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Florida Senate, House defend legislative maps, argue against any outside cartography

Lawyers for the Florida House and Senate filed briefs Saturday defending the constitutionality of new legislative maps. They also argue the Florida Supreme Court should avoid implementing any maps not approved by the Legislature.

That’s a move that pushes against 2015 court rulings that tossed cartography approved for Florida Senate districts and the state’s congressional seats.

Maps approved by the Legislature for Florida’s 40 Senate and 120 House districts undergo an automatic review by the Florida Supreme Court. This year for the first time, nobody has filed any legal objections to those maps, although entities including Latino Justice and the League of Women Voters of Florida have threatened legal action in the future.

Lawmakers want to shake up Florida’s virtual school system

State Rep. Randy Fine says Florida’s online education program needs an overhaul.

Crafted before the iPhone, the model that allows Florida Virtual School to offer classes and also franchise its curriculum has become too expensive and duplicative, the Palm Bay Republican argues. Florida Virtual gets about $280 million from the state to provide its classes, while districts also get per-student funding for their virtual classes, which often come from Florida Virtual.

Fine aimed to shake things up with the education budget implementing bill (HB 5101) he wrote as chairman of the House PreK-12 Appropriations subcommittee.

“Why reinvent the wheel when the wheel works fine?” he said, proposing that school districts no longer be allowed to franchise with Florida Virtual.

The Tampa Bay area is benefiting as Florida’s tourism numbers rebound

Tourism in Florida is rebounding to prepandemic levels and officials in the greater Tampa Bay region say the area is feeling the benefits.

Florida attracted 30.9 million visitors during the last three months of 2021, making it the second consecutive quarter that the state exceeded 2019’s tourism levels.

In the greater Tampa Bay region, that has translated into full hotels, beaches and attractions, officials said.

The area’s hotel occupancy rate has been at or near the top in the nation for the past two years, said Visit Tampa Bay President and CEO Santiago Corrada.

Tampa has been putting itself in the position to succeed so these numbers shouldn’t come as a surprise, Corrada said.

Local Girl Scouts may be to thank as Florida considers pet supplies for tax holiday

The seven Girl Scouts in Palm Harbor Troop No. 60601 and their troop leaders count about 15 pets among them. More than 50 if you include all the fish.

Australian shepherds Colt and Turk. A golden retriever puppy, Cay. An axolotl named Chico. A hefty black-and-white cat named Remi.

When four members of the troop last spring started brainstorming ideas for the Girl Scouts Silver Award, one of the highest merit awards for middle-school-aged girls, they thought of their animals.

After realizing that Florida’s disaster preparedness sales tax holiday for emergency supplies does not cover pet food, pet carriers and other items for the nonhuman members of their households, they started an online petition and emailed their representative, House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor.