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Christians all around the world are celebrating Easter Sunday today at the Vatican. Pope Benedict used his Easter message to speak out against the suffering in the world and the fighting in Iraq.
Two months after deadly tornado swept through Lake County, members of the First Baptist Church of Paisley held a sunrise service this morning. The congregation is spending Easter weekend helping people who are still trying to resurrect their lives.
It's Easter, but it's feeling a little more like Christmas out there. It may feel cold here in central Florida, but many other parts of the country are getting hit with a spring snowstorm. Look at that.
Two people are dead after crashing into a mobile home near Sanford in Seminole County. Troopers say the car hit a tree and the mobile home and then burst into flames.
And it's getting more and more painful to go to the pumps these days. Filling up your tank is hurting a little more every week. Coming up, the latest numbers from AAA.
Well, good afternoon central Florida. I'm Paul Milliken and happy Easter to all of you. We appreciate you watching. We'll have more on all your top stories coming up in just a moment. First, though, it's a cold Easter all across central Florida today.
Let's get a quick check of our weather on the ones. Thank you very much. Let's proceed into the afternoon hours and look for some sunshine. Haven't had a lot of it this morning.
However, things look a little better over around the Melbourne area. Got some blue skies there and a little bit of wispy clouds and you know, well, we are envious because over in the Orlando area we got lots of clouds and then we've got a cold biting north wind in the area.
It's not comfortable. It's not a wonderful day. I had a little bit of shower activity move through in the upper atmosphere and it never quite made it down to the ground, but it did show up on radar a couple of times this afternoon.
Gotta see some of that right there and you know, even if it did make it to the ground, it was just it wasn't even much. I mean, it was like six, seven dots of rain. More is on the way. It's coming across the Gulf of Mexico.
And that's what we're in hopes of. We actually could use some rain because of this. We've got a fire threat. We got red flag warnings in effect until seven, eight o'clock tonight.
We are starting to compromise the atmosphere a little bit. We're starting to get more moisture in the upper layers and that's good.
But we're seeing that represented by a lot of clouds moving into the area that will continue throughout the evening hours by tomorrow.
We're going to give ourselves about a 30 percent chance of rain in central Florida.
In the meantime, we're going to try to get up to around 69 degrees. Yeah, it's breezy to 67.
Probably what it's going to feel like. I think it could actually feel colder than that in many places.
Forty nine for an overnight low still on the chilly side, but we'll get into the 70s tomorrow when we come back.
We'll look at the seven day forecast and you'll see that right now. Let's look at digital Doppler X3 with current temperatures.
It is now one oh three and it's time for a live traffic check here at Central Florida News 13.
We have a wreck on Curry Ford Road at Golden Road. Still looking at a crash at a pop of Vineland Road at four seventeen.
There is no road blockage there. Taking a look at the DOT camera I for at Lake Mary Boulevard traffic both ways looking smooth.
There is a wreck at Econ Trail and Colonial. We'll have another live traffic check in just 10 minutes here at Central Florida News 13.
We are following breaking news coming into the News 13 newsroom right now. Another brush fire has popped up in Brevard County.
The fire is burning right now in North Merritt Island. That's in the vicinity of North Tropical Trail and Treasure Lagoon Lane.
The blaze is said to be about three to five acres and moving west to east. It is near a subdivision, but firefighters on the scene say homes there are not in danger at this time.
Apparently they've built trenches between the fire and homes as they try to put that fire out.
So again, firefighters battling a brush fire in North Merritt Island in the vicinity of North Tropical Trail and Treasure Lagoon Lane.
They say it's not threatening any homes right now. We do have a crew on the scene and of course we'll bring you more details on this developing story as it becomes available.
Pope Benedict took this Easter to call attention to what he calls a continual slaughter in Iraq.
Boy, look at that crowd. Thousands of tourists and faithful jammed St. Peter's Square to watch the Pope celebrate Mass on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica.
Speaking on Christianity's most joyous day, the Pope decried suffering in much of the world and expressed concern about unrest and instability in Afghanistan and bloodshed in parts of Africa and Asia.
Benedict ended his appearance by giving Easter greetings in dozens of languages, including Arabic and Hebrew, and giving the crowd his apostolic blessing.
One church in Lake County hopes the Easter spirit will encourage people to be generous when giving to those who lost their homes in the tornadoes.
During their annual Easter sunrise service, Pastor John Roszak of the First Baptist Church of Paisley spoke to congregation members about Jesus' resurrection story.
He says it mirrors the plight of those struggling to resurrect their lives from the tornado damage.
The church is collecting goods and donations for those families, and they say local organizations have stepped up to the plate during the Easter holiday.
For instance, one company purchased $400 in gift cards to be distributed in Easter baskets to the victims.
They specifically said, we want to give these out for Easter. Would you get them out to the tornado victims for us?
So again, we took them out to the people that probably needed them the most, the elderly, those who have handicaps, and whatever.
And we took and gave them $50 gift cards yesterday.
Great story. Although Easter seems like a good time to be generous, members of the congregation stress that anytime is a good time to help a neighbor.
Their next project is trying to raise money to buy mobile homes for the victims.
What a beautiful morning, and close to 100 worshipers gathered to watch the sunrise over Daytona Beach and listen to the Easter Sunday church service.
Members of the First Baptist Church of Daytona Beach braved those cold temperatures.
Look at her all bundled up with her bunny there at Sunsplash Park.
Now they sang church hymns and watched the sunrise in the background on this, the very first Sunday of April, Easter Sunday.
The church minister, Reverend Tim Mann, announced several worshipers would be baptized by being dipped in the cold ocean waters.
A handful of families gathered at the Volusia County Fairgrounds in DeLand yesterday for some early Easter celebrating, all part of Resurrection 2007.
The event featured six Christian music recording artists, local church music groups, and carnival rides.
