They all have day jobs: Shira Kastan lobbies for a university. Leslie Munsell applies makeup for photo shoots and co-owns a hair salon. And Tracy Wilson Mourning heads a charity, filling her schedule with philanthropic endeavors.
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Banks Still Struggling With Recession Hangover
Three years ago, 317 banks and thrifts called Florida home. After a ravaging recession, the count is down to 250, and some analysts say another 50 Florida banks might disappear in the coming years. Forty-four of the state's banks have failed during the recession, and other banks have merged with healthy partners to survive — a trend seen nationwide. “The result of these involuntary and voluntary mergers will be to reduce the number of banks in the United States from the current 7,760 to 5,000 to 6,000 in five years, a decrease in number of 20 percent to 25 percent,” said Benjamin C. Bishop Jr., chairman of the Allen C. Ewing & Co. investment banking firm. “There will be very few new banks chartered for many years, and 5,000 to 10,000 unprofitable branch offices are going to be closed. Florida will have approximately 200 banks in 2015, down from over 300 in 2006,” Bishop said. [Source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune]
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Florida's 'Underemployed' Focus on Holiday Survival, Not Gifts
Janeisha Saintelus has two children, one part-time job and no idea how she'll buy Christmas presents and decorations. "It hurts," said Saintelus, a single mother who lives in West Palm Beach. "I don't have a Christmas tree. I can't afford it this year." With the economy mired in a spate of stubbornly high unemployment, Saintelus is among the millions of Americans who are "under?employed," meaning they'd like to work more hours but can't find full-time jobs. A former fast-food manager who once enjoyed health insurance and a 401(k) plan, Saintelus now works for minimum wage at Boston Market. That's hardly enough to pay her $795-a-month rent, let alone buy presents for her 6-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. Saintelus' son wants a Nintendo Wii. That's out of the question, but she's determined to get him a bicycle. For Floridians who find themselves on the wrong side of the unemployment statistics, the annual holiday spending frenzy is an especially difficult time. Saintelus' children are excited about Christmas, but she has told them not to expect much. "I want to cry sometimes, but then I think about those two little ones," Saintelus said. "My kids are very understanding. I talk to them every day." [Source: Palm Beach Post]
How a $50M Courthouse Got in the Budget, Stayed off the Radar
In an extraordinary case of collective amnesia, nobody can quite remember just how it happened. As the country headed toward the worst recession in years, the Florida Legislature handed $50 million to judges to build a courthouse now branded the Taj Mahal. The building that opens to the public Monday began as a request to spend up to $20,000 to determine if a floor could be added to the existing courthouse. Over the next four years — often in secret — it turned into a building fit for royalty and a multimillion dollar debt taxpayers will pay down for 30 years. The story of the Taj Mahal is told in documents — e-mail, minutes of court conferences and building committee meetings, and a trove of other records. It's remarkable for the over-the-top details — like the soundproofing in the judge's individual bathrooms — but mostly it's the way things get done in Tallahassee.
[Source: St. Petersburg Times]
ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:
› Rays' Sternberg Optimistic about Business Support for New Stadium
Rays principal owner Stuart Sternberg was building near downtown St. Petersburg on Saturday — not a new ballpark, but a playground in partnership with the Kaboom program at the Sanderlin Family Center.
But after months of a stalemate on the stadium issue, Sternberg said he was optimistic about the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce's commitment to spend the next year studying financing options.
"I think any discussion is good discussion," Sternberg said, "and the thing that is most — that gives me some optimism — is the fact that it's coming from the business side of things."
That's especially true since he considered the business community's lack of interest glaring during the team's failed 2007-08 bid to get a new downtown St. Petersburg waterfront stadium.
"When we took our large swing at a stadium a few years ago, the business side just was not there to help support the initiative," Sternberg said.
› Gainesville's Median Income Down 20% Since 2000
Through a series of annexations and natural growth, Gainesville's population increased by 20 percent over the past decade while the median household income dropped by the same amount, well above the national decline of about 5 percent, according to data the Census Bureau released last week. The data also show smaller cities in the county such as High Springs, Newberry and Alachua — which in 2000 were well below the national income average but now are near or above it — grew in population and in median income, suggesting the more affluent are settling outside Gainesville's city limits. The steepest declines were in west Gainesville; in College Park, north of the University of Florida campus; and in downtown.
