The Paradise Progressive is an effort to cover, analyze and comment on news affecting the Paradise Coast of Southwest Florida that is overlooked, ignored or avoided by local traditional media. It does this to fulfill the role of a free and independent press in a democratic republic.
As the Washington Post states: “Democracy dies in darkness.” But we say: “Liberty lives in light.” Our goal is to shine a light as best we can to dispel the darkness.
The Paradise Progressive is not affiliated with any political party or organization. It was begun on Dec. 20, 2018. The Paradise Progressive can also be viewed on its Facebook page, which features links to other Florida-related postings, and on its website, ParadiseProgressive.com. Videos related to political activities in Southwest Florida can be seen at The Paradise Progressive YouTube channel.
The specter haunting Florida. (Art: AI for TPP/ChatGPT)
June 5, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28
As one Tallahassee politician recently stated: “Floridians deserve roads, bridges and clean water that meet the highest safety standards.”
It’s true—but it’s not what we’re going to get if property taxes are slashed and Florida’s communities are starved for funding.
The politician who said that, Rep. Lauren Melo (R-82-Naples), voted in the Florida House to deny Florida’s communities the money they need to keep going and have the highest safety standards for their roads, bridges and clean water.
And starved for funding is what they’ll be if an anti-property tax amendment passes a referendum in November. This proposal isn’t just anti-property tax. I call it “The Anti-Local Amendment.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis and his legislature—what I call “Big Tallahassee”—is aiming to end the fiscal freedom of Florida’s towns, cities and local governments. They want Florida’s roads, bridges and infrastructure to fall into disrepair while their donors enjoy massive tax breaks on their extensive property holdings. They want every town, city and county and everyone in them to come begging on their knees to get whatever pennies the political bosses feel like throwing their way.
I’m David Silverberg and I’m running for the Florida Senate in District 28, consisting of Collier, Hendry and eastern Lee County. I’ve already taken a stand for Florida’s local governments and I’m here to warn you that the Anti-Local Amendment is a scam that has much darker purposes than what you’re being told by Big Tallahassee.
I’m not the only person warning of the dangers of destroying local government’s funding.
“The greatest trick DeSantis ever pulled was convincing Floridians that local government is the problem and state government is the solution,” wrote Jeff Brandes, President of the Florida Policy Project, a non-profit, non-partisan research institute that “advances evidence-based policies to improve the lives of Floridians.”
“If your mayor, sheriff, and county commission have to fly to Tallahassee every year to ask permission to fund basic services, the state didn’t shrink government. It just moved it farther away and gave you less control,” wrote Brandes.
Rick Wilson, a Florida-based former Republican political operative and co-founder of The Lincoln Project, agrees: “Killing all local control and moving it to Tallahassee is fundamentally anti-conservative,” he wrote.
In the contest for District 28, I’m the conservative candidate. I want to conserve our towns, cities and counties so they’re strong and responsive to the people who live in them.
Also, you have to realize that even if the homestead exemption is expanded the money has to be found somewhere and we will be paying more—and probably much more—in other taxes like sales taxes. Also, our millage rates (the rate per $1,000 in assessed value at which property taxes are calculated) will likely skyrocket to counteract the massive loss of money. Businesses and commercial properties that provide much of Florida’s employment will be heavily taxed to make up the shortfall. Many will either be driven out of business or jack up their prices to cover their own costs. Employment will likely fall and the entire economy will probably weaken.
How much will the counties in this district lose? Make no mistake: it will be a major blow in Senate District 28.
According to estimates from the Florida Association of Counties, Collier County would lose $62.9 million in the first year and $121.4 million in the second, under the bill passed in Tallahassee. The Florida Policy Institute estimates the loss at $71.4 million. However it plays out, these are devastating numbers.
When it comes to schools, The Florida Policy Institute estimated Collier County’s school district would lose nearly $94 million ($93,619,633 to be exact) if the homestead exemption is increased to $250,000 as the bill proposes in its second year.
Hendry County will likely lose $5 million under the $250,000 homestead exemption, according to the Florida Policy Institute estimate.
Lee County as a whole stands to lose a whopping $142 million.
Why is Big Tallahassee doing this? I see several reasons.
One is to get ahead of the affordability issue.
Floridians are suffering from skyrocketing costs and Big Tallahassee politicians don’t want that hanging over their heads as the midterm elections roll around. They see the Anti-Local Amendment as a way to tell Floridians that they’re addressing the issue.
However, much of the reason for rising prices is way beyond their control. It’s the result of Donald Trump’s unconstitutional and unnecessary war with Iran, the shock of gas prices because of the war and the federal administration’s overall mismanagement of the economy. (And don’t forget Trump’s immortal words on all this: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.”)
Of course, no Big Tallahassee politician will admit this. Instead, they’re renaming places all over the state in Trump’s honor (which is also costing the state infrastructure money that would be better spent on Floridians’ real needs).
Instead of actually helping people, they’re trying to say that they’re cutting taxes so we won’t look behind the curtain at the carnage that entails. They think we’re too stupid to see through this.
A member of the Florida House put this very well. “It’s a political game,” state Rep. Rob Long (D-90-Boynton Beach) told the USA Today Network-Florida. “It’s a turnout mechanism.”
Long said that many Republicans in Tallahassee don’t believe the amendment will pass but thought it would get the base voters to the polls to improve the party’s chances.
Secondly, the Anti-Local Amendment is part of an overall war on Florida’s local governments. I have pledged to fight against this assault on local government and grassroots democracy. I want you, wherever you live, to have a say in the decisions that affect your life. Big Tallahassee doesn’t want that. It wants to centralize all power in the governor’s mansion, which, no doubt, it hopes will be subservient to Mar-a-Lago, which it views as the real seat of power in the state.
Again, I’m not the only one saying this.
“Imagine counties and cities that can no longer fund themselves. Imagine local officials traveling to Tallahassee not to seek a grant for a new project, but to keep deputies on patrol, firefighters in stations, and ambulances on the road,” wrote Brandes in another posting. “At that point, who is really running local government? The answer is not the county commission. The answer is not the city council.” As he put it: “The answer is whoever controls the money.”
He summarized the situation very well: “The real question is whether Florida wants independent local governments or dependent local governments. Because independent local government means paying your own bills.”
When the Anti-Local Amendment is on the ballot in November, I’ll have one vote just like everyone else. I am speaking out now because I think it’s a terrible idea in the form that it’s written.
