The fact that this no-bid contract went to one of the state’s top ethics officials was vintage Florida.

But it turns out that was the tip of the insider-dealing iceberg at the former Reedy Creek district.

As the Sentinel revealed Sunday, another political pal scored a no-bid deal under even more suspect conditions when the district’s board chairman helped award a $495-an-hour legal contract to a lawyer who helped the chairman get his powerful post overseeing Disney in the first place.

Yes, back when Martin Garcia wanted to impress the state Senate, which confirms all of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ appointments to the Disney board, Garcia listed plugged-in GOP attorney Jason Gonzalez as a reference. Then, after Garcia got the job, he voted to give Gonzalez’s law firm a $495-an-hour contract without letting other firms even apply.

Seems the most magical thing about this new Disney board is how it made any premise of ethical government disappear.

And there’s more. As the Sentinel’s Skyler Swisher reported, a former board member who helped district director Glen Gilzean score his $400,000-a-year job was also the best man at Gilzean’s wedding.

This looks less like a public agency and more like a fraternity of political profiteers — the Florida chapter of Tappa Tappa Trough, where the only thing being chugged is tax dollars.

Political insiders get fat paychecks, big contracts from DeSantis’ Disney district

When I first heard about the legal contract last week, I wanted to see if it was as bad it as it sounded. So I asked if the board really hired the board chair’s buddy without any kind of open-bidding process.

The response I got was … interesting. First, district spokesman Matthew Thomas Oberly wanted me to know that the previous Disney district “ran the district with little transparency” and demonstrated “underhanded actions.”

If you’ve ever parented a naughty child, that response may feel familiar. You ask your son if he stole a cookie, and he responds by accusing his sister of stealing three cookies weeks ago.

Anyway, after trashing the former board, Oberly stressed that Florida law doesn’t require the district to solicit competitive bids for such legal contracts. “There is no requirement for the District to get the cheapest lawyer,” Oberly wrote in an email, “nor is such a good practice.”

That, my friends, is what’s known as a straw-man argument. Nobody said the district should hire the cheapest lawyer. I sure didn’t. But it might want the most qualified. And that’s what public solicitations for services can help you find.

Or you can just go with the guy who helped you get your political post — a guy who formed his new law firm less than a year ago.

Gonzalez, a Federalist Society leader who has advised DeSantis and other GOP governors, founded the firm in January with a couple of other politically connected attorneys, including Alan Lawson, who left the state Supreme Court after a relatively short stint to go into private practice.

There may be no law requiring public agencies to solicit bids for legal services. But many do. Why? Because it’s a solid business practice.

Just last month, the leaders at Orlando International Airport decided to solicit bids for that agency’s legal contracts. Board member Craig Mateer said relying on a single firm without aggressively encouraging other firms to apply wasn’t good enough. “We can do better,” said Mateer, who’s also a DeSantis appointee. “There’s a lot of money flowing through here.”

(Side note: If you’re a Florida law firm with expertise in construction, finance or purchasing law, now is a good time to reach out to the airport about its open-bidding process.)

That’s how it should be vs. hiring your own resume reference. Or a fellow wedding-party member.

These are small-town antics, except with big money. And it looks like political patronage may have been one of the main goals all along with this district takeover.

See, the aspect that always stunk most was the way DeSantis set it up — replacing one special district with another special district run by his political pals.

DeSantis had vowed to make Disney “follow the same law that every other company has to follow in the state of Florida.” I liked that idea. But that’s not what he did.

Instead of making Disney answer to Orange County government, the way other companies do, DeSantis set up a special district to control Disney’s fate and then stocked it with political cronies. Now those cronies are helping other cronies cash in.

No wonder experienced staffers are fleeing as the district invests less on roads and infrastructure — the kind of work it’s supposed to be doing.

Disney district mess: Employees flee. No-bid contract stinks | Commentary

I give credit to the beneficiary of the last no-bid deal we wrote about — communications firm owner and state ethics commissioner Freddie Figgers — who gave up his $242,500 contract after it’s no-bid nature was revealed.

Figgers said he preferred to “err on the side of caution” and seems to realize how swampy all this looks. The rest don’t seem to care. They seem content to thumb their noses at best practices and help their buddies cash in for one reason — because they can.

Of course DeSantis hasn’t shown any interest in cleaning up this swamp, because he’s the one who stocked it with swamp creatures.

And as long as he has a Legislature and political base full of sycophants who don’t care about ethical government, that swampiness will continue.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

As scrutiny mounts, DeSantis’ Disney district cancels no-bid 911 contract

Lately, however, we seem to be living in a Bizzaro World where Florida Republicans are the ones acting like guests on a chair-throwing episode of the Jerry Springer Show.

The governor is feuding with former allies like Randy Fine. Fine says DeSantis emboldens neo-Nazis. DeSantis says Fine is a joke of a petty politician. (Democrats say both men are finally making sense.)

In Seminole County, the GOP elections supervisor says his fellow Republicans are a bunch of racists while Republican party leaders suggest their party’s supervisor is unfit to hold office. (Again, Democrats are like: Wait, let’s hear them all out.)

Even the party’s top trollers are in such a meltdown mode that they’re sniping at each other instead of Democrats. At last weekend’s Republican gathering in Orlando, DeSantis’ chief troller, Christina Pushaw, got into a clash with right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer that culminated with Pushaw telling Loomer that she was such a loser, she’ll never even find a “devoted husband.” (Imagine a Springer episode where both cringey guests are happen to be trusted advisors to a governor and former U.S. president.)

You are hysterically jealous of Florida’s First Lady because she has what you will never have: A loving and devoted husband who is always there for her and their kids, in sickness and in health.

It’s not too late for you to find love too – but behaving like this isn’t the way… https://t.co/VO7QMmyWmX

— Christina Pushaw (@ChristinaPushaw) November 5, 2023

The chaos would seem to tee up Florida Democrats to do something they’ve rarely done over the past three decades — win. Yet this past week’s primary elections featured some of the familiar, ominous signs for the party.

The most palpable evidence was here in Central Florida in the state’s most-watched legislative race — a special election in House District 35 where Democrats actually have a slight voter-registration advantage.

