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Florida - The Sunshine State
floridaphoenix.com
Responding to reports that prisoner contact with loved ones helps reduce the recidivism rate, state lawmakers last year approved a $1 million pilot project to allow inmates with good behavior to make one free 15-minute phone call per month to the outside world. Pleased with its rollout, members of the Florida Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations came back during the 2024 legislative session with a budget line item expanding the program to $2 million from an inmate trust fund, and not from general revenues. But Gov. Ron DeSantis slashed that line item in June. Advocates for prison and criminal justice reform say that’s a problem. “Keeping families connected is very important for re-entry and so is the education,” said Karen Stuckey, who’s had to deal with escalating phone bills as both her son and husband have been incarcerated in Florida prisons. “If you want somebody to be successful, you have to keep them connected to their families or their loved ones. Because when you get out, it’s really, really hard.”
www.tampabay.com
https://ghostarchive.org/archive/HrIlf
Our State Parks are under attack. Please help by at least contacting your representatives though this convenient form (it takes less than a minute). [Florida Wildlife Federation - Convenient Form](https://floridawildlifefederation.org/action-state-parks-threat/?fbclid=IwY2xjawEzMcxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHWdE0Rkw5spuNNs-UHGSoGN69Z7feGbCkdLucJ0SzyP_mPNAcWYMWQvEcw_aem_74ZgqeyivWds1hMseFmEUg#fastaction-signup-hustle) [Information About The 9 Specific Park Plans](https://floridawildlifefederation.org/florida-state-parks-threatened-by-development/) Our state government released plans to add golf courses, pickle ball courts, and more unnatural development to some of our state parks. Speak up. Edit: this also contradicts the State Park mission statement. "FPS Mission Statement Provide resource-based recreation while preserving, interpreting and restoring natural and cultural resources." https://www.floridastateparks.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/2020_12_01_Floirda%20Park%20Service_Operations%20Manual.pdf Update: Here is a survey the state opened to accept feedback on their new plans: [survey](https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/7983173/Great-Outdoors-Initiative). For each park's proposal, it summarizes the proposal, then you can submit a feedback message followed by a satisfaction rating (very dissatisfied to very satisfied).
www.tampabay.com
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/17924668 > If you hit a paywall: https://archive.ph/xeJIi
[Tweet Source](https://x.com/travisakers/status/1796724397346328958) [Article Source](https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/local/2024/06/01/jacksonville-residents-shine-pride-lights-after-florida-stops-official-bridge-displa-them-on-bridges/73914750007/)
www.tampabay.com
popular.info
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15908405
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14774829 > Calling her “an inherent danger to the community,” prosecutors on Friday asked a Miami judge to throw a 51-year-old mother back into jail for posting news articles on Facebook recounting her arrest on charges of stalking a Miami-Dade police officer who had shot and killed her mentally ill son. Prosecutors say Gamaly Hollis violated a judge’s order against using social media by sharing several stories this week about the June 2022 death of her son. Richard Hollis, who suffered from severe mental illness, was shot six times by Officer Jaime Pino in the family’s apartment. After her son’s death, the grieving mother took to the streets and the internet, calling officer Pino a killer and once confronting him at a crime scene. Miami-Dade Police arrested her on charges of aggravated stalking, resisting arrest and trespassing. After a year in jail, she was released on bond just a week ago.
floridaphoenix.com
The target for this treasure hunt is in Calhoun County, in a forested spot between the Apalachicola, the Chipola River, and the Dead Lakes. I don’t know if you could pick a worse spot in Florida to plop down such a toxic industry. The Apalachicola is the largest river in volume in Florida and has the largest and most environmentally sensitive undisturbed floodplain ecosystem in the state. The Chipola is the source of drinking water for the town of Port St. Joe, population 3,600. Its “Look and Tremble” whitewater rapids make it popular with paddlers, too. As for the Dead Lakes: Despite the eerie name, that’s a popular fishing spot. My dad, who grew up in nearby Jackson County, loved to fish there. If someone spilled oil in that area, the way BP spread yucky globs across the beaches of eight Florida counties in 2010, I think those lakes would be dead for real.
I work with the UAW and I'm reaching out to anyone in the St. Pete or greater Tampa Bay area about organizing your workplace. If you're unhappy with your wages, hours, or working conditions; please reach out. I would love to help organize your workplace. I've lived in Pinellas county my entire life and working class people are being priced out of their homes here. With the rising cost of living, we need to band together to demand better wages and force our employers to pay us what we're worth. Lets bring the labor movement down to St. Pete and stop job hopping from one sweat shop to another. I don't care what industry you work in, I just want to help you organize. United we bargain, divided we beg.
boltsmag.org
> The Florida legislature approved a bill this month that would further limit local civilian police oversight boards by barring them from investigating allegations of police misconduct. Police unions support the bill as a measure to protect the rights of officers, though critics say it represents yet another blow to police accountability efforts already shackled by existing state laws giving cops extraordinary legal protections.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.org/post/37957
weartv.com
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/12909215
Thanks the veterans while wearing the garb of traitors and sucking up to a president that looks down on those who serve.