I’m not against expanding the homestead exemption but if we do it we need to do it far more gradually over a longer period of time and in consultation with our local governments—not in opposition to them or laying down a dictatorial command. It should only be done after hearings, widespread consultation and in a way that helps, not harms, everyone from renters, to homeowners, to businesses, to county, city and town governments.
In the meantime, if elected I will do whatever I can to stop Big Tallahassee’s war on our communities. Instead of weakening them, I will work to strengthen them. Instead of spending our tax dollars on renaming roads and airports to satisfy one man’s ego or to open up concentration camps in the Everglades, I’ll work to ensure that we spend our tax dollars to help the taxpayers who make everything possible in the first place.
I hope you agree with me. Together, we can make sure our dollars are spent where we live and to make all our lives better—not for political games and partisan scams.
Even with the onset of hurricane season, Floridians should be able to face their sun and skies with hope and confidence. (Art: AI for TPP/ChatGPT)
June 1, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28
June 1st is a special date for me personally. It marks the date in 2013 that I became a full-time resident of Florida. Very appropriately, it also marks the start of hurricane season.
Long-time residents of Southwest Florida, and particularly Senate District 28—Collier, Hendry and eastern Lee County—know the hurricane drill: have plenty of batteries, bottled water and supplies sufficient for two days without electricity or assistance, although preferably for seven days. Make a plan if the worst happens. Know your evacuation zone and the routes out of town.
Every sitting politician with even a sliver of sense posts these suggestions on his or her website or Facebook page. It’s standard practice. Usually, at that point they wash their hands of the topic.
But here’s an idea: What if we actually gave some thought to the impact of hurricanes and other potential disasters? What if we actually worked to prepare our districts and the state for the ravages of natural calamities? What if we actually did something to help and protect the people and the state?
And here’s a really big idea: What if we acknowledged that we are in the midst of climate change and came up with ways to respond to it?
You read that right: climate change. Florida’s forbidden words!
Not only will I acknowledge it but I’ll state it again: Climate change! Climate change! Climate change!
We’re in it. It’s happening. We have to face it.
My name is David Silverberg and I’m running for the Florida state Senate in District 28; Collier, Hendry and eastern Lee County. Not only will I acknowledge that climate change is real but if elected I intend to prepare this district and state for the impacts and I’ll do what I can to reduce its effects.
Then, in 2024 the legislature passed, and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed, a law banning use of the term in all state laws.
That’s like passing a law stating that the sun revolves around the earth, or revoking the law of gravity. You can get it through the legislature but that doesn’t necessarily make it true in the real world.
But this head-in-the-sand attitude isn’t confined to just Tallahassee, it’s national and it starts at the very top. In 2024 the notorious Project 2025, the blueprint for the current presidential administration, stated that it wanted to dismantle what it called the “climate change alarm industry.”
To do this, Project 2025 recommended gutting the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and America’s weather and climate predicting capabilities.
The logic is obvious: If you don’t collect data that you don’t like, then what science indicates is happening isn’t really happening, right?
It needs to be noted that the author of that chapter of Project 2025, Thomas Gilman, was a former auto industry executive protecting a fossil fuel-based industry that was substantially contributing to climate change.
The current presidential administration is deliberately returning to the age of fossil fuels. This has given us fossil fuel wars in Iran and Venezuela and skyrocketing gasoline prices at the pump. It’s also leading to oil exploitation in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which threatens the environment of Southwest Florida and District 28. (It could also mean destruction in the Everglades, something I will deal with in detail in a future essay).
What we’re getting is fossil wars and fossil prices fueled by fossilized thinking from fossilized politicians. We’re being led by dinosaurs—and we know how that turned out the first time.
And all this, of course, fuels climate change.
Scientists, climatologists and meteorologists have theorized that climate change is making storms more intense and destructive. It is obviously making the oceans warmer, which in turn drives the power of the hurricanes.
But climate change isn’t just manifesting itself in hurricanes and tropical storms; it’s making all forms of weather more unstable and unpredictable.
Look at our own region of Southwest Florida. We’re only now coming out of one of the most damaging droughts in years, one that sparked numerous wildfires. We had no seasonal storms last year and that hurt our aquifers. In 2018 we had what I call the “Big Bloom”—an intense algal bloom that saw both red tide in the Gulf of Mexico and blue-green algae in the Caloosahatchee River at the same time. It made life on the Gulf coast extremely difficult for residents and hurt tourism and the economy.
Meteorologist Matt Devitt, before his departure from WINK News, pointed out in a Jan. 6 Facebook post that: “Data is in for 2025 and it shows it was the 10th hottest on record for the city of Fort Myers in Southwest Florida. Data goes back to 1902 (123 years). With that said, the past 7 years straight have all been in the Top 10 hottest.”
As he stated further: “There are several contributing factors to the warmth in recent years. One of the most obvious that I’m sure you see all the time is the rapid development of Southwest Florida. If you replace cooler grass and trees with asphalt, concrete and buildings, materials that absorb heat, you’re expanding the urban heat island. As a reminder, I don’t do politics on this page. That’s just the pure physics of the situation. We’ll see what 2026 has in store ahead, I’ll keep you posted.”
This year we may see record heat, more drought or catastrophic hurricanes. But who really knows?
That uncertainty is a result of climate change.
Ironically, everyday, on-the-ground Floridians know we’re in the midst of climate change. In 2019 the Conservancy of Florida released The Southwest Florida Climate Metrics Survey that found that Floridians acknowledged climate change even if their leaders would not. Its most outstanding finding was that people are aware of and believe there is climate change—something not previously apparent in Southwest Florida: 76 percent had noticed more severe weather and changing seasonal weather patterns over the previous years; 75 percent believed that climate change was happening; 71 percent were concerned about climate change; and 59 percent believed that the effects of climate change had already begun—and all that was in 2019. (To read more about the survey, see: “Analysis: Conservancy climate change survey represents a sea change in SWFL attitudes, politics.”)
To his credit, one sitting politician did acknowledge climate change. On Sept. 11, 2019, Francis Rooney, then representing Southwest Florida in Congress, published a revolutionary article in Politico Magazine titled: “I’m a conservative Republican. Climate change is real.”
As he stated: “I’m a conservative Republican and I believe climate change is real. It’s time for my fellow Republicans in Congress to stop treating this environmental threat as something abstract and political and recognize that it’s already affecting their constituents in their daily lives.
“If we don’t change our party’s position soon, our voters will punish us.”
Rooney left Congress the next year. Despite his best effort on this score, he didn’t make much of a dent. Conservative dogma remains to deny climate change while trying to grapple with its undeniable effects.
So what can we do, and more specifically, what would I do if elected to the Florida state Senate?
