Right to grow veggies at home is headed to the House

A bill to ban regulations on vegetable gardens is headed to the House floor. 

HB 145, filed by Rep. Elizabeth Fetterhoff, R-DeLand, was approved at the House State Affairs Committee's last meeting Thursday. 

Fetterhoff's bill prohibits local governments from regulating of vegetable gardens on residential property, and voids any existing ordinances or regulations that tell people where they can and can't grow their own produce. The bill doesn't apply to general ordinances or regulations that are not specific to vegetable gardens, such as limits on water use during drought conditions, fertilizer use, or control of invasive species

Local governments, however, can still adopt a local ordinance or regulation that doesn’t specifically target vegetable gardens, like regulating water during drought conditions, limiting fertilizer use or controlling invasive species.

The Senate passed a similar bill during the 2018 session, but the clock ran out and a House version was never filed.

The vegetable garden proposal is rooted in a legal dispute about an ordinance in Miami Shores that banned the gardens from being planted in front yards. Hermine Ricketts and Tom Carroll, who ate from their vegetable garden for 17 years, sued the village. In November 2017, an appeals court upheld a ruling that the couple does not have a constitutional right to grow vegetables in their front yard. They appealed the ruling to the Florida Supreme Court, which declined to grant review.

Ricketts and Carroll faced $50 in daily fines after the village amended its ordinance in 2013. They had to dig up their garden – which can’t grow in their backyard because of a lack of sun.

The bill only preempts local government rules, not rules or gardening restrictions set by homeowners associations or other groups.

The main opponent to both vegetable garden bills is the Florida League of Cities. The group’s legislative counsel, David Cruz, has argued that each city in Florida is unique, and much of the unique aesthetic is brought about through code enforcement. That’s why Coral Gables looks different from Perry, Florida, he said.

“There’s the ability at the local level to come up with solutions,” he said. “We’re not against vegetable gardens. Our members are not against vegetable gardens. But local solution could be crafted.”

Cruz said bills like this one preempt local laws, and gave the example of a 2013 Orlando ordinance that allows residents to use 60 percent of their front yard as a vegetable garden.

“This bill would void that ordinance,” he said. “It would undo the good work of a city to compromise on this issue.”

School districts, charters, sheriffs. Who decides if teachers can be armed?

PARKLAND, FL - FEBRUARY 25: People visit Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 25, 2018 in Parkland, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

 

The Florida Senate didn’t have a formal vote on the bill that would allow classroom teachers to be armed on Wednesday, but they did adopt a major amendment that could settle one of the biggest lingering questions of the debate: who gets to decide if teachers in a school can be armed?

 

Under current law, passed last year as part of the fallout from the shooting in Parkland that left 17 students and staff dead, both a school district and their county’s sheriff must agree to offer the “Guardian program” before teachers can carry guns on campus. The sheriff’s office is then charged with offering teachers and other personnel with the proper training and psychological screening. Some districts have opted to hire security staff whose only role is to be armed protection.

 

But under Wednesday’s amendment to the bill, sheriff’s offices would be required to offer that training if school districts requests it, though that sheriff may contract with another sheriff to provide it instead. Additionally, if a district decides not to participate in the program but a charter school disagrees, they can ask their county’s sheriff to offer the training to their staff anyway.

 

“There have been discussions with the House to try to get these bills lined up," said Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton. “It’s a genuine issue regarding who is making the decisions and who is calling the shots and we didn’t want to have one school speaking for the whole district.”

 

But there’s an additional curveball: if a charter school wishes to arm their staff and the sheriff refuses, they can also ask a sheriff outside their county to provide the training instead.

 

“If the (Broward County) school board does not want it, and they’ve been adamant about that, so if a charter school decides they do want it it’s going to be a problem,” Sen. Perry Thurston, D-Lauderhill, said.

 

The new version of the bill clarifies that the district and charter schools have a joint responsibility to ensure all charter schools have armed security, which is required by law on every campus.