For Christians who celebrate the religious side of the holiday Easter, of course, is considered the time when Jesus was resurrected from the dead.
It was a deadly night on central Florida roads with at least four people killed in a number of accidents.
Two people were killed in this accident just before eight last night.
Look at this video, too. A car ran off the road in the 2800 block of South Magnolia Avenue near Sanford Avenue.
You can see it's just totally twisted up there.
State troopers working the scene tell us the car hit a tree and a mobile home and then burst into flames.
Less than an hour later, state troopers were called to County Road 419 just outside of Oviedo where one person was killed in an accident.
And just before nine thirty, another person was killed in an accident on Fort Crispus Road at Christmas Road.
FHP is still investigating all three crashes.
Police are looking for the driver involved in a hit and run in Seminole County that landed one man in the hospital.
The accident happened around five yesterday afternoon on State Road 436 in Castleberry, causing traffic to back up for miles.
Police say, according to witnesses, a man was crossing the road when he was hit by a van.
Witnesses also say that person was jaywalking at the time, something police say happens all too often.
From the crashes that I've seen, most of the crashes involving pedestrians are the pedestrians' faults when they violate the right of way by walking in the path of the vehicles.
Police are still looking for the driver of that van.
At this time, they're not releasing any info on the pedestrian.
We only know he was injured and sent to a local hospital.
Lieutenant Pleasant says the investigation is ongoing, but from what witnesses said, it appears the pedestrian is the one at fault.
The big summer travel season is just around the corner, and if you've been looking forward to some time off, chances are you can't wait to celebrate.
But if you plan on having a few drinks before you board an airplane, air transportation officials are issuing a warning.
Here's the deal. With increased security during high traffic months, officials with the Air Transport Association say airlines have the authority to keep drunk passengers off planes,
because they could pose a safety risk to crew members and passengers.
So if you're flagged, that could mean waiting a full 24 hours before you can get on another flight.
Of course, that's if you're able to find one on short notice.
According to airport security, if a passenger is drunk and causing a scene, they can be removed from an aircraft even after they've boarded, and if that passenger resists, they can be arrested.
I'm News 13 sports reporter John Hirazawa in Gainesville.
The basketball team just celebrated their national championship, and we are already talking football.
They do love their football here in this town. All that and more coming up next.
And when it warms up again, don't plant those same old flowers.
Tom McCubbin takes a look at some new selections for your garden. And don't those look nice?
First, though, here's a live look at Digital Doppler X3.
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Now, your accurate weather on the 1's forecast with live digital Doppler X3 later.
If you were with us earlier, you saw that there were clearer skies along the coastal areas, but look at what is facing most of Central Florida,
the interior sections all wall-to-wall clouds almost, a peak or two there of blue.
And of course, that's where the sun will try to get through.
But if the sun doesn't get through, I think maybe getting up to 69 degrees might be extremely difficult, you know,
because we've been hovering in the 50s throughout most of the morning.
And now we're looking at maybe if we only reach 69 today, that's going to set a new record low high.
I know it sounds. Yeah, it was it was the coolest high temperature we've had on record.
So we could possibly do that today. This is what we're looking at, though.
See these showers to the west of us. They're working their way into the northern part of the state.
I think by tonight they might actually be into some parts of central Florida.
So we're given about a 20 percent chance of rain.
But we're going to up that to 30 percent tomorrow as I think it's even more in control of our weather.
And it's going to kind of hang around for a while. I think could be kind of parked on top of us and producing a chance of rain over the next several days.
Then by about Wednesday, Thursday, here comes a new cold front pushing in.
It runs into that moisture. And you know what?
It could be it could be some thunderstorms produced out of that right now.
Whatever we have is better than what they've got up here around the Great Lakes,
particularly in New York state, where they've got lake effect snows.
April is not the month known for lake effect snows.
Usually this this massive cold air just doesn't usually get into all of the eastern United States around this time of year.
But partly cloudy conditions are what we're going to have to deal with becoming mostly cloudy as we work our way into the evening hours.
The rain gets closer to us. And of course, it may be pretty much in control once we get to Monday with a 30 percent chance of rain there and a 40 percent chance on Tuesday.
Temperature wise, this is what we're going to be dealing with today.
Sixty four Daytona Beach, 67 in Claremont. How about 68 in the Melbourne area tonight?
Still on the chilly side, 53 in Titusville, 44 for the land and 47 around Kissimmee, 56 in Melbourne.
And then daytime temperatures tomorrow. We finally get back into the 70s, at least most of us will.
Seventy six in Sanford, 76 in Orlando, 73 around Titusville, Daytona Beach with around 68 degrees.
But that 76 tomorrow. Ah, look at what happens Tuesday. Eighty one degrees.
Check out this chance of rain here. Just kind of a little roller coaster thing going on Thursday.
Thursday, that might be thunderstorms because of an approaching cold front.
Probably not the best golf day in the world today.
Sixty six degrees, five o'clock this afternoon, eight o'clock in the morning, fifty degrees and pretty much expected to be overcast.
When we come back, we'll be checking out the entire nation's weather.
Right now, here's a quick look at digital Doppler X3 and current temperatures.
It's one fourteen and time for a live traffic check here at Central Florida News 13.
We have a wreck on Curry Ford Road at Goldenrod Road.
There is a lane blocked at the intersection. A new crash at Sadler Avenue and Orange Blossom Trail.
That was a hit and run. There is no road blockage there.
Taking a look at the DOT cameras at I-4 at Sand Lake Road, the flow of traffic looks clear both ways.
We'll have another live traffic check in just ten minutes here at Central Florida News 13.
Continuing coverage today, prosecutors want a judge to open up medical records taken from signature pharmacies in Orlando
and Winter Park back in February.
Now let's go back. You'll remember they've been seized as part of that nationwide investigation into the illegal sale of steroids.
