The Florida Roundup - Florida’s 6-week ban, campus protests, public funds for sports stadiums, and environmental news

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

This week on The Florida Roundup, we looked at Florida’s 6-week ban as it goes into effect (00:11). We also heard about the latest on campus protests (08:03) and speak to a student reporter about the arrests at the University of Florida (14:20). Plus, we talked about a proposed stadium in St. Petersburg for the Tampa Bay Rays with Tampa Bay Times reporter Colleen Wright (20:08) as well as the negotiations between the city of Jacksonville and the NFL Jaguars over massive stadium renovations with JAX Today reporter Casmira Harrison (30:44). And finally, a roundup of environmental stories from the panhandle to the Keys (37:23).

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being with us this week. June 13th is six weeks from today. For someone who gets pregnant today, June 13th is the last day they would be able to get a legal abortion in Florida unless a few exceptions apply. The six-week abortion ban became state law this week. It brings Florida's abortion restrictions in line with every other neighboring state. Before this week, abortions were legal in Florida up to 15 weeks after the state Supreme Court ruled there was no abortion protection in the privacy clause of the state constitution, which had been the precedent for more than 30 years.

I'm hoping and praying that at least half the abortion centers in the state of Florida will effectively shut down. That's Andrew Sherville. He is head of the Florida Voice for the Unborn. There were 51 abortion clinics listed as active, according to data from the Florida Agency for Health Care. Through the end of March, over 14,000 abortions had been reported to the state.

90% of them were in the first trimester. We are in a very, very dire place. We know under the 15-week ban, it's not hyperbole to say women and girls have suffered greatly. That's Democratic State Senator Lauren Book, who voted against the six-week ban. Now, exceptions to the six-week ban include pregnancies that result from rape, incest, or a victim of human trafficking. Those may be aborted up to 15 weeks if a woman has evidence she is getting the procedure because of one of those reasons.

Another exception is if two doctors certify in writing that an abortion is necessary to save a woman's life or avoid serious risk of what the law calls a quote �substantial and irreversible physical impairment to a major bodily function.� Dr. Cecilia Grande in Miami-Dade County is a member of a group called the Committee to Protect Health Care. She has a patient with an unplanned pregnancy who takes an arthritis drug that causes birth defects. Before May 1st, they would get a termination before 20 weeks. Now, people in the state of Florida, they don't have that liberty anymore. Now the government is telling them, no, you have to have this baby.

Florida still requires a 24-hour waiting period between visits to an abortion provider before a procedure can be performed. Michelle Casada is the vice president of communications for Planned Parenthood of southeast and north Florida. MICHELLE CASADA, Vice President, Planned Parenthood of Southeast and North Florida, If you are six weeks pregnant and you come into a health center for an appointment for an abortion, you'd have to come back 24 hours later for the procedure, and by then it's

too late. JOHN YANG, The law includes more money for pregnancy centers. Two years ago, the state spent $4 million. The new six-week ban increases that more than six-fold to $25 million. Dr. Grazi Christi is the medical director of the Pregnancy Help Centers of the Archdiocese of Miami and supports the law. We are able to embrace them and help them and many times all they need really is support like that kind of spiritual and psychological and loving support

of someone that says it's hard but we are here for you and we can we can help you. Opponents of the law have been busy arranging alternatives for their patients. North Carolina is the closest state to Florida with a less restrictive abortion law. A woman can get an abortion there for up to 12 weeks but they must have two appointments. One for an in-person counseling session before the actual procedure and those two appointments must be 72 hours apart. The Florida Access Network is one group helping Floridians pay for abortions and provide logistical support like child care and transportation. It expects to help more people travel out of state for care.

Stephanie Lorraine Pinheiro is with the group. Our hope is that we are able to support people who are able to reach out to us, learn that abortion funds exist. us learn that abortion funds exist. The new law also impacts women from neighboring states who had been seeking an abortion in Florida, which had a less restrictive law before Wednesday of this week. About 10% of abortions reported to the state in the first three months of this year were performed on women from out of state. Now, the days leading up to Wednesday when the six-week law went into effect were busy at Florida abortion clinics. Here's Michelle Quesada again with Planned Parenthood of Southeast and North Florida. We've been seeing so many patients in the month of April. Really our

schedules the last few days leading up to the six-week ban have been packed and I know that even though our clinic hours are pretty set, our staff has been staying long hours. Stephanie Colombini from our partner station WUSF in Tampa has more now on the preparations for the new law by supporters and opponents. Planned Parenthood centers extended their hours to help more patients approaching six weeks of pregnancy come in for abortion care while they can. Patients have to make two visits because of Florida's mandatory 24-hour waiting period. Barbara Javecki runs the group's clinics in southwest and central Florida. We want to be able to help everyone with information in order to access care as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, supporters of the the band like john St

