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
"every political insider should be reading right now."

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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, June 28, 2005

Don't You Just Love ...

    those delightful public-private partnerships:
    The Dade City-based Florida Youth Conservation Corps is grabbing millions of dollars in no-bid government contracts to clean highway rights of way. Its stated mission is to provide training and scholarships to disadvantaged youths, but the most prevalent lessons are deceitful behavior and ducking accountability.

    The private, nonprofit agency which gets up to $4.5-million a year, most from the state of Florida, refuses to detail its finances or document its scholarship spending. The reluctance might be attributable to some of FYCC's exorbitant spending elsewhere including $457,000 over the past four years on travel and conference expenses, mostly for its top managers. Or maybe the agency is coy because none of the 30 ex-employees interviewed by Times staff writers Collins Conner and Bridget Hall Grumet can name a single scholarship recipient in recent years.

    It is an abuse of a public trust and exploits young, unskilled laborers who have little recourse. One recruiter said FYCC misled its employees and their families by not delivering on its promises. A former crew chief characterized FYCC as a place using cheap labor to turn a profit. There is little evidence to dispute their assessments.
    "Charity or cheap labor?"

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