Well, Judge John Marshall Kest ordered the only information that can be used from those records are the names and addresses
and then only to notify those patients that the government has their private records.
Patients can refuse to allow state prosecutors to review their records, but they must ask for a court hearing within 30 days.
Well, you already know this. The pain at the pumps continues to get even more painful as the upward trend of gas prices continues.
According to AAA, the average nationwide price of regular unleaded right now is $2.76 a gallon.
Now here in Orlando, it's at $2.75 a gallon. That would be seven cents more than last week and a whopping 23 cents more than just a month ago.
And you'll pay even more in Daytona Beach at $2.80 a gallon.
But listen to this, it could be worse. The average price of regular unleaded in California right now? Oh man, $3.28 a gallon. Wow.
Well, experts suggest a number of reasons for the rising price of gas. They include crude oil prices, which spiked before dropping back this week,
a shortage of refined oil products in Europe and a decline in refineries inventories during the winter.
Plus, gas prices typically rise every spring as oil refineries switch to producing special summer gasoline blends.
Those are required by federal law for urban areas to improve air quality.
Well, the Gators just finished celebrating their big basketball national championship.
Now the Gator Nation is looking forward for the football team to repeat last year's accomplishment. Can you imagine? That would be crazy.
The football team will take on a different look next season though, and News 13 sports reporter John Hirazawa takes a look at the QB situation in Gainesville.
For South Carolina, Thibault goes left to the five touchdown Gators.
Tim Thibault certainly knows how to run the ball, but he's going to need to learn how to be a mentor if the Gators are to be successful this year.
Now last year he was able to learn from Chris Leek in his three years of experience, but this year number 15 is the man.
And the Gators have put this one on ice.
Oh yeah, man, he's competitive. I'm trying to be just like him, trying to be in the competitive aspect of the game.
If you want a competitor, Tim Thibault is the guy.
Me and Tim, we're real close. I mean, me, Tim, and Brian Wagner. I mean, we stay close.
They do a great job with teaching me what I need to know.
I feel we're in a good situation. Thibault's being a great leader. This is offense. He's coordinated offense.
He's doing a great job, and Cam Newell is right behind him doing a great job also as a great backup.
They're both learning really well from each other. Both their personalities, very open, fun-loving guys kind of that are extremely competitive and really care about being good at football.
The first thing they learn and we had to talk about is there's no competition against each other.
You compete with each other to make the other guy better.
And so far in the spring, they are doing that. Thibault knows if he's out of the game, he has a solid backup in Cam Newell.
I think it's just his toughness in his heart. He's just kind of like a tough guy who's going to go out there and give everything he has, work hard and strong kid.
I think that's what makes him the player he is.
And we'll get to see these two competitors compete on Saturday at the Orange and Blue debut.
In Gainesville, John Hirzawa, Central Florida News 13 Sports.
If you're tired of planting the same old flowers, try something new.
I'm Tom McCubbin and I'll have a fresh selection for you in today's Lawn & Garden Report.
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Your accurate weather on the 1's forecast with live digital Doppler X3 later.
For some reason, nobody's ever written a song called I'm Dreaming of a White Easter.
But that's pretty much where they got in and around the panhandle of Texas, up in North Texas, the Lubbock area, Amarillo, even San Angelo, Texas, which is way down south, had to deal with some really adverse weather conditions.
Mostly that big rainstorm that we've been watching is trying to make its way toward us. Well, that's what caused this.
This is on the north side of it, of course, created snow and that moved into even parts of Louisiana earlier this morning.
So, yeah, I'm dreaming of a white Easter.
Let me show you what's going on here.
You see those showers coming this way? Yep.
And that's going to give us about a 30 percent chance of rain.
But you can see the bulk of it, the body of it is really probably going to take until about Tuesday to get to us.
And when it does, that's going to give us about a 40 percent chance of rain.
In the meantime, though, we could just see more and more clouds building up throughout the rest of the day.
And of course, with all those clouds, it's going to be pretty hard for Osall to compensate for that.
And so it's still going to be on the chilly side, particularly with that north breeze is coming in.
And it's going to be with us even overnight.
So it's going to be chilly tonight, too.
There's the rain down around Louisiana that's making its way our way.
Some very warm conditions, but not necessarily pleasant conditions on the western United States,
because it's a mixed bag of warm temperatures.
But yet they're probably getting a lot of rain and some of that is moving into the mountain areas.
And that could be mixed kind of weather with a little snow, a little rain, a little bit of everything.
High pressure system up in Canada just pumping that cold air right down into the eastern United States,
producing windy conditions around the Great Lakes.
And that's going to result in some lake effect snow.
And even that is odd for this time of year.
Here comes our rain. Hopefully this could help with our drought problem.
And we do have red flag warnings up throughout all of central Florida today
because of the low humidities and the chill and the breeze.
So, you know, be very, very careful.
Sixty four degrees. That's going to be the potential high in the Daytona Beach area.
And well, the skies will just continue to cloud up as we go further into the afternoon hours.
Looking for a chance for rain? This is probably our best chance Tuesday.
We'll have some thunderstorms even on Thursday.
Then we get a small break on Friday and Saturday and then another chance for some rain on Sunday.
Boaters, still always caution, but today it's improved. It's better than yesterday.
The skies are beginning to build up as far as clouds go and there's a light chop on the intercoastal.
When we come back, we're checking with the comfort factor.
Now, here's a quick look at digital Doppler X3 with current temperatures.
It's one twenty three in time for a live traffic check here at Central Florida News 13.
We have a wreck. Curry Ford Road at Golden Rod Road.
There is a lane blocked at the intersection.
There is a new crash at Oak Ridge and South Orange Blossom Trail.
FHP is not on the scene yet. Taking a look at the DOT camera at I-4 at Lee Road.