Council Action says his g the nearly 200 anti abort in the state for a potent The state boosted fundin They encourage pregnant p and to consider parenting We really want to appeal to young mothers or even older mothers who are in what we would consider a crisis pregnancy to

basically think differently about the issue. Critics of crisis pregnancy centers say some provide misleading or inaccurate medical information. Abortion rights supporters argue even people who want to carry pregnancies to term may not be able to for health or personal reasons. Now they'll have to travel far out of state to access abortions after six weeks, with limited exceptions. I'm Stephanie Columbini in Tampa. The six-week ban went into effect about five months before Floridians will start voting in the fall election and deciding the fate of a constitutional amendment that would protect abortion access in the state. The ban and that ballot referendum brought Vice President Kamala Harris to Jacksonville on Wednesday. You see, we trust women. We trust women to know what is in their own best interest.

own best interest. And women trust all of us to fight to protect their most fundamental freedoms. Just last week, President Joe Biden was in Tampa for a speech about abortion rights. Veronica Zaragoza reports now from our partner station WLRN in Miami that state Democrats hope to pin abortion restrictions on Republican candidates in the fall election. Recent polls suggest most Florida voters don't support a six-week abortion ban. The state has about 5.4 million registered Republicans, roughly one million more than Democrats, according to the Florida Division of Elections. Nikki Freed chairs the Florida Democratic Party and says she wants to drum up support across party lines for Amendment 4. If passed, the state constitution

would enshrine abortion access through fetal viability, which is about 24 weeks. Regardless if you are Democrat, Republican, Independent, politicians should not be in this conversation. This is an intimate conversation between a woman, her doctor, and whoever she may pray to. Republican U.S. Senator Rick Scott, who is running for re-election in Florida, says he opposes a November ballot item and instead supports states setting their own abortion limits. I'm Veronica Saragovia in Miami. abortion limits. I'm Veronica Saragovia in Miami. The other big story in Florida this week has been campus protests against Israel's war against Hamas. This is what pro-Palestinian demonstrators sounded like on Wednesday

when they marched on the University of South Florida campus in Tampa, some waving Palestinian flags. Nancy Guan from WUSF was there. About 300 people gathered on Wednesday at the corner of 56th Street and Fowler Avenue. A mix of students and community members, including children and the elderly, chanted support for Gaza. Speakers continued demanding the university to divest from Israel as well. The group then marched to USF's Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza, where demonstrators had clashed with law enforcement

for the past two days. Ali Abdel Kader is with the Tampa Bay Party for Socialism and Liberation. The entire community was attacked when the students were attacked yesterday. These are people's children. These are people's sons. These are people's daughters. This time, people watched on as some sang and prayed on the lawn. Police stood at a distance and in smaller numbers compared to previous demonstrations. Around 8 p.m., the group marched about two miles back to where they began. I'm Nancy Guan in Tampa.

Earlier in the week, 10 people were arrested at USF after university officials decided the protest was no longer peaceful. I'm Megan Bowman in Tampa. This blows like ice. We will not stop. We will not rest. Protesters chanted and stood locked, arm in arm, for hours before law enforcement officers wearing gas masks lined up near them. Students used planks of plywood and large umbrellas as shields. One of the roughly 100 officers used a bullhorn to order protesters to disperse, calling it an unlawful assembly. disperse, calling it an unlawful assembly. 15 minutes later, the first of several tear gas canisters was thrown at the crowd. USF student Joseph Chari helped organize the rally. Earlier

in the day, he said students had a legal right to protest. USF officials had warned students that they could not protest after five at night and no tents could be erected on campus. Police can do whatever they want to do. We just know that it is our right to be here. Obviously rallies are allowed here. Obviously it's a public campus. It's an outdoor space. Chari said protesters plan to keep showing up for as long as they can. Arrests were also made at demonstrations on campus at Florida State and at the University of Florida this week. Five were taken into custody by FSU police after they pitched tents despite warnings earlier from the school that putting up a tent and camping on

campus would lead to arrests. Nine people were arrested at UF on Monday. Six of those people identify themselves as students, one as a teaching assistant, and two as employees of Target at a first appearance hearing at the Alachua County Courthouse on Tuesday morning. Most of the charges included failure to obey police or fire department, wearing a hood or mask on public property, and resisting without violence. Several students were ordered not to return to UF or to have any contact with the institution. Alex Siegel attended the hearing in support of her granddaughter, Tess Siegel, a UF student who was arrested. She's brilliant and wonderful. Obviously, she has a very high

social consciousness, and she has both worked and volunteered in the community here since she moved up here to go to school. It's not clear whether Seagal or other students violated a list of rules sent out to students by the university last week. Students found in violation of those rules could face suspension or banishment from campus. Of course, the family's upset about her in case she gets kicked out of school because, you know, we're invested here. Both her parents went to UF and everything. Judge Susan Miller-Jones allowed all but one of the nine people arrested to be released from the Alachua County Jailhouse. According to a police report, one student spat on a police officer.

