FLORIDA POLITICS
Since 2002, daily Florida political news and commentary

 

UPDATE: Every morning we review and individually digest Florida political news articles, editorials and punditry. Our sister site, FLA Politics was selected by Campaigns & Elections as one of only ten state blogs in the nation
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Welcome To Florida Politics

Thanks for visiting. On a semi-daily basis we scan Florida's major daily newspapers for significant Florida political news and punditry. We also review the editorial pages and political columnists/pundits for Florida political commentary. The papers we review include: the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Naples News, Sarasota Herald Tribune, St Pete Times, Tampa Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Tallahassee Democrat, and, occasionally, the Florida Times Union; we also review the political news blogs associated with these newspapers.

For each story, column, article or editorial we deem significant, we post at least the headline and link to the piece; the linked headline always appears in quotes. We quote the headline for two reasons: first, to allow researchers looking for the cited piece to find it (if the link has expired) by searching for the original title/headline via a commercial research service. Second, quotation of the original headline permits readers to appreciate the spin from the original piece, as opposed to our spin.

Not that we don't provide spin; we do, and plenty of it. Our perspective appears in post headlines, the subtitles within the post (in bold), and the excerpts from the linked stories we select to quote; we also occasionally provide other links and commentary about certain stories. While our bias should be immediately apparent to any reader, we nevertheless attempt to link to every article, column or editorial about Florida politics in every major online Florida newspaper.

 

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The Blog for Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Contracting Official Comes Clean

    Now we have private contractors monitoring privatization at DCF:
    The Department of Children & Families' top contracting official resigned Monday, chiding social service officials for defanging the state's oversight of private, often profit-making agencies that provide services to Florida's most vulnerable citizens.

    In a strongly worded three-page resignation letter, Robert D. Fierro, DCF's director of contract services, said he could no longer manage the state's child welfare, mental health and domestic violence programs after cutbacks reduced his staff by half.

    Fierro strongly criticized a decision by DCF's newly appointed secretary, Lucy Hadi, to transfer to private companies the lion's share of the monitoring and oversight of about $1.5 billion in social service contracts. Fierro said the move carried "far more peril than promise."

    Beset by staff cuts and saddled with often unrealistic demands and "externally imposed deadlines," Fierro wrote, contract managers have been forced to negotiate, draft and supervise agreements with private agencies far too quickly.
    The public is more often ill-served than well-served by haste in contracting," Fierro wrote. "To quote an old adage, 'If you want it badly, you get it badly.'"
    "Resigning DCF official blames staff cutbacks, tight deadlines".

    In the meantime, the St Pete Times gives us this puff piece about Hadi; while acknowledging "her record is not without blemish", the paper conveniently overlooks her key role in one of the most embarassing political incident in recent years - and there have been many - the firing of 6 DCF workers for allegedly being rude to a GOoPer Senator's mother (who had sought preferential treatment). Hadi played a prominent role in the despicable act of political retaliation against rank-and-file workers, then publicly dissembled to cover it up. See "Supervisor: DCF's Regier ordered me to fire 6 after rudeness flap" and "DCF reinstates six fired workers".

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