Simply put, I want to prepare our communities for climate change’s likely effects. Most of all, I want the Florida state government to stop doing harm.
This year the legislature passed a law (House Bill 1217) prohibiting Florida communities from pursuing a “net-zero” policy. “Net-zero” was defined as “any policy, program, or initiative designed to achieve a balance between total amount of greenhouse gas emitted into the atmosphere with an equal amount removed from the atmosphere.” In other words, trying to take responsible action to slow climate change and preserve Florida’s environment, whether in the air, land or water.
But under this law, Florida’s towns, cities and counties must pollute the air and warm the atmosphere. They cannot try to do their small part in preventing climate change. They can’t even use electric-powered leaf blowers in landscaping work, they must use polluting, gasoline-powered equipment.
The bill was passed by the legislature and signed into law by Gov. DeSantis.
That is simply absurd. Big Tallahassee is actively trying to destroy Florida, its environment and a stable climate. What’s more, it’s not enough that Big Tallahassee wants to accelerate climate change and pollute the environment, it insists that everyone accelerate climate change and pollute the environment—or face penalties if they don’t.
Not only was this an insane act of self-destruction, it also pre-empts the home rule and local authority of Florida’s towns and cities, an authority I am determined to preserve. (See “Why I want to keep Florida’s local governments strong.”)
Communities that responsibly try to reduce emissions and protect the climate shouldn’t be punished for doing so.
In fact, they should be rewarded and I am determined, if elected, to find ways to create incentives for our local communities to do what they can to be responsible stewards of the environment. I will explore ways to rescind HB 1217 or at least to mitigate its ill-effects.
But that’s hardly all. I want make renewable energy cool again. We live in the Sunshine State—we should be doing absolutely everything we possibly can to encourage use of solar energy for power.
When it comes to wind, this past March, at the national level, the current administration paid the French company TotalEnergies $1 billion to give up its leases for offshore wind farms. It’s part of an overall attack on all kinds of renewable energy.
Instead of that harm, we can provide for companies and communities to limit their carbon emissions. We can expand our electric vehicle infrastructure so people can more conveniently charge up their electric vehicles.
Instead of trying to cripple our local governments by abolishing property taxes, we can offer tax incentives to towns, businesses and individual homeowners to become more environmentally responsible and reduce pollution—and bring down costs and make Florida affordable again.
These are just a few ideas that I intend to pursue if I’m elected to the Florida state Senate from District 28. Given its environmental sensitivity (for example, the Everglades, the Gulf shore and the aquifers), it’s an area with great potential to lead the state and even the nation in responsible, climate-friendly economic and energy management.
I hope you agree with me and that you’ll express it by voting for me in the November 3 general election.
It’s time to break out of fossilized thinking and let the sun shine on the Sunshine State again.
A cook on an 18th century sailing vessel skims the fat off his stew as he prepares to feed crew members. (Art: AI for TPP/ChatGPT)
May 26, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate District 28
When President Donald Trump reached a deal with his private attorney/acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche for a $1.776 billion payout for himself and anyone else he felt like paying, critics—and most of the public—immediately characterized it as a “slush fund.”
That started me wondering: why do we call it a “slush fund?”
I did some research and I thought the answer was so interesting that I would share it with you.
My name is David Silverberg and I’m a candidate for Florida state Senate in District 28, which covers Collier, Hendry and eastern Lee County.
According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, in the 1700s, the word “slush” meant “refuse grease and fat from cooking especially on shipboard”—the kind of leftover renderings that are caught in restaurant grease traps today.
What slush looks like. In our house we pour cooking fat and grease into a jar that we keep in the freezer until it’s full. Then we toss it in the trash rather than pour it down the drain where it could clog the pipes. (Photo: Author)
In those days shipboard cooks would take the slush from their cooking and store it in barrels or other containers. But that waste didn’t go to waste. When the ship reached port the cooks would sell it to people like candle makers or soap makers or other businesses who had use for it. With the money they earned, the cooks (or whoever was overseeing the transaction), would buy goods for the crew, mostly personal items like musical instruments or books. This money belonged to the entire crew and it was called the “slush fund.”
In the course of a year, on board one of our large frigates, some fifteen or twenty barrels of slush is taken from the cooking apparatus, and sold for the purpose of creating the “slush fund.”
— Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, DC), 1 Apr. 1852
That’s a lot of slush! And it obviously resulted in a lot of cash.
The polite Commissary informed us that they received twelve dollars a barrel for the grounds, and thus added materially to the “Slush Fund.”
— Fort Wayne Gazette (Fort Wayne, IN), 12 May 1864
Up until the middle of the 1800s the term “slush fund” continued to mean just a general-purpose pot of money.
However, as might be imagined, slush funds weren’t always honestly or fairly managed and in the late 1860s it began to take on the connotation of corruption and illegality. From there it was a short step for it to be used in a political sense, usually meaning the source of bribes and corruption.
After referring to the evidence that a “slush fund” of $10,000 had been raised by the “ring” for use where it could be made available in furthering their scheme—in bribing officials?—this report says: We now approach an individual, to whose conduct in these transactions the attention of the public has been chiefly directed.
— The Selma Weekly Messenger (Selma, AL), 30 Mar. 1867
The meaning of “slush fund” hasn’t changed since then and today it has a firmly political connotation.
Make no mistake: Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund is a “slush fund” in the fullest sense of the term.
In fact, it may be recorded as the most outrageously blatant, undisguised act of public corruption in American history. The fact that the term derives from grease, fat and waste is particularly appropriate in this case.
One can only imagine that Todd Blanche as a lawyer must be fully aware of this but he is so subservient and so corrupted himself that he would never push back. (Interestingly, according to author Michael Wolff, writing in his account of the 2024 election, All or Nothing, Trump despises Blanche for lacking the cleverness of his legal idol, Roy Cohen, or the courtroom panache of the fictional Perry Mason. Clearly, Trump keeps him on because he’s a useful tool. Anyone want to take bets on how long he lasts before he’s thrown under the bus?)
Narrowing our focus to Florida, it’s interesting that not a single sitting Republican official from the governor on down, including both senators and all state legislators, have spoken out or condemned this gargantuan criminal act. Obviously, the powers that be—what I call “Big Tallahassee”—is fine with it.
Indeed, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), running for the Republican nomination as governor, has defended Trump’s slush fund as a magnanimous gesture: “Instead of taking the money, they said ‘put it into a fund for other people,’ and now everybody is losing their minds. I don’t understand that,” he said in an interview on Fox News on Sunday, May 24.