That student is facing a battery charge and is being held on a $5,000 bond. That was Anya Piniello from our partner station WUFT in Gainesville. Now Governor Ron DeSantis this week has praised the actions of Florida's public universities. As much as I disagree with their opinions, you know, they have a right to do that, but you don't have a right to commandeer the university. You don't have a right to disrupt, to harass, to intimidate, and do all those other things. And Florida, I think people are looking at Florida's universities and saying, why can't this happen at these other places? The protesters want universities to release details about what investments are made by their endowments, to sell any investments in stocks or bonds of companies

doing business in or with Israel in the Gaza War, and allow students to have a say in future investments, along with other demands. The campus protests in Florida have been much smaller than what other universities have been experiencing across the country. They come as the spring semester winds down and students graduate. The State University System of Florida urged Florida's 12 public universities to ensure graduation ceremonies are not canceled or disrupted by the demonstrations. Here's Danielle Pryor from our partner Central Florida Public Media. In a memo sent to the school's chancellor of the State University System of Florida, Ray Rodriguez says that schools should not cancel or

modify commencement ceremonies due to protesters. He acknowledges the public's First Amendment rights, but says commencement is not the place for a political protest. The letter authorizes schools to take any steps necessary to ensure the safety of attendees at these ceremonies. Schools are required to inform students, staff and guests guests that protests, discrimination, or harassment of any kind won't be tolerated. Florida law requires educational institutions to ensure programming is free from discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or national origin. In Orlando, I'm Danielle Pryor. Zoe Thomas joins us now. She's a reporter for The Independent Alligator. That's the student-owned newspaper at the University of Florida. Zoe, classes on campus are out. You're joining us from off campus. You were there earlier in the week, though, covering these demonstrations leading up to Monday's arrests. Tell us about the protests, about the size, and about what students are demanding. Yeah, so starting on Wednesday of last week, so April 24th, the UF Divest Coalition has led a 24-7 continuous occupation of Plaza of the Americas at UF.

And a group of about 30 or so students at a time have just been coming to the plaza in shifts. They sit on blankets and tarps because tents of any kind aren't permitted. And they've just been there eating, talking, doing homework, just kind of peacefully occupying the space. There was a larger rally for Gaza that kicked off the occupation last Wednesday that drew a crowd of about 150 people with chanting and sign waving. But since then, things have kind of died down into a quieter protest. We did see some arrests for some of those demonstrators earlier in the week, as reported just a few moments ago. And the university released a statement after those arrests saying, quote, this is not complicated. The University of Florida is not a daycare and we do not treat protesters like children.

What do you make of that statement? Yes, that statement from Steve Orlando was perhaps people found it a little bit more blunt than statements made in the past. It was also made only about 15 minutes after the arrest actually happens. And so it mentioned, for example, that the presence of outside agitators might have influenced the protest. And later on, it was discovered that seven of the nine people arrested were affiliated with the university rather than outside agitators.

So it was a statement that I think did take some people by surprise. But it was kind of just reiterating what the university has been saying in terms of that camping, that setting up structures isn't tolerated and is going to result in legal action. Those are some of the rules that the university put out on a flyer a week ago today. And then the university said students who were arrested broke the rules. How have those rules been enforced in other gatherings on campus? Is there an applicability question to be asked here? Yeah, so the UF Divest Coalition has been getting some legal advice,

and one of the things that has been brought to the university's attention is that, for example, tailgaters for football games at the university have a long history of camping out the night before the big game or of setting up lawn chairs. Students take naps in plaza pretty frequently. And the university is telling the protesters that sleeping of any kind is not allowed. So there's been a question of whether these rules are being unequally applied to the pro-Palestinian protesters and whether that could present itself as an infringement on their First Amendment rights. Zoe, we have less than a minute left here. Other schools, such as Northwestern and even Columbia, New York, have negotiated with student protesters. Was there any interaction between protesters and the UF administration? setting up structures against sleeping, et cetera. It doesn't appear that there have been any developments made so far as the coalition actually achieving their goals of divestment.