Flow of traffic looks clear both ways.
We have another live traffic check in just ten minutes here at Central Florida News 13.
Well, today, dozens of homeless Central Florida children are enjoying their Easter candy.
Thanks to a special Easter egg hunt in Orlando.
The event is drawing more attention to the alarming number of children who don't have a place to call home.
Last year alone, the Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida says 915 children stayed at their facilities in Orlando.
On any given night, we have nearly 200 children in our facilities and that's one in four people that we serve that night.
Interestingly, their average age is less than eight years old.
It's definitely true that we are two paychecks away, even one paycheck away from being homeless.
So, you know, as far as I'm concerned, this could happen to anyone.
Wow. The Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida says it is seeing more and more families, women, and children coming into their facilities than ever before.
The Coalition says that may be due to people losing their homes as well as the lack of affordable housing in Central Florida.
Gardening is sometimes called the only living art form.
News 13's Master Gardener Tom McCubbin shows us some living art that you might consider putting in your garden this spring.
Okay, I like to plant marigolds, petunias, and begonias, but guess what? Every now and then I like something a little bit different.
Let me show you what I found at the local garden center. I'm Tom McCubbin with the Lawton Garden Report.
Yeah, I like marigolds. They're kind of nice, but you know, they're kind of common. And also, it really doesn't make sense to plant the same thing in the same spot all the time
because microorganisms build up. It could rot the next plants that go in. So here's a lot that I found.
Do you know the little Dauberg daisy down here? Isn't that kind of neat, kind of cute? It's a great border plant.
You should use it along the edge of your garden. And then they had this whole collection, these little zinnias.
I don't think they're going to get very tall, maybe six to eight inches tall, but look at the color pattern there.
Kind of fades from yellow to orangey color. Here's one I also like, the phlox. This is our little native phlox, actually native to Texas.
And it reseeds itself. I like this one a lot. So you add it to your garden this year, guess what? Next year it's going to be right back.
And the last one, the sun isn't up high enough. They're just starting to open up their flower buds because zinnia during a dry time,
this is just a great annual that you can grow. So if you want to add some color, something a little different, try some of these.
I'm Tom McGovern.
Well, if you'd like to see that story or any of the other lawn and garden stories, they're all good.
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Learn all local, all the time. News 13 midday update at 1 30 begins now.
Well, good afternoon, Central Florida. Thank you for joining us on this Sunday and happy Easter to you. I'm Paul Milliken.
We'll get to our weather on the ones in just a moment. First, though, let's take a look at some of our top stories this hour here on News 13.
Christians all around the world are celebrating Easter Sunday and here in Central Florida, there's a special service that holds a lot of meaning.
Members of a couple of Lake County congregations are remembering those who were lost to the tornadoes earlier this year.
Florida highways are taking their toll this Easter weekend. At least four people have died in crashes.
Two when a car ran off the road, struck a tree, then plowed into a mobile home and burst into flames.
And while the temperatures may be low, the price of gas is going higher.
Recent surveys by AAA show a gallon of unleaded gas is hovering around $2.76 nationwide. That's nine cents in the last week. Ouch.
Well, a chilly Easter here, but it is sunny at least. Is it going to warm up for us? Let's find out with a check of your weather on the ones.
Thanks a lot. Well, how do you like today so far? Probably not one of your favorites, I would assume just simply because it's been a little bit chilly and windy and well, just not the best Easter we've ever had.
Take a look at some of the sky cover over in the Daytona area and you can see there's some blue mixed in with some of those clouds.
That's going to give us an occasional shot of sunshine. So we'll try. We'll struggle.
We'll push and see if we can get a little more sunshine throughout the afternoon hours.
But a lot of clouds are coming in from the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, even some light rain probably passed through some areas of central Florida around Marion County, Sunturk County and things like that.
Some of it may not even reach the ground, though, because it was such dry air around here. That's why we got those red flag warnings.
And by the way, I'm going to show you who's included in that. If you can hear my voice, you're probably included in it.
Now you can see what we're talking about. More moisture coming in. Here comes some rain into the panhandle that will be working its way into our weather picture.
And we really, really do need it because we've got a fire threat. We've got a drought problem going on.
But red flag warnings mean, well, things are extreme, very low humidities and wind. If a fire got started, it would be hard to handle.
Well, you see those clouds building up overnight. And of course, that will result in a lot of cloudiness for tomorrow.
And then we're going to try and squeeze some rain out of this so we can actually benefit the soil here in central Florida.
Sixty nine is what we're going to shoot for this afternoon. Maybe a bit of a struggle.
We got wind still out of the north northwest about 10 miles an hour, making it feel closer to about 67 degrees.
Forty nine. That will be the overnight low with lots of clouds around.
So you'll need a jacket tonight and tomorrow 76 degrees. But that includes a chance for showers. So you'll need an umbrella, too.
When we come back, let's look at the seven days ahead. Now, digital Doppler X3.
It's one thirty two and time for a live traffic check here at Central Florida News 13.
We have a wreck on Curry Ford Road at Golden Road. There's a lane blockage at the intersection.
There's a new crash at Oak Ridge and South Orange Blossom Trail. FHP is not on the scene yet.
Taking a look at the DOT cameras at I-4 at Lee Road. Flow of traffic looks clear both ways.
We'll have another live check of traffic in just 10 minutes here at Central Florida News 13.
Central Florida News 13 presents For the Record, a roundtable discussion with the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board on issues affecting Central Florida.
Here's your host, Scott Harris.
Well, it's like there's a whole new Tallahassee this year, a new governor, a mostly new cabinet, new leadership in both the House and the Senate and plenty of new members.
Also means a whole new tone between the parties and on legislation.
I can proudly report to you today that the state of our state is strong and promising.
The legislative session started off with an ambitious agenda from the new governor, Charlie Christ, in his first state of the state address.