We could explain the problem with this thinking but it would be too time-consuming. Donalds might want to take note that the money will be going to the Jan. 6, 2021 rioters whom Donalds characterized at the time as “lawless vigilantes” who “wreaked havoc on the United States Capitol Building,” an “unruly mob” showing “a warped display of so-called patriotism” and “thuggery” and “a bunch of lunatics.” He praised the Capitol Police as “heroes for their dedicated efforts in dealing with this monumental task” and said he was “eternally grateful” for their efforts to protect him. These are now the same people suing to stop the slush fund from paying the people who attacked them.
At the state level, Florida has its own slush funds. One that came to light last year had to do with Hope Florida, a charity initiated and administered by Casey DeSantis, wife of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). Hope Florida received $10 million from a $67 million Medicaid overbilling settlement. The money then took a circuitous route to political action committees fighting constitutional amendments that would have legalized abortion and recreational marijuana.
At the time the scandal broke last year, Casey DeSantis was a credible possibility to succeed her husband as governor.
The Florida House of Representatives launched an investigation, which was led by Florida House Rep. Alex Andrade (R-2-Pensacola) and his efforts implicated state Attorney General James Uthmeier for directing the funds or applications for funds—to groups headed by Uthmeier himself. Andrade accused Uthmeier of money laundering and wire fraud.
“This is a misuse of Medicaid dollars, a misuse of taxpayer dollars, I believe it’s money laundering and wire fraud,” Andrade said in an interview.
Uthmeier refused to cooperate with the investigation and retaliated by calling for Andrade to be ousted from his chairmanship of the House Health Care Budget Subcommittee, allegedly because of ties to Planned Parenthood.
It was an improper intrusion of an executive branch official into legislative prerogatives but characteristic of the kind of tactics that the DeSantis/Trump administrations have visited upon all restraints, checks or balances of executive power.
And then—poof!—the investigation went away. Andrade introduced a bill in the Florida House that made reforms to prevent this kind of abuse in the future. It passed unanimously there but died in the Senate. Andrade is term-limited and so will be unable to pursue his reforms any further.
Call me old-fashioned but I believe that the legislative branch needs to oversee the executive branch. I believe that crimes that are brought to light ought to be prosecuted. I believe that if non-profits or Cabinet officials are subpoenaed by legislative bodies they ought to be forced to respond, tell the truth and pay a penalty if they don’t comply. I believe that investigations should be pursued whether their subjects cooperate or not. I believe that elected representatives and senators in Florida should safeguard the money that taxpayers provide the state and see that it isn’t illicitly poured into private pockets.
Most of all, I believe that there shouldn’t be any criminal slush funds in Florida.
I intend to pursue these ends if I’m elected to the Florida Senate in District 28. More specifically, if elected I will also reintroduce the reforms that Andrade introduced. If voters overturn all the slush-slingers of Big Tallahassee this year, there might even be a chance that the reforms will become law.
I hope you agree. If you do, please donate, volunteer and most of all, vote for me in the general election. Early voting begins October 22. Election Day is November 3.
A decorated veteran takes his stand in Naples, Fla., as part of the No Kings protest on March 28, 2026. (Photo: Author)
May 21, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28
When we say “thank you for your service” to an American veteran, we need to provide that person with more than lip service. Veterans living in Florida need some real effort to solve some very real problems. Memorial Day is a time to remember their sacrifice and service—but equally importantly, pursue solutions.
My name is David Silverberg and I’m running for the Florida Senate in District 28, which consists of Collier, Hendry and eastern Lee County.
Like all other Americans, Florida’s estimated 1.6 million veterans are being battered from all sides. The rise in prices that affect everyone hit senior and disabled veterans on fixed incomes especially hard.
Make no mistake where these costs are coming from: a war that America’s vets had no say in starting because it was never submitted to congressional approval; absurd tariffs on imports on which they were likewise never consulted; and an increasingly brutal rate of inflation.
And remember Donald Trump’s immortal words in response to all this: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.” So he’s certainly not going to help.
At the federal level, vast and destructive cuts to the Veterans Administration by Elon Musk and his fleeting Department of Government Efficiency slashed the number of personnel who were attending to veterans. On the ground, that translated into longer wait times in hospitals and slower responses to veterans’ needs, even the most urgent ones.
Then, there are the Florida-specific problems. One independent journalist who has focused on these issues is Edmond Thorne, based in Fort Lauderdale.
In his article, “Disgraceful: Florida Veterans Face Nation’s Highest Foreclosure Rates After Key Aid Ends” Thorne detailed how rising insurance rates and other costs are driving veteran foreclosures and homelessness. On top of this was the VA’s termination of the VA Servicing Purchase Program, which helped veterans pay loans and reduce interest rates on their homes.
As Thorne put it: “Behind the numbers are stories that hit close to home and hearts. Veterans who bought houses years ago at stable rates now face rising bills they never expected. Some have already drained their savings. Others have taken on second jobs or leaned on family. For many, the home is more than an asset. It represents stability after years of service and sacrifice. Losing it carries both financial and emotional weight. Many veterans are asking how it came to this point so quickly.”
In addition there are costs imposed by the Florida governor and legislature – what I call “Big Tallahassee” – refusing to admit the dangers of climate change. That means that as the next storm season approaches, the costs of either preparing for those storms or cleaning up after them will fall on individual homeowners. In Florida, that includes senior veterans on fixed incomes.
Veterans need relief and this Memorial Day is a good time to consider the options. What can Florida do?
“Solutions will require focused effort and investment. This means targeted recruitment to fill empty medical positions in Florida’s VA hospitals, streamlining the community care program to prevent veterans from falling through the cracks, and making serious upgrades to harden facilities against hurricanes.”
He continued: “The state’s 1.6 million veterans represent a vast and diverse community. Their health needs are as varied as their service records, but their right to expect timely, competent care is universal. The coming years will test whether the system can adapt to meet that most basic obligation, or if the delays and disruptions will become the new, unacceptable norm.”
I find this norm “unacceptable.” If elected as state Senator from District 28 in November, I intend implement these suggestions and work in any way I can to improve the situation of Florida’s veterans.
I hope that you’ll check out my website Silverberg4Florida.com. If you do agree with me, I hope that you’ll donate, volunteer, and most importantly, vote for me in the general election on November 3rd.
We need to do much more than just pay lip service to our veterans. I thank our veterans for their service—and if they give me the chance, I intend to serve their needs as well.