› Trigaux's Top 5 Wishes for a Better Tampa Bay Business Community
'Tis the season. So here's my wish list for a better Tampa Bay business community, one that's suffered through some rough years. I won't be too greedy. There are only five wishes on a list that could grow very long, very fast. But the one I really want, above all others, is this:
Wish No. 1: That the business (and government) communities of the Tampa Bay area — in Tampa and St. Petersburg and Clearwater, and in Hillsborough and Pinellas and Pasco counties, among others — figure out how to act like a cohesive region.
» Read the rest of Robert Trigaux's wish list at the St. Petersburg Times.
› Belle Glade: The Town That Fear Could Not Destroy
After 25 years, retired principal Effie Grear still remembers with painful clarity the fall of 1985, when opposing football teams didn't want to play against Glades Central High School for fear of catching a mysterious new disease called AIDS.
She remembers the cheerleaders returning to the sidelines, dejected and bewildered when cheerleaders from the other side refused to touch snacks the Belle Glade girls had offered. Most of all, she remembers the sting of the label slapped on the rural western Palm Beach County town: AIDS Capital of the World.
It wounded. And even though some health officials later discounted the characterization, it stuck. Fear and ignorance ruled in those days. Theories abounded. You could catch it from mosquitoes. Or from pigs. Perplexed researchers descended on Belle Glade, trying to discover the cause of this modern-day plague and why, of all places, it seemed to be concentrated in a remote little town on the southern shores of Lake Okeechobee.
Belle Glade, population 16,000, was shunned. Some called it Belle AIDS.
› Regent Carves Out A Profitable Cruise Niche
2010 was a tough year for many businesses, but not for Regent Seven Seas Cruises.
The Fort Lauderdale-based luxury cruise line is posting its best year ever in revenues and profits. What's more, the three-ship company expects 2011 to stay strong, as customers seek value in its all-inclusive packages that include suites with balconies, gourmet food, bar drinks and even shore excursions, a perk not included in the ticket price of most other cruise lines.
Regent's President Mark Conroy spoke with the SunSentinel about the company, trends in cruising and other topics aboard the 700-passenger Seven Seas Voyager at Port Everglades.
› Palm Beach County Consumers Catch a Break as Sales Tax Falls
Palm Beach County consumers will get a permanent reprieve from a half-cent sales tax used to pay for school construction.
The 5-year-old local sales tax, which helped build 11 schools, is set to expire on Dec. 31. The move will drop the county's current rate of 6.5 cents per $1 of spending to a flat 6 cents.
How much consumers will save depends on how much they spend. The pricier the item, the more buyers will shave off of their total bill by waiting until next year to buy.
"The real difference comes if you look at the big-ticket items," said Palm Beach accountant Richard Rampell. "If you can postpone purchasing those items, you save $50 for every $10,000 you spend."
District officials estimate the average county consumer will save about $43 a year as a result of the sales tax decrease.
Go to page 2 for more stories ...
› State's Largest Privately-Owned Solar Array Under Construction
Gainesville borrowed the solar feed-in tariff concept from Germany. Now a German subsidiary based in Lakeland is building the largest privately owned solar array in the state through the program, covering 7 acres on vacant land near the confluence of Northwest 13th and Sixth streets.
When complete, 8,600 photovoltaic panels will supply 2 megawatts of power -- enough to power 200 to 300 homes.
Through the solar feed-in tariff program, Gainesville Regional Utilities will pay Sybac Solar LLC 26 cents per kilowatt hour generated to feed into the power grid.
› Merchants Are Watching for Return Fraud
Every so often, a brazen visitor to the Toy Factory, a small business toy store in the Jacksonville Landing, will take an item from a shelf to the counter and attempt to return it for a refund, claiming the receipt was lost.
But they don't count on the fact that owner and manager Richard Stoecklein has owned the store for 27 years and does all of its ordering and stocking. He knows every item within its 1,500 square feet, and said he quickly calls security when someone attempts to steal from his store, no matter what method they use.
"I've had people pull that trick on me," he said. "I'll walk out to where the box was, and it isn't there anymore. I'll say, 'You just took this.' When someone pulls that trick on me, they're in serious trouble."