Christ outlined a plan with something for everyone. More education funding, environmental research, embryonic stem cell research, paper trails for voting machines, an anti-murder bill, property tax reform and more reform for property insurance.
I thought that Governor Chris' speech was wonderful and my line is that that speech, you know, Governor Chris is one of the best Democratic governors we've ever elected.
I disagree with my good friend Senator Ehrenberg's characterization. I think Governor Chris has outlined a bold agenda and we in the Florida House love bold agendas.
At the halfway mark of the session, lawmakers have only sent two major bills to Chris' desk, the anti-murder bill, a brainchild of the governor.
That bill sets prison sentences for violent offenders who violate their probation. The other bill revamps the state's performance pay plan for teachers.
But the biggest issue in Florida is still unresolved, the property tax issue.
Florida House Republicans offered a stunning solution before the session, just get rid of the property taxes for residents completely and increase the state sales tax.
While the plan sounds good to some homeowners, at least on the surface, it's met a fairly cool reception in the Senate and from Democrats.
Now, it's not unheard of to see a flurry of legislation passed in the last weeks of the session, but with one month to go it seems Tallahassee has a long road ahead.
And we hope to find out what's on that road today, Jane Healy. Of course, the editorial page out of the Orlando Sentinel.
Joining me on our special guest, you just saw in that story, Representative Dean Cannon, Republican of Winter Park and Speaker Desi again to the House of Representatives in the year 2010, is that correct?
Ten to twelve.
Ten to twelve, all right. Jane, what have we got?
Well, Representative Cannon, thank you for being on, well, the property tax.
That's always been hearing about it.
Expectations have become so high now because of Marco Rubio's plan that just eliminate the property tax on homestead.
So what do you think about Rubio's plan? First of all, do you have an alternate plan?
I'll respond in two ways. I think Speaker Rubio's plan is both bold and really forward thinking.
One of the hallmarks of his time leading up to assuming the speakership was don't try and think two years ahead, try and think 20 years ahead.
And that's a philosophy that I think Speaker Desi and I are trying to carry forward.
The one aspect, you commented on one aspect of the House plan, but I think it's important for everybody to understand the House plan is really a twofold plan.
There's relief and then reform.
The relief part of that, the first part of that would be a statutory rollback of all property taxes to the 2000-2001 tax year.
Then bring that forward adjusting for CPI and cap it going forward at the consumer price index unless there's a super majority vote by local government.
And the critical point there is that statutory, the legislature can do it. It doesn't have to go to a constitutional amendment.
Exactly. And what we have sensed and, Jay, to your point about the boldness of the plan, there is I think pretty broad consensus that some level of relief needs to be there.
And I've picked that up in conversations with some senators. I think the governor would generally philosophically agree with that.
Maybe we disagree about the manner. But on the relief side of the equation, I think our plan is thoughtful.
It's meaningful relief, but it's in a responsible way.
And if you look at the way over the last five years, let's say local government property tax revenues have grown by 99 percent.
Over that same time period, the average Floridian's median income has gone up 44 percent.
Let's take these one by one because one is the legislature could just do this rollback.
Is your sense that the legislature will do some sort of rollback by itself rather than putting it on the ballot and this year?
Yes.
Okay. Now, one thing that's come up here, like with the downtown venues, well, gee, if they're going to do something with the rollback, that may affect the bond issue for the arena, the performing arts center.
How would this work? I mean, not just this. Wouldn't this affect every bond issue in the state, but the governments have, if you roll up action, does it want or they protect it?
Yeah, we've taken into account things like voter approved tax exempt bonds, things that would impact bonding covenants.
We've exempted out fiscally constrained counties.
So we've taken into consideration some of the peculiar problems that just a sort of unspecific rollback would take into account.
So you're referring to CRA. It may not apply to that, is that what you're saying?
Yeah, by the end of the day, I don't know, but I want you to know and our viewers to know that we are taking into consideration, in some cases, there are hospital taxing districts.
And the big question you asked, which I think is critical, is do I expect to see some form of meaningful and significant tax relief first and via statute?
The answer would be yes. That will take our partners in the Senate to work together.
And I think that we should expect some form of tax relief to begin with.
The part that you mentioned-
The one that's got everybody all excited is the prospect of reform.
And that would be the concept of replacing property tax, which is very unfair tax, with a consumption tax, in this case a two and a half cent bump in the sales tax, if it were to be done whole scale.
When it was originally proposed, it was based on a couple things.
One, if you look at the fairness and the philosophy of taxation, two things are critical.
Should local governments decide how much they need and then tax people to that level?
Or should people decide what they can pay that is reasonable and then government live within its means?
As between that equation, I think Speaker Rubio and I and everyone else in the House would side with the taxes should be only so high as can be legitimately and fairly paid by the taxpayer.
I mean, isn't that, and I'll play the devil's advocate, that's my job.
That's your job, sure, sure, sure.
Isn't that up to the citizens of whatever governing body it is to run down to their county commissioners or city council and either if they don't pay attention to what I want as a citizen, vote them out and vote in reasonable people?
I mean, should Tallahassee be overseeing that?
There are some jurisdictions that might want to pay high taxes.
You got it.
And the truth of the matter is in one sense yes, but in another sense no.
The problem with property taxes is it's an equation.
It's your millage times your property values equals the property tax rate.
And frankly, I think that confuses a lot of people.
If you don't know that the county commission can say and be technically correct, we haven't raised taxes because they haven't raised the millage and yet during that same time frame the appraised values have gone through the roof.
And that's been the problem.
That's created a lot of the problem.
Well, do you like Rubio's plan?
I do.
And you like raising the sales tax, two and a half cents?
I like the shift or the exchange of a consumption-based tax instead of a property tax, and let me tell you why.
If I lose my job today, my income tax, my federal income tax goes down immediately, okay?
