VA Races to Secure Cemetery Space for Veterans
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is in an ongoing search for more available cemetery space throughout Florida because of the state's huge veteran population and the number of service members continuing to grow old and die, said Frank Kawulich, director of the VA's Memorial Service Network in the Southeast region. The VA is in the beginning stages of selecting sites for new cemeteries in Brevard County and Tallahassee. VA officials said plans are in the works to visit possible sites and sort through multiple offers made for available land. There is no timetable for opening either cemetery. Last year, the VA opened Jacksonville National Cemetery and Sarasota National Cemetery. Construction at the Sarasota cemetery of a columbarium, a structure where cremated remains can be placed, is scheduled for completion in 2012. South Florida National Cemetery in Palm Beach County opened in 2007. There are also national cemeteries in Pensacola, St. Petersburg and St. Augustine — the latter two have no room for more gravesites. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]
Utility Customers Willing to Pay More for Renewable Energy
Most electric utility customers in Florida are willing to pay more to boost the state's renewable energy production. That was a key
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Some See a Coming Construction Jobs Boom, Others Not Sure
In a state littered with thousands of vacant building and homes, Vitner doesn't see a building boom in the near future. But any new construction will help, he added. "It won't take much to move the needle," Vitner said. The director of the Institute for Economic Competitiveness at the University of Central Florida predicts bigger job gains in 2012 and 2013. Sean Snaith looks for growth in white-collar work, the trade/transportation fields and the health care sector. But not the construction industry, he said. As for 2011, Snaith added: "It's going to be pretty slow. Florida construction has been hit harder by the Great Recession than any other field — almost cut in half since 2006 with the loss of more than 300,000 jobs. A Moody's economist acknowledges the real estate surplus in Florida but predicts more people to flock here in the next year as the national outlook improves. That, coupled with increased buying power of consumers, healthy corporate balance sheets and improved financing, will sprout more jobs. [Source: St. Petersburg Times]
Darden Restaurants Gets Break on Health-Care Reform Law
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Orlando-based Darden Restaurants is getting a break on part of the health-care reform law requiring companies to raise significantly annual coverage limits for low-cost insurance plans starting next year.
Darden is among more than 100 companies nationwide that have received one-year waivers, including McDonald's, Ruby Tuesday and Cigna, which writes health insurance plans. The delay from federal government is for companies that offer limited-benefit, or "mini med" plans, often for low-wage, seasonal and part-time workers. Such plans generally don't cost much for companies and employees, but they also provide limited coverage — often just a few thousand dollars annually. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]
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Assessing the Success of the Stimulus
In the fall campaign, Republicans assailed last year's economic stimulus as wasteful spending. But now President Obama says the time is ripe for immediate investment in infrastructure projects such as highways and bridges. With the nation recovering from a recession, interest rates are low, competition among contractors for work is intense and the cost of building materials are down.
As evidence, Obama pointed to the government's experience with the economic stimulus package, saying that taxpayers have gotten pretty good bang for their buck. So Politifact and ProPublica checked the claims that "most" projects funded by the stimulus came in "under budget" and "faster than expected."
[Source: Politifact/ProPublica]
ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:
› Warm Mineral Springs Deal Appears Set at $5.5M
The Warm Mineral Springs resort should be in public ownership by year's end at a price lower than most expected. The spring, offered at $6.5 million, will sell for $5.5 million if the current owners can continue to run it for 30 months, under a tentative deal approved unanimously Wednesday by the Sarasota County Commission.
North Port and the county have been talking for nearly two years about buying the spring, a longtime destination in North Port for foreign tourists, to preserve the site and help spur tourism in the city.
› Plans for New $35 Million VA Clinic in Jacksonville Unveiled
When Debbie Ward joined the Jacksonville Veterans Administration clinic in 2003 as administrative officer, the facility had one location in Springfield.
Since then, it’s expanded to three additional branches — one on Eighth Street opposite Shands Jacksonville and two near Interstate 95 and Butler Boulevard.
And today, the clinic has outgrown all four, she said. But with the coming construction of a $35 million, two-story, 135,500-square-foot facility, the clinic will get both expanded capacity and expanded services when it opens in 2012.
Designs for the new facility have been unveiled, and with the new building, the VA will offer expanded medical services for women, primary care, radiology and new equipment to house all of its services.
› Dinosaur World Planning a 12-Acre Expansion
Dinosaur World is far from extinct. The Plant City theme park has announced plans for a 12-acre expansion that will include a new indoor museum, a gift shop and a dinosaur playground.
The expansion should be completed by fall 2011, said Nicole Randall, marketing director for the three Dinosaur World parks. Coincidentally, fall 2011 is also when Legoland Florida is scheduled to open at the former Cypress Gardens property in Winter Haven.
The Dinosaur World expansion will more than double the size of the attraction from its current eight acres. Dinosaur World, which opened in 1998, features replicas of more than 150 dinosaurs from the Cretaceous, Jurassic and other pre-historic eras. The attraction includes the Boneyard, a large sandbox in which children dig for replicas of dinosaur fossils..
› Lynx Reaches Contract Deal with New CEO
The Lynx regional bus system Wednesday officially hired a new chief executive, John Lewis from the Richmond, Va., Transit Commission.
Lewis, 43, was awarded an annual compensation package of $191,900, plus up to $25,000 in relocation and temporary housing expenses.
He will start Dec. 1 with Lynx, which is based in Orlando and serves Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties.
"I can finally land and take over the leadership," Lewis told the five-member board of directors. The board offered him the job about a month ago and has been negotiating his contract ever since.
› BankAtlantic Executives Lied About Riskiness of Loans, Lawyer Says
BankAtlantic Bancorp Inc. executives duped investors into buying the bank’s shares at an inflated price by lying about the riskiness of its real-estate-loan portfolio during 2007’s economic downturn, a lawyer told jurors.
Officials of the Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based bank ignored lending guidelines in approving land-development loans and then sought to hide the losses to prop up the institution’s stock price, Mark Arisohn, a lawyer representing disgruntled BankAtlantic shareholders, said in closing arguments today in the trial of investors’ securities-fraud lawsuit.
“When the truth was revealed and hidden risk materialized, the stock plunged,” Arisohn told jurors in federal court in Miami. “Investors who put their hard-earned money into BankAtlantic stock were misled by those lies.”
› Keiser University Drops Suit Against FSCJ
Keiser University, a regional for-profit college, has dropped a lawsuit filed last month against Florida State College at Jacksonville and two top administrators.
The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice Tuesday night, according to a joint news release issued Wednesday afternoon by the two schools.
The civil suit, which was filed last month in Broward County and can’t be refiled, was based on e-mails from FSCJ President Steven Wallace and Susan Lehr, the school’s vice president of government relations.
The e-mail exchanges involved messages to multiple Wall Street short sellers including Steve Eisman, who criticized the for-profit college sector in a speech before a congressional committee in May.
Keiser had alleged that FSCJ was in collusion with for-profit detractors and was trying to launch a behind-the-scenes “smear campaign” against proprietary education, starting with the Ft. Lauderdale-based school.
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› Marco Rubio Joins Earmark Ban Effort
Marco Rubio will not be sworn in as Florida's new U.S. senator until January but he's already landed in an intensifying fight over political pork.
Rubio this week signed onto an effort by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., to seek a ban on budget earmarks among Republicans in the chamber. The new House GOP leaders have already instituted a moratorium.
"I think earmarks are bad for our country," Rubio said in an interview before Election Day. "I think they should be banned."
› Feds Looked into Wexler Campaign Investment Years Ago
Federal agents took an interest two years ago in a peculiar $150,000 real estate investment by former Democratic U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler's campaign, Wexler's former top aide and a businessman confirmed today.
Wexler's campaign voluntarily supplied information about the investment to authorities in 2008 and questions about it were "resolved at that time with no action being taken," former Wexler chief of staff Eric Johnson said. No charges were filed.
Johnson said the matter had "zero" relationship to Wexler's October 2009 decision to leave Congress in the middle of his term and head a Middle East think tank.
› Utility Worker at Your Door? Ask for ID, Companies Say
The scam goes like this: Fake utility or home-repair workers arrive without warning and talk or barge their way into victims' homes.
Once inside, they steal anything valuable they can get their hands on and quickly disappear.
Sometimes, two crooks show up. While one distracts the resident, the other ransacks the house.
Utility companies are warning the public — especially the elderly, who are frequently targeted — to be cautious when dealing with utility workers and other home-repair workers.
› Missing Botox at Jackson Puts a Wrinkle in Audit
It was a who-done-it, Jackson style: Expensive medicine vanished because there was no policy that it should be locked up. Security cameras were watching, but they proved useless without a way to record the crime.
The case involves 50 vials of Botox valued at $18,414, and it has some board members up in arms.
``It's a small point, but it appears to be symptomatic of other things,'' said Robin Reiter-Faragalli, newly appointed to the Public Health Trust Board.
Botox is just one more example of Jackson Health System's problems with financial controls.
› Gainesville Regional Airport Receives $140,000 Marketing Grant
The Gainesville Regional Airport has received a $140,000 marketing grant to promote flights to and from the airport in 2011-12.
The airport recently added American Eagle Express daily flights to Miami. The money also will promote the airport’s Delta Connection flights to Atlanta and US Airways flights to Charlotte, N.C.
The grant was provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s 2010 Small Community Air Service Development Program and will be used in combination with community contributions and support.
› New Focus on Trimmer Government Casts Doubt on High-Speed Rail
Are the wheels getting wobbly and in danger of falling off the high-speed rail project planned and partially funded to connect downtown Tampa and Orlando?
At a gathering of high-speed rail advocates this week in Orlando, just a whiff of backpedaling could be smelled after the Nov. 2 election that not only killed Hillsborough County efforts to fund the start of a regional light rail and bus system, but also ushered in Republicans at the state and national level keen on shrinking government.
› Winn-Dixie Should Change Course, Fund Manager Says
Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. Chairman and CEO Peter Lynch thinks the company’s strategy of remodeling its stores will pay off with better sales and earnings when the economy improves. But one fund manager, frustrated by the Jacksonville-based supermarket chain’s low stock price, wants Winn-Dixie to change course.
At Wednesday’s annual shareholders meeting, George Schultze, managing member of Schultze Asset Management LLC, said Winn-Dixie should not be spending its cash on store remodeling. Instead, Schultze thinks the board of directors would better serve shareholders by using the money to repurchase stock in the open market.
“We think the effort to remodel stores should be slowed down. We don’t think the company will ever be Walmart or Publix,” he said.
› Businessman Chase Files to Run for Gainesville City Commission
While Todd Chase says he isn't sure what to make of some politicians' promises to run government like a business, he does think his experience in the private sector will give him a unique -- and needed -- perspective on the Gainesville City Commission.
Chase, a 44-year-old registered Republican who hasn't held office since he was student body president at Jacksonville University, has filed to run for the city's District 2 seat, representing northwest Gainesville, in a nonpartisan election in the spring.
He is running against incumbent Lauren Poe, Robert Krames and James Ingle.