 

The question was the subject of a lawsuit in Palm Beach County, where an administrative law judge ruled that the school board there must assign school security to charter schools. Charter schools are public schools that are operated by private entities.

 

Final votes on the school safety bills, Senate Bill 7030 and House Bill 7093, are expected in both chambers in the coming days.

Senators look to require all online retailer collect Florida sales tax

The retail giant Amazon was one of the first online companies to start collecting sales tax in Florida five years ago.

Now, Florida lawmakers want Amazon’s competitors to catch up.

A potential Senate tax package (Senate Bill 1112) would require nearly all online retailers start collecting Florida sales taxes, netting the state roughly $700 million in revenue it currently doesn’t collect.

But much of the money would be given away by other tax breaks.

Currently, Floridians who buy products from sites like Wayfair, Etsy and Amazon’s third-party sellers usually don’t pay Florida’s 6 percent sales tax. Instead, Floridians are supposed to pay the sales tax directly to the state, which they usually don’t do.

“We’re making our average, everyday citizens guilty of not paying their taxes,” Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, who is sponsoring the bill, said Tuesday, before it passed its second committee.

Requiring nearly all online retailers collect the tax would fix the problem. But Gruters, who is also chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, is careful not to call it a tax increase.

“Some people say this is a tax increase,” he told fellow senators on Tuesday. “It’s not. It’s a tax that’s currently owed.”

The idea is in response to a Supreme Court ruling last year that threw out the idea that a company had to have a physical presence in a state before the state could require it to collect sales taxes.

It would net an estimated $700 million for the state, according to Gruters. Online companies that sell at least 200 items or $100,000 worth of items in Florida would have to collect the tax.

But under Gruters’ bill, much of the money would be given away through a slew of tax cuts, including:

• Cutting the tax on rent for commercial properties from 5.7 percent to 3.5 percent,
• eliminating the ad valorem tax on heavy equipment rented by a dealer,
• creating a 14-day sales tax holiday for disaster preparedness supplies, and
• providing a tax cut to insurers that cover remote visits with doctors, known as “telehealth."

Just how much of the $700 million would make it into state and local coffers is unclear, though. The bill still has another committee stop to go before making it to the Senate floor.

“This is probably one of the most important bills of this session,” Gruters said. “I hope we can be the voice of reason and pass this bill.”

Amy Klobuchar talks climate change, hurricanes and winning Florida in Tallahassee

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar speaks with reporters in Tallahassee about her 2020 presidential campaign. SGROSS@MIAMIHERALD.COM

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar talked climate change, hurricanes and what it will take to win Florida with Democratic lawmakers in Tallahassee on Tuesday in her first visit to gather support in the sunshine state for her 2020 presidential campaign

"A lot of the issues I'm focused on are issues that matter a lot in Florida," the Minnesota Democrat said after a closed meeting with the House Democratic Caucus.

Klobuchar said she was concerned with the effects of climate change, and pointed out that eight of 10 of the metropolitan areas destined to have the most climate change-induced flooding are in Florida.

"My idea here is to get an international climate change agreement on day one and to bring back the clean power rules and to do more when it comes to infrastructure ... certainly, you have needs here," she said. 

She also answered questions regarding funding for those who were affected by Hurricane Michael in October. Klobuchar voted down on a disaster relief bill that would have awarded tens of millions of dollars to victims still waiting on funding. The bill is stalling as the Senate fights over substantial new assistance for Puerto Rico — assistance Democrats are demanding.

She is a bigger fan of the House bill, she said, and that she hopes the chambers will "work that out." 

"There is no reason we can't work this out, given that the House bill had the kind of funding we'd like to see," she said. "They don't seem to want to help Puerto Rico and there's no reason we can't do all of this together. We have to get this done and we will. This is a matter of negotiations. "

Klobuchar talked about other hot topics in Florida, and commended Florida on the way student activists in Parkland have engaged more young people politically, and how voters approved Amendment 4 to restore voting rights to former felons. She said she'd never seen students from high schools in Minnesota ask such engaging questions, and that people back home have taken a new interest in restoring felon's rights.