A masked ICE agent seizes Gilberto Garcia Cruz in front of his home in Hendry County, Fla., on April 10, 2026. Cruz, a 26-year-old DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipient with autism, was ultimately released. (Image: Gulf Coast News)
May 14, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate District 28
Not long after Sept. 11, 2001, I had the honor to be invited to serve on the board of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police. I was editor of a homeland security magazine in Washington, DC and “homeland security” was something new.
In my year on the board I tried to contribute some expertise in public communications and knowledge of the emerging discipline of homeland security.
My contribution was modest. But far more valuable for me was the insight I gained about policing from a command perspective. The veteran chiefs I worked with were professional, disciplined, prudent, completely committed to the rule of law and its impartial, sensible enforcement. I learned about their concerns with resources, retention, recruitment and community relations. I emerged from this experience with great respect for their mission of serving and protecting the public and the challenges they faced.
I’m reminded of that experience during this, National Police Week.
Sadly, that experience also makes me aware of just how far America and Florida have strayed from the ideals of those chiefs—and there’s one “law enforcement” agency in particular that’s guilty of this deviation.
I don’t know how any self-respecting, professional, experienced law enforcement officer can look at the agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directorate of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with anything other than horror and disgust.
Where professional police officers are open and transparent in their operations, ICE agents are secretive and opaque. Where professional police officers follow evidence to build a case that will win in court, ICE officers seem to detain anyone they want, mostly on the basis of race. Where professional police officers are paid by the communities they protect, ICE officers are mercenaries lured by bonuses (whose terms keep changing). Where professional police officers go through an academy and receive extensive, constantly updated training, ICE recruits walk in off the street and are barely trained at all. Where professional police officers operate according to the law, executing searches sanctioned by judicial warrants for probable cause, ICE officers perform warrantless, unsanctioned searches (and please spare me any arguments about “administrative” warrants, which are baloney, to use a polite term). Where trained, professional police officers understand the gravity of use of force and try to use it sparingly, ICE agents have proven trigger-happy and even murderous.
Even their appearance is an affront to professional policing; masked, motley, ununiformed, unidentifiable, with a bunch of random equipment clipped to their vests, they’re more like a bunch of drunken bros out for a hunting expedition than a cohesive, disciplined force.
It’s long past time for the state government to take a hard look at ICE operations in Florida and the nature and extent of local law enforcement immigration operations.
My name is David Silverberg and I’m running for the Florida state Senate in District 28, which consists of Collier, Hendry and eastern Lee County.
If elected, I intend to do whatever I can to take that hard look at ICE and state immigration operations. Policing should be open, honest, legal and impartial but that’s not what’s happening in Florida now. The terms and extent of local and federal immigration enforcement should be clear and transparent to everyone. Local governments shouldn’t be bullied and intimidated into participating in supposedly “voluntary” cooperation agreements. Nor should agreements between local law enforcement departments and ICE be cloaked in secrecy, which ICE is now attempting to do.
Floridians—immigrants and long-time citizens alike—shouldn’t be terrorized by a masked, undisciplined, paramilitary, mercenary mob unrestrained by legal limits or constitutional protections. The state should not be using taxpayers’ money to pay for immigration operations that are the federal government’s responsibility.
Nor should Florida be stuck with the costs of a blindly bigoted attempt to purge the United States of its Hispanic population, whether migrant or citizen, of which ICE is the chief tool.
That includes state support for facilities like Alligator Alcatraz, the concentration camp in the Everglades.
As this is written, it appears the camp may be shut down. It certainly should be: it’s performing a federal function that costs Florida taxpayers, who can’t afford gas for their cars or groceries for their tables, a million dollars a day. What’s more, despite the optimistic utterings of Gov. Ron DeSantis, it seems that President Donald Trump will welch on any promises to pay for it, the way he has welched on all promises all his life. Florida is unlikely to be reimbursed for the exorbitant costs of this sinkhole in a swamp.
The perversion of ICE and the whole homeland security enterprise is personally painful to me.
I was in Washington, DC on 9/11 and heard American Airlines Flight 77 strike the Pentagon.
With that and the threat to America as an impetus, I turned my journalistic focus from covering Congress to covering the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security. I covered its organization, its development and its sometimes awkward steps toward cohesion and effectiveness. I had the opportunity to personally interview the first three secretaries of homeland security: Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff and Janet Napolitano; all fine, qualified and very patriotic individuals.
Whether Republican or Democrat, the secretaries and the people who served DHS had one purpose and mission: to protect Americans and their homeland.
That included ICE, which incorporated the old Immigration and Naturalization Service and US Customs Service. The whole purpose of ICE was to prevent bad people and bad things (the Customs part) from entering the United States.
ICE was doing its appointed job when Donald Trump became president for the second time. But he and his first Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, decided to turn it into something else. They wanted to use it to purge America of all immigrants and especially those of Hispanic origin. They made no secret of this.
To do it, they have turned ICE into a paramilitary tool of terror. Its job now is not really to find criminals but to terrorize whole communities and drive out populations whom Trump hates for whatever irrational reason obsesses him. Now ICE is unbound by rules of evidence, court procedure, due process, citizenship protections, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the simple, decent principle that the innocent should never be punished for crimes they didn’t commit.
This is a perversion of the mission of ICE and homeland security. In its current form ICE is not a form of protection, rather it’s a form of state-sanctioned domestic terrorism—exactly what DHS was created to prevent.
What is more, as a politically-driven, unaccountable and unrestrained force, ICE has the potential to interfere in our elections and democratic governance, going well beyond any credible enforcement mandate it may claim and threatening our democracy.
This does not belong anywhere in America and especially not in Florida. Floridians should feel safe and protected by legitimate, professional law enforcement, the kind they get from their local police officers, led by 67 county sheriffs who are elected constitutional officers accountable to the people who elect them.
As I stated earlier, if I’m elected to the Florida Senate for District 28, I intend to take a hard look at ICE, its operations and its relationship to our communities as well as the agreements that were sometimes forced on our cities and counties—and I always intend to support legal, legitimate, professional policing in any way I can.
I hope you agree with me. If you do I hope you’ll vote for me for the Florida Senate on November 3rd.
Together, we can make life in Florida safe, happy and fear-free.
See Silverberg4Florida.com for more positions and opportunities to donate and volunteer.
In this illustration, teachers and students confront Florida lawmakers seeking to destroy public education outside the state capital. (AI for S4F/ChatGPT)
It’s time to end the war on Florida’s teachers, schools and universities—and even on learning itself.
I’m committed to ending that war and making sure it never begins again.
My name is David Silverberg and I’m running for the state Senate in District 28: that’s Collier, Hendry and eastern Lee County.
The school year is coming to an end just as Florida’s legislature goes into a special session to determine the state’s budget.
