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Florida education officials and a group of LGBTQ advocates and families have reached a legal settlement that clarifies the scope of a statute referred to by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, spelling out that students and teachers are allowed to discuss sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms, as long as it is not part of formal instruction.
More than a dozen plaintiffs – including civil rights organizations, parents, students and teachers – sued over the statute just days after the state’s Republican governor signed it into law in March 2022. They argued its “vague” language would have a chilling effect on discussions of LGBTQ topics in schools as educators were left to grapple with confusion and fear over how – if at all – they were permitted to address such themes in their classrooms.
The original “Parental Rights in Education” law prohibited the instruction of sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten through third grade and restricted discussing the topics “in a manner that is not age appropriate” in all other grades. Florida’s education board a year later expanded the restriction to include all grades. Teachers who violate the policy can be suspended or have their teaching licenses revoked.
Monday’s settlement clarifies the law only applies to formal classroom instruction and does not restrict discussion of gender or sexuality that may arise during class participation or students’ schoolwork. The law also does not ban materials like library books that reference LGBTQ topics, it states.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs celebrated the settlement as a “major victory for the many thousands of LGBTQ+ students, teachers, parents, and their allies throughout Florida.”
“Today’s settlement makes clear the legitimacy of gay student groups, safeguards against hate and bullying and the ability of LGBTQ+ students and teachers to openly draw or display pictures of their partners and families. Simply put, the State of Florida has now made it clear that LGBTQ+ kids, parents, and teachers in Florida can, in fact, say that they are gay,” Roberta Kaplan said in a statement.
The office of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’d leaned on the law as part of his conservative bona fides in his failed GOP primary challenge this year to former President Donald Trump, also heralded the legal settlement as a success, saying the law will remain in effect and the case is soon expected to be dismissed by the court.
“We fought hard to ensure this law couldn’t be maligned in court, as it was in the public arena by the media and large corporate actors,” said DeSantis’ General Counsel Ryan Newman in a statement. “We are victorious, and Florida’s classrooms will remain a safe place under the Parental Rights in Education Act.”
The Venice City Council received checks totaling almost $1.25 million from the Venice Pier Group Tuesday, for the 2023 rent for the property adjacent to the Venice Municipal Fishing Pier and the company’s profit-sharing agreement with the city.
The rent check for Sharky' on the Pier and Fins at Sharky's totaled $140,952, while the profit-sharing totaled $1,108,221.
The lease, last amended in 2008, calls for Venice Pier Group to share 5% of the gross profits greater than $2.2 million, as well an annual increase in rent.
This is the second consecutive year that profit sharing has exceeded $1 million, after several years of coming in between $700,000 and $750,000.
Manatee County agreed to negotiate the purchase of 98 acres on the Manatee River to expand the Emerson Point Preserve to protect the environmental land from development.
Commissioners voted unanimously during a county meeting on Tuesday to direct staff to move forward with the purchase of the property for $15.5 million. The effort is part of ongoing land acquisitions by Manatee County under a referendum approved by 72% of voters in 2020.
County staff will now negotiate the final details of the purchase with property owners and present the contract to the county attorney's office for review before final approval by the board at a future meeting.
"Four years ago, the citizens of Manatee County let this commission know where they stood on preserving land," resident Diana Shoemaker said at Tuesday's meeting. "Purchasing the 98 acres adjacent to Emerson Point Preserve is a win for the entire county."
Commissioners have already voted to acquire one other property under the effort, the 68-acre Crooked River Ranch in Parrish for $11.2 million.
Questions over whether commissioners would move forward with the Emerson Point Preserve expansion property arose after officials questioned the compensation requested by property owners during a county meeting in February. Concern prompted many members of the public to email county commissioners, and public comment on Tuesday, asking for their support for the purchase.
Commissioner Kevin Van Ostenbridge said he did not want to set a precedent of overpaying for land with taxpayer funds, even in the face of political pressure during an election year.