Klobuchar added that she feels confident about winning Florida in the primaries in 2020 "despite the fact that I'm coming from a state that has a lot of snow." She said walking around Florida today she sees "a lot of people feeling left behind," and that they want a candidate who will address affordable housing and expanded access to better healthcare. 

"We have to be governing from opportunity, not chaos," she said. "I don't see the other presidential candidate, which will likely be Donald Trump, addressing climate change." 

School referendum funding bill heads to Florida House floor with some changes

[Miami Herald file photo]

 

The Florida House bill that would require school districts that have had successful voter referendums to share their additional funding with charter schools passed its final committee in the House on Tuesday, with a few significant changes. Its next stop is the House floor.

 

Under this bill, House Bill 7123, districts whose voters approved a higher property tax rate for school funding would need to share that money with charter schools starting in the next budget year. Charter schools are paid for with public money and run by private entities.

 

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Bryan Avila, R-Hialeah, added an amendment on Tuesday in the House Appropriations committee which would require charter schools that receive a slice of these funds to use them for the intended purpose of the referendums. In Miami-Dade for example, voters supported a measure in November to raise their property taxes with the express purpose of funding teacher salaries and increased school security.

 

The amendment also removed the financial penalty for school districts should they fail to properly share the funds with districts.

“Some of the members had ... concerns about enacting or implementing penalties,” Avila said. “This is a package that obviously still has a long way to go in terms of the negotiations with the Senate, so it’s still a work in progress.”

 

In the bill’s first committee, House Ways and Means, Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani from Orlando proposed an amendment that would have had a similar effect. At the time, her change was voted down but Avila pledged to take it under further consideration, which he said contributed to Tuesday’s amendment.

 

This bill would affect Pinellas, Miami-Dade, Broward and about a dozen other districts whose voters have approved property tax increases in the past. The Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando school districts have won voter approval for local sales tax increases, which would not be affected by this change.

 

The bill’s origins likely rest with an ongoing dispute in Miami over their approved property tax hike, as district officials have said they would not share the majority of the referendum money — the portion for teacher salaries — with charters. Although Avila has often pointed to his home county of Miami-Dade as a chief example of this problem, he’s emphasized the need for “clarity” statewide on this issue, especially to deal with ongoing lawsuits.

 

But some of the Democrats in Tuesday’s committee said they weren’t buying it, and were frustrated that Miami-Dade’s squabble could now have statewide implications.

Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, pointed to Palm Beach County, where voters approved a property tax hike after the school board stated that the money would not be shared with charter schools. That decision is now the subject of a lawsuit.

 

“We’re coming in and usurping will of the voters ... but they approved it overwhelmingly on that condition," he said. "How can we be doing this?”

Although the piece related to school referendum funding has seen the most contention, it’s part of a larger tax package, which would also significantly reduce the state’s commercial lease tax and set dates for this year’s sales-tax-free shopping days for back-to-school season and hurricane preparedness.

 

In past years, it’s been typical for the House to propose their tax package first, which the Senate can incorporate into their version. It’s unclear whether the Senate will accept the piece related to charter school funding.

Ron DeSantis seeks free speech resolution allowing controversial speakers at Florida universities

Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at Dodd Hall on Florida State University's campus on April 15, 2019. He said Florida's colleges and universities should adopt a specific free speech policy that allows for more "intellectual diversity." Emily L. Mahoney |Times/Herald

 

Gov. Ron DeSantis said all of Florida’s colleges and universities should adopt a resolution similar to the “Chicago statement,” a statement on campus free speech that declares that all viewpoints should be allowed to be discussed on college campuses, even if they are ones students may “loathe” or find “deeply offensive.”

