An ethics commissioner with an ethics problem, a potential George Santos in the state House, and the homebuilder behind the curtain
A reminder that local news still matters.
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Chris Christie, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who may have just pulled ahead of Ron DeSantis in the important New Hampshire presidential primary, recently mocked how poorly prepared Florida’s governor seems to have been to leave his safe, in-state cocoon for the much tougher national stage.
Florida “is a red state with a red legislature and no discernible critical media,” Christie told the Wall Street Journal. “It is like Candy Land down there if you’re a Republican….I mean, come on. I’ve never seen a more compliant legislature in my life.”
I won’t take issue with the the Bridgegate governor’s characterization of the Florida Legislature — which, after all, just rewrote state laws to let Ron DeSantis run for president without giving up his job as governor while hiding his travel records from the public and padding his taxpayer-funded budgets for staffing and security.
But Christie is wrong about the state of the Florida media. There’s still lots of important local journalism happening all over the state.
Let’s check out a few recent examples:
An ethics problem at the ethics commission
Welcome to the Florida swamp, where even the state’s ethics chairman appears to have an ethics problem.
The Florida Bulldog revealed this week Glen Gilzean Jr., the chair of the Florida Commission on Ethics, appears to be breaking a state law that forbids state ethics commissioners from holding “any public employment.”
That’s because Gilzean was also recently given a $400,000-a-year gig leading Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. That’s the governor-controlled public agency that DeSantis had created earlier this year to replace Walt Disney World’s Reedy Creek Improvement District, as punishment following Disney’s decisions to speak out against a state law restricting discussions of LGBTQ+ issues in schools and to cut off campaign contributions to Florida politicians.
The Orlando Sentinel also had a meaty follow-up. Among other things, the Sentinel noted that Gilzean, who was appointed to the ethics commission by DeSantis, was given the job leading the Disney district, which is run by other DeSantis appointees, about three weeks after the ethics commission dismissed a complaint against DeSantis that had been filed by supporters of former President Donald Trump.
Read: State ethics commission chair Gilzean has $400,000 conflict of interest as new boss of Disney’s usurped special district (Florida Bulldog)
Read: DeSantis’ Disney board chief faces scrutiny over ethics role (Orlando Sentinel)
Read: Florida’s farcical ethics enforcement exposed in Disney district boss’ new $400k job | Commentary (Orlando Sentinel)
‘A trail of falsehoods, unpaid taxes and bills’
Let’s stick with the Orlando Sentinel, which recently published an explosive investigation into the finances and background of a local state representative.
There’s so much in this story that it’s hard to know where to begin. So I’ll just paste the first paragraph:
Rep. Carolina Amesty, who touted her success as a business owner and educator in her campaign for the Florida House last year, filed false information with the state about her family’s small Christian university, claimed to run a thriving restaurant that actually was closed and failed to ensure taxes were paid on the $1.3 million home she lived in, an Orlando Sentinel investigation found.
Oh, and there’s also nearly $1 million unaccounted from a nonprofit controlled by Amesty and her family, according to the Sentinel’s review of the organization’s tax returns.
Just read the whole thing.
Read: Rep. Amesty leaves trail of falsehoods, unpaid taxes and bills, records show (Orlando Sentinel)
Trouble atop Florida’s affordable housing agency
Speaking of financial problems (and lazy transitions), the Tampa Bay Times reported recently that the person Ron DeSantis chose to be Florida’s affordable-housing director — atop an agency that controls hundreds of millions of dollars — used to be in such personal financial turmoil that creditors were garnishing his accounts, a brother was accusing him of stealing, and he filed for bankruptcy.
And yet Mike DiNapoli still ended up running the Florida Housing Finance Corp. — thanks to some help from DeSantis’ closest aide: James Uthmeier, the former chief of staff who is now managing DeSantis’ slumping presidential campaign.
DiNapoli was recently suspended amid a continuing inspector general investigation.
Much more here: Florida’s suspended affordable housing director struggled with debts (Tampa Bay Times)
The homebuilder behind the curtain
Commissioners in Manatee County are expected to vote Thursday on a controversial measure that would erase some key local protections for wetlands — and allow developers to build closer to sensitive watersheds.
There’s big local developer looming behind the scenes of it all: Carlos Beruff, a southwest Florida homebuilder and Republican Party donor who also chairs the board of Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-backed home insurer.
Beruff-backed companies have filed two lawsuits challenging some of Manatee County’s wetlands rules, only to see those rules upheld by the court.
But now Manatee County commissioners may just wipe out some of those rules themselves. And recent reporting by The Bradenton Times found that the consultant hired to lead that process for the county previously worked as an expert witness for Beruff.
What’s more, Times reporting also found that the county’s rewrite process began with a “white paper” submitted by a local homebuilders’ lobbying group. The author of that white paper happened to be a land-use lawyer who has also represented Beruff (who you might remember from his failed campaign for U.S. Senate in 2016).
Read: County's effort to gut its own wetland protections gets murkier (The Bradenton Times)
Who ya gonna call? Unionbusters!
The Orlando Weekly pulls back the curtain on a little-known “union-avoidance” consulting firm in central Florida that has worked for big corporations like Hilton, Bed Bath & Beyond and Guitar Center.
Read: Orlando union buster Labor Pros has a history of skirting federal law
A powderkeg poised to explode
Finally, here’s what just may end up being the most important story of the past month or so in Florida politics: A federal grand-jury is investigating potential bid-rigging inside Ron DeSantis’ Department of Education.
If you don’t know the backstory to this, do yourself a favor and go back and read some of the original stories. The scandal centers around ugly attempts to profiteer off a rural, Black-majority school district in a forgotten corner of Florida.
Read: Grand jury investigating bid-rigging involving DeSantis’ education department (Tampa Bay Times)
Read: Florida officials tried to steer education contract to former lawmaker’s company (Tampa Bay Times)
Read: DoE/Jefferson scandal goes nuclear (Public Enemy Number 1)
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the first name of Mike DiNapoli, the suspended executive director of the Florida Housing Finance Corp.
The First Amendment and Florida media are alive and well, working as watchdogs for The People, thanks to the Fourth Estate, journalists like Jason Garcia and all the staff at The Orlando Sentinel and other papers in Florida that are saving democracy right now. Thank you, thank you for all you do! The corruption and usurpation of power by the GOP and DeSantis is utterly shocking but not surprising. These are not politicians… but they are more like prostitutes. DeSantis flip flops any way the wind blows for whomever is paying his way. The utter disgrace secrecy and that taxpayers do not know what their money is going to or where the Governor is, the censorship, attacks on citizens. This is Soviet-style dictatorship, (did citizens ever find out what Russian companies public employee pensions are invested in?) especially since he removed a duly elected by the public official Worrell and replaced her with a crony. People need to speak out while they still have a First Amendment and they must work to keep a Free Press, because Despot DeSantis is out to destroy them. Most importantly, citizens of Left and Right need to vote these pathological liars and thieves and wanna-be-despots out of office. And subscribe to your local newspaper or to great reporters like Jason. Keep up the good work, Jason! Thank you!
For more detailed reporting on the DOE & Jefferson County investigation, check out Billy Townsend’s Substack. He’s been on this from the beginning & filed complaints that triggered Fl state investigation/coverup.