Basically, if Democrats can’t win a race like this, they’re doomed. Enter the Florida Dems, saying: Hold our beer …

First of all, party leaders couldn’t agree upon which of their three candidates they liked best. Many institutional Dems, everyone from Hillary Clinton to a former state party chair, backed one candidate (Marucci Guzman). Many of the grassroots progressives backed another (Rishi Bagga).

So which of those two won? Neither.

The winner received the least financial support, Navy veteran Tom Keen, who loaned his own campaign nearly half the money he raised.

That means one of two things: Either party leaders and loyalists funneled so much of their resources to two different candidates that they split the vote, allowing the least-resourced candidate to prevail. Or Keen was always the guy that their voters wanted even as donors funneled cash to literally everyone in the race except him. Neither scenario inspires confidence.

Guzman was supported by many establishment Dems, including Hillary Clinton.
Bagga was supported by many die-hard progressives, including the progressive caucus & Young Dems.
Keen had the least institutional support – and won.

The Dem party and its voters aren't on the same page. pic.twitter.com/i6o3TxwUeF

— Scott Maxwell (@Scott_Maxwell) November 8, 2023

But there’s something else about this race in Orange and Osceola counties that should concern Democrats even more: Very few even bothered to vote … yet again.

Even though Democrats outnumber Republicans in this district, more Republicans showed up to cast ballots Tuesday. That is a very bad sign.

Yes, it was just a primary. Yes, turnout was low for everyone. But turnout is always a measure of voter enthusiasm. And the bottom line is that more Republicans cared enough about this election to get off their duffs and cast a ballot. (Or even remain on their duffs and just mail in a ballot.)

The Republican turnout advantage wasn’t giant. About 20% of Republicans turned out vs. 18% of Democrats. But here’s the thing: Florida Democrats have no room for error. They trail Republicans statewide. To win, they have to overperform and fetch independents. Instead, they’re underperforming. Again.

Some may argue that turnout in a primary isn’t a reflection of what turnout will be in a general election. But it often is.

In fact, last year, when I made a similar observation about how foreboding it was that Democrats didn’t show up to vote in the primaries, I was inundated with responses from Democrats who told me what an idiot I was. They argued primary turnout was irrelevant and that — just you wait — Democrats would show up when it counted in the general.

Except they didn’t. Republican turnout dwarfed Democratic turnout in the fall of 2022 with margins of 70% to 50% in some counties. And Florida Democrats got absolutely slaughtered, even as Democrats nationally outperformed expectations.

A really foreboding sign for Dems:
It looks like more Republicans cast ballots than Dems – even though there were no big GOP races at the top of the ticket

As of now:
1.4m votes in Dem guv's race
1.5 m in GOP ag commish

Huge enthusiasm/turnout gap.
And that's what decides races

— Scott Maxwell (@Scott_Maxwell) August 24, 2022

This isn’t rocket science. Turnout is key. You can’t win races unless your voters cast ballots.

Some Democrats seem to get this. Orlando Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani, for instance, launched something called a “People Power” initiative that is all about trying to get more people registered, to the polls and involved in the process.

Democrats also posted an unexpected big win in a competitive mayoral race in Jacksonville earlier this year.

And the party did something encouraging Tuesday night. Less than an hour after the results were in, the state party sent out a release saying it was uniting behind Keen — who’s actually a solid candidate as a decorated former flight officer and aerospace-and-simulation industry professional who received some lower-profile endorsements in the primary.

It may sound obvious for party members to unite behind their party’s nominee. But that obviosity has often eluded Florida Democrats. After Charlie Crist won the party’s gubernatorial primary last year, the reaction wasn’t universal support. Instead, many party loyalists kept on griping that Crist wasn’t progressive enough. They griped right up until the point when Democrats lost the race by a historic margin.

The most staggering statistic: Florida Democrats haven’t unseated a single Republican incumbent from a statewide office in more than three decades, even when Democrats had the voter-registration advantage.

Yes, Republicans have tried to suppress turnout — especially among minorities as the governor has staged menacing press events touting the voting arrests of dark-skinned Democrats while largely ignoring the White residents of The Villages caught voting multiple times and who were allowed to walk away with slaps on the wrist.

In Florida, not all voter fraud is considered equal | Commentary

And yes, Republicans have more money from the state’s leading special interests who count on the party doing them favors. Republicans have built-in electoral advantages.

But the biggest reason Republicans in Florida keep winning is that they make inroads with independent voters and keep showing up to vote.

And because they rally behind their candidates — even when those candidates are fighting with each other, calling each other unfit for office or generally acting like cringey talk-show guests.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

He spent more than two decades in the Army special forces as a Green Beret. And if you wonder where he served, it might be easier to ask where he didn’t. “I’ve been involved in most everything we’ve done for the last three decades,” he said. Iraq. Afghanistan. Bosnia. Ukraine. Africa.

Gully “retired” in 2012 and yet was back in Afghanistan the next month. He enjoyed combat but also had a head for numbers and strategy. So he’d go into the heart of conflicts and send reports back to the top brass. “They called me when they wanted a college professor who could win a bar fight,” he said. The guy’s basically a mashup of Jack Reacher and Indiana Jones who crafts handmade guitars to boot.

Yet the confidence and capability others saw in him faded in the darkness of solitude when Gully was back home and his marriage started falling apart; when the battles raged inside his head.

That was when Gully realized he needed to do something that’s often hard for warriors — ask for help.

He found it at the Camaraderie Foundation, a small Orlando nonprofit with limited resources but an unlimited desire to help.

For 14 years, the foundation has had a simple yet complex mission: “Healing the invisible wounds of war.”

The group responds anywhere, any time to any need. To veterans struggling to find a career in a world that often lacks the structure of the military. To soldiers struggling with inner demons at 2 o’clock in the morning. To spouses and children who are often overlooked for the sacrifices they make.

Saturday is Veterans Day. But the needs of our servicemen and women are year-round.

I’ve followed the Camaraderie Foundation since it was created in 2009 and have always believed this group punches above its weight class. With a budget of around only $1 million and four full-time staffers, the group serves about 700 people a year.

It doesn’t matter where the veterans and their families are located (about 40% are from other states), how the service members were discharged or how severe their needs.

“We pride ourselves on not making any distinction,” said the foundation’s CEO, Maria Cherjovsky.

