New Broward Delegation Leader Plans Different Focus for Local Legislators
Nov 10, 2008
The following was posted on Monday, November 10, 2008 to the Sun-Sentinel’s Broward Politics Blog.
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New Broward delegation leader plans different focus for local legislators.
Posted by Anthony Man at 9:17 AM
State Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Parkland, the new chairman of the Broward Legislative Delegation, wants to change the delegation’s usual pattern of hearing local groups’ and governments’ pleas for money and then taking those requests to the state capital.
In remarks after he was chosen to lead the delegation last week, Ring pointed out that state government’s financial problems mean there won’t be gushers of money to be had in Tallahassee.
“It doesn’t need to be said, we’re in a financial mess right now,” he said. “No one can doubt the money is not there. There is no tree outside that grows dollar bills. It doesn’t exist.”
That means a big focus for the state Legislature for the next year or two is going to be cutting spending and, possibly, exploring new sources of tax money. “The choices that have to be made are extremely challenging,” Ring said.
Ring said he wants the hearings and workshops the delegation holds each year to have a different focus: what’s going on in Broward that can help put the community and the state on the path to a different kind of economic future.
“We’re going to talk about the innovation that’s going on in Broward County. We’re going to get everyone excited about what’s going on in the schools, what’s going on in the hospitals.”
For example, he said, the annual meeting involving the School Board might instead focus on a presentation by students building solar-powered cars. And a hospital district meeting might focus on cutting edge technology employed locally.
Ring said there’s unrecognized potential locally. He said somewhere in Broward schools there’s a student who will go on to build a company that ultimately will employ thousands of people.
“We need to think positive about the exciting things that are happening in Broward County,” he said.
This fits in with Ring’s background. He was an early Yahoo! executive and in the Legislature he’s focused on technology and innovation as a way to transform Florida’s economy. Gov. Charlie Crist named him last month to head the Task Force for the Study of Biotech Companies.
He’s not ignoring the prosaic. The delegation, he said, wouldn’t ignore its traditional role of making the case for local financial requests in Tallahassee.
And he appointed state Rep. Evan Jenne, D-Dania Beach, to lead a committee to grapple with a perennial and knotty issue: annexation of the remaining pockets of unincorporated Broward that aren’t yet part of any city, town or village.
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