FLORIDA DIGEST September 17, 2007

FLORIDA RED AND BLUE !!!

Do your part to fight the right-wing state-wide anti-gay initiativeto amend the Florida constitution.

Friday, September 28, at the GLCC, Ft. Lauderdale - 11:45am to 1:30pm.

Michael and I promised to get a minimum of 10 people to attend thislow dollar boxed lunch - only $25 - to learn about Florida Red And Blue andthe multiple efforts to overcome this hateful amendment. Florida Red andBlue has already raised over $1 million, but our work is only beginning.

Will you support us with this? Every GLBT person in Florida needs to be apart of this effort.

Boxed Lunch Series
$25
Friday, September 28
Noon - 1:30pm
Networking 11:45am
GLCC - Ft. Lauderdale

Send us an e-mail and let us know if you'll join us on the 28th.

And...... If you can't attend, we'll be glad to accept your check made outto "Florida Red and Blue."

Ray and Michael
rays.list@comcast.net



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Sun-Sentinel

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbsheriff0917nbsep17,0,5332980,print.story

Search for a Broward County sheriff going slow, said to be bipartisan
By Linda Kleindienst

Tallahassee Bureau Chief
September 17, 2007

TALLAHASSEE

It may be a month or longer before Broward County residents learn the nameof their new sheriff.

Those close to the search say Gov. Charlie Crist would like to appoint afellow Republican to replace former Sheriff Ken Jenne, a Democrat. But theyalso acknowledge the governor realizes the agency is too big and influentialfor party politics to be the driving force in his selection.

Although Crist appointed Al Lamberti, a major and 29-year veteran with theBroward Sheriff's Office, to run the agency in the meantime, the search teamthat began its work even before Jenne's resignation nearly two weeks ago hascast a wide net that includes Democrats who might be interested in the job.

As of Friday, there were seven formal applications from people seeking toserve the rest of Jenne's four-year term. Lamberti, a registered Republicanwho has indicated an interest in seeking election to the post next year, hasnot yet formally applied for the interim job.

There apparently is no rush to cut off the process and no favorite in sight.

"They're trying to do the best search they can," said Chip LaMarca,Broward's Republican Party chairman. "The time frame floating out there is30 to 60 days."

Crist also is wrestling with the question of whether the person he appointsshould be interested in running for the post or just act as caretaker untila new sheriff is elected in 2008.

Last week Crist indicated he might be more inclined to name someone whowants to stick around in the job, but "the governor is still seekingadvice," said state Senate Democratic leader Steve Geller, of Cooper City, alongtime Crist friend.

When Crist was at Geller's home last week for Rosh Hashana dinner, Gellersaid he urged the governor to consider appointing someone who isn'tinterested in seeking election to the post.

more....



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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-editgsapartmentnbsep17,0,2860026,print.story

Sun-Sentinel.com
Teacher housing plan doesn't get passing grade

South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board

September 17, 2007

ISSUE: Housing plan for teachers not gaining support.

There is a real possibility the Broward School Board's idea of buildingaffordable apartments exclusively for district workers will not fly.

If and when the idea officially dies, there should be no mourning period.This is an idea that deserved a quick death.

The concept was for the board to provide district-owned land to privatedevelopers, who would come up with apartments where no one - particularlynewer teachers who haven't climbed up the pay scale - would pay more than 30percent of their salary for rent.

As for those properties, a couple of them are vacated parking lots, and allare located near public schools. Even if the plan did attract some newteachers, how long would they really stay before looking to head elsewhere?

While the School Board may still take a look at proposals from developers,the concept - which would be unique in Florida - has lost steam and hasreceived negative feedback, particularly from teachers. And with goodreason.

Teachers, at all levels, should get the pay and benefits they deserve sothey don't need to live in parking lot apartments in what could be adorm-style arrangement. We don't set up special housing for cops,firefighters, paramedics and other public servants in South Florida whodon't make gigantic salaries, and we shouldn't have to do it for teachers.

more....



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The Palm Beach Post

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2007/09/17/m6a_blackburncol_0917.html

You have no right to vote for president
By Tom Blackburn

Palm Beach Post columnist

Monday, September 17, 2007

In the run-up to the Democratic Party's showdown over the Florida primarydate, Sen. Bill Nelson harrumphed, "As to our right to vote and to have thatvote count, there can be no debate."

When he realized later how far over the top he had gone, Sen. Nelsonprobably had to laugh. Well, it sounded good at the time. But the fact is,we have no right to vote in the presidential primary. Not incidentally, wehave no right to vote in the general election for president, either.

Primaries first: For most of our history, there were no primary elections.Every four years, party bosses, incumbents and their chums would assemble inconvention, toot horns, drink booze, smoke cigars, cut deals and emerge witha presidential candidate. That's how we got James Buchanan, but it is alsohow we got Abraham Lincoln just four years later.

By the 1960s, the stale smell of cigars or bosses hung over that method, andthe parties ordered reforms. The theory was that people who don't care veryfervently about the outcome of the fall election can make better decisionsthan the professional politicians. That is not obvious, and it turned outthat the big contributors got an unexpected veto over candidates as thefield shrinks to what electronic media can manage. But that wrinkle didn'tappear until later.

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Daytona Beach News Journal

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/opnOPN56091707.htm

September 17, 2007
Offending civil rights

Sex-offender witch hunts unfounded, unjust, unsafe

Local communities such as Deltona, DeBary, DeLand, Orange City and Piersonwere at the forefront of a legal movement making it tougher to impossiblefor sexual offenders and predators to live in big parts of each city. Butthe residency-restriction movement is only the latest in a national trendthat's turning hundreds of thousands of sex offenders, many of them forminor and one-time offenses, into publicly branded outcasts.

There's no evidence the laws work to reduce sexual crimes. There's plenty ofevidence to show that the overwhelming majority of such crimes -- up to 90percent -- are committed not by strangers but by someone the victim knows,and often someone under the victim's own roof. There's plenty of evidence toshow that public perception about sex offenders being unredeemable and boundto offend again, if unrestrained, is wrong. And there's growing evidencethat turning offenders into outcasts harms communities more than it protectsthem by severing the former offenders' social and work bonds and forcingthem underground or into vagrancy.

Human Rights Watch, the New York-based international organization, justpublished a report based on two years' research that looks at thesex-offender landscape nationally. It's a grim report.

more....


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