The prospects for Florida’s students at all levels are bleak. As they have for the past eight years, the governor and anti-learning legislators are likely to continue their assault on public education.
It’s time that stopped. All of it.
It’s time that we stopped treating teachers as criminals and instead respected them and paid them a living wage. It’s time that we stopped trying to destroy and dismantle public education and instead started supporting and fully funding it. It’s time that we stopped treating teachers’ unions as enemy organizations. It’s time that we stopped treating state colleges and universities as feeding troughs for greedy politicians and their cronies and their out-of-state consultants. It’s time that we stopped trying to legislate learning, restricting free expression and censoring thought.
Instead, it’s time for us to promote learning and the education that conveys it to new generations. It’s time to raise Florida to new heights in knowledge and explore new frontiers in thought. It’s time to give parents and children the robust and effective public education to which they’re entitled, supported by the tax dollars that they pay.
I want to reverse the trends of the past eight years toward ignorance and censorship and dismantling Florida’s public education system.
Effective education starts by supporting our teachers and paying them a living wage. Currently, Florida teacher pay ranks 50th in the nation. We won’t have effective teaching if we don’t pay teachers living wages. If elected I’m committed to doing everything I can to improve the wages of Florida teachers.
Our current legislature has been hammering the public education system by promoting private alternatives. In many cases lawmakers have direct financial stakes in for-profit charter and private schools. Many also serve an anti-public education ideological agenda and look for ways to manufacture crises that they can then blame on the public education system.
If elected, I intend to introduce legislation that prohibits conflicts of interest among state lawmakers who seek to profit from private schools at the expense of public schools.
The legislature created vouchers for parents to use in private schools, which in turn created a $400 million liability for the state when the vouchers went unused. An attempt to fix this problem died in the legislature at the end of this session. I intend to introduce a measure to revive these repairs and, preferably, to so reform the voucher system that it doesn’t cost the state money or damage our public school system.
So many of these problems were created by the pursuit of petty political gain by the governor and members of the legislature. They created a movement against public education that lined their pockets and catered to the most extreme anti-education elements of the extremist MAGA movement.
The solution to this situation was neatly summed up by the Democratic Public Education Caucus of Florida when it stated:
“Florida needs reinvestment, not more ideological warfare. Florida’s children deserve better than a system designed for privatization rather than learning. They deserve schools funded at levels competitive with the rest of the nation—not ranked near the bottom. They deserve a stable, respected teaching workforce—not a revolving door. They deserve a curriculum shaped by educators—not politicians chasing headlines.”
As the Caucus also states: “Public schools are not the enemy. They are the backbone of our communities.”
If elected to the Florida Senate from District 28, I intend to fight for our public schools, their teachers, parents, children and staff; to see that they’re properly funded and supported and to strengthen them in every way possible.
We want a smart Florida, not an ignorant, indoctrinated Florida because a smart Florida will be one that’s prosperous, free and fulfilled—and that’s what I intend to fight for if you’ll support me with your vote in November.
April 27, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28
This week sees the beginning of a special session of the state legislature. Theoretically, lawmakers are going to discuss artificial intelligence, vaccine mandates and maybe, just possibly, redistricting.
Redistricting is actually the big one. This is a mid-decade effort to redraw the state’s congressional district boundaries to benefit Donald Trump and his MAGA faction of the Republican Party.
The original cartoon by Elkanah Tisdale published in 1812 that gave rise to the term “Gerrymander.”
Make no mistake: this mid-decade gerrymandering is unconstitutional at both the state and federal levels. It is a blatant effort to rig the midterm congressional elections in Trump’s favor. In fact, it is so overt and so obvious that I’ve dubbed it “The Big Rig.”
I’m David Silverberg and I’m running for the Florida state Senate in District 28. The district covers Collier and Hendry counties and Lee County east of Rt. 75, including the community of Gateway.
Since I’m not in the legislature now, I can only watch Tallahassee’s doings along with all other Floridians.
But one of the reasons I am running is to prevent these kinds of power grabs and despotic overreaches.
The Big Rig violates two constitutions.
The first is the United States Constitution, the law that governs the entire country.
Under that Constitution, Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, calls for an “Enumeration” of the American population “within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct”—i.e., as Congress determines. Over time, this became more widely known as the Census and its collection has been steadily honed, refined, and improved.
Having a regular, dependable, predictable census was a tremendous benefit to the United States. It not only apportioned seats in Congress—and every other office—it was used for tax purposes, resource allocation and informed governance. All parties could agree to it and abide by its findings.
But most important of all, the decennial census is enshrined in the founding document of the nation and no one questioned that—until now.
In the absence of a law prohibiting it (and even if there was a law, he’d probably ignore it), Trump is trying to engineer an end-run around the Constitution in order to force a preordained electoral outcome in the midterms. As part of this he’s also trying to discredit the last Census.
So far his efforts have sparked an intense backlash. Texas, Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina have rigged their maps to please Trump but California, Virginia and Utah are redistricting to counter it. Indiana rejected The Big Rig altogether.
Besides the partisan advantage that Trump is trying to gain to stay in power, The Big Rig unnecessarily divides the country, shakes its institutions and exacerbates existing partisan tensions. It’s an act of bad faith, bad intentions and bad thinking.
Now, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his legislative pawns are going to try to rig Florida’s districts.
That brings us to the other Constitution, that of Florida.
In 2010 the people of Florida passed the Florida Fair Districts amendments to the state Constitution. They were intended to prevent partisan gerrymandering in Florida’s electoral districts. Article 3, Section 20 states, plainly and simply: “No apportionment plan or individual district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent; and districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice; and districts shall consist of contiguous territory.”
It is exactly this that Gov. Ron DeSantis and his enablers and accomplices in the legislature (what I call “Big Tallahassee”) are going to try to violate and overthrow in this special session.
This effort is unconstitutional on a state level. It is also unnecessarily harmful, hurtful and divisive. It will not benefit Florida. It will create ill will and distrust over the long term. It will also tie up Florida governance in litigation for years because anti-gerrymandering groups will instantly sue the minute new maps are presented. It will create uncertainty throughout Florida government, upend local governments and simply cause chaos when there’s already too much chaos anyway.
As a state Senate candidate I want to uphold both the national and state constitutions. They need to be respected and honored. The kind of rampant unconstitutionality we’re seeing on the national and state levels is unacceptable. I will fight that kind of desecration every way I can if elected to office in Tallahassee.
But I also believe in offering solutions, not just criticisms.