The services are primarily counseling for veterans struggling with issues like post-traumatic stress disorder. But the group also helps vets transition from military service to careers in the private sector. You might be surprised how tough that can be for some.

Some don’t appreciate their own self-worth in the job market. Or they aren’t great advocates for themselves when it comes to pushing for decent pay or addressing basic workplace issues that an HR department could help them navigate. “A lot of them are not used to challenging authority. So if they don’t like something, they just quit,” Cherjovsky said. “Unless someone helps them, it’s going to be a very lonely path.”

The foundation pairs newly returning vets with former service members who’ve been in the workforce for years. “Nothing replaces the buddy system,” she said. “There’s an instant credibility there.”

The foundation also organizes communal days at the zoo or a theme park for veterans and their families free of charge, Cherjovsky said, “just to remind them of happier times and the joy they can experience if they just allow themselves to feel that way again.”

Still, at its heart, the Camaraderie Foundation is about helping veterans who endured intense stress and trauma.

Gully, who lost a close friend in combat, says many service members don’t appreciate the emotional roller coaster they ride. “Combat can get more exciting than you’ve ever experienced,” he said. “But then it can get really scary, more scary than anything you’ve ever experienced.”

Plus, Gully said guys like him are often reluctant to ask for help. “Pride gets in the way of everything,” he said. “And if you’re the biggest and the strongest because that’s all you’re ever strived to be, you think you shouldn’t have your faults.”

Gully said his divorce was the catalyst for him to finally ask for help. But he’s convinced underlying issues led to that moment. “It was a really difficult time for me to deal with it. Honestly, I don’t think I was dealing with it,” he said. “Mentally, I was starting to free swim. And the counseling gave me something to grab onto, a life preserver. It reminded me that, just because I was suffering with things, I wasn’t lost.”

Gully, who now designs guitars that are basically functional works of art, says counseling transformed his life — which makes it a gut-punch to realize the overworked foundation has a waiting list for services.

There are many other state and local groups that serve local veterans, including the Heart of Florida United Way and the American Legion Department of Florida. The city of Orlando has a good list of dozens of groups that support veterans on its website.

But if you want to help the Camaraderie Foundation, there are many ways. You can volunteer. If you have a company, you can consider corporate support or organizing ways for your employees to help out. You can donate yourself: $1,500 covers the cost of providing complete counseling services for one vet. Or you can do something as simple as participate in the group’s 5K rucksack run and walk in Oviedo in two weeks on Nov. 23. More information is available at camaraderiefoundation.org

Regardless of what anyone else does, Gully said he will continue to try to help his fellow veterans, letting them know the foundation is always there. “I let them know they can call me anytime,” he said. “And they already know we understand, because we’ve lived it.”

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

In a piece about how Orange County spends the mounds of hotel-tax dollars it collects each year, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer mentioned that the county’s convention center had just run up a deficit of more than $21 million.

That seemed … huge.

I knew the convention center often lost money. It’s one of Central Florida’s dirty little secrets. The building is supposedly an economic driver. In reality, it’s a money pit — a rarely fully-used complex that sometimes has to bribe groups to come here by offering deep discounts or even free rentals.

Still, the last time I checked, the center lost a few million dollars a year — and actually managed to break even on occasion. Not anymore.

Over the last four years, the convention center has lost about a whopping $100 million, posting annual losses as high as $32 million a year.

To put that in perspective, $100 million is enough money to pay for two elementary schools, 10 electric buses and put 100 police officers on the street for a year.

So you can have all that — or you can cover the deficit costs of giving the AAU Girls’ Junior National Volleyball tournament a 90% rental-rate discount just to have some bodies in the building in July.

Orange County cut convention center’s rates by more than $1 million for AAU volleyball tourney

And don’t think that people are avoiding convention centers because of the pandemic. The market started shrinking and the county’s deficit started growing back in 2019 before anyone even heard of the coronavirus. Even when Central Florida’s tourism economy was booming this past year, the center still ran a deficit of around $20 million — more money lost than any pre-pandemic year.

Why? You probably already know the answer. Because people aren’t attending as many in-person meetings anymore. You know this from the number of Zoom meetings you now attend. Corporate bean-counters figured this out as well. While there will always be some market for big, in-person meetings, the demand is slowing.

Yet despite decreasing demand and increasing deficits, county commissioners recently voted to spend another half billion dollars to again expand the center that is already bigger than the Pentagon at 7 million square feet.

Demings, commissioners vote to keep Orange County low-wage ‘Laborland’ | Commentary

Again, why? Because the hotel bosses in town told them to.

“It’s a great deal for them. They’re not paying a penny. Putting rooms on the books five or six years in advance gives them a guaranteed base.”

Those are the words of Heywood Sanders, a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio who has been studying convention centers for decades. Sanders is one of the few people who studies the industry and isn’t paid by the industry. So he offers the kind of frank, no-nonsense analysis local leaders rarely hear or solicit.

If you listen to local convention boosters, they’ll tell you the center generates billions in local revenue. What they rarely talk about is where that revenue goes — primarily to hotels that pay low wages and ship their profits to corporate headquarters in other states.

One of the few convention complexes that doesn’t lose money regularly is in Chicago where local leaders realized they should run the hotels themselves. The authority there owns two big hotels near the center, the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place and the Marriott Marquis Chicago.

That has allowed taxpayers to save big. While Chicago lost a whopping $51 million running its center in 2019, according to its budget documents, the two hotels generated $53 million in profits, more than covering the loss.

Here, taxpayers cover the deficit in the form of hotel taxes, which other communities use for things like schools, transit and roads. And hotels scoop up the profits. A few are locally based, such as Rosen Resorts. But most send them back to headquarters in places like Maryland, Virginia and Illinois.

This is Central Florida’s definition of “return on investment.” Taxpayers invest. Hoteliers get the returns.

And that’s when the model is working well. Most conventional wisdom (pardon the pun) says the convention market is either shrinking or stagnant. Yet hoteliers and the consultants who make money by recommending constant expansions continue to persuade politicians to expand. (See the New York Times piece from a few years ago: “Nobody Is Going to Conventions. Convention Centers Are Growing Anyway.”)