Zoe Thomas, a reporter at the Independent Alligator. That's the student-owned newspaper at the University of Florida. Zoe, thanks for sharing your reporting with us. Much appreciated. Thank you for having me. Still to come on our program, hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to play ball. Do you think the public money spent on big major league sports stadiums is money well spent? Let's hear from you now. Radio at the Florida Roundup dot org is our inbox. That's open. The phone lines are open now.

Public financing, public money spent on private sports teams and facilities. 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. The first F1 practice laps should be getting underway for the Miami Grand Prix just about now as we're live on this Friday. It is time to go racing. And for Formula One in Miami, it's race on. On Sunday, F1 race cars will be racing around Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.

It's the third year in a row for the race in Florida. Now, the track is paid for by the majority owner of the stadium, and it all sits on publicly owned land. While taxpayers are not footing the bill directly, the private owners of the stadium get millions of dollars in payments from taxpayers for hosting the race. It's one way local taxes go toward big sporting events with private owners. Pay and play. There are two billion dollar proposals in Florida for sports facilities, a new baseball stadium in St. Petersburg and renovating the football stadium in Jacksonville. Hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers may be involved. So how much public money should be spent on big major league sports facilities?

What do taxpayers get out of that deal? What is the price for your hometown team pride? Email us now, radio at thefloridaroundup.org, radio at thefloridaroundup.org, or call 305-995-1800, 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800 305-995-1800. Let's start with a massive proposal centered around a new stadium in St. Petersburg for the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team. Colleen Wright covers the city of St. Pete for the Tampa Bay Times. Colleen, thanks for joining us here on The Roundup. So this project in St. Petersburg, it is a lot more than just a baseball stadium. Give us a sense of the scope of this proposal.

It is way more than just a baseball stadium. It concerns 86 acres of prime downtown land in the middle of downtown St. Petersburg. It's a pretty large swath. So the stadium itself will take up about 17 to 20 acres or so. The stadium itself will take up about 17 to 20 acres or so, and the remaining 65 acres or so is going to be home to a new African American history museum. It would actually be the first building built specifically for an African American museum. It will have somewhere estimated around 5,000 residences, some of those affordable and workforce housing.

It may have an entertainment hall. There may be some hotels and some office space, depending on kind of what comes out. So it's pretty sweeping. It will be a whole different part of the city. And right now, it's just asphalt. There's nothing there. So the transformation would be huge. We're looking at a total $6.5

billion public and private investment. And how much of that money would be directed toward the stadium itself? So the stadium itself will cost about $1.3 billion. And the bigger half, $700 million of that is going to be covered by the raise. The county and the city split the rest with the county taking about 312.5 million. And then I think it breaks down to like St. Petersburg is like 287.5 or something like that million dollars. It's still over a half a billion dollars in taxpayer funds. And I want to ask you about that in a second. But you mentioned this as prime downtown St. Petersburg property. What's the historic significance of this location? The project is called the historic gas plant district. Our

mayor Ken Welch renamed it that it's an homage to the black community that live there. There were two gas plant silos, and black families were redlined into this area. Some will say it was kind of like, you know, a mixed income neighborhood because you had doctors living next to teachers, living next to people who were either on the lower side income wise or more because all black families were redlined in. It used to be thriving. It had, you know, bars, restaurants, a school. It was really a loving community.

And a lot of descendants will tell you that. And in the 70s, the city said the area has become blighted. We're going to raise it, and we're going to put light industry and new homes, and we're going to revitalize the area. Sometime later, in the 80s, the plans get changed, and the city council said this could be maybe a potential ballpark site. So those plans, those promises of jobs and housing never came through. I mean, a lot of people see it as a lie or a promise unfulfilled. And instead, the land was used to lure baseball. And that's where Tropicana Field is today.

That's where the Tampa Bay Rays play today. Tana Field is today. That's where the Tampa Bay Rays played today. How does that history come into play with the development choices that the developer has made regarding this proposal, as well as some of the demands or requests that the city or county have made? We'll never bring back what was there. Even descendants will tell you that, you know, that that's kind of gone and they really ruined, you know, a community. However, they're trying to honor it by restoring the grid that was there and putting streets back in so that you can kind of walk around and kind of have a sense of place there. Some people really want to focus on like we want the promises to come true this time. The promises that there will be housing for the people who live here. There will be jobs for the people who live here. There will be jobs for the people who live here. And so there's a big emphasis on having affordable housing there,

but also having jobs and opportunities for like minority owned businesses. You know, could descendants of the gas plant go in and bring their business there and have a storefront or smaller businesses and kind of having a home for the people who live and work here today. You described this as just a blank asphalt canvas at this point. Who owns the land? It's owned by Pinellas County and taxable to the county. However, the city is going to be brokering the sale of 65 public acres to the Tampa Bay Rays and their development partner Heinz. And is the stadium going on those 65 acres

that ultimately could be privately owned? No, the stadium will stay on county land. It will continue to be a public building, a public facility. The stadium itself would be privately owned or would be publicly owned? Publicly owned. Publicly owned.

