NEWSPAPER ARTICLE OPENS OLD POLITICAL SCABS

Former Florida Speaker of the House Johnnie Byrd fired back that he had nothing to do with an attempt to move the Second District Court of Appeals headquarters from Lakeland to Tampa.

Byrd was responding to a Lakeland Ledger article earlier in the week which dealt with an attempt to move the Department of Transportation's District One HQ from Bartow. The article said: Last year, then-House Speaker Johnnie Byrd tried to move the headquarters of the 2nd District Court of Appeal from Lakeland to Tampa. Polk legislators and their allies were able to block the move.

Byrd, from Plant City, said the person behind the change was then-Appropriations Committee chairman Bruce Kyle (R - Fort Myers), and would have split the district leaving the courthouse in Lakeland as the base for a new district streaching from Collier to Polk counties. He directed his anger at Rep. Dennis Ross (R - Lakeland), who warned that such a change would be ripe for the district HQ to be eventually moved south...to possibly Fort Myers.

Byrd said Ross and other Polk delegation members unfairly blamed him for trying to move the 2nd DCA.

"This was totally false," he said. "I never would have allowed the courthouse to be moved from there. He (Ross) is one of those disgruntled members who blames everyone else," Byrd said

Ross has filed papers to run next year for Chief Financial Officer.