Right.
Because I've got less income, less taxation.
If I lose my job today or suffer a major setback to my income, the portion of the sales tax I pay goes down immediately and dramatically.
Because you don't buy anything.
If I lose my job today, my property taxes are going up next year, and what's more, the local government will foreclose my lien, evict me from my house, and use that tax money to give me affordable housing.
What about the argument sales tax too, unpredictable?
We need to take a break.
We'll come back with that.
And I give you a second to respond to my question.
Did you just say the income tax was the fairest of all?
No, no, no.
I said a consumption tax.
I said a consumption tax is more for the property tax.
Thanks for the chance to clarify that, Scott.
That's important.
Well, whether or not it's right now, I'll be back with more for the record in a minute.
Thank you very much, Scott.
Well, it is a cold start to this Easter Sunday, and not what we usually expect this time of year, not totally unheard of, but very, very rare.
And we're watching some rain out there in the Gulf of Mexico as it kind of works its way into our weather picture.
We're going to continue to have some northerly winds, which, of course, is going to bring the chill in.
It's going to be chilly again tonight, and tomorrow you might actually have to use an umbrella.
We got a 30 percent chance of rain, mentioned in the forecast for Monday, 40 percent chance of rain on Tuesday.
Take a look at these temperatures today.
Not much different than yesterday.
And, of course, with the wind out there, too, it's going to probably feel more like it's a little colder than what I said there.
Temperatures tonight, as I said, it's going to be still chilly in the 40s for most of us.
And then tomorrow we get back up into the 70s as we start a warming trend.
Here's what the seven day forecast shows we're going to be having.
And we got about a 40 percent chance of rain on Tuesday.
Sun returns on Friday.
And as far as serving goes, small and flat conditions, waves, not much.
There are the tides.
We'll have more later.
Now back to For the Record.
Welcome back to For the Record.
I'm Scott Harris, Jane Healy, the editorial page editor of the Orlando Sentinel,
and our guest is Representative Dean Ken, Republican of Winter Park, Speaker of the House Designate in 2010, 2012.
And he's explaining the legislature to us.
Well, sort of.
We don't have time for that today, Scott.
Well, there's so many moving parts to this tax issue that we can just concentrate on a few here,
the macro sort of thing, but one part of Rubio's plan, what you're saying you support,
is increasing the sales tax two and a half cents.
At what point does that get too high?
Does it hurt tourism here?
Does it – and is that the only place you can go, two and a half cent increase in sales tax,
to get what you want to do with the property tax?
Well, and bear with me.
This will get a little bit detailed.
The – if – and it's not a – the plan is to eliminate property taxes on homestead property
and supplant or replace those revenues with up to a two and a half cent increase in sales tax.
It's not a guaranteed two and a half cent increase in the sales tax.
And in response to some of the requests by the cities and the counties, the House –
they had two prime criticisms of the idea of the exchange,
of the complete abrogation of property taxes in exchange for sales tax.
They said, number one, what's the formula?
How would you distribute the sales taxes so we'd be treated fairly, which is a legitimate question.
And number two, we'd like some local control.
We'd like the local option.
So the House, in response to that, we modified our plan to make it local option,
where the first penny would replace a significant portion of the homestead property taxes.
And then by option, they could add the second penny and then the half cent
for a total cumulative potential of up to two and a half cents.
But there'd be a vote in every county on this, right?
You'd require it?
Correct.
And it needs a constitutional amendment to do it so the whole state would have to vote on it to begin with?
If we make it – well, the constitution would have to be modified to alter the taxation structure.
Then there would be these local referendums.
But doesn't the formula start getting pretty hairy then?
Because if everybody approved it, which would not surprise me since you're eliminating everybody's property tax.
And then Orange does a local option and gets a lot of money out of that
because we have a lot of tourists here.
We have the bulk of the tourists.
And then some place in the Panhandle that's one of the – not the donor counties, one of the others,
then they don't get enough to make up for their property tax.
So would you put a formula on at that point?
Well, there is already into the plan – actually, it's not so much a formulaic protection,
but there is a requirement that whatever the sales tax increase be, it must be revenue neutral
so that what you just illustrated couldn't happen.
In other words, if a county would see a windfall,
they would move towards twice as much taxes.
Under our proposal, they could only raise the sales tax enough to actually replace,
but not go beyond the homestead property taxes.
So with Orange, this gets away from their fear that they're going to lose $200 million or something.
They would stay whole under this.
You'd have to ask them that.
I think they still don't have a complete comfort with it.
But I think the idea is that it's not – we don't want to create another set of inequities.
We just want them to be a pure replacement, no more taxes than they were already getting.
But in fact, it would provide tremendous relief to Florida,
both homestead owners and non-homestead property owners.
Political questions.
You did say you think tax reform, statutory, some level of that will pass.
Relief.
I think –
I'm sorry, you're right, the relief.
The reform, though, the move forward, the thing that would have to go to the Constitution,
I sense a lot of resistance to that, not only among the minority party in your body,
but in the other side of the Capitol.
I don't know where the governor stands on it,
but I guess he wants something, but he's not clear yet on what he wants.
So is that realistically going to happen before the end of the session,
or will this be out there smoldering?
Too early to tell.
This is halftime, in essence, in the legislative session.
I can only comment on sort of the migration to this point,
and then I'll give you my thoughts of some potential in-game scenarios.
To this point, again, Speaker Rubio came out with the two-phase plan, relief and reform.
And I think what you've identified is correct.
Everyone is in general philosophical, they have a philosophical comfort level with relief.
There is, on the House, a pretty bold reform package.
The Senate has been largely silent, or there have been some negative comments made,
a few people like it, and so it's a big variable how the Senate reacts
and likewise how the governor reacts.