That trick is called return fraud, and it costs the retail industry billions of dollars in lost revenues every year. The growing crime will cost retail stores across the nation an estimated $3.7 billion this holiday shopping season alone, the National Retail Federation says. If that estimate holds true, it will represent 35 percent more than the $2.74 billion lost during the 2009 holiday season, the NRF noted.
Already, it's worse this year.
› Bearing Bad News an Art for Foreclosure Process Servers
Michael G. Murray pulls his Honda Civic up to the gatehouse at Cheval Golf and Country Club, one of Hillsborough County's priciest residential neighborhoods. The guard inside smiles as she takes Murray's laminated photo ID, which identifies him as a certified process server.
"You again," Cheval's gatekeeper says with a grin. "How many you got this time?"
Murray, 45, pulls the top papers from a stack of recently filed foreclosure complaints piled on the armrest. "Just one stop today," he says as the guard returns his ID.
"All right then," she says. "Good luck!"
From the front seat of Murray's car, which racks up about 50,000 miles a year zigzagging around northwest Hillsborough County, one thing is clear: Florida's foreclosure wave has washed away class distinctions. On this day in late November, he'll try to deliver foreclosure papers to owners of a double-wide as well as a $1.6 million lakeside mansion. He'll ring doorbells at a small pink-shuttered block home with grass gone to sand, a condo with a U.S. Marine emblem on the door and a sprawling corner lot estate with well-tended lawn.
› Troubled Past But a New Start in Venture Capital
Forced to relinquish his mortgage and real estate licenses and under investigation by the FBI, U.S. Postal Service and the Manatee County Sheriff's Office, Arthur Seaborne has reinvented himself as a venture capitalist.
According to his Linked-In electronic résumé and his company website, the 67-year-old businessman with three bankruptcies on his record is now "Chief Think Officer" at American Venture Capital, a Sarasota firm that boasts of having "alternative" ways to help budding entrepreneurs.
"It appears that young entrepreneurs need a new lesson in raising capital to launch their vision," Seaborne said in one of his blog posts. "First, understand that we are still in the middle of a deep recession, no matter how good your idea. Second, also understand that there is unlimited capital available."
By unlimited capital, Seaborne does not mean cash.
"Think about this. What do you really need cash for?" he wrote. "Do you need cash for incubator office space? Just trade for it. Do you need cash for a warehouse for storage? Just trade or it. Do you need cash for programming? Just trade for it. Do you need cash for advertising your product? Just trade or it. I repeat; there is plenty of venture 'capital' available if you just look at it differently."
› FPL Turbines Ahead in Cape Canaveral
The long-awaited redevelopment of a Florida Power & Light Co. plant originally built to illuminate moon rockets actually began a decade ago, when Siemens Energy Inc. engineers in Orlando set out to design a class of record-setting turbine generators powered by natural gas.
A Siemens crew of about 250 engineers at the Siemens campus in east Orange County, plus hundreds more at other locations, set a goal of making a machine that would burn less natural gas to make more electricity and produce fewer tons of climate-warming carbon dioxide than existing generators.
Another major requirement: The powerful machine would have greater operational flexibility, so it could power up and down quickly in response to fluctuations in the electricity generated by arrays of solar panels.
The result — Siemens's H-class of turbine generator — is now in production in Germany, where parent company Siemens AG is based. Three of those turbines are destined for 42 acres on the west shore of the Indian River Lagoon in Brevard County — site of FPL's Cape Canaveral plant. Another three turbines will be installed at a twin version of the Cape plant in Riviera Beach, where the South Florida-based utility recently tore down another aging facility.
› Scientology Starts Collecting Bed Tax Following County Questions
For 34 years, thousands of Scientologists traveled to Clearwater and stayed in hotels owned by their church, enjoying a free ride from the 5 percent tourist tax that other visitors pay at Pinellas' commercial hotels.
But that quietly changed earlier this year.
Pressed by the staff of Pinellas Tax Collector Diane Nelson, the Church of Scientology agreed to start collecting the tourist tax a few months ago and pay it monthly to Nelson's office, the St. Petersburg Times has learned.
It's a surprising reversal that will generate significant new revenue for Pinellas' tourist promotion efforts.
But the change raises questions about another tax that Pinellas hotel guests pay — the 7 percent sales tax. Does the church now collect that tax from its guests too?