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Cracks show
in sinkhole fix
John Morgan
poses with
Nathan
Matro in St.
Petersburg on
Wednesday.
CHERIE DIEZ
Times
On the road
for medical
marijuana
Valid claims are blocked in an effort to stem dubious ones.
Traveling the state by luxury bus,
famed attorney John Morgan
takes his case to the people.
BY STEPHEN NOHLGREN
Times Staff Writer
TAMPA — Outside the University of South Florida student center last week, a luxury bus originally customized for rock stars idled by the curb.
The soft hum of its air conditioning was drowned
out by students chanting, “Yes on 2! Yes on 2!’’
In the bus, Mr. Marijuana warmed up for another
day of barnstorming.
Multimillionaire lawyer John Morgan, 58, said
he did not foresee this whirlwind 19 months ago
when he took over a campaign to legalize medical
marijuana by putting it in Florida’s Constitution.
But he clearly has embraced it.
Working on four hours of sleep Tuesday, he had
already traveled from Orlando, debated the Hernando County sheriff on the radio and still faced
three campaign stops and a documentary interview before he could climb into the bus late that
night, pour a Jack Daniels and head home.
“I would make a terrible political candidate,’’ he
said later, contemplating another month of campaigning for one of the hottest issues of this election. “I don’t know how they do this.”
But every cause needs a champion — and who
.
OCTAVIO JONES | Times
BY JEFF HARRINGTON AND DAN DEWITT
I
Times Staff Writers
Cit
ize
ns
a
ve
rag
e
db
efo
r
e
law
.
n the heyday of the Great Florida Sink50
hole Lottery, Iris and Harry Irizarry
0would have had all the ingredients for a
60
big cash payout:
0:
Cl
A sinkhole policy from state-run Citizens
aim
sp
Property Insurance Corp.; visible cracking in the
er
walls and floors of the Spring Hill home they bought new
m
on
in 2003; and a sinkhole confirmed by both an engineer and the
th
th
Hernando County Property Appraiser’s Office.
at
But the era of easy sinkhole claims is over, slammed shut by a
2011 overhaul of the state insurance law. Based on the new law,
the same engineering firm that found the Irizarrys’ sinkhole —
and recommended that it be filled with grout — deemed that it
wouldn’t qualify for an insurance claim.
“We pay our insurance but (Citizens) doesn’t want to pay
to fix the house, and I can’t sell my house because (it) has no
value,” said Iris Irizarry, 64, a retired Head Start director
from Brooklyn. “What kind of a law is that?”
In short, it’s a law that has done what it was supposed to
do: stem a flood of claims that by 2011 were driving up
insurance rates and driving down property values in
25
-3
the “sinkhole alley” of Hernando and Pasco counties.
5:
But concerns are surfacing that the sinkhole fix has gone
Cl
ai
too far: It has limited the availability of sinkhole insurance
m
s
and allowed insurers to charge prices rivaling the cost of a standard homeowners policy. It has made it far more difficult for
homeowners to qualify for a claim. And by leaving homeowners stuck with sinkhole homes they cannot repair, it has created
a potential new drag on property values.
Jim Flynn, marketing manager of LRE Ground Services, one
of the most active sinkhole repair companies in Tampa Bay, initially supported the new rules.
“We were advocates for doing something. What was happening was crazy as far as people filing sinkhole claims for
av
er
something as simple as a driveway crack,” he said. But “it’s
ag
es
really gone from one extreme to the other.”
n
per
mo
nth
t
h
a
t Ci
tize
ns
.
ow
.
See SINKHOLES, 15A
A crack runs through the floor of Harry and
Iris Irizarry’s home in Spring Hill. An engineer
confirmed the presence of a sinkhole, but an
overhaul in state insurance law has led to the
retirees’ claim being denied and their home’s
value plummeting.
Citizens sinkhole policies
The total number of Citizens Property sinkhole
policies has dwindled by more than 50 percent.
Hillsborough
TALLAHASSEE — The 911 call
could not have sounded more
urgent: A man was beating a
woman holding a baby outside
their apartment as she tried to
leave.
“You just need to get someone
out here right away because it is
really bad,” the caller said, adding that the man was “punching”
the mother and “grabbing the little baby around the arm.”
By the time police arrived
See FSU, 4A
Only a small fraction of the nearly
48,000 jobs Gov. Rick Scott credits
to incentives have been created.
Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
0
June 2012
June 2013
June 2014
Source: Citizens Property Insurance
CAMERON COTTRILL | Times
to the local domestic abuse crisis center. But according to their
brief report on the episode, the
officers did none of that.
They did, however, find the
case significant enough to notify
their sergeant — “due to the
fact that it was an FSU football
player,” the report said. The sergeant, a Florida State University
sports fan, signed off on it, and
the complaint was filed away as
“unfounded.”
.
Despite breaks,
zeroes still line
job-creation list
BY STEVE BOUSQUET AND TIA MITCHELL
Police in Tallahassee take notice whenever Florida State football
players are accused, raising concern on how their cases are handled.
about 3 a.m. one day last January, the couple were inside. The
19-year-old woman said she and
her boyfriend had argued and he
had not wanted her to leave. But
she insisted nothing physical had
occurred.
Officers responding to a domestic violence call have a legal duty
to investigate thoroughly, seek
written statements from witnesses and from the victim, instruct
the victim on how to seek help,
and, finally, forward their report
Hernando
50,000
Shadow cast on justice at FSU
New York Times
Pasco
See JOHN MORGAN, 10A
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott has used tax
breaks and other incentives to attract tens of thousands of new jobs to Florida, but after nearly four
years, most of the jobs still don’t exist, according to
state records.
Scott has built his case for a second term largely
on the slow but steady improvement in the Florida
economy, especially a drop in unemployment and
growth in private sector jobs as measured by the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As the self-proclaimed “jobs governor,” Scott
has traveled across the state, promoting new jobs
and major capital investment lured with incentive
deals paid for by taxpayers.
They include Hertz’s relocation of hundreds of
workers from New Jersey to a new rental car headquarters in Lee County; aviation engineering jobs
at Boeing and Embraer on the Space Coast in Brevard; and Amazon’s fulfillment centers in Ruskin,
Davenport and Lakeland.
But since Scott took office in 2011, of the 47,746
new jobs that the state has promised through tax
breaks, job training grants and other programs to
.
See JOBS, 14A
TODAY’S WEATHER
IN LATITUDES
Lorraine Motel, Room 306
A renewed National Civil Rights Museum soars
in Memphis at the site where Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. was struck down. 1L
IN SPORTS
Bolts fall to
Senators in OT
For the second straight
game, Tampa Bay goes
to overtime, this time
losing 3-2 in a shootout with Ottawa. 1C
Nice breeze
8 a.m.
72°
Some question
whether the NFL is a
good representative
for women’s health
causes. 1D
4 p.m. 8 p.m.
90°
81°
0% chance of rain
More, back page of Sports
IN BUSINESS
A call to think
beyond pink
Noon
86°
Vol. 131 No. 80
© Times Publishing Co.
INDEX
Arts
4L
Classified
Astrology
4F
Crossword 5P, F
Books
Business
5-6L
1D
F
Editorials
2P
Lottery
2A