Therefore, if the Senate proposes a reform plan that either improves our plan,
I think we'd look at it, clearly, to borrow an Olympic diving analogy,
the degree of difficulty on the dive is higher with the reform package
than with the relief package.
So that's the best I can tell you.
There's more moving parts, more complexity to it,
but I will say that the more folks look at it,
it is about a fairer philosophy of taxation,
whether you can get there this session or whether it happens or not,
it's too early to tell.
I'll have to bring this up because I asked Speaker Rubio,
and he, as I remember, and Jane, you can correct me if I'm wrong,
the sales tax is considered regressive and he felt it really wasn't.
And he used the same argument you used, that you don't have to spend,
but to some extent you do have to spend.
Well, I would even add to this the following.
The argument of regressivity is sort of like it may be technically true in a broad sense,
but in application it is not.
The basic necessities of life are not taxed, food, medical care, medicine, rent.
You don't pay sales tax on that.
So I really take great issue with someone who says it's regressive.
Across certain segments maybe it's regressive,
but think of the benefit of this.
If this is the lower third of our economic base,
from complete indigency to working poor who cannot afford to buy a house
but would like to, because think about it,
$2,500 or $3,000 tax bill is like tacking $75 to $100 grand on the price of a house.
If you aggregate property taxes,
there's a whole segment at the upper end of working poor who cannot buy a house who now can.
Unless the market adapts.
There is an issue about renters.
How can you force something on renters?
You get vouchers?
No, here's what happens.
When you immediately increase the segment of working poor who would be homeowners but can't be,
and they move up and become homeowners,
the opening of the supply by market will drive those prices down.
Not to mention that all of this is following the relief where you've already rolled back that landlord's taxes
and if anybody thinks that renters aren't paying property taxes now, they're kidding themselves.
Another possibility though is the housing prices go up because there's no property tax.
The market can't do that.
Housing may.
So these people who you think are going to buy houses, it's just as expensive for them at that point.
The economists who've looked at it say that that may happen over the long haul,
but that the immediate drop in price by increased supply of rental housing helps that working poor family
who's really trying to make it and then opens up a whole level of ownership and opportunity
for a pretty big slug, a pretty big segment of those who want to be homeowners but can't.
I think that's good for the economy. That's good for the culture.
We've got a couple minutes left. I want to save a minute for the lightning round.
Some quick questions on some things still before you.
Paper trail for voting machines. That going to happen?
Well, we're going to hear that.
Dorothy Huckel has a bill. Representative Fitzgerald has a bill dealing with ballots and all that.
That's scheduled to be workshopped.
There seem to be some reluctance up there. Is there?
I would say it this way. I think folks are fine with the need for, as a matter of policy,
having a tangible paper ballot or some better means to make sure that you can do a recount and that sort of thing.
The question is who's going to pay for it? And it's about a $30 million expenditure.
The governor seems to think the state should go ahead and pay for it.
And ironic, some of the counties who bought the touchscreen machines don't want optical scan.
If you ask them, they'll say, I want to stick with it.
So now on the one hand, some people say we should force it upon them.
Well, we forced this on them.
I have a public safety question. Is red light cameras to catch red light runners?
Is the legislature going to approve that?
I give it a decent chance of happening, but by no means a sure thing.
But why? What's the problem with it?
In the Senate, I know Senator Baker, I think is pretty, my recollection is-
He doesn't like primary seatbelt. Are we going to let Kerry Baker continue?
No, I'm just-
He kills primary seatbelt enforcement and red light cameras?
You just asked me to call it how I saw it, Jane. I'm just telling you what I-
The leadership of the House can do it, right?
I'm not going to hold you over here, but I know you have to lighten around the front part, so these are the five quick questions.
Okay, predictions for you. I'll answer really quickly.
Will Florida move up the presidential preference primary to January 29th?
I think so.
Who will Florida Republicans pick as their first choice in that primary?
I don't know.
Pick one.
Pick one. Rudy Giuliani.
Okay. Who will the Democrats pick as their first choice?
I don't know.
Pick one.
Barack Obama.
Okay. What will Jeb Bush's next political move be?
I don't think he'll take a political move. I think he's enjoying being on the private sector and-
Never run for president or anything? Okay.
Who will be the next president? Wild guess.
If I had to purely guess, I'd say probably Giuliani.
All right, very interesting. Representative Dean Katz. It's been fun. Thank you for joining us.
You know we weren't going to let you off the hook.
Thank you. I know. I was like, oh, come on.
I'm so not fair.
Those are guesses. Those are not endorsements.
Thank you so much for joining us for the record.
We'll be back with our editorial board roundtable. Something very interesting.
Stick with us. Weather on the 1s now.
Thank you very much, Scott. We are hoping that we get some rain out of some of these clouds that have moved into place for today.
Still a bit chilly for this Easter Sunday.
Take a look at the drought index because I want to show you Brevard County is probably the worst off right at the moment.
And up here around Flagler County, they've had some good rains in the past that have prevented them from being in a major drought situation.
But everybody's in need of rain. And here's where it is. It's over here around Louisiana.
But notice the trend here. It is moving toward Florida.
And that's what we've got our fingers crossed that it might bring us some rain and it might happen overnight tonight.
As you can see, the eastern two thirds of the country on the chilly side, they're even talking about some lake effect snows up around the Great Lakes.
We're talking about only getting up to 68 degrees for today.
And, you know, overnight we're going to be driving down to forty nine.
Tomorrow we should start that warming trend to get into the 70s with about a 30 percent chance of rain.
As you can see, 40 percent chance of rain on Tuesday.
Then a little better weather by the end of the week.
We'll have more later. But right now, back to For the Record.
Welcome back to For the Record. Jane Healy, the editorial page editor of the Land O' Sentinel.
Our special guest, another member of the editorial board.
That's part of what we want to do this for is to introduce you to some members of the editorial board.
