The Contemptuous Governor

Florida, the sunshine state home to what should be a retirees paradise. Where every day life is not only comfortable but downright affordable. If only that were the case today. Sad to say what was once the vacation capital of the United States where Miami was the ultimate destination followed by St. Petersburg and Ft. Lauderdale. Those days of a bye-gone era are long gone. Today Miami is a hub of plight, crime, and poverty. Sure, there are affluent sections where opulence and grandeur showcase how the well to do, do it. But there is really no middle. Either you are very rich of dirt poor not only in Miami but in every major city in Florida and all around the country.


What should be a hub of commerce where each city is a vibrant radiant meca of economic activity is in reality so far removed from fulfilling elected officials promises to the population. What could have been and what should have been keep being pushed aside by these same elected officials contempt for the generals publics welfare. When we have elected officials and particularly a governor who bought an election along with the voting public who were beguiled by the allure of wealth ignores the statistics of underemployment and unemployment all through-out the state of Florida. This by openly refusing Millions of federal grant funding to jump start an economy that is failing. This reminds one that the Governor's leadership is like that of the captain of the Italian cruise ship that ran aground in the Mediterranean this past year.


This kind of behavior is part of a continuing series of contemptuous acts against the population where Florida really needs better mass transit to start to improve the economy. Form a tri city light rail service connecting St. Petersburg, Tampa, and Clearwater along with a state wide connecting rail that would for short term bring about a renascence of higher paying jobs not just in construction but by all the other industries that come about when any economic forward economic activity commences.


Recently when St. Petersburg voted on a design to renovate it's landmark pier, again failure of leadership to point out how lucrative the cruise industry could be to having an enormous economic impact for the St. Petersburg area. Instead what we have now is a proposal that will definitely not bring about the economic turn around that the city and area around St. Petersburg really needs. More to the point of how a leader of the state of Florida is missing the mark is when the governor turned down the request by Tampa's mayor on the banning of firearms during the Republican convention. Where is Wyatt Earp when you really need him? The days of the old west where leave your guns at the city limits was enforced. It worked then. Is Tampa now to be like Dodge City or Tombstone? Let's just hope that Tampa won't end up like Chicago in 1968.


When our "Wizard" of a governor gathered Cuban-American business leaders for a photo-op signing a bill that prohibits businesses from hiring firm or doing any kind of business with Cuba there again is a missed opportunity to attract new businesses or retain existing businesses in the state. More importantly a lost opportunity to spur economic growth here and in Cuba which could create the economic forward momentum both Cuba and Florida really needs. In other words our "Illustrious" Governor continues to show case his inability to create the environment that he so touted during his electoral campaign; "Let's get to work." When all he has managed to do is the exact opposite. A sad state of affairs reminds Florida residents like in Wisconsin where voter outrage has ignited a recall of their Governor, the public in Florida are subjugated to the power and rule of a Republican party that caters only to the wealth and affluence that only money can buy.