As a result, convention centers are getting more desperate and recruiting lower-value shows — like the girls volleyball tournament or fan-centered events like MegaCon.

Those events are less valuable because the attendees spend less. Instead of a conventioneer booking a room for herself at the Waldorf Astoria and dining each night at high-end steakhouses, you have comic-book fans and teenage athletes jammed four-to-a-room at the Hampton Inn and ordering Papa John’s.

Still, the bottom line is that most all of the “economic activity” conventions generate is largely jobs in hotels and restaurants.

Other communities invest in high-wage medical, technology and manufacturing jobs. We spend billions to create more table-bussing and hotel-housekeeping jobs … and run a deficit in the process.

Only two county commissioners voted against the most recent expansion: Nicole Wilson and Emily Bonilla. Mayor Jerry Demings and the other four all greenlit expanding the money-losing center.

Oddly, members of this mostly Democratic board claimed they wanted to hear some hard economic data about the convention industry, but voted for the expansion before getting it. Spend first, ask questions later.

If commissioners are serious stewards about taxpayers’ money, they’ll bring in someone like Sanders who doesn’t profit off the convention industry or work at a college endowed by a hotelier. They’d ask for some skeptical analysis of the industry’s future — and why their own deficit-running building is so often empty before making it even bigger.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

We woke up to news of a shooting at a nightclub. There were multiple fatalities. Maybe 20. Then maybe 40.

It couldn’t be 40, could it? This nation had never witnessed such a thing.

We would come to learn that 49 innocent souls — people who had simply wanted to dance their cares away for a night — lost their lives at the Pulse nightclub.

We vowed to never forget. And we haven’t. But in the years since, this community has been plagued with debate, arguments and even controversy over the best way to do so.

While I’m a guy who usually has no problems pointing fingers, it seems like there should be only one real goal right now — to move forward.

“This is all about 49 people who lost their lives. That’s all it should ever be about.”

Those are the words of Deborah Bowie, the executive director of the onePULSE Foundation, a group that has been at the center of the debate with questions about everything from its finances to its mission.

Bowie, whose own sister was killed nearly 30 years ago by gun violence and who moved to Orlando for this job less than a year ago, walked into a difficult situation. So much so that there are questions about the future of the organization itself.

Still, after years of raw and painful community grieving, there seems to be an avenue for hope now that the city of Orlando recently purchased the former nightclub site to finally advance plans for a long-talked-about memorial.

There’s an argument to be made that it should’ve been that way all along. When a government is in charge, there are mandates with regard to transparency and finances.

I don’t fault those involved with onePULSE for their initial desires to have a freestanding organization. In fact, it made sense to me at the time. But seven years later, with as much turmoil as ever and a memorial that’s still little more than a dream, it seems like change is in order.

That’s what Mayor Buddy Dyer decided after he said a number of survivors and victims’ families asked the city to step in. “This wasn’t something that we wanted to do,” Dyer said. “It was something we felt compelled to do.”

One of the most unfortunately complicated and, at times, unseemly aspects of this story has been the acquisition of the former club. One of the owners, Barbara Poma, originally said she was willing to donate the site. Then another partner said that wasn’t the deal. Debates over an appropriate purchase price got even more complicated when onePULSE execs said they learned the club owners had already received insurance payments for the property. Suddenly onePULSE was at odds with Poma, the woman who originally founded the organization but then left.

The bottom line: Debate and controversy seemed to have dominated the entire conversation, overshadowing what should’ve been the primary goal all along — honoring the victims.

That’s why Dyer said city leaders ultimately decided to purchase the property. “Would we rather they donate that site? Absolutely,” he said. “But would we rather that property become something other than a memorial? Absolutely not.”

Indeed, no one wants to contemplate a day when a place where 49 innocents lost their lives somehow becomes just another fast-food joint or smoke shop.

Twenty years from now, I don’t think most people will care as much how a memorial came to exist as much as that it did.

It’s never simple for communities to decide how to honor victims of a mass murder — a ridiculously common occurrence in this country. A quote that has haunted me for months appeared in our newspaper back in May when a consultant who has worked with other trauma-rocked cities said, “There’s a saying in this line of work: If you want to start a war, build a memorial.”

That is heartbreakingly sad. Yet also understandable.

Inside the real estate dilemma between onePULSE Foundation and its former exec

It took a shattered community in Newtown, Connecticut nearly a decade to decide how it wanted to honor the 20 children and six educators killed at Sandy Hook Elementary.

But when the memorial finally opened last year, one of the parents told NPR that the memorial took her breath away. She said what finally evolved near the rebuilt school was “perfectly appointed in honoring and providing a place of contemplation and reflection for a day that really changed the country.”

Similarly, it seems like there is more widespread support for a memorial than a museum here in Orlando. Dyer says the memorial is his top priority, but that the city’s first step has to be “a lot of listening.”

I’m not sure whether onePULSE has a future with this endeavor. When I asked Bowie about the fate of the organization, she took a deep breath and said: “I don’t know.” She said so with weariness.

onePULSE has done some life-changing things, including awarding more than $1 million worth of scholarships, and staged some unifying events, including a 5K run. But road races aren’t at the core of what this community needs or why this organization was formed.

It seems like reflection is in order, and I sense the foundation’s well-intentioned leaders know this. One thing the organization should consider is donating the land it purchased near the nightclub to the city to complete plans for a memorial.

No matter what happens, the nonprofit will have to be accountable to its donors, both private and public.

But the community’s focus needs to be moving ahead — something Bowie said she firmly believes as one who still grieves the loss of her own sister decades ago.

“That was my why,” she said. “It’s why I came here. That pain never goes away. I understand people move on, society moves on — but the families can’t. And that is why this project has to move forward.”

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

Maxwell: After Pulse attack, with all eyes on Orlando, let me tell you who we really are

But first I wanted to invite you to dish out some hugs of your own — by giving me your suggestions for this year’s list of “101 Things to Love about Central Florida.”

That’s right, it’s already November. (You can tell it’s fall in Florida because the temperatures aren’t expected to get back into the mid-80s for five whole days.) And this column’s Thanksgiving tradition is to celebrate all the things that make this community so enjoyably unique.