So let's get down to those dollar figures you were mentioning, a half billion dollars of taxpayer money, the county and the city of St. Petersburg are part of that. Where is this tax money supposed to come from if this deal gets done? The county is basically using that $312 million from bed tax or hotel tax. It's the tax surcharge you get when you stay at a hotel or like a short-term rental like an Airbnb or a VRBO in Pinellas County. So the argument there is taxpayers in Pinellas County aren't paying for this. It's the visitors to Pinellas County that are paying for it. However, that tax money could go somewhere else if not toward the baseball project. Yes,

it can. A lot of people like the Raisin Town. They think they're a good asset to have around. It's civic pride and some people say well you know people come to the games, have tourism, it's just better for the city and the county overall to have a major league team here. Of course detractors will say well no one really goes to Tampa Bay Rays games. The Rays historically have very very very low attendance, you know, last or second last for attendance in the league. I was struck by the size of the proposed stadium, 30,000 seats, not an enormous facility for major league sports. Let's talk a little bit about the St. Petersburg then contribution. Where would those funds come from, presumably? So the stadium right now is in

a community redevelopment area. They're going to look at tax increment financing. So basically they're leveraging increased property values in the future. Once this is built, they're kind of like borrowing on that money now. And it's being backed up by non-property taxes. So the mayor has basically sworn saying nobody's property taxes are going to go up, but it is backed up from non-property taxes. And while the tax rate may not go up, the taxes may go up because the value presumably is going to rise with this development. That's the argument, right? Yes.

It has been shown that the prices involved here are below what perhaps the land could get kind of on the open market. So how much of a discount could this deal be for the developers if they are able to get this deal done? Two years ago, these 65 acres were appraised. I want to say it's 279 or 270, but it's 270 something. Heinz and the Rays are buying the 65 acres at 105 million. And again, the appraisal was two years ago. So a substantial discount. It is a significant discount, yes. So with that in mind, what are city taxpayers,

what are county taxpayers likely to get a return on that investment they're being asked to make, not only explicitly with the taxpayer subsidies, but also this discount for the real estate? The city and the county, I would say, are relying on subsidies saying that this is going to bring jobs to the area, construction jobs, and that we will get our return and that values will go up and we'll be able to pay this off. However, people who are not in favor say, well, hey, we could sell this off at way more

closer to market rate and really get our money's worth out of this. The argument against that that the mayor has been kind of harping on is that if we do that, we're not going to have a cohesive development. And maybe we won't get a museum for African-American history. Again, the first purpose-built one in Florida. We won't maybe get the affordable housing that's coming with us at this point. Let me ask you, perhaps some may think is a minor question, but others may think of it as a prideful question. The Tampa Bay Rays have played baseball in St. Petersburg since the late 1990s.

Any effort to bring some truth to the name with this new stadium project? Like name it after St. Petersburg? Well, it's the Tampa Bay Rays that are playing a home field across the bay in a different city. There was a whole discussion about this at the end of last year, and the Rays pretty much immediately said, that's not on the table at all. I'll note that the Miami Marlins do play in the city of Miami now. The Miami Dolphins football team, they don't play in the city of Miami any longer. Yeah.

Colleen Wright covers the city of St. Petersburg for the Tampa Bay Times. She's with us from our partner station, WUSF, in Tampa. Thanks, Colleen. Thank you. So do you think public money spent on big major league sports stadiums is money well spent? 305-995-1800 or radio at thefloridaroundup.org. David sent us this note.

I'm a third-generation North Miami Beach voter. What has my family received since 1952 for Miami stadiums so that parties can be thrown in Fort Lauderdale? Thomas in Jacksonville wrote us, writing, I applaud Oakland, California, for having the courage to allow their sports franchises to leave rather than give in to demands for public subsidies. As a note, the A's and the Raiders from Oakland are moving or are already in Las Vegas, and the NBA Warriors now play across the bay in San Francisco.

Thomas in Jacksonville says, Here in Jacksonville, the majority of the population cannot afford to attend a Jaguars game. Those citizens' tax dollars should not go to fund a stadium they can't afford. Well, it has been a year now in Jacksonville since a billion dollar plus plan was announced for what its NFL team calls the stadium of the future. It will position downtown Jacksonville as an essential stop for the biggest entertainment and sporting events in the world. The Jacksonville City Council is expecting to see specific financial terms for a proposed deal later this month.

