The odds remain slim, extremely slim, that Florida will accept in any way the $2.4 billion that Governor Rick Scott said he didn't want from the feds last week to build a high-speed rail line from Tampa to Orlando. But a rally to be held today in downtown Tampa will try to keep that slim reed of hope alive that there still might be a way to bring home the cash.
The protest is scheduled for high noon at City Hall Plaza, on the southeast corner of Kennedy Blvd. and Franklin Street. Organizers, who include the Livable Tampa Roundtable, the Hillsborough County League of Women Voters and the Sierra Club, are telling people to bring signs, and also are telling them that it is a "PRO-High Speed Rail" event, "NOT an anti-Gov. Scott event."
That's sound advice, if your goal is to persuade the state's chief executive to change his mind, and not alienate him.
Having said that, the odds that Scott will change his mind seem extremely remote at this time. The fact that even if another agency could be found to park the money, everything we read tells us that Scott would still have to sign off on it, which seems extremely dubious.
Officials with Florida Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson are actually distributing St. Pete Times reporter Alex Leary's story
"The governor does not believe they can produce a plan that would hold the state completely harmless," spokesman Brian Burgess said.
But U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who pressed Scott on the issue after running into him at Sunday's Daytona 500, remains optimistic.
"The governor presumably would go forward, if the state didn't have any financial responsibility," Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin said. He added that Nelson talked with LaHood on Sunday and LaHood "feels like it can be done while also meeting the governor's concerns."
But if you read further down Leary's story, and well, it doesn't sound like Scott's that malleable.
This article appears in Feb 17-23, 2011.