So, what do you love most about Orlando and the rest of this multi-county region we all call home? Feel free to send your nominations for the places, experiences, traditions, businesses, organizations, entertainment and people that you’d like to recognize to the email at the bottom of this piece.

Now on to the hugs and slugs…

A decade of dining

Let’s start with a hug for Central Florida’s OG food hall, East End Market.

The Sentinel’s culinary queen, Amy Drew Thompson, noted that the market just celebrated its 10th anniversary. And while food halls are pretty common these days, that wasn’t the case back when East End transformed an old church into an epicurean destination in 2013 — and attracted global attention for doing so. (The New York Times cited the Market as one of the reasons it put Orlando on its list of the best cities on earth to visit.)

I’m no Amy Drew, but if you want my suggestions for East End dishes to sample, consider the wings from Domu, the grilled cheese sandwiches from La Femme du Fromage, the overly indulgent butter-fueled cookies from Gideon’s Bakehouse or the Buffalo “chicken” sandwich at the plant-based Winter Park Biscuit Co., which is kinda mind-blowing.

Orlando’s East End Market turns 10

A Fine whine

I’m not sure whether State Rep. Randy Fine deserves a slug or tongue-in-cheek hug for his gloriously self-absorbed whine — and admission — about why he didn’t get the job as president of Florida Atlantic University.

If you didn’t read the South Florida Sun-Sentinel interview with Fine, it was truly something. Basically, the Brevard County Republican and former casino executive with no higher-ed experience said Gov. Ron DeSantis told him the job was his, but then trustees at FAU had the audacity to ask him questions about his qualifications. “I was given a series of questions that basically had nothing to do with anything about me,” he said. “They were for a seasoned traditional academic. Talk about your experience managing sports teams. Talk about your experience managing academic research.”

In other words: The people looking for someone to run a university had the gall to ask whether the applicants might be remotely qualified to do so. And it made Randy really, really mad.

‘You’re going to waltz right in’: Randy Fine talks of how FAU presidential bid fizzled out

Accessibility matters

A hug to the Friends of Seminole State Forest for donating motorized wheelchairs with all-terrain rubber tracks for use at Blue Spring and DeLeon Springs state parks.

Most people can already explore the parks’ boardwalks and paved areas. But, as the Sentinel’s Patrick Connolly recently wrote, the EcoRover chairs provide most everyone the opportunity to explore less-traveled parts of the parks, including sandy trails. It’d be nice if all parks and the agencies that run them provided such a service. But kudos to this local nonprofit for doing so.

Blue Spring State Park: New tracked chair aids accessibility outdoors

Vote, then profit?

A slug to Sarasota state Sen. Joe Gruters for reportedly trying to personally profit off investing in an insurance company — after voting to make it tougher for policyholders to sue insurance companies that stiff them out of benefits.

Both the Tampa Bay Times and Sarasota Herald-Tribune wrote about the actions of the senator in their backyards. As the Times explained: “Lured by the nation’s highest premiums and new laws making it harder to sue insurance companies, investors see an opportunity in Florida’s beleaguered insurance market.” The Herald-Tribune then reported that Gruters was one of those potential investors, saying he had “solicited fellow lawmakers to sign on as investors and shared a prospectus touting big investment returns.”

This isn’t complicated. Politicians should never vote on issues that affect their own finances.

NEW: A Florida state senator pitched fellow lawmakers on investing in a new homeowners insurance company, after voting to limit lawsuits against insurers.

"There lies a unique and lucrative opportunity for investors," it states:https://t.co/dc6jTXo17w

— Lawrence Mower (@lmower3) October 30, 2023

Roll them bones

And finally, the Seminole Tribe gave gamblers a hug by announcing Wednesday that the tribe’s Hard Rock and other casinos will debut live roulette and craps next month.

This could still face legal challenges. But frankly, it’s silly that Florida allowed these casinos to offer slots, blackjack, poker and gobs of other games — including video roulette and video craps — but not actual roulette and craps. Gambling laws are some of the goofiest laws around.

The problem was that the tribe got greedy in its last compact negotiation with the state, asking lawmakers (whom the tribe has showered with campaign cash) to also grant them a monopoly on sports-betting throughout the entire state. And the tribe’s argument that the betting action would only take place on tribal land — since that’s where the bet-processing computer servers would be located, even if the bets were actually placed anywhere from Pensacola to Big Pine Key — was just as goofy.

Still, the tribe should be able to offer whatever gaming it wants on its own property. And it should’ve been that way all along.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

New reports show veteran employees and managers are fleeing, saying incompetent management is in charge.

Spending on road maintenance  is down while $795-an-hour checks to politically connected lawyers are increasing.

And now we’ve learned that the district awarded a $240,000 no-bid contract to yet another political insider — a member of the state’s now-infamous ethics commission who used to serve alongside the district’s ethically embattled new director, Glen Gilzean. That contract was canceled Monday after media raised questions.

Gee, who could’ve ever imagined that asking political cronies to mount a politically motivated takeover of a private business would lead to trouble?

Let’s start with the staff exodus. The Florida watchdog website, Seeking Rents, reported over the weekend that more than 30 district employees — including nearly half the senior leadership team — have resigned amid claims of mismanagement.

The numbers were significant, representing more than 350 years of combined experience and about a tenth of the district’s workforce resigning over the course of nine months. But just as significant were the reasons they gave for leaving.

One departing department director called the new leadership “unqualified and incompetent,” saying in an exit survey obtained via public-records requests that: “With the departure of more than 3 dozen employees, the district is no longer functional.”

A departing accountant described “a toxic workplace right now.” A former manager with more than 30 years of experience said the new political appointees “show a severe lack of trust for employees.”

And a departing executive assistant said the new leaders “could care less about the work that needs to be done for the taxpayers.”

How magical.

ICYMI: Employees of the district that oversees Walt Disney World are quitting in droves after Ron DeSantis seized control in order to punish the Walt Disney Co. – and installed new leadership that ex-workers say is inept, dishonest and toxic. https://t.co/FyekkH6szY pic.twitter.com/jywSD851S8

— Jason Garcia (@Jason_Garcia) October 30, 2023

Then there’s the no-bid contract that the new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District recently awarded to another political crony — DeSantis ally Freddie Figgers (whose name actually sounds like a Disney character).

