SUNDAY CENTRAL FLORIDA EDITORIAL ROUNDUP

Let's begin our tour this week on the east (or should I say, northeast) end of I-4 at the Daytona Beach News Journal. Last Sunday, the paper chose it's agenda of local issues for 2007, and today it begins looking at them in detail. Today, the subject is lack of insurance and inadequete health care for Volusia and Flagler county residents.

The Orlando Sentinel editorial this morning states it's continued concerns with the operations of the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority, saying that putting developers and land attorneys on the agency board is like "putting a lamb in a cage with a lion", and that it becomes more obvious that Governor Charlie Crist should appoint board members far removed from the area's development interests.

Tomorrow is the holiday celebrating the birthday of the late civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Lakeland Ledger editorial space notes a move to promote the concept of the King holiday as a National Day of Service, which was established 13 years ago by legislation co-sponsored by then-Senator Harris Wofford (D - PA) and Congressman John Lewis (D - GA).

The state's insurance crisis is featured on many newspaper front pages today as Governor Crist and the Legislature will deal with the issue this week in special session. The subject is featured today on the editorial page of the Tampa Tribune. You can tell whose side they are on just by reading two sentences: "it seems a sure bet that a majority of lawmakers will sidestep talk of free markets and back state government's assumption of risk to give property owners relief from skyrocketing premiums...What the Legislature is about to do may provide relief to policyholders, but it is a rebuke of long-held principles that may not serve the state's long-term economic interests."

Across the bay, the St. Petersburg Times rebukes Tampa Electric Company for how it treated residents of the Egypt Lake neighbourhood north of downtown Tampa after putting up 12 story concrete power poles along a two lane residential street, crowding out lawns. But instead of moving the poles to a nearby commercial corridor TECO decided to keep them in place and got a financial settlement.

Y'all make a great Sunday today!