 

“We are here today to affirm our commitment to ensuring that all Florida’s public universities and colleges and protect student speech and the open exchange of ideas on our campuses,” DeSantis said during a Monday news conference at Florida State University, flanked by the university’s president, John Thrasher, Florida Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran and Marshall Criser, chancellor of the state’s university system.

 

Scores of colleges and universities across the country have already adopted a version of this resolution, including Eckerd College, a liberal arts school in St. Petersburg. According to the governor’s office, all the state’s other colleges and universities are plan to adopt the Chicago statement.

 

Notably, DeSantis addressed the topic of controversial speakers — an issue with which Florida is deeply familiar, after white nationalist Richard Spencer spoke at the University of Florida in October 2017 and had to cut his speech short after students in the audience drowned him out with chants like “Black Lives Matter.”

 

“At an academic institution where you have a speaker expressing ideas, there’s no room for a heckler’s veto where you simply shout down or scream down a speaker so that they cannot articulate views,” DeSantis said, later adding that in Spencer’s case, the “best response” by students would have been “an empty auditorium.”

 

He added that he’s noticed “a trend” nationwide where universities have dis-invited certain speakers that espouse controversial opinions, such as conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, who has said that the majority of Muslims have been “radicalized” and tweeted “Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage.”

 

“I think that’s a sign of weakness on behalf of school administrators and I think that demonstrates a lack of commitment to free exchange of ideas," DeSantis said. "There can’t be a safe space in the business world.”

 

Experts in campus free speech emphasized that the Chicago statement doesn’t have teeth, though it can be a positive first step in affirming institution’s commitment to free speech regardless of the speech’s content.

 

“It’s unequivocally a positive step in the right direction for a public institution to affirm this is what they think about these issues,” said Joe Cohn, legislative and policy director for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which has done policy and legal work on behalf of students whose speech rights were infringed upon on campus.

 

“But they (universities) also need to do the hard work of comparing their policies to the principles reflected in the statement.”

But Jonathan Friedman, the campus free speech project director for PEN America, a national group of writers and human rights advocates which has published a report on campus free speech, says that universities should not feel pressure to remain neutral on all issues in an effort to have open speech.

 

“Having a conversation about free speech alone ... without discussing the tensions that exist can inflame other issues like racism and hateful speech on campus,” Friedman said. “If there’s someone on campus promoting hate … we would want the university to be able to say, ‘We don’t agree with this person and here are all the reasons why.’”

 

The announcement came at a time when bills are moving through the Florida Legislature (Senate Bill 1296 and House Bill 839) that would require each of the state’s public universities, to conduct an annual “assessment” looking at “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity at that institution.”

 

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, has pointed to a University of Colorado survey as the inspiration for the proposal, which polled students and faculty on whether they felt the school promoted an environment respectful of all people of all identities and opinions. As part of that survey, students and faculty were also asked to anonymously identify their race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation and political party.

 

And just last month, President Donald Trump issued a broad executive order on the topic of university free speech, asking federal agencies to make sure that colleges or universities that receive federal grants “promote free inquiry." If not, those grants could be at risk.

 

When signing the order, Trump said “professors and power structures” are keeping students from “challenging rigid far-left ideology.”

 

DeSantis said on Monday that he agrees that university faculty tend to lean leftward, though he said that should not matter.

 

“I’ve had liberal professors over the years who were very fair about putting forward the alternative viewpoints," he said.

 

Both Cohn and Friedman said it’s very important that elected leaders don’t politicize discussions surrounding the First Amendment.

 

“Whats really important is that we avoid the hypocrisy emanating around the Trump administration where Trump himself ... calls for journalists, for people who disagree with him to be punished,” Friedman said. “It’s really important that universities help students and others to start to see free expression as allied to causes of diversity and inclusion rather than in tension with them.”

Are the 'sanctuary city' bills dead in the FL Legislature?

Undocumented immigrants protest outside of Senator Marco Rubio's office in Doral on Nov. 20, 2015 C.M. GUERRERO

After bills aimed at banning so-called "sanctuary cities" were fast-tracked through the Legislature this year, progress grinded to a halt and they weren't heard for a week.