As WFTV reported last week, the district awarded Figgers a contract to help provide 911 services without giving other Florida companies the chance to bid on the gig.

Now, the district’s procurement policy states that contracts worth more than $100,000 should be competitively bid. And this contract was worth $242,500. Even Tweedledum knows that second number is bigger than the first.

But the district said that — gosh, darn it — it just didn’t have time to competitively bid this job out and that their policies allow “emergency” contracts to be issued without bids.

That sounds like a lot of Bibbidi Bobbidi bunk — especially since the contract ended up going to another DeSantis appointee.

Yes, these guys want you to believe that in a state of 22 million people, the only company capable of doing this emergency-communications work happens to be run by another gubernatorial appointee who serves on this state’s joke of an ethics commission.

It’s truly a small world, after all.

After local media asked questions, Figgers sent a letter to the district Monday agreeing to cancel his no-bid contract to “err on the side of caution,” saying: “We welcome the opportunity for an open bidding process …” Good for him. That’s how it should’ve been all along.

Speaking of the ethics commission, I still don’t understand how anyone thinks it’s proper for Gilzean to be pulling down this $400,000-a-year paycheck after the ethics commission’s own attorney said he was violating state statutes earlier this year by trying to serve as both an ethics commissioner and a paid public employee. Gilzean was forced to give up his ethics post, but this governor has yanked duly elected public officials out of office who have broken no rules while he leaves this statute-violating guy in a cushy job.

DeSantis’ Disney chief can’t hold both posts, ethics lawyer says

Meanwhile, the district is racking up legal bills. The district’s budget shows spending on “professional services … due to legal fees” has skyrocketed from $4.2 million to $11.1 million with some of that money going to $795-an-hour law firms, including one whose partners include DeSantis’ former roommate and campaign supporter.

Not magical: Disney will pay legal bills for both sides in DeSantis fight

At the same time, the amount budgeted for road repairs and maintenance — you know, the kind of work the district is actually supposed to be doing — has been cut by several million dollars, even though the park is growing and costs are rising.

So, cronies are cashing in while services suffer under this gubernatorial board whose members include a Moms for Liberty member and a pastor who made headlines for suggesting that contaminated tap water was turning people gay. The Mad Hatter would be proud.

DeSantis appointee to Disney board denies saying tap water turns you gay. Um, what? | Commentary

Listen, many of us never thought Disney deserved its own private governmental district. No company does. But Tallahassee lawmakers were happy to let Disney keep this ridiculous perk as long as the company kept cutting them campaign checks and supporting their legislation. It was only after Disney criticized their anti-gay bills and announced that it was ending its political donations that the politicians staged hissy fits and vowed to retaliate.

DeSantis, Florida GOP did favors for Disney – until Disney stopped giving them money | Commentary

Still, even then, I might’ve supported them taking away Disney’s special governmental powers and treating the company like everyone else. But that’s not what DeSantis and GOP legislators did. Instead, they created their own little political kingdom where a group of political appointees controls the business fate of a private company. No other company is treated like that.

This was political retaliation and poorly thought-out retaliation at that. And we’re now seeing exactly how that plays out — fleeing employees, big legal bills, suspicious contracts and all.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

The biggest red flag: The funding request she sponsored contained a lie. It claimed the village of Key Biscayne had requested the money for a flooding-prevention project.

Now, it was already odd that a freshman rep from Orlando was championing the needs of a tiny town 240 miles away. But it got even weirder when that town revealed it had never requested the money — that the only supposed justification for the funding, a “letter of support from the village manager of the Village of Key Biscayne,” did not exist.

Orlando Rep. Amesty touts millions in local pork projects – and raises red flags | Commentary

There were many more flags, including that the the project hadn’t been vetted by any independent experts nor deemed necessary by any state department, according to the request. Also that the money wasn’t going to any kind of respected water experts but rather to a small chamber of commerce in South Florida.

The whole thing stunk. But the legislators who approved the funding didn’t seem to care. In fact, House Speaker Paul Renner has steadfastly refused to answer any questions about the taxpayer dollars he voted to give away based on bogus information. And Amesty says questions about inconsistencies in her funding request should be directed to legislators with more seniority.

Apparently in the Florida House of Representatives, the buck stops nowhere.

Well, the politicians up in Tallahassee may not care. But the local ones who were unwittingly dragged into this mess sure do.

Last week, the Key Biscayne city council called a special meeting to set the record straight — and to sever ties with the city lobbyist who’d worked with Amesty on the $3 million request.

Mayor Joe Rasco said the false information used to justify the $3 million project “was a misrepresentation of our view and our interests.”

Council member Allison McCormick said: “This project is clearly not something that aligns with our priorities.”

Former council member Luis de la Cruz called the project “absolutely worthless for us.”

As I watched video of the meeting from afar, I found myself struck by how seriously these local officials took their jobs, their reputations and the taxpayers’ money. They knew something looked rotten. And they felt compelled to speak up and take action.

Compare that to Tallahassee where rotten is apparently just so status quo that nobody considers it a big deal — or fears voter accountability.

If there’s a saving grace, it’s that the senate president’s office confirmed last week that the $3 million check has not yet been cut. So there’s still time to vet this appropriation — the way it should’ve been vetted before lawmakers voted to give the public’s money away.

After all, if legislators had actually looked at the funding request, they would’ve seen the answer to this question: “Has the need for the funds been documented by a study, completed by an independent 3rd party …?” The answer: “No.”

And this one: “Has the appropriate state agency for administering the funding, if the request were appropriated, been contacted?” Again: “No.”

To this day, that agency, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has been unable or unwilling to give a single reason why this money should be spent or explain why a little-known chamber of commerce would take the reins on an environmental project instead of state or local environmental agencies.

The funding request said the chamber’s “Institute of Sustainable Water Solutions” would design and develop flood-monitoring techniques. But state records show the Institute didn’t even exist when the money was requested. The chamber formed it later. So this “Institute” isn’t just inexperienced, it was recently nonexistent.

Put it all together, and it looks like this small chamber that endorsed Amesty’s campaign last year and listed $185,000 of total revenues back in 2019 wanted $3 million in state money, didn’t have much documented justification for why it should get it — and ended up bogusly claiming Key Biscayne wanted them to have it.

