Candidates for Florida House of Representatives District 8 will debate tonight at 7 p.m. in Lee Hall Auditorium in a forum sponsored by Student Government's Vote Coalition.
Invited participants include candidates Alan Williams, Sean Shaw, Hubert Brown, Rodney Moore and Anthony Viegbesie. They're running to replace Rep. Curtis Richardson who is facing term limits.
Whoever steps up into District 8 has huge shoes to fill. Curtis Richardson was a solid sucessor to Al Lawson in that seat. He and Lawson really went to went to bat for the university in order to keep FAMU from being push out of the E-School.
ReplyDeleteThere was a story on the Tallahassee Democrat's blog that he and Lawson are currently working on getting the money that FAMU needs to purchase a new classroom building that will eventually house a dental school.
We cannot afford to lose any momentum. It's do or die time. Whoever wins the District 8 seat needs to be prepared to hit the ground running.
Capital Letter
ReplyDeletePolitical matters in Florida's Capital
StevieP's page
FAMU May be getting a Dental School
Posted 4/2/2008 3:46 PM EDT on tallahassee.com
Florida A & M is closer to getting a building that would eventually house a dental school for the university.
Rep. Curtis Richardson and Senator Al Lawson, both Tallahassee Democrats, are working on getting state funds to lease or buy a building in downtown Crestview that is unoccupied.
“It would be for classroom space and eventually we would look at putting a dental school (there),” Richardson said Wednesday.
The Rattler Nation blog should post an investigation on the new Dental School. Why so far away (Crestview is 100+ miles from TLH; right outside of Pensacola)? Is a Med School out of realm? (Foote Hilyer was once a teaching hospital on campus)
ReplyDeleteThe location might have been selected in order to rally up additional legislative support. One reason there was so much House and Senate backing for the law school was that the legislative delegations from Polk, Orange, and Hillsborough were all anxious to place bids for it to be located in their respective districts.
ReplyDelete12:26am that's not why the Law School was placed in Orlando. The Law School was place in Orlando because you can't have duplicate State University System programs in the same city. Example FSU Business School curriculum offers courses on how to be an entreprenuer. SBI offers courses on how to work for corporations. Dean Mobley got a spanking for trying to sneak a few entreprenuer classes into the program. FSU offers Advertising courses in their buisness school and FAMU offers marketing courses.
ReplyDeleteThrasher gave FIU and FAMU Law Schools, which was sponsored by a Hispanic Republican so FSU could get a med school. We should gave gotten a med school. Thrasher needed the Hispanic Caucus' support to get his med school for his Alma Mater. The Hispanics wanted FIU to get a Law school, but knew they would piss off the blacks if FAMU didn't get one as well. That was a backroom deal that black folks had nothing to do with. All of the black caucus wasn't happy about the law school because they had to give up a program that paid for blacks to go to law school to get the school. Problem is, if you can't pay, you can't go. Maybe that's why more whites and hispanics are enrolled in the law school than blacks. Mario Diaz Balart is sitting in Washington now because he got FIU a law school and added FAMU to the Legislation.
12:26am that's not why the Law School was placed in Orlando.
ReplyDeleteThe support from the Polk, Orange, and Hillsborough delegations was ONE reason, not THE reason. Many of them wanted the law school in order to help attract more white collar jobs, money, and prestige to their respective districts. A number of Tampa-area legislators were outraged when the law school went to Orlando after they had used their political capital to help push it through the appropriation process.
The Hispanics wanted FIU to get a Law school, but knew they would piss off the blacks if FAMU didn't get one as well. That was a backroom deal that black folks had nothing to do with.
The State Conference of Black Legislators did play a big role in winning the law school. Thrasher didn't initially care about angering the black legislators. He, at first, cut a deal to give FIU a law school without giving one to FAMU.
FAMU got its own law school deal later on during the appropriations process. Thrasher wanted to shut down Florida's Department of Labor; however, the minority House Dems had just enough votes to block that proposal.
When Thrasher realized that his effort to kill the DOL was doomed, he offered the FAMU law school to the black legislators as a bargaining chip. They didn't budget on the DOL, but Thrasher saw it wise to keep the FAMU law school in the bill as a peace offering to keep the black House Dems from being further antagonized against the rest of his proposed cuts to state government.