Now he tells us
The Santa Ono UF presidential search was nothing if not an embarrassment.
The doomed candidate was embarrassed. The university was embarrassed. Even The Great DeSanitizer should have been red faced – if he wasn’t too self-absorbed to notice that he got back-stabbed by the MAGA crowd.
Now comes Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez to inform us that this whole embarrassing fiasco could have been avoided if university presidential searches were conducted in the (gasp!) Sunshine.
“Neither the University of Florida nor the Board of Governors, nor Ono would have been in this position” had HB 1321 been in effect before the presidential search,” said Perez The Pious.
Alas, legislation to restore public presidential searches died of disinterest in this most recent session.
“All of the deficiencies that Ono had prior to the presidential search coming to a conclusion, and eventually going before the BOG, would have been discovered. It was not discovered because no one knew that Ono was the one that was going to be nominated, unanimously approved, and sent to the BOG.”
This is, of course, akin to a Florida politician informing us that water is wet and the sky is blue.
Florida university presidential searches were conducted in the Sunshine for decades. This because Florida had, for generations, a national reputation for conducting the public’s business in, um, public.
But the Republicans who control Florida have for years been eating holes in our public records and meetings laws. The end result being that our anti-Ron feels perfectly free to routinely ignore the public’s right to know what’s being done in our names and with our money.
Which is another way of saying the GOP has been treating us everyday Florida taxpayers like mushrooms: Kept in the dark and fed a steady died of manure.
Not to be a cynic or anything, but I suspect that the only reason legislation to restore public presidential searches was introduced this session is because GOP lawmakers – who have slavishly given in to The Great DeSanitizer’s every whim for the past few years – are now suffering from seller’s remorse and want nothing more than to put our anti-Ron in his place.
Meanwhile, the Guv is happy to continue to use secret searches to put his political loyalists in charge of state universities and colleges.
OF COURSE SUNSHINE IS BETTER THAN DARKNESS MR. SPEAKER! AND WE HAD SUNSHINE IN UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTIAL SEARCHES UNTIL THE LEGISLATURE TOOK IT AWAY!
Tell us something we don’t know.
Or better yet, do something about it!
Alachua unraveling
The City of Alachua has long had a reputation for being, um, developer friendly. But it looks like the growth at any cost chickens are finally coming home to roost in the county’s “good life” municipality.
Let’s recap recent developments:
First three out of four city planners resigned because they could no longer stomach being pressured to approve new developments in double time.
Then the city attorney warned that the city risked lawsuits because of all the rush.
Then the voters revolted: Turning out two incumbents.
Then the city manager resigned for…um, reasons unspecified.
And now the commission has decided to launch an outside investigation to try to figure out what the hell’s been going on.
To which the city’s three ex-planners informed the commission of “our willingness to participate in this investigation.”
Pop some corn, folks. This is gonna get real interesting.
FreeGNV 