www.huffpost.com
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11364171 > *"I need to ask my staff," Florida Rep. Maria Salazar said as a reporter listed off times she bragged about getting money for her district that she opposed.* > > Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) on Sunday got called out for routinely taking credit for delivering money to her district — after opposing the bills that provided that money. > > During an interview on CBS News Miami, host Jim DeFede asked Salazar about a ceremony she attended last month where she presented a check for $650,000 to help small businesses at Florida International University. > > “You voted against the bill that gave the money that you then signed a check for and handed and had a photo op,” said DeFede, the host of CBS’s show “Facing South Florida.” “The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, right?” > > She did vote against that $1.7 trillion government funding bill. It was a massive and memorable bill that almost every House Republican opposed. > > Salazar said she couldn’t remember that vote. > > “Right now, you have to give me more details,” she said. “But I do know that every time I have an opportunity to bring money to my constituents, I do so. I just did $400,000, but look—” > > “But you voted against the CHIPS and Science Act, right?” DeFede interrupted.
www.theguardian.com
“We call it black snow because it falls from the sky just like snowflakes. But it’s just the burnt trash blowing from the cane. I know people who’ve had to move out of the Glades because their respiratory issues got so bad during the burn season.” To hear the $13bn sugar industry tell it, there is no problem here. The Clewiston-based US Sugar Corporation, which farms more than 230,000 acres across four counties and employs about 2,500 people, touts its own studies regularly claiming “the Glades communities have air that is good, safe and clean”, and insisting those who say otherwise are “dishonest anti-farming activists”. Yet the evidence against is more than just anecdotal. A 2021 collaboration between ProPublica and the Palm Beach Post determined, among numerous other findings, that hospital admissions for respiratory distress in Belle Glade, a town in the heart of sugar country, increased up to 35% in the harvesting season. Researchers at Florida International University found in 2015 that levels of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) present in the air at Belle Glade were 15 times higher during harvesting season than the summer growing season.
www.wftv.com
Florida’s HB 1, typically considered the legislative priority of the year, is sailing through its committee hearings with unusual bipartisan support. This year, the state’s lawmakers have decided to go after child and teenage social media use. The bill, which can still be amended, bans teens under 16 years old from creating new social media profiles, allows parents to request the deletion of an existing profile, and fines platforms for each time they don’t comply. [In a summary analysis](https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2024/1/Analyses/h0001a.RRS.PDF), House legislative staff laid out nearly two pages of constitutional concerns, from First Amendment considerations to infringement on federal laws.
floridaphoenix.com
“The First Amendment is an inconvenient thing. It protects expression that some find wrongheaded, or offensive, or even ridiculous,” Newsom wrote in a concurring opinion. “But for the same reason that the government can’t muzzle so-called ‘conservative’ speech under the guise of preventing on campus ‘harassment,’ the state can’t exercise its coercive power to censor so-called ‘woke’ speech with which it disagrees. What’s good for mine is (whether I like it or not) good for thine.” \[...] The Eleventh Circuit opinion goes into depth about the rights of elected officials like Warren to engage in political speech, even if it runs counter to what the governor thinks. DeSantis argued he was entitled to punish Warren because the prosecutor had acted as a government employee. The Eleventh Circuit, however, concluded it “seems suspect” to apply a U.S. Supreme Court precedent allowing such punishment for rank-and-file state workers to an elected official. A different U.S. Supreme Court ruling noted that elected office holders enjoy the right “to enter the field of political controversy,” Pryor continued. Also, that “[t]he role that elected officials play in our society makes it all the more imperative that they be allowed freely to express themselves.” “Warren’s speech occurred outside the workplace, and he never distributed the advocacy statements inside the workplace or included them in internal materials or training sessions. He employed no workplace resources and never marshaled the statements through his process for creating policies. Neither statement referenced any Florida law that would go unenforced,” the court said.
floridaphoenix.com
Builders and developers are constantly chafing at how long it takes them to acquire the permits they need. They don’t like waiting for local and state government approvals, and so Esposito’s bill is designed to alleviate that concern. But meeting these accelerated deadlines “would be a challenge for local government,” Kim Dinkins of 1000 Friends told me. Let’s call Esposito’s bill what it really is: The Rush It Through No Matter What Law. It doesn’t trim the amount of time local government has to review builders’ plans to make sure they comply with the rules. It provides a radical cut, not unlike giving shaggy-haired Keanu Reeves a Marine Corps high-and-tight buzz. Right now, state law says cities and counties can take 30 days to review building permits for single family homes and up to 120 days for larger projects such as condominiums. They have 45 days to determine if the application is complete. And if it’s not, they can ask the developer for additional information three times, each time stopping the clock on the review. Esposito’s bill would reset every deadline. All building permits — condos included — would have to be issued by that same 30-day limit. If the builder or developer hires their own permit reviewer, then the city or county would have even less time — a mere 15 days. Under the bill, the amount of time to determine if the application is complete would be cut to only 10 days. And the cities and counties could ask for more information only two times, not three. If they fail to meet those accelerated deadlines, then the permit is approved automatically.
Florida abortion rights advocates, who have seen access to the procedure erode in the state and nationally in recent years, reached a major milestone that could shape abortion access throughout the south. Groups seeking a constitutional amendment protecting abortion on Friday secured enough state-certified signatures by the Feb. 1 deadline to put a referendum on the 2024 ballot. If successful, voters in the country’s third-most populous state could undo Florida’s abortion bans, keeping access open to thousands of patients throughout the South who travel to Florida from neighboring states — and from as far away as Texas — to avoid more restrictive prohibitions.
> In Hunters Point, Fla., the world’s first LEED Zero Energy certified residential development, every house produces more electricity than it uses
yt.artemislena.eu
[Canonical YouTube link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jspzJhADPco)