FLORIDA SUNDAY EDITORIAL ROUNDUP

Starting here along the I-4 Corridor, the Lakeland Ledger editorial page notes the election of a new board chairman of the Polk County Opportunity Council, the first white person to hold that position in the non-profit agency's 27-year history. Kevin Roberts is Highlands County's Director of Human Services (Highlands County is in PCOC's service area), and the Ledger hopes that his tenure will see decisive action based on the facts to resolve the accountibillity issues which have plagued PCOC in recent years.

The Tampa Tribune remembers that it was two years ago today President Bush came to Tampa and spoke of a $30 million initiative against human trafficking, but not a local trafficking case has been made since. While the Tribune notes that it's analysis shows that the administration exaggerated the breadth of the issue, the problem is still very real and that the president should revive the initiative and the government should coordinate a better response while spending no more than is really needed.

It's no secret that the Florida National Guard is insufficiently equipped to deal with hurricanes or other natrual disasters, as much of it's equipment has been sent to help our military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Orlando Sentinel calls on Floridians to support a move in Congress to increase funding for state Guard units, and U.S. Senator Mel Martinez's effort to give hurricane-prone states priority in receiving replacement gear.

The Daytona Beach News Journal has a surprise for many Central Floridians: It says homeowners insurance can be affordable; just that lawmakers and regulators need to begin getting tough and calling the bluff of insurance companies who threaten to pull out. It calls on ending the practice of Florida-only subsidiaries that are not backed by national assets so that it can claim poverty to regulators, as well as requiring companies to offer all types of insurance that it offers elsewhere.

The St. Petersburg Times says "Finally, a crackdown in Halliburton" as the Army announced last week a plan to cancel and put out for competitive bidding a logistics contract for meals, fuel, and housing for our military personnel. Almost everyone knows by now the audit reports which claims that the company that Vice President Dick Cheney ran before taking office seriously padded the bill, although the company denies any wrongdoing. The opinion is that the first mistake the Army made was to privatizing work it did previously with it's own personnel, but that it's decision to open the work up to competitive bidding is simply part of the "lessons learned" process...a very expensive lesson, indeed.

"Attacking the gridlock" is the title of today's editorial in the Melbourne-based Florida Today, and it deals, as you may guess, with issues of traffic. The opinion is that city and county governments should cooperate more to push traffic improvements beyond the planning stage, and that impact fees should be hiked in order to help foot the bill to make more improvements happen for Brevard County's jammed road system.

President Bush and Congress are planning to cut funding for the AmeriCorps program, and officials are calling on the elimination of one of it's components, the National Civilian Community Corps, which sends trained volunteers to help at disaster scenes and has responded to every U.S. disaster since 1994. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune notes that if that occurs, it would be squandering a valuable resource by discouraging young people from serving their country...which it says is not an intelligent approach.

The Ocala Star-Banner reminds readers of what may be ahead when it comes to water by looking at a programme planned in Naples to build a system to pipe treated sewage effuent to households for sprinkling lawns. Just a reminder that water is getting expensive as the product of remaining sources will require more processing, and the distributing system will continue to expand.

Up the road, the Gainesville Sun (with another editorial which appeared in the sister Lakeland Ledger earlier in the week) looks at several states and cities where smoking bans have not resulted in the financial crisis some businesses were predicting, and calls for the Legislature to remove the current exemption in the workplace smoking ban law for stand alone bars with less than ten percent of gross revenue coming from food...before Floridians do it themselves through a constitutional amendment.

Today's editorial in the Fort Myers News-Press was written by it's Cape Coral editor Tom Hayden, and he calls on readers there to share their stories and what they have learned as the newspaper begins an investigation into claims that the city is overcharging residents to bring water, sewer, and irrigation lines into their homes.

The decision last week by the chairman of Collier County's Hispanic Advisory Board to split and form an independent coalition in the private sector is considered a good idea in the Naples Daily News editorial page, saying that while working under the auspicies of county government assures a certain amount of prestige, it can get proceedings often bogged down. It also mentions that if Latino advisers are to be truly free to discuss a variety of issues with county agencies, it cannot have strings attached, as often occures with such advisory boards.

Duval County (Metro Jacksonville) has the highest murder rate in the state, according to the latest Florida Department of Law Enforcement statistics, and is the only county in double digits with 11 murders per 100,000 residents. Even then, the Florida Times-Union notes that although 180,000 more people call the area home, the number of murders and violent crimes have dropped dramatically since 1991. It mentions that much work is ahead, and that the results and recommendations from a four month study by the Jacksonville Community Council will be released later this month.

Bethesda Memorial Hospital is Palm Beach County's "safety-net provider" for the area's poor and uninsured. It has twice received permission from the Agency for Health Care Administration to build an 80-bed facility west of Boynton Beach, but both times it's for-profit competitors have blocked it with appeals. Today's Palm Beach Post editorial calls on AHCA to settle the matter once and for all by approving the new facility a third time.

The Tallahassee Democrat expresses it's disappointment over the Tallahassee City Commission's denial last Wednesday of a request to help an emergency shelter for the homeless by including it in a housing action plan which it will submit for federal funding assistance. It asks city officials to reconsider and help a facility which the Democrat says has done some "heavy lifting" for the community over 18 years.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale is concerned that the arrests of two Haitian men among seven last month accused of planning terrorist attacks on buildings in Miami and Chicago may result in the scuttling of a proposed U.S. Senate bill which would grand residency to between 3,000 and 5,000 Haitians who arrived in this country via airplane before January 1, 1996, correcting an omission in the original bill previously passed which granted residency to Haitians who arrived here by boat. It calls on Congress to pass the bill, and not to castigate law abiding people for the error of a few.

In the Panhandle, the Pensacola News Journal has dealt with the issue of law enforcement agencies in the area and the way it handled mentally-ill patients at the county jail. Today, it lauds Santa Rosa County Sheriff Wendell Hall for his taking a pro active stance on the issue, following the example of his Escambia County counterpart Ron McNesby in changing the way such prisoners are dealt with.

And in South Florida, the Miami Herald has been looking at the air-cargo industry's troubled history with an investigative series last week, and today calls for the Federal Administrative Administration to tighten up safety rules and oversight, especially for smaller carriers which historically have the worst accident rates.

Nice to see I got everything done before leaving for work. Make it a great Sunday!