Also of particular note: The lobbyist for the chamber and the city of Key Biscayne was the same guy, Jonathan Kilman with Converge. That’s who the city severed ties with, responding to a letter where Kilman offered to resign but also said he wanted to stay on. Council members said they wouldn’t assign motives to the error but stressed that it was, in fact, an error that they wanted to disassociate themselves from.

Kilman said in an email Thursday that his firm made an honest mistake. He said erroneous information put on an early draft of the funding request was accidentally left on the final one. But he also said he thought the project would benefit the town. (Remember how village officials described the project: “a misrepresentation of our view and our interests” … “clearly not something that aligns with our priorities” … “absolutely worthless.”)

I can’t say for sure what all the motives were. But we know that $3 million of public money was awarded based, partly, on false information and with very little vetting. That seems like reason enough to put the kibosh on it.

Amesty doesn’t shoulder all the blame. Freshmen back-benchers aren’t usually allowed to raise their hands without permission. And this project isn’t even remotely close to the Orlando Republican’s Disney World district. (Even though Amesty touted the $3 million appropriation for the South Florida chamber in a tweet that said: “CAROLINA AMESTY SECURES MILLIONS FOR OUR COMMUNITY”)

Delivering for Central Florida! pic.twitter.com/QQZHU13vKP

— Carolina Amesty (@carolina_amesty) July 8, 2023

It seems like the best thing Renner, Amesty and others could do at this point is say: Look, we made a mistake. We were given false information. Obviously, there’s no way we’re giving away millions of public dollars under that scenario. So we’re holding onto this money.

Then, if the chamber wants to try to get its hands on public money again next session, it can try again — with an accurate funding request. Heck, maybe the state’s environment division could even weigh in on this environmental project.

In other words: The bigwig state officials in Tallahassee could take a page from the lowly council members down in Key Biscayne — and try showing they care about truth, accuracy and the public’s money.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

Rep. Amesty leaves trail of falsehoods, unpaid taxes and bills, records show

The insurance industry’s own trade group said homeowners’ rates in Florida were the highest in America, averaging $4,231 a year— nearly triple the national figure.

Most Floridians were feeling the pinch. A disturbing number were opting to “go naked,” meaning they simply wouldn’t have insurance if a storm or fire wiped out their home. Some decided they couldn’t afford to live here anymore.

So, after years of ignoring the mounting crisis to wage culture wars with Disney and drag queens, Florida’s governor and Legislature finally staged a couple of special sessions on insurance, vowing relief.

And they provided some … to the insurance companies anyway, passing laws that make it harder for you to sue your insurance company if the company denies you a claim.

The theory: Shielding insurers from costly litigation would make rates drop. Now let’s talk about what’s really happened.

The Insurance Information Institute says average premiums in Florida are now $6,000, representing a 102% increase over the past three years. Some new companies are entering the market. But some are offering to take policyholders off the state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. with rate hikes of 70% or 80%. The state’s insurance commissioner said some companies wanted hikes of 300% to 500%.

How’s that for “relief”?

We’ll talk more about the efforts to shrink Citizens. But first, let’s get real: Insurance in Florida is still a mess. The “reforms” passed so far are just nibbling around the edges. Real reform — to significantly lower rates — requires the kind of hard work lawmakers have so far dodged.

The harsh reality is that Florida has big insurance problems. We’re a hurricane-prone state surrounded by rising seas.

I trust insurance companies as little as the next guy. But obviously, we’d have more of them here if they thought Florida was a stable, potentially profitable market.

So the state can do one of three things:

1) Massively invest in and expand Citizens so that it becomes like Medicare for property insurance, state-run insurance most everyone can access

2) Subsidize the market in other ways, like using taxpayer money to underwrite the cost of reinsurance for private companies

3) Just allow rates to continue to skyrocket. And if Floridians can’t afford it, so be it.

Here’s the problem: Nos. 1 and 2 involve serious investment and hard work — neither of which GOP lawmakers have been willing to make or do. So we’re heading toward No. 3.

The last time I wrote about this issue, I huddled with a former GOP lawmaker, Jeff Brandes, who agreed the state hasn’t done enough.

Florida’s insurance crisis: 2 special sessions, little help | Commentary

This time, I consulted Democratic State Rep. Hillary Cassel, a South Florida insurance attorney who’s so well-respected that one of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ top aides hired her firm to fight a battle against his own insurance company. (The irony.)

Cassel describes the GOP-led Legislature’s “reform” so far as little more than “a $3 billion handout to the insurance industry” that has done little to help homeowners.

Cassel says Florida homeowners haven’t really had advocates, noting the state’s last insurance commissioner left to become a lobbyist. And she says Republican lawmakers have largely ignored the Florida-specific problems posed by climate change and flooding. “We are ground zero for climate change, for flooding,” Cassel said. “We have to come to terms with that. We can’t continue to live in Fantasyland.”

If you want proof that things in Florida are going off the rails, consider a December report from the Miami Herald that said as many as 13% of all Florida homeowners were choosing to “go naked” with no insurance at all, according to the Insurance Institute. That’s double the national average.

That’s a disaster waiting to happen. People talk of “self-insuring” by putting money aside in case something happens to a house where the mortgage is already paid. Well, let’s say you put aside $1,000 a month (way more than many people would and than most insurance would cost). After five years, you’d have a grand total of $60,000 to replace your home if it gets destroyed.

Self-insurance is not a solution. It’s a desperate last resort that could end up wrecking lives – and taxpayer wallets if the government steps in to clean up the mess, as it usually does after big storms.

Florida Insurance rates soar to ‘crisis’ level after do-nothing lawmakers piddled | Commentary

The latest nibbling-around-the-edges solution involves Florida’s efforts to reduce the number of people relying on the state-run Citizens program. And the early news was troubling. Residents were getting snail-mail letters that told them they would automatically default to a private insurer charging 70 or 80% more if they didn’t take action, which seemed like an opportunity to gouge. As it turned out, some companies wanted to offer price hikes with as much as 300% premium increases.

The state said many of the higher offers came from Slide, an insurance company run by CEO Bruce Lucas, who generated controversy a few years ago when he ran another company, Heritage, that was jacking up rates while Lucas earned a $27 million compensation package.