The Jaguar owners want the city to kick in about half of the cost of renovating the stadium and developing the surrounding neighborhood. Kazmira Harrison is with us now, reporter for Jax Today in Jacksonville. Kazmira, thanks for joining us. Where do negotiations between the city and the team stand at this point? Right now, it looks like we're nearing the end, but honestly, it's anyone's guess. The city has been pretty tight-lipped about the details of the negotiations, and according to Mike Weinstein, who's the chief negotiator on the deal, nothing is set in stone until everybody agrees to it. Yeah. So the price tag has been pegged at almost a billion and a half dollars. What do folks get for that? And who is expecting

to pay what? So the Jags have proposed like a complete overhaul, a complete renovation of the existing building rather than a full rebuild, because they say that that'll considerably keep construction costs down. Among the most visual changes, though, would be the roof, the new roof. They want to provide sun protection across it, get better airflow in the stadium, protect from the weather, that sort of thing. Plus, the city has been handling maintenance for years, and according to the Jags, they've been deferring maintenance issues that really need to be addressed.

We're talking about the financing or public money going toward professional sports team stadiums. We talked earlier about the St. Pete situation with the Tampa Bay Rays and the new stadium proposal there in development. Kizmira Harrison is our guest now with Jax Today as the Jacksonville Jaguars want to negotiate a renovation of their stadium in Jacksonville.

You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. Kizmira, we are going to hear from Kendra, who's been listening to this conversation in Jacksonville, so certainly has a stake in this game. Kendra, thanks for listening. You're on the radio. Go ahead. Hi, thanks for having me. Sure. What do you think of it? You know, there are organizations, non-governmental organizations and governmental organizations that create public value, such as nonprofits or maybe libraries, fire departments, etc.

While you could certainly make a case that a sports venue creates some public value, its main purpose is to turn a profit because it is a business. Therefore, it should not be funded by tax dollars. So we're going to count you as against any public money going toward this renovation plan, Kendra. Thanks for joining that conversation. What could the financing here look like, Kismira? What has been floated publicly? What do we know about this billion and a half dollar price tag about who would pay for what? So, and the city and the Jags have done this in the past, go with a 50-50 split. And that's kind of been floated as what's expected. But there's no solid deal yet. So we don't exactly

know. And part of this is prefaced, I suppose, on ownership here, right? I mean, the team itself, obviously, is privately owned. The stadium, however, is owned by the city of Jacksonville. Is that right? Yeah, that's where it gets really complicated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about the surrounding area that's part of this redevelopment proposal? So initially, there was a plan to include that part in the negotiations because there's there's a lot going on downtown um there's plans for the four seasons hotel the chefs uh cons got built uh working on over there and all of this other uh space around the stadium but it appears that the city and the jags took that off the table earlier uh bonnie has been listening to this conversation from St. Pete.

Bonnie, you've got some skin in the game as well with the Tampa Bay Rays stadium proposal. Go ahead. You're on the air. Right. Well, I just want to reiterate what was just said is why is public funding going to finance private for-profit businesses? I mean, that just makes no sense to me. Why aren't we publicly

financing shopping malls? That provides jobs, construction jobs and ongoing jobs. But the other thing is that the St. Pete plan, none of the plans have ever addressed the fact that there's no accessibility. It's hard to get to. There's one way into the stadium, one way out, and there's no public transportation. So, I mean, that issue hasn't even been addressed. Yeah. Big questions there, Bonnie, for St. Pete and elsewhere. Yeah, and great questions. Because, Mary, I want to ask you, though, about the public investment here. Bonnie mentions, you know, why aren't shopping malls receiving public investment?

Arguably, there's infrastructure involved, right? Roads and sewers and other kinds of things that are publicly financed. How is that mix looking for Jacksonville as the negotiations are likely to become more public in the weeks ahead? Well, that's actually a really good question. Because we don't know the split, because we don't know the city's portion of the investment it's really hard to compare the two yeah but if you were to take the initial number say 1.4 billion dollars and split that in half you got 700 million dollars that the city has to invest in this uh where the money comes from however not sure. But they do have to build a new jail that's kind of like an edict from city council

and everywhere else is... And what's that price tag? ...away from $1 billion. So we've got competing interests here. Wow, yeah. Yeah. Kazmira Harrison, following all of this in Jacksonville for Jax today.