In response to previous concerns, county staff requested and attained a new appraisal of the property and continued to negotiate with property owners until arriving at the final asking price of $15.5 million. The new appraisal came in at $14.6 million.
During Tuesday's meeting commissioners said they are comfortable with the asking price now that it has been negotiated to less than $1 million over appraised value.
Residents who support the purchase also support a potential reimbursement by the State of Florida leveraging funds from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Florida Forever program. The Florida Forever Act was implemented in 2000 to help fund land acquisition that addresses statewide conservation goals.
Although commissioners voted to move forward with the $15.5 million, Van Ostenbridge made clear that they are doing so without an official commitment from the state of Florida for those funds. He explained that DEP staff has expressed interest in the property, but that it has not been presented to the necessary state board for approval.
He said the county should be prepared to foot the bill with referendum funds entirely if those efforts fall through.
The Venice City Council declined to join other local governments in lawsuits challenging a 2023 law requiring municipal officials to disclose their personal finances at the same level of detail as county commissioners, school board members and state legislators.
While all seven City Council board members oppose the concept of fully disclosing their net worth, they balked at the thought that joining the suit would jeopardize the city's receipt of state funding.
At stake for the city in the current state funding package is $750,000 that would help cover about half the cost of extending a new utility force main from the island of Venice under the Intracoastal Waterway.
City Council Member Joan Farrell brought the matter up, asking her colleagues to direct city staff to sign on to the state lawsuit, which would have cost at least $10,000.
While Council Member Ron Smith seconded her motion for discussion, it failed on a 6-1 vote.
Rather than join the suit, a majority of the council said it would be more effective to lobby local state legislators about changing aspects of the law.
The Brown family has used citrus trees to make a living in Sarasota County for over a century.
“It’s hard to give up what’s in your blood. We continue to try to do everything we can to stay afloat,” says owner of Brown’s Grove Tim Brown.
But Brown says the decline of Florida’s citrus industry has forced them to shut down part of their citrus business and to diversify.
“We have pecans in Georgia that we take care of then we come back in the wintertime to take care of our citrus,” he says.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, Sarasota and Manatee counties have seen a drop of nearly 1.5 million total boxes of citrus from the season ending in 2021 to the season ending in 2023, largely because of citrus greening.
Brown now has to buy nets to protect his young trees from the disease, which he says is part of skyrocketing production costs for growers, going from $700 an acre to over $2,000 an acre.
This has made it impractical for many growers to continue planting citrus trees, which are intertwined in the state’s fabric far beyond our license plates.
“It is a $6.8 billion economic generator to the state of Florida, employing 35,000 to 40,000 people every year,” says CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual Matt Joyner.
But Joyner doesn’t think it’s all doom and gloom for the future of Florida citrus.
“The state and federal government have devoted a lot of resources for research on greening. And we finally have some therapy and tools that are really moving the needle,” Joyner says.
This gives him hope the citrus industry can rebound so third generation growers like Brown can continue passing their groves on to their loved ones.
“We just feel like Florida is citrus. It’s always been a highlight of Sarasota and we’d like to continue to do so,” Brown says.
The three bridges serving Anna Maria Island are all low-level drawbridges built in the 1950s, and two — the Cortez Bridge and the Anna Maria Bridge — are scheduled to be replaced by high-rise bridges.
The future of the third span, the Longboat Key Bridge, could include rehabilitation or replacement by either a high-level fixed bridge or a movable bridge.
The Florida Department of Transportation has announced workshops this week to gather views from the public on the Longboat Key Bridge. See below for more information about the workshops.
Whatever steps or decisions are made are sure to be met with criticism and in some cases outright opposition, as was the case with the Anna Maria and Cortez bridges.
Judy Titsworth, mayor of Holmes Beach, where the Anna Maria Bridge (also known as the Manatee Avenue Bridge) lands, would like to see a designated trolley lane and pedestrian/bike paths physically separated from vehicular traffic, like the Green Bridge connecting Bradenton and Palmetto.
"The Green Bridge is so safe," she said.
That would be a big improvement to the existing Anna Maria Bridge, especially after one sidewalk was closed because of water main pipe support repair. The remaining sidewalk is not wide enough to allow bicycles approaching from opposite directions to pass, she said.
Safer sidewalks would encourage more people to ride bicycles across the bridge, she said.
Although the Anna Maria Bridge does not land in his city, Anna Maria Mayor Dan Murphy says a replacement can't come fast enough.
"Whether they do a drawbridge or a mega bridge, we need something better," Murphy said, citing congestion and the need to evacuate residents and visitors from the island in advance of a storm emergency.
A no swim advisory issued by the city of Venice's Emergency Management department on Monday while biologists conducted a necropsy on the beached sperm whale was expanded Tuesday afternoon, following a shift in wind and water direction.
The advisory, originally in effect for areas including Service Club Park, south through the beach along the Venice Municipal Fishing Pier to Caspersen Beach, now includes all of Venice Beach, from the South Jetty through Caspersen Beach.
The whale was first spotted Sunday morning and was reported dead at 3 a.m. Monday.
The city of Venice continues to coordinate with state partners to assess water conditions and safety.
The concern is that the presence of the whale’s bodily fluids in the Gulf of Mexico could prompt increased predation activity while the biologists work on the whale.
The Venice Pier remains open for fishing.
Venice Fire Chief Frank Giddens said, “As long as the carcass is still there it will remain in effect.”
The city is coordinating with multiple responding agencies and will continue to provide updates in its social media channels.
Longboat Key was ranked fifth on a list of top places to retire on Florida’s Gulf Coast. The list was compiled by travel website and newsletter, The Travel.
Longboat Key’s attractive factors include beaches, outdoor recreation and green spaces, like Bayfront Park and Joan M. Durante Park, according to The Travel.
Outdoor recreation like fishing, boating and golf are among the draws for retirees, the website says.
The website also states that 70.19% of the population are seniors, and the cost of living is 5.3% higher than the U.S. average.
Sarasota also made the list, coming in at sixth. At the top of the list was Panama City Beach.
In making a motion to approve the first of five petitions related to Torburn Partners' plans to redevelop the mostly vacant Sarasota Square Mall, Sarasota County Planning Commission Chair Pro Tem Emmalee Legler said she was “excited” about referring the project to the County Commission for approval.
And so it went for all five petitions filed by the Illinois-based developer, which were before the advisory body on March 7. That was the first step of a lengthy process prior to seeking the myriad state and local permitting, and before the developer can actually begin submitting development plans to the county.
“I am very, very excited to see this development in this area,” Legler said. “At this point there is nothing happening there, so I understand that loud noise and people we don't know moving into apartment complexes seem a little scary. Assuming that these people are going to be causing crime I think is an uninvited assumption. I'm going to be in favor of all five motions.”
The Planning Commission was unanimous in its approval too, likely to the chagrin of more than 15 speakers and others in attendance, who objected to the development on the basis of traffic, the up to 1,200 rental apartments, noise concerns, crime and general disruption of their quality of life.
Over the past two-plus years, Torburn Partners has spent $35.3 million on Sarasota Square properties, including the mall structure itself for $19 million in September 2021. The previous owner, Unibail-Rodamco Westfield, spent $77 million for the mall in 2003, then lost it in bankruptcy during the pandemic.
Including outparcels, the entire mall property occupies approximately 93.5 acres. The redevelopment will not include the Costco store and fuel outparcel, the JCPenney building, AMC Theatres and a bank outparcel.
The mall building will be demolished and replaced by the open-air, multiuse concept that Torburn Partners principal Robert Horne said will include high-end and fast-casual restaurants, specialty retail and potentially medical offices. A central town green surrounded by residential and commercial buildings will offer open space and room for special events.
Among the most contentious of the petitions was for a special exception for live entertainment and special events after 10 p.m. Horne explained that without that exception, restaurants would not be allowed to offer features such as an acoustic guitarist in the evenings.
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