If elected to the state Senate, I intend to introduce the Digital Districting Act, ensuring that when redistricting next occurs (2030, according to the Constitution), the legislature must consider a map drawn by computer based purely on Census data, without regard to party, incumbency, race or language.
It won’t require that the map necessarily be adopted, only that it must be considered. I would hope that it will provide a model and baseline for fair, unbiased redistricting.
Will it pass? Who knows? But I believe the effort needs to be made.
In the meantime, I’ll be watching the tangle in Tallahassee just like all my friends and neighbors.
We may have to endure this now but if elected to the Florida Senate from District 28, you can be assured that I intend to do something about it so that it never happens again.
There is no doubt that Floridians want clean water. (Illustration: AI for Silverberg4Florida.com/ChatGPT)
April 22, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28
Water isn’t Republican or Democratic, or conservative or liberal. It’s something essential to human life regardless of race, creed, religion or national origin. Clean, fresh water needs to be protected and cherished.
This is particularly true in Southwest Florida and state Senate District 28, consisting of Collier and Hendry counties and Lee County east of Rt. 75—which I am running to represent.
This is being published on Earth Day 2026, a day when we should all be particularly mindful of our relationship to the planet and the natural environment on which we depend.
If elected state senator representing this district, I am determined to protect Southwest Florida’s waters from depletion, pollution and destruction.
Why?
All of what we take for granted as modern human life here in Southwest Florida—our buildings, roads, businesses—are built on a thin layer of concrete and asphalt imposed on a foundation of sand and swamp.
Without human intervention, this is an environment hostile to human life. Without human order and technology, people simply could not live amidst the extreme temperatures, the swarms of mosquitos and ravenous wildlife, all of it drenched by tropical downpours when not baked by tropical heat.
A plentiful supply of clean, fresh, drinkable water makes possible our life in this “built” environment. Without it, not only would we have no form of hydration, the plants and animals of this region could not flourish. Southwest Florida would be an arid, burnt, desert and unlivable for humans and most anything else.
Our fresh, drinkable water comes primarily from underground aquifers. The aquifers are replenished by seasonal rains and tropical storms. It is absolutely essential that these aquifers be protected from pollution and depletion. If they’re polluted or degraded, there’s no going back.
Last year we had no major tropical storms to bring water from the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico to the aquifers. As a result, as this is written, Southwest Florida is in the midst of an intense, extreme drought. Wildfires are breaking out and no one can tell where they’ll flare next. Homes have been evacuated. To the north of the 28th District, the City of Cape Coral has imposed restrictions on water use and irrigation due to depletion of its Mid-Hawthorn Aquifer. Unless there’s replenishment the rest of the region could face the same constraints.
The aquifers are precious and must be kept pure.
But it’s not just aquifers that sustain life in Southwest Florida. The region’s lakes, streams and the massive wetlands of the Everglades are also critical to human and animal life. What is more, they’re foundational to the region’s economy, lifestyle and habitability.
Most people are vaguely aware of their presence. But it isn’t until something goes wrong that many people fully recognize the importance of these waters in their daily lives.
That’s what happened in the fall of 2017 and spring of 2018 when massive algal blooms occurred both in the Caloosahatchee River and the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve long called this incident “The Big Bloom” and it had a devastating effect on the region’s economy and local life. People were driven from their houses by toxic algae in the air. The economy, tourism, jobs, and property values took tremendous hits.
We have to fight the pollution that poisons our waters and gives rise to harmful algal blooms and that is what I intend to do as state Senator, based on the best scientific findings and clear, convincing evidence.
We also have to realize that pollution and degradation goes beyond just our region and extends throughout the state. Water quality needs to be addressed holistically and comprehensively. I look forward to working with senators and representatives across the state—and across the aisle—as we tackle these issues.
Obviously, protecting the purity of our waters is tied to the reality of climate change, federal action and oil exploitation. These are issues that I will be discussing in future statements.
Perhaps my intentions were best expressed by another Floridian:
“We will fight toxic blue-green algae, we will fight discharges from Lake Okeechobee, we will fight red tide, we will fight for our fishermen, we will fight for our beaches, we will fight to restore our Everglades and we will never ever quit, we won’t be cowed and we won’t let the foot draggers stand in our way.”
Those are great sentiments, I share them completely and they’re what I intend to do if elected to the Florida Senate.
By the way, those are words spoken by, of all people, Ron DeSantis, when he gave his inaugural speech as governor in 2019.
DeSantis certainly seems to have dropped the torch and lost the urgency of those words in the years since. I have not. He and his allies are now the “foot draggers” delaying progress.
But in November, with the votes of the people of Southwest Florida and my election, that foot dragging won’t continue. We will never ever quit, we won’t be cowed and we will always guard the purity of Florida’s precious water.
Before and after photographs of the crosswalk in front of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in August 2025. (Photo: Florida Phoenix, with permission of Ryan Anderson)
David Silverberg, candidate for the Florida state Senate in District 28, pledged today that if elected he will introduce a bill called the “Colorful Crosswalks Act.”
“There’s no reason that communities can’t show their pride with multiple colors in their crosswalks as long as it’s compatible with public safety,” said Silverberg. “My Colorful Crosswalks Act will make that possible and spell out the details.”
Background: Last year Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Department of Transportation prohibited all “surface art” at Florida intersections, a form of expression that had been permitted since 2017. In August and September 2025 state workers began painting over multicolored crosswalks across Florida despite protests and resistance from residents and city governments. This included a multicolored crosswalk in Orlando honoring the victims of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting.
“The prohibition of colorful crosswalks was a petty and intrusive act of overreach by what I call ‘Big Tallahassee,’” stated Silverberg. “It was yet another attempt to stamp out freedom of expression by this governor and his cohorts and suppress home rule. If elected I intend to do all I can to encourage freedom of expression and community pride, not suppress it.”
Silverberg is running to represent the 28th Senate District of Florida, which includes Collier and Hendry counties and Lee County east of Route 75.
Silverberg is a Naples resident and retired journalist.
Freedom of speech in Florida, with respect and appreciation to Norman Rockwell. (Illustration: AI for Silverberg4Florida/ChatGPT)
April 13, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28
Most people don’t know this but until now America had a secret superpower.
That superpower was the relationship of its federal, state and local governments.
They were like the three legs of a stool, each one contributing to the strength of the whole. Each one could provide support for the others and fill in if gaps appeared.
This was especially true when it came to disasters and nowhere more so than in Florida.
If a local government couldn’t cope with a disaster—like a hurricane—then the state government could step in. If the state government needed assistance, it could count on the federal government. Each form of government, by being autonomous and making its own decisions, by functioning in a democratic fashion according to law, and by cooperating together, created a remarkably strong whole that served the needs of all the people, especially in emergencies or under duress.