But the contentious bills will be heard in the House Judiciary and Senate Rules committees Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon respectively. These meetings are the last stops the bills need before heading to the chamber floor.

The bills create rules relating to federal immigration enforcement by prohibiting “sanctuary” policies and requiring state and local law enforcement to comply with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The bill also would give whistleblower status to officers who report citizenship violations by undocumented immigrants detained in local jails on unrelated charges.

Under the bills, local law enforcement would be required to honor federal law enforcement’s request for an “immigration detainer,” meaning a request that another law enforcement agency detains a person based on probable cause to believe that the person is a “removable alien” under federal immigration law. The bill would essentially make the “request” a requirement.

 

Since they were filed, the proposals sparked a heated debate on who should be making immigration policy. Groups opposing the bills have held protests and rallies both at the Capitol and at district offices across the state, and say the bill is a "family separation policy." They rejoiced when the bills weren't put on any agendas last week. 

 

The House and Senate have not yet worked out a technical disagreement related to whether policy bills should be allowed to be tied to the budget, which has slowed some policy bills, including a contentious school safety bill that would allow classroom teachers to be armed on campus. 

 

In the House, Speaker José Oliva said there's still time to hear the bill, nodding to what he said would be a hectic schedule in the last three weeks.

"There's a lot of things that I think will still come through here that might appear stalled," Oliva told reporters last Thursday, in response to a question about the sanctuary cities proposal. "There are a lot of bills, next week's going to be a busy week, and then two weeks after that we're going to be in this chamber almost all day. There's still a lot of things to get done."

"There's time for that," he said of sanctuary cities, though he said he doubted the House would advance that proposal by this week.

The topic of sanctuary cities became national news Thursday night, when the Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump is giving "strong considerations" to releasing immigrant detainees in "sanctuary cities."

Gov. Ron DeSantis, an ally of the president, campaigned aggressively against sanctuary cities in his state of the state address. He told the crowd that Florida “will not be a sanctuary state" and that he “won’t tolerate sanctuary cities that actively frustrate law enforcement.”

House advances bill that would require school districts to share referendum money with charters

[Miami Herald file photo]

 

The Ways and Means Committee in the Florida House voted to approve a major tax package on Thursday which would require school districts to share additional revenue with charter schools that is the result of local referendums to raise property taxes.

 

The measure, House Bill 7123, would affect Miami-Dade, Broward, Pinellas, and about a dozen other districts around the state which have had these types of voter-approved raises. Those districts would be required, starting in the upcoming budget year, to spread that wealth to charter schools, which are financed by taxpayers but managed by private entities.

 

 

The chair of the committee is Rep. Bryan Avila, a Republican from the Miami area, where the school district is currently undergoing negotiations over a successful November ballot measure that was intended to give teachers a raise.

 

But school officials in Miami-Dade have said that they would not be granting that extra money for teacher salaries to charters, though they would consider sharing a portion for school security measures.

 

“We did not hear one piece of testimony whatsoever from anybody here from somebody from a school board. And I think that’s telling," said Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill during Thursday’s meeting. “It’s because they know, deep down, that what they attempted to do with cutting out these charter schools was absolutely wrong, unethical, immoral and trying to skirt the law."

 

Under this bill, if districts do not share their property tax referendum money with charter schools, the state may withhold other monies.

 

The tax bill passed without any amendments, despite several from Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, which would have changed the portion referring to charter schools. Her suggested changes would have either removed that section completely, or required charter schools to use the extra funds for the purpose outlined in the referendums, or at least stated that districts will not held responsible for misuse of referendum funds by charter schools.

 

Republicans on the committee said her accountability suggestions were unnecessary and would be addressed by either the local district or the existing law.

“Obviously the school districts, before they have a referendum, should look to statute and model their referendums after the statute and not the other way around,” Avila said. “It’s up to us to provide that clarity.”