Slide has also been funneling massive amounts of campaign cash to Florida politicians lately, including $100,000 to the committee run by CFO Jimmy Patronis, more than $200,000 to the Republican Senate Committee and hundreds of thousands more.

Slide Insurance has very quickly become a major campaign contributor to Florida politicians. https://t.co/86njFhPDmf pic.twitter.com/OlvWrUSlXn

— Jason Garcia (@Jason_Garcia) June 27, 2023

Fortunately, the state stepped in and got Slide to agree not to make any offers that represented more than a 100% increase — which is still massive. And insurance officials have ordered companies to cap future  Citizen “depopulation” offers at 40%.

Ultimately, the state moved about 100,000 customers off Citizens to private insurers with most paying less than 20% more. That seems reasonable. And those who defaulted into higher rates will get another chance to stay with Citizens when their first bills arrive.

But again, this is still mainly nibbling around the edges. A few more companies are coming in. Citizens is shedding a fraction of its 1.3 million policies. But prices are still rising. That’s why we need the big stuff.

Either big solution — investing more in Citizens or market subsidies — should be accompanied by serious restrictions and protections. Subsidies, whether provided through reinsurance or any other way, should be coupled with demands for transparency and lower rates. And any additional Citizens policies should include coverage caps and not go to houses being built in known, high-risk areas.

Still, the solutions are there in a state where the budget has been flush. But only if lawmakers start doing the real, hard work.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

Instead, they often approach public policy with the savviness of a cane toad. It doesn’t make them any more redeeming. But it does make them easier to catch.

Which brings us to Randy Fine.

You may know that the Brevard County Republican legislator is a leader in the state’s crusade against drag queens. The guy seems to have an obsession that would make RuPaul blush.

The problem for Fine is that there’s a pesky document known as the U.S. Constitution that says government can’t just ban or restrict performances — or speech of any kind — just because politicians claim to dislike it.

That’s why most of the savvier Republicans have tried to be sneaky in their attacks. Even though they’re clearly targeting drag shows, they’ve argued that isn’t the case — that they simply want to protect kids.

Now, their claims are totally transparent horse hockey — as a federal judge already ruled when he wrote that their recently passed bill was “specifically designed to suppress the speech of drag queen performers.”

But again, at least the savvy Republicans tried to act like that wasn’t the case. The same can’t be said for Fine.

Newly released emails show Fine originally tried to target drag acts by tinkering with a statute that mentions “bestiality” and “sadomasochistic abuse.” (We’ll talk more about that in a moment. And if you don’t know what bestiality is, I’d tell you to Google it, except, for the love of all that’s holy, please DO NOT GOOGLE IT.)

Anyway, records obtained by the Seeking Rents website show Fine sent emails to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ staff earlier this year calling for new language that explicitly cracked down on “drag performances.”

You see the problem, right? The state’s entire (failed) legal defense has been to claim these laws don’t specifically target drag performances. Yet here was Fine admitting the unconstitutional truth.

Not only that, Fine’s proposal was so broad and ham-handed — defining drag as any “performance in which a performer exhibits a gender identity that is different than the performer’s gender assigned at birth” — that it probably would’ve targeted everything from “Twelfth Night” to “Some Like it Hot.”

The governor’s staff didn’t take Fine’s suggestion. Instead, they tried a more nuanced approach. Unfortunately for them, Fine had already admitted the state’s true motivations multiple times. So the judge actually quoted Fine saying he wanted to target drag performances as evidence that the state was lying when claiming that wasn’t the case.

Florida drag queen ruling reveals lies. Read the laws yourself.

Jason Garcia, the former Orlando Sentinel reporter who runs the Seeking Rents site, asked Fine why he proposed something that was so clearly unconstitutional, reporting: “Fine said he did not remember proposing the amendment, so he could not say why he ultimately chose not to pursue it.”

Now that sounds like a guy who should be the next president of a major Florida university.

New: Lawyers for Ron DeSantis claim in court that a controversial new state law does not target drag queens.

But emails show it is intended to.https://t.co/0bzs1wNWWg pic.twitter.com/UVPT4Hk75q

— Jason Garcia (@Jason_Garcia) October 18, 2023

I said earlier that we’d get back to bestiality. (Words I never expected nor wanted to write.) Well, that’s because Fine’s original proposal was to add drag performances to an existing list of restricted content in Florida, including movies that feature “sexual battery, bestiality, or sadomasochistic abuse and which is harmful to minors.”

But that was problematic for the anti-drag crowd as well. Why? Because that statute also includes this line: “The provisions of paragraph (a) do not apply to a minor when the minor is accompanied by his or her parents or either of them.”

In other words: Existing state law says parents have the final say over what their kids can see.

But Fine and GOP lawmakers didn’t want parental rights to apply to drag shows. Just bestiality. The law they passed (SB 1438) specifically targets “live performances” while leaving movies alone.

And that’s perhaps the sickest part of all this. Fine and the governor’s office looked at a statute that clearly says parents can take their kids to movies that feature violent sex scenes and intercourse with animals and concluded: Yeah, we’re cool with that. We just wanna go after the queens.

Those are some odd family values.

You might be able to dismiss all this twistedness as political gaslighting, except you’re paying to defend it. The state is continuing to fight in court to defend their attack on drag. And how much of your money are they spending on this? Well, the state won’t say.

Last week, I asked Melanie Griffin, the secretary of the state’s department of business and professional regulation — the state division defending this law in court — how much taxpayer money has been spent. Griffin did not answer the question, saying instead that her communications team “can assist you with the requested information.”

I’m sure they can. But they haven’t as of yet. The state has dragged its feet before when asked to provide similar records. But we persisted and learned the state was paying lawyers up to $675 an hour to defend other clearly unconstitutional laws. So we’ll persist here as well.

Your tax dollars pay lawyers $675 an hour to defend unconstitutional laws | Commentary

Already, though, the records, statutes and court rulings have laid bare these guys’ true intentions — even if they didn’t mean to. And while those intentions may not be good for the Constitution or your tax dollars, I guess they’re good news for sadomasochistic filmmakers.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

State Rep. Randy Fine says he’s being considered for FAU president job. DeSantis’ office calls him ‘a good candidate.’