Until now.
Unfortunately, the stool has been broken. At the federal level Donald Trump bullies and threatens all other governments in his quest for complete domination and dictatorial power.
In Florida a governor seeking to rule in the Trump mold, an ambitious, ideologically-driven attorney general, a rapacious chief financial officer and an extremist legislature are waging war on “home rule,” the ability of town, city and county governments to make their own decisions.
Overruling home rule is usually called “preemption,” in the sense that state government preempts local government powers and takes decisionmaking out of their hands.
I call it “Big Tallahassee”—and it’s been going on far too long.
If elected state Senator from the 28th District, the area including Collier and Hendry counties and the Lee County area east of Route 75, I intend to do everything I can to protect, strengthen and respect local governments, not just in my district, but in all of Florida.
We just had an example of Big Tallahassee bullying right here in the 28th District; the state took away the City of Naples’ power over the airport within its city limits. The city will no longer name the commissioners on the airport’s board. Instead, they’ll be elected by the surrounding county.
This was proposed in House Bill 4005 by Florida House Rep. Adam Botana (R-80-Estero), whose district doesn’t include the City of Naples. He had no relationship to the airport. He just decided to strip the Naples city council of its authority and the rest of the Republican legislature and the governor went along with it. Naples’ desires were simply ignored and overridden.
(Botana is being challenged this year by Meg Titcomb, whose website, VoteMegTitcomb.com, will soon be operational.)
Other examples of Big Tallahassee overreach are passage and enactment of bills preempting local governments from planning land use changes after disasters (Senate Bill (SB) 180, 2025), stopping local governments from trying to reduce harmful environmental emissions (Committee Substitute (CS) /House Bill (HB) 1217, 2026), prohibiting local governments from using non-gasoline power tools (SB 290, 2026), or from seeking diversity in hiring decisions (CS/CS/SB 1134, 2026).
Big Tallahassee even stopped local governments from mandating heat breaks for workers (CS/CS/HB 433, 2024)—and that’s really saying something in Florida’s sunbaked fields. I swear, Big Tallahassee would have denied water to Jesus on the way to Calvary.
I’m not the only one saying this. On Sunday, April 12, in the Naples Daily News, in an op-ed titled “Naples is losing its constitutional right to local control,” authors Gregory Fowler and Stacy Vermylen pointed out that, “Taken together, these actions point to a clear shift. Home rule is no longer functioning as a broad constitutional right. It is becoming a shrinking space in which cities can act only where the state ban has not yet intervened.”
Even legislation with relatively benign intent, like the Live Local Act, which was introduced and shepherded to passage by Sen. Kathleen Passidomo in 2023, has preemptive provisions—prompting the Sarasota County Commission to challenge it in court.
So far, these preemptions have had three overall purposes. The first is to end home rule and strip local governments of the power to make land use decisions, like determining their own zoning and preserving the natural environment.
The reason for this is simple and obvious: developers, their legislative puppets (and in many cases legislators who are also land speculators, realtors and developers themselves) don’t want any interference as they pursue profits by paving over Florida. They truly don’t care what we local residents want, think or need.
A second purpose is to prevent any effort to prepare for the effects of climate change. Big Tallahassee, following Donald Trump’s dictates, denies that climate change exists. But it’s not enough that they themselves deny it, they want to force everyone else to deny it and ignore it—and this particularly means crippling local governments that are more alert, aware and awake to the dangers climate change presents.
Nowhere is this truer than in Collier County, part of the 28th Senate District I’m running to represent. With its over 20 miles of shoreline along the Gulf of Mexico, Collier County’s beaches are ailing and eroding, after being battered by repeated hurricanes, sea level rise and salt water intrusion.
But if Collier County ever tried to change its zoning or planning in order to cope with this, it would be stopped by Big Tallahassee.
The third reason for preemption is to aid Donald Trump’s efforts to turn back the clock to fossil fuel use and stop any kind of renewable energy. Trump is insisting on fossil fuels, fossil wars, fossil pollution and fossil costs—no doubt to pour fossil cash into his own pockets.
Big Tallahassee is completely on board with this. What else are we to make of a law that prohibits local governments from requiring use of electric leaf blowers or any other non-gasoline landscaping equipment to tend its lawns? Big Tallahassee is seeking a new Florida fossil age and it’s trying to send all of us the way of the dinosaurs.
It’s time we were no longer led by dinosaurs with fossilized thinking.
If elected to the Florida Senate I intend to do everything I can to preserve, protect and defend the integrity and autonomy of our local governments.
I can’t say I’ll be able to stop all preemption but I can certainly say that I’ll be on the look out for it. I’ll fight it any way and any time that I see it. I want the people of Florida to have a say in how they’re governed; that’s just Democracy 101.
When it comes to the City of Naples, I will certainly explore ways to rescind HB 4005.
The next assault on home rule will come in a special session of the legislature that is likely to be held in the coming weeks. In that session Gov. Ron DeSantis and his cohorts will attempt to end property taxes.
They’re painting this effort as an anti-tax way to improve affordability for Floridians. But that’s because they don’t dare criticize the real reason Floridians are in an affordability crisis—Donald Trump’s wars, tariffs and mismanagement of the economy.
So don’t buy their bull: it’s a trap and a con—and another assault on home rule and Florida’s local governments.
If property taxes are eliminated, local governments will be starved for revenue along with the policemen, firemen and school teachers they employ. Local services—think of your water supplies and sewerage, repairs to roads and bridges, even things like marriage and business licenses—will be crippled. Public schools, already under assault by Big Tallahassee, will be further damaged.
What is more, ending property taxes will only mean that everyday Floridians will ultimately pay more, adding to their affordability woes. The revenue lost by ending property taxes will need to be made up somehow. That will likely be in the form of sales taxes. Those taxes will hit everyday Floridians hard, while billionaires with huge mansions taking up large tracts of property will get off Scott-free and avoid paying their fair share to support the services and facilities that make their lavish lifestyles possible.
Ending property taxes is a bad idea hatched by Big Tallahassee to crush home rule and local governments. Floridians should fight it and I certainly intend to do so.
America’s strength has always been in its local governments where people have the most say. We shouldn’t let Big Tallahassee bully and order our towns around. If elected, I can’t promise a perfect outcome—but I can certainly promise a vigorous effort.
Florida should be run by and for Floridians; not developers, not speculators, not dinosaurs—and certainly not for the convenience and profit of Big Tallahassee.
I hope you agree and you’ll join me