And this is probably the most critical one for a lot of people out there.
Dixie Tate, who is the letters editor.
You're the person who goes through all those letters.
You do the editing if they need be.
And you're the one who chooses what goes in the paper, aren't you?
I do. And I don't like to tell many people this, but I think I have probably the best job at the Sentinel.
So you see everything that goes in there.
I do.
And now, how many, what is it, 80 letters a day we get?
We get about 500 letters a week through email mostly.
And also faxed. And people are still just writing regular letters.
And we write about, what, six or seven a day?
Seven. Seven to ten.
So it's pretty competitive for how you get in.
What do you look, I mean, obviously, you know, I mean, somebody's out there, all right, what do I need to do to get her to print my letter?
And I guess that's probably the question you get most.
Well, I look for letters that are timely, of course, ones that are reacting.
Which is why email really has become a godsend in a way.
And so what I tell people who are still writing longhand letters is that you need to have a topic that's timeless.
Or you need to present another view on something where we've had.
Because if everybody's aggravated about something on Monday and on Friday, everybody's onto a new topic.
So unless you see it a different way.
Well, you said this to me before. I mean, first of all, they need to have something to say.
Definitely.
Oh, wait a minute. You have to have something to say?
I have to have something to say. My standard here, something that rather than rambling and to say it quickly.
Yes. And no name calling. That's another thing.
Politicians sometimes they do name calling. I mean, they can call them names.
That's a big difference between newspaper classic letter to the editors and what has become prevalent on the Web with people just doing is anonymous versus you require any letter you print be signed and identified by the person and the city they live in.
And we confirm it. And phone numbers.
Why is that? Because we have a different level, I think, that the writer has to rise to.
I mean, if you want your view out there, you need to have a name on it.
Be willing to stand behind it? Yeah.
No, I applaud that. And from my background, I would agree with that completely.
But do you find, do you get some pushback on that?
Well, there are people who are reluctant sometimes to give their names.
And, you know, they want to be anonymous or whatever. And we just we don't do that.
We don't do that. And then also it sets up a nice back and forth sometimes between letter writers responding to each other.
And Jane, the editorial board itself, you guys sit there and so you're conceived by some of us out here, maybe it's in your ivory tower.
You and the board are up there and you're making all these.
Do you sometimes all of a sudden look at these letters and find that these people go, man, they cut to it.
Well, I look at all the letters. I mean, I go, we have them in a queue with all the emails.
So I look at them every day because I'm really interested in what our readers are saying, how there is a lot of them reacting to editorials, which I like.
It means they understand that they understand we took a strong position.
They're arguing with it. You know, we are you know, we're the big dog here.
Newspaper in this town, we believe in taking a strong position in the editorial page.
Same time, we want to allow strong reaction. So it's not just one voice here.
So you'll see a lot of our letters reacting to what we're saying, which I think it's great because you do want strong opinions in these letters.
That's another thing when you're when you're competing.
And it's interesting, too. Some people will write and say, I know you won't publish this because I disagree with you.
And, you know, I'm really looking for letters that disagree.
So that, I mean, it's not just called Jane Names, for instance.
You want somebody.
So, Dixie, tell us what what subjects get the biggest reaction from from readers in terms of sitting down and writing a letter as a result?
Well, the most immediate things, of course, are going to be things that are in the news.
But some of the ones that draw the most amount of response would be letters about the environment.
I mean, it's really it's how things affect you personally.
So it's environment in terms of development and wildlife and traffic.
Yes. Red light cameras, all those good things and letters from folks who have been here for a long time and who know what old Florida looks like and what sort of place they want to leave their kids.
So it's environment, it's transportation.
It's, of course, the war and the administration's policies.
That's an ongoing thing.
I'm trying to think of some others who are the most avid letter writers and liberals or the conservatives.
We have them all over the place.
You're accused of being on both sides.
Yes, which is very interesting.
We have strong opinions in this community on both sides.
I think it's a very polarized community.
But who who the quickest to write and who are the.
You know, I'm not sure you can divide that into liberal or conservative.
I think folks who are the quickest to write, and this is probably just human nature, people who are not pleased with something or who are upset no matter what side of the issue.
They're not going to call right away and tell you what a great editorial.
So some of the good letters are the ones that come in right away.
And then some are are ones that come in after writers have had time to really think about it.
If somebody writes like should they?
I mean, if they want to know more about your policy, they think they can get in touch with you.
And also, we run the little box each day on the page that tells you two hundred and fifty words or fewer.
Be sure to include your name, address and phone number.
We definitely need that.
And you want people to disagree with you.
Yeah, Dixie, just real quick.
What in the last few months, what has been the hottest issue and maybe a little bit of surprise on this that we've been getting letters on?
Like, you know, that just changes.
So, you know, Mike Bennett's bill.
Yeah, the road rage bill really.
And that got hot.
People would have gotten a ticket for could have gotten a ticket for going speed limit in the left hand.
And if they were overtaken by speeders, that really that really got running out of time.
You have to get time for a step.
This week, four stub toes go to the Orange County School Board members, Karen Artiman and Geiger, Jim Martin and Darryl Flynn,
for voting to close the successful Hungerford Prep in three years.
Instead of giving this smaller school more of a chance, they're going to shutter it.
Go figure.
In doing so, they're ignoring that Hungerford has the third highest graduation rate in the county and has allowed many students to thrive.
What a way to run a school district.
By the way, we'll take letters to to the show for the record.
Our email address is for the record at CF news 13 dot com.
Dixie doesn't edit it for this, but if it helped, we'd have her down here for the record at CF news 13 dot com.
I want to thank you. Any suggestions, criticism? Let us know.
Jane Healy, as always, Dixie.
Thank you for coming down and talking to us.
I want to thank Representative Dean Cannon for dropping by.
Thank you for watching. Have a good week.