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Monday's Daily Pulse
What you need to know about Florida today
› Senate agrees to preserve Space Florida funding
Senate budget leaders have agreed to preserve funding for Space Florida at its usual level. Ahead of the budget conference, the Senate Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Subcommittee and Chair George Gainer had only offered $3 million, half of what Space Florida has received in recent years. But with the first return offer of the budget conference, the Senate agreed to preserve the aerospace economic development agency’s funding at $6 million, like the House wanted.
› Failure at Piney Point: Florida let environmental risk fester despite warnings
As early as 2008, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was predicting possible disaster at the old Piney Point phosphate plant in Manatee County if a plan to use the site for dredging went forward. The “worst case scenario,” the Army Corps cautioned, would be a tear in the plastic liner that engineers were counting on to hold back water perched atop dangerous waste material. Another worry the Army Corps raised: What if the private company in charge went bankrupt?
› The battle over an iconic Miami bar is playing out in court, online, and in the street
For 42 years, Churchill’s Pub has stood its offbeat ground as a Miami landmark like few others. A live music venue with a rock’n’roll heart in a city where most have fallen by the wayside. A raw, unpretentious watering hole with cheap beer, famously rank bathrooms and an anything goes, everyone’s welcome vibe, plunked down incongruously in Little Haiti.
› Arts center’s Frontyard Festival may go on — if $1M is found
The Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts would like to extend its Frontyard Festival until the end of the year — and a promise of up to $500,000, approved by Orlando City Council this week, will go a long way toward doing that. But the center says without an additional $1 million in sponsorship, it doesn’t make financial sense to continue the outdoor lineup of concerts, movies and more — even though the community has responded with gusto to the ongoing event.
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