 

But Eskamani said this piece was “ideologically driven.”

 

The bill “doesn’t give any type of reflection on the fact that you have some charter schools that have made poor decisions,” she said. “If you’re going to make an accusation of bad actors on one side of the debate know that there are bad actors on all sides and that’s a worthy area to address. But that’s not what this debate was focused on.”

 

The bill had not yet been assigned to any other committee by Thursday afternoon.

Parents of kids shot at Parkland school file more than 20 negligence lawsuits

 

Via @DavidJNeal and @JayHWeaver

Parents of students killed and injured in the 2018 mass murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have filed more than 20 lawsuits, alleging negligence by the Broward Sheriff’s Office, the Broward County School Board and Henderson Behavorial Health and “willful and wanton negligence” against former BSO school resource officer Scot Peterson and campus monitor Andrew Medina.

A phalanx of lawyers representing the victims’ families said Wednesday that they were forced to sue after BSO and the School Board reneged on their initial commitment to help resolve financial claims for their losses. The teams of attorneys and families decided to go to court after learning that the School Board hired lobbyists in Tallahassee to thwart their efforts to collect damages in a claims bill before the Florida Legislature.

Lawyers would not disclose the exact amount sought by the parents.

A Broward County Public Schools spokesperson said BCPS doesn’t comment on pending lawsuits.

Peterson’s attorney, Joseph DiRuzzo, said, “We are confident that any lawsuit related to the Parkland shooting lacks merit; we will vigorously contest the factual and legal assertions made therein.”

Attorney Todd Michaels, who is representing the family of deceased teacher Scott Beigel, said the BSO and School Board initially said they wanted “to help bring justice.”

“What we’ve learned in the past 14 months is that they have no intent to help,” Michaels said at a news conference at the Fort Lauderdale law firm of Kelley/Uustal. “They hired a law firm to lobby behind the scenes against the interests of the victims.”

BCPS Chief Public Information Officer Kathy Koch disagreed with that. While having no comment the substance of n the lawsuit, Koch said BCPS brought in lobbying law firm GrayRobinson to help with the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Victims’ Compensation Fund. She claims neither BCPS or GrayRobinson worked against the fund.

Read the rest here.

Tom Steyer: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a ‘fake environmentalist'

At a glance, you could argue that Florida has been a money pit for billionaire Tom Steyer’s political network.

The Democratic hedge-fund manager and climate activist’s NextGen America has spent up to $30 million in Florida over the past five years, with limited results. The left-leaning organization helped Democrats take the U.S. House of Representatives last fall by flipping two crucial congressional seats in Miami, but Florida’s formerly climate-denying governor still became a U.S. senator and voters still elected as his successor a prominent surrogate of President Donald Trump, whom Steyer wants badly to impeach.

Steyer acknowledges that the results in those two high-profile races were a letdown, calling losses by former Sen. Bill Nelson and gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum “the two most disappointing races in the United States.” But he doesn’t view 2018 as a wash, and still sees Florida as the key to 2020.

In fact, after breaking down the results of the Florida midterms, Steyer says he’s as confident as ever that his get-out-the-vote operation is working in the nation’s largest swing state. A newly released postmortem by NextGen’s state youth director found that participation spiked last year by voters under the age of 40. And the 52,000 voters registered by NextGen in a statewide mail and digital campaign and college campus initiative cast ballots at an even greater clip.

With the Florida Democratic Party and Gillum already planning to spend millions on a massive voter registration effort, Steyer says he’s also prepared to keep working. He’s not entirely sure what that will look like so far out from Election Day, but expects to fight efforts by Florida lawmakers to curb voting rights, to advocate for expanded on-campus voting sites and to organize youth town halls for some of the Democratic Party’s most important politicians in the state.

“I don’t think you can look at a presidential map that the Republicans win without Florida,” Steyer, who was in Miami Tuesday on business, said during an interview at the JW Marriott Miami on Brickell Avenue.

Read the rest here.