A 2006 federal grant to Katrina-Wilma states meant $100M for Florida, but it's now clear that Gov. Bush, in his final days, approved a plan to spend most of it on his My Safe Florida Home program (strengthening homes against future storms) rather than on the blue-tarpaulined roofs still needing repair (mostly of low-income people). Obviously, local officials in SoFlo (Wilma-land) are ticked, as will be the actual residents when word filters down. (An official in Homestead said he could use $2M right now for 100 houses.) Furthermore, the officials complain, in what might become known in future as a Bush boys' tradition, there appears to have been no genuine consultation with anyone outside the governor's office before the decision was made. [St. Petersburg Times]
Miami-Dade County Commission Stands Up to Newer, Stronger Mayor Voters may have greatly empowered Mayor Carlos Alvarez on Tuesday, but the Commission showed him yesterday that it still had the biggest, thickest manhood in the county, voting 10-2 to bar the police's anti-corruption unit (after Tuesday, under the control of the mayor) from leading any investigation into corruption by the commissioners. (Alvarez is the former chief of police and created the anti-corruption unit.) [Miami Herald]
Shaky Justice in Broward Alan Ruff, a black man, was finally convicted yesterday of the 2001 murder of his ex-girlfriend, who was white. He's had five trials now; the first four ended in mistrial, probably because there was no physical evidence tying Ruff to the crime scene, not even a smidgen of blood or fiber. The chief piece of evidence: an eyewitness-fisherman, who said he saw Ruff drive off at about the time of the killing. Ruff's public defender, who has been around for all five trials, said he's sure number six is on tap, after his appeal. [Miami Herald]
Follow-Up Seminole County settled up with the strip-searched victims of Judge Sloop (ex-Judge Sloop [The F State, 12-8-2006]) for $40k per victim of the sheriff's blanket policy of strip-searching everyone sent over from court, irrespective of offense. Sloop, you recall, had sent a bunch of them over just because they mistakenly reported to the wrong room and were thus, according to him, in contempt of court, and, as a result of that little episode, the state Supreme Court said the judge's services were no longer needed, ever. This settlement is broader, though, covering others who were improperly strip-searched in Seminole. [Orlando Sentinel]
Floridians With Worse Sex Lives Than You Registered sex offender James Keppel, 47, passed away in the retirement community of Leisureville in Palm Beach County. Police said that he apparently dropped dead of a heart attack, while naked, at his computer, looking at pornography. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel] Ronald Gross, 60, who might have shown up on that sex-offender list soon, in that he was arrested a few days ago in Port St. Lucie in one of those online stings (deputy posing as 14-year-old boy), chose the easy way of staying off the list, with a fatal gunshot. [WKMG-TV (Orlando)].
Your Daily Loser We don't know his name, but he walked into an Econo Lodge in Gainesville last night, asked several stupid questions, then pulled a gun and told clerk Erica Murphy he wanted money. She saw that the gun was nearly rusted over, and she declined. He began to climb over the counter to rough her up, but she started after him from her side, and he backed down. Said Murphy, "If you don't get out of here, I'll kick your butt." The man started for the door, ran into a female guest, and started to grab her as a hostage, but she, too, shoved him away, and he hasn't been seen since. [Gainesville Sun]
More Things To Worry About Today Juan Rafael Diaz, 20, was arrested for leaving threatening notes around Kissimmee, warning that al-Qaeda was about to blow up that charming town (and, no, to answer your question, no one yet knows what Juan was up to) [WKMG-TV (Orlando)] . . . . . In Hudson, a superman driver registered a .481 blood-alcohol reading (but more likely, the Pasco sheriff needs to fix his breathalyzer) [St. Petersburg Times] . . . . . 21% of the adults in Jacksonville are functionally illiterate, meaning that they "struggle to get through the day," said the National Assessment of Adult Literacy [but sometimes Yr Editor does, too, even though I have an excuse, given the crap that I have to read here] [FirstCoastNews.com] . . . . . An administrative law judge for the Social Security Administration in Tampa, Elving Torres, 62, was caught using the handicaped parking placard of an 86-yr-old woman, but he ain't talking about it to no reporters [St. Petersburg Times].
This article appears in Jan 24-30, 2007.