Kazmira, thanks for sharing your reporting with us. Much appreciated. Thank you so much, Tom. Plenty more to come here on The Roundup in Jacksonville for Jax today. Kismira, thanks for sharing your reporting with us. Much appreciated. Thank you so much, Tom. Plenty more to come here on The Roundup as you are listening to The Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. Stick with us. This is The Florida Roundup.

I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being with us this week. We have some stories around the state about our environment now. Let's start with oil and the Apalachicola River area. Now, this started back in 2019 when an oil company was granted permission to drill in an area between the Apalachicola and the Chipola Rivers in Calhoun County in the Panhandle. That company conducted seismic testing but decided against drilling anymore. This week, the State Department of Environmental Protection said it expects to okay a permit to another oil company to drill

its own exploratory well. That well could be up to almost three miles deep on privately owned land. Cameron Baxley is with the Apalachicola Riverkeeper and is against the project. This area that they're trying to do the drilling at is just a really bad location and a huge risk. You know, oil and rivers just don't mix. Republican State Senator Corey Simon represents a neighboring district to the exploratory site. He worries the drilling could disturb the recovery of the oyster industry in the region. I don't want to do anything that's going to put those things at risk. When we start talking about drilling and we start talking about the potential hazards of drilling and the downstream effects that I discussed, that is problematic.

Again, those are further delays in people being able to make a living in those areas. The Calhoun County Commission voted unanimously late last year to support the drilling. Now, Florida does produce some oil. Florida oil wells pumped about 3,000 barrels of oil per day in January. Overall, the United States produces 1.3 million barrels of oil per day. million barrels of oil per day. So for every 450 barrels of oil pumped out from under the United States each day, one comes from the Sunshine State. Some new neighbors were brought to the eastern bank of the Apalachicola River this week. 41 eastern indigo snakes. Now they don't have venom, but they can grow to eight feet long. These snakes are designated by the federal government as threatened,

and the release this week is part of an effort to restore some of the balance lost in Florida's ecosystem back in the 1980s as development limited the snake's range and people hunted for the snake's prey, rattlesnakes and gopher tortoises. Now, Brad O'Hallon is with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. He calls these eastern indigo snakes indiscriminate eaters. Their diet consists of things like eastern diamondback rattlesnakes or copperheads. So getting them back in is a real symbol of the restoration and conservation work that we're doing and shows a full intact ecosystem. This week's release of the snakes means the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now more than halfway to its goal of releasing 300 into the area. In St. Petersburg at the Boyd Hill Nature Preserve, there are worries about tortoises.

Dozens have died there this year, more than a third of the population. Jeff Gessling is a professor at nearby Eckerd College who tracks the tortoises in the area. Essling is a professor at nearby Eckerd College who tracks the tortoises in the area. There is no reason to believe that a third of our tortoises have just haphazardly died, but we have found a third of them dead, surrounded by coyote scat, where coyotes have been chewing on their shells. Now these gopher tortoises can live up to 80 years old. They reach reproductive maturity late in life. Part of the species that live outside of Florida are federally listed as

threatened. Coral reefs now. Last summer was brutal for coral off the shores of Florida. The high water temperatures led to coral bleaching. That's when they lose algae living in their tissues. That turns the coral white and makes them vulnerable to disease since the algae is the coral's major source of food. Well, this year, the federal government is boosting efforts to protect Florida's coral reef off the Atlantic coast. Environment editor Jenny Stoletovich has details from our partner station WLRN in Miami. Assisted Interior Secretary Shannon Estinos announced an additional nine million dollars will go to new coral projects and to hire new staff in South Florida. She says the

unexpected heat wave highlighted a gap in the effort to save coral. Too few workers to match the magnitude of the problem. This work is labor intensive. It's human intensive. Doesn't mean we don't need equipment and other things and projects, but part of it is going to go into human capacity, making sure that we have enough hands on deck. Coral workers raced to remove coral from bleaching reefs during the heat wave, but often ran out of time. Just 22 percent of the coral on the reef survived. Chris Keble directs NOAA's Ocean Chemistry and Ecosystem Lab on Virginia Key. Chemistry and Ecosystem Lab on Virginia Key. We have to figure out why those 22 percent survived. Were they more genetically resilient or more resilient to the heat stress for some reason?

Were they in locations that were maybe not as thermally stressed as other ones? NOAA is currently calling for a 60 percent chance that the lower keys could come under another bleaching watch as early as next month. I'm Jenny Stiletovich in Miami. There's one coral rescue operation that's been underway in Florida for years in what you may consider an unlikely place. Here's Steve Newborn from WUSF in Tampa. This might be the most unlikely place you could imagine for a project that aims to restore Florida's threatened coral reefs. It's hidden behind two car dealerships in a nondescript business park in the middle of Orlando's traffic choke sprawl. To reach it, you walk inside an unmarked building with mirrored

tinting, preventing any wayward peaks from passersby. Once inside, you're transported to a scene more reminiscent of the warm waters off the Florida Keys. So this is what it would look like at Key West because all these corals, that's where their original habitat is. Nadia Vanderhoof is a communications manager with Walt Disney World. She shows the entrance to this blue world. The light in the room mimics how sunshine filters down to the reefs in the Keys. Welcome to the Florida Coral Rescue Center. 18 pools of azure water are filled with more than 500 corals. This is the nation's largest coral nursery, participating in the Florida Reef Track Rescue Project. That's a collaboration between the state and federal

governments and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. It includes the Florida Aquarium in Tampa and Moat Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, which opened their own coral spawning centers after extreme temperatures started killing the reef. Justin Zimmerman is the aquarium supervisor. the reef. Justin Zimmerman is the aquarium supervisor. He says this is like a coral Noah's Ark. All of the corals in here are currently acting as a gene bank. So these corals are the parents for the next generation. They can make thousands, tens of thousands, even millions of babies if there's enough genotypes in these tanks. The corals here were plucked from the depths about four years ago when scientists started to see the spread of stony coral tissue loss disease. So this genetic diversity gives researchers the tools to see which ones are more resistant to ocean warming and

disease. But they'll have to live the rest of their lives in this nondescript warehouse. They're being bred for their offspring, which will then be transplanted back on the reef. And that may offer a glimmer of hope to repopulate the reef with species that are more resilient to climate change. Andy Stamper is Disney's conservation manager. The fact that we can breed so many and get so many babies that can be put out, one of those are going to survive the different conditions that are always changing at this point, and then we can take those animals and then breed those out and have it so that they can adapt over time. So far, they've seen 13 of

the 17 species here spawn. Two years ago, they were able to have rough cactus corals spawn for the first time in human care. Corals release their eggs once a year, but Stamper said they have a few tricks they're working on to improve on nature's design. Not only can we spawn them in the natural year cycle, but we can increase their spawning so that we can get more and more offspring out onto the coral reefs. And so they can do it many times a year. As water flows into one of the tanks, Stamper says this warehouse may be too small to repopulate the world's third largest reef. He says they're looking to expand to the Bahamas closer to the reef,

and the expertise they're developing here will help battered reefs throughout the Caribbean. At this point, without these type of interventions, the trend of the coral reefs is very dire at this point. The big question, he said, is how much time their efforts will buy coral reefs before it's possibly too late. I'm Steve Newborn in Orlando. And I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. Finally on the Roundup this week, and finally on our tour this week of the state's environment and wildlife, residents called it a strange sinkhole when it showed up one day in a Key Largo neighborhood

this year. One person called it weird in a note that was sent to the mayor of Monroe County. Now, it wasn't very big, just a simple dimple in the asphalt with a small hole in the center. But sinkholes are serious business. Only road crews discovered pretty quickly this was no sinkhole. Julia Cooper has the story from the Florida Keys. An indentation in the road only about the size of a baseball suddenly showed up near Harry Harris Park. Officials found evidence of an unlikely offender. Invasive iguanas had burrowed near an abandoned culvert. They created a nesting site for their eggs. This is the first time that County Roads and Bridges Administrator

Kimberly Dean Kelly has seen this. This was filled with dirt and sand or whatnot under the road, but there was a little space at the top and it was like what would be like a little iguana highway running in and out through under the road where they they have like a little palace under there. However, it happens in South Florida more often than you'd think. Dr. William H. Kern Jr. is a retired University of Florida entomology professor, and he specializes in nuisance invasive Florida species. He says iguana burrowing habits can pose a serious threat to urban infrastructure. Those burrows are subject to erosion, and they can cause collapse of seawalls. They can cause erosion in landscapes, especially if you have much of a slope,

like if you're next to a canal or a pond. Kern says installing protective screens and hiring professionals to remove the invasive species can help mitigate iguana-related infrastructure problems. I'm Julia Cooper in Tavernier. Bad traffic, poor parking, the use of turn signals. Sure, we're used to all that when it comes to traffic in Florida, but iguana nests? That's our program for today. The Florida Roundup is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and

WUSF Public Media in Tampa by Bridget O'Brien and Grayson Docter. WLRN's Vice President of Radio and the program's Technical Director is Peter Meritz. Engineering help each and every week Thank you. program. You can download it. You can listen to past programs, share programs, all by going to one simple website, wlrn.org slash podcasts. Thanks for calling, emailing, listening, and above all, supporting public media in your neighborhood. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend.