Weekly political notes from The News Service of Florida
By Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — It’s been nearly 20 years since Florida directly approved money for construction of a new professional sports stadium.
And Gov. Ron DeSantis said that isn’t going to change as the Tampa Bay Rays look for a new baseball park. But state dollars could flow in other ways to boost new or improved stadiums.
During an appearance Tuesday in Apopka, DeSantis said he hasn’t been in touch with Major League Baseball in a couple of months, but he understands the organization isn’t going to allow the Rays to leave Florida.
The future of the Rays remains in limbo, with the team playing games this year at the New York Yankees’ spring training stadium in Tampa while hurricane repairs continue at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. The Rays’ lease at The Trop runs out at the end of the 2028 baseball season.
“To have a major league team leave, that’s not something we want, obviously. But actually, it’s bad for the league,” DeSantis said. “It makes baseball look poorly that they couldn’t hack it in really big markets.”
DeSantis said the state isn’t going to pump tax dollars into pro stadiums, but he considers other types of help appropriate.
“For example, if someone buys the team and they want to build a nice new stadium, they can work with whatever local, city and county if they want,” DeSantis said. “But, you know, we help with roads and exits and some stuff like that. But that’s the proper role of government. So, I think it will be helpful within the confines of what’s appropriate for taxpayers to be doing, but it will not involve, at our level, giving money for the construction of a stadium.”
DeSantis last year directed $8 million from the state’s Job Growth Grant Fund to construct a road around the planned Miami Freedom Park, a 25,000-seat soccer stadium close to Miami International Airport for Inter Miami.
The Job Growth Grant Fund is designed to provide money for infrastructure projects and job-training programs.
DeSantis said at the time that the road work would help create construction jobs, relieve future traffic in the area and potentially increase tourism in a new business district.
Also, as an example, he pointed to The Battery Atlanta, a 10-acre mixed-use project that the Atlanta Braves developed next to the taxpayer-funded Truist Park northwest of Atlanta.
“People go because there’s like bars and restaurants and shops and stuff like that, and they really made it an experience for folks. And so that, I think, is the goal,” DeSantis said.
Florida in the past approved 30-year deals providing $166,667 a month, or $2 million a year, for stadium projects. The Orlando Magic was the last to dip into the program, in 2007, for what is now the Kia Center. The last monthly distribution is set for January 2038.
A controversial 2014 law created a stadium-funding program that made $13 million a year available for stadium work. But the money went unused.
GETTING ‘PAST THE CHALLENGE’
Critics of the hiring of Santa Ono as the University of Florida’s next president have raised a series of issues, including his mental-health history.
CommiesOnCampus posted last week on X that Ono has had mental-health problems and “attempted suicide twice.”
“UF Board of Trustees & the BOG MUST require a full review of his medical records before voting to confirm him as UF President,” CommiesOnCampus posted.
CommiesOnCampus is more than just a random online bot. In April, the DeSantis administration halted a search for a new dean at the University of Florida’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences after CommiesOnCampus labeled the finalists “radical DEI progressives.”
But Ono, whose hiring was unanimously supported Tuesday by UF trustees, said he uses his past issues to send a message that depression is treatable and people can move on with their lives.
“You know, mental health is a health issue, just like diabetes or arthritis. … The problem is that there’s a stigma about talking about it,” Ono said. “If you have diabetes or if you have a bad back, you talk about it. If you’re a young adult or even somebody older in life, there’s a stigma about talking.”
When he was president at the University of Cincinnati, Ono said he had faced depression and attempted suicide as a teen and while in his 20s. The disclosure followed a high-profile suicide of a 21-year-old student in 2014, which Ono’s used to advocate for more mental-health resources, according to a 2016 Cincinnati Enquirer story.
“I’ll continue talking about it. We shouldn’t be ashamed about talking about our frailties,” Ono said. “I think students at the University of Florida and elsewhere need to be able to hear about the vulnerabilities of their leaders.”
“If you show a resume that just shows your successes, it doesn’t tell the real story of life,” Ono continued. “You know, we need to tell our students and our faculty that all of us have been through challenges, and we’re all there together to help each other out to get past the challenge.”
Ono’s appointment still needs approval from the state university systems Board of Governors, which will consider it Tuesday during a meeting in Orlando.
SOCIAL MEDIA POST OF THE WEEK: “A few days out from the start of hurricane season and a reminder the Florida east coast is in the middle of a long drought without major hurricane landfalls. The FL east coast has not been hit by a Cat. 3+ since 2004. It used to get hit a lot more pre the 1960s.” — FOX 35 Orlando weeknight senior meteorologist Noah Bergren (@NbergWX).
Asking the people to pay for pro stadiums that turn around and charge hundreds of dollars for single game tickets, and pay millions of dollars to their players every year, while capturing profits, seems to be a direct rip off and get rich scheme on the back of the working class. Kudos to DeSantis for saying no. I am a sports fan, but where is the reason, the logic, for such use of tax dollars. If its gonna provide tourism dollars, let the tourism industry pay for it…..yes, I know they pay taxes too, but they get the benefit of those too.