companies, gave them every benefit, every advantage, at the expense of those of us who pay the bills religiously for decades.

And when we need insurance companies to live up to their obligation, as evidenced by what you are going through and what you have gone through.

They are not.

That's wrong and that's not a Partizan issue.

That's just wrong.

Mark, what should we as voters be looking at in terms of the bills that are coming up on this?

Well, there's a number of bills.

The one you referenced earlier was actually a bill that would reverse legislation from 2020 that was pushed by Jimmy Petronas.

He now is on board with the idea of of change and reform that would make executive salaries of these insurance companies public record.

There are other measures.

Jay Collins has a bill that would open up transparency, and you'd get a window into where some of the money is going to these affiliates that that Yakub just referenced.

Lawrence Mower did a story for the Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald in our bureau in Tallahassee just recently that expose these problems of the affiliates getting all this money.

And this bill would help rectify that a little bit.

So a lot there is some confusion about what the exemptions were for.

And the fact is for active insurance companies, you cannot see the compensation of the executives.

You can't see the information on the claims.

Um, however, this exemption was only applying to out of business insurance or ones where the state was taking over it.

So how could this new bill make that better?

Yeah, that's a good question, and I'm not sure I know all the answers to that.

But I do know that they're attempting to get a little bit more transparency in the process here.

Thank you so much for that.

I know it's such a complicated issue.

And there's always another question that we could ask.

But first we are going to go to five years ago this week a Florida and the world shut down in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Schools, offices, stores and places of worship closed and people sheltered in place.

On this program, we ran a special edition of Florida this week focusing on the outbreak.

Take a look.

Welcome back.

Well, the coronavirus outbreak is on the rise here and in many other countries.

So what is the state of Florida doing to protect citizens and to ensure that this Tuesday's presidential preference primary election goes as planned?

On the special edition of Florida this week, we're going to present information about staying healthy and exercising your right to vote.

No one is certain how bad the problem will eventually become, but already, the coronavirus has had a big and negative impact on conventions, travel, sporting events and the cruise industry all pillars of Florida's tourist economy.

Earlier in the week, Governor Ron DeSantis pushed back on the idea that community spread had already occurred in Florida.

Doctor Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had made that claim about Florida.

That disagreement between federal and state officials has led to mixed messaging in response to the virus.

It's hard to believe that that was five years ago when I see Fauci.

I remember being glued to the TV every day for the updates.

Yacob, where were you five years ago?

Five years ago, I was a 19 year, a 19 year old community college student, and I was coming back from New York City for a journalism conference that was promptly canceled when I arrived.

Um, and we came back and they told us that, uh, school had gone online.

Um, I was a part time baker at Sweet Tomatoes, and that promptly closed as well.

And so it was just like months and months, right, of 2020, I spent just trying to scheme up some kind of way to become a reporter.

So it turned out.

It turned out well.

Absolutely.

Mayor Bob, where were you?

You know, I had just left office probably nine months before.

And so I was probably fishing.

Um, but remember, I'm married to a physician.

And so we were neck deep.

She was neck deep in, um, all of the preparation and the precautions and how medicine reacts to something like this and how you protect the providers and the doctors and the health care workers.

Um, I had a daughter that was at a college that was shutting down, and so we had to deal with that as well.

We learned a few things out of that initial period.

Misinformation travels much faster than the truth.

You know, conspiracy theories that became politicized, who ever in a million years thought a health care crisis of this magnitude would become grounds for politics, politicians and misperceptions and bad information?

It did.

And that's unfortunate.

Um, but yeah, it was it.

What I really saw was mayors all over the country who literally were functioning in the blind in the dark, because there was no plan for how to handle something like this.

So every decision they made, there was no precedent, there was no playbook.

So half of them were going to be wrong.

Right?

And this is something that was true in every industry.

There was no playbook for this April.

You know you're in strategy IT campaign strategy.

What happened on your end.

Yeah.

So we were we were obviously participating in a campaign year.

And we were getting ready for an election.

And so the challenge became how do we campaign for candidates without going door to door and face to face and talking to the people, because one on one is the absolute most effective way to campaign and get somebody's vote.

You talk to them to get their vote, and it just shut down.

So we couldn't do it.

So we had to become very creative In how we process through the 2020 election cycle under all of these restrictions.

And I think one thing that we did learn is that local government can affect your life so fast and so impacting intensely.

Very much, so much more than the president of the United States or whatever.

It's local government that really we felt what they were doing every single day.

And so it was a challenge connecting virtually.

We learned so much, we but we were still feeling that, I mean, we have zoom meetings and teams meetings and people we appeared on this show via zoom multiple times over that process.

And and so it just changed, I think, the way everybody does business.

But I think there was I remember the first time coming back to a meeting, I went to a Tiger Bay club meeting.

And people were so excited to see each other and to communicate and talk to each other and actually be in person.

So I think, you know, human nature is we need to have social interaction and it makes it interesting.

But it was definitely a challenging time.

I'm sure next time it will be handled differently.

And Mark, newsrooms changed so much.

Tell us about your experience.

Yeah.

Well, I was still the editor at the Tampa Bay times at the Time, and when this happened, I think I was probably editing a story and getting it ready for publication about the fact that we were shutting everything down.

Uh, it's when we left, we thought, oh, we'll be back in a couple of weeks.

And if we weren't, it's like, how are we going to function?

Well, we all adapted and we did some of the best work we've ever done during the shutdown period.

Won back to back Pulitzer Prizes, mostly reported, edited and produced while we were all working remotely.

It's changed the whole dynamic of of hybrid work and the way commercial real estate is handled when when Covid hit, I think the vacancy rates were about 12% for commercial real estate.

They got up to around 30% in some parts of the country, and now they're coming down a little bit, but they'll probably never be back to the level they were were at now.

Tampa has done better.

Tampa Bay has done better because of the fact that, you know, for a variety of reasons, people were moving here.

Um, we didn't fully shut down.

We kind of paused for a while.

Um, and so we haven't been hit as hard, but but it's I don't think we'll ever go back to a situation where it's five days in the office for most, most businesses.

And a lot of folks would see that as a plus.

Um, what are some of the other pluses that you would say?

Because we focused on the negative, but what would be a plus that came out of this?

A good lesson that we learned.

Who's going to do that?

I can tell you one.

Okay.

Drinking bleach doesn't cure Covid.

Bob.

Well, But you know what?

The other thing was interesting was how much time was spent teaching people how to wash their hands.

Yes, people.

Didn't know how to wash their hands, apparently.

Yeah, well, the.

Surgeons would.

Say that...that was true.

Well, yeah.

Just like, you know, coming from a student perspective, I mean, the like USF and all these other universities investing more in their online programs.

A lot of people who work, like working full time and to be able to go to school.

I mean, that's what I did.

I got hired at 20 and I was still going to get my bachelor's, so I think that was a plus.

That and also coupled with all the hybrid work, um, and the remote work options, I mean, that changed the landscape for everyone.

I mean, I went from one internship straight to a job, and that wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for Covid.

So there are some good.

Things, along with the lessons learned and and the bad things we learned from good things and bad things.

So before we go, what are the top stories you think we should be looking at?

Let's start with you, Mark.

Well, we do have the top vote next week.

It's going to be actually it's going to be a very busy week.

We also have opening day in Tampa.

Don't expect Ken Welch or Chris Latvala to be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch for that one.

And then one other thing next week, Monday night, in the cover of darkness, uh, hundreds of workers are going to be switching over the lanes for the Howard Franklin Bridge.

A big moment for us.

Howard Franklin Bridge will open next week.

That's great.

April, what do you think is the big thing we should be looking at?

There's a special election in Florida on April 1st for two congressional districts.

Congressional district one, which is at the extreme edge of the panhandle, and Congressional District six, which is on the east coast, a little bit to the north of us.

These are both solidly Republican districts.

But what's interesting is the Democratic challengers in each of these.

In Congressional District six, the Democratic challenger has raised over $10 million.

And in Congressional District one, the Democratic challenger has reached $7 million.

Unprecedented amounts of money that are being just pushed into these congressional district races in an attempt to affect the numbers in Congress, obviously.

Why do you think so?

That yes, because they want to change what's going on in Washington, D.C..

So it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out in a solidly Republican district with that much money.

The money on the Republican side hasn't been exposed yet, but I'm guessing it's not quite as much as we have on the Democratic side what we're seeing there.

So it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out.

I know, Bob, that you're going to you're I need you to resist.

Going the Democrat.

But would I ever rise to a fight?

But what you know, what do you see as a big story for our region?

Actually, I'm going to talk about the Republican primary for governor in a couple of years where Donald Trump has weighed in, put his finger on the thumb for Byron Donald, that exacerbates the Trump DeSantis Rift with DeSantis potentially talking up his wife as a potential candidate.

We have a very competent Wilton Simpson here who's the commissioner of agriculture here in the Tampa Bay area, who by every measure should be and will be competitive in a gubernatorial race primary.

But we'll see how the Trump thumb on the scale versus the remnants of the DeSantis machine play out over the next couple of months.

How do you think this whole insurance debacle may or may not affect Petronas if he decides to run?

I think it depends on how much money is put behind a campaign against him to sort of flesh out what his positions have been.

But I think he's going to be in a safe seat in Congress, and he's going to he's going to end up winning that seat.

But I do think in a gubernatorial election, this insurance issue is going to play heavily, and it won't be to the benefit of the controlling party for the last 30 years.

Real quick before.

I'd keep an eye on what lawmakers are doing in Tallahassee with respect to immigration.

If you are an advocate for rights for undocumented immigrants, you don't have an ally in Tallahassee right now.

I mean, Democrats and Republicans are both putting forth bills to limit how they can work in the state.

So I would just keep an eye on what that ends up coming out to.

And certainly keep an eye on what happens in Fort Myers with the council voting and getting a lot of pressure on the decision that they made.

Thank you so much for joining me.

It's been wonderful having the first show with all of you.

Really appreciate it.

And that's it for us.

Thanks to our panel members this week again, Bob Buckhorn, Yacob Reyes, April Schiff, and Mark Katches.

Send your comments about this program to FTW at wedu.org.

The show is on every Friday night at 8:30 and Sunday afternoon at 12:30 and online.

You can watch past shows on YouTube and don't forget to friend us on Facebook from our entire team here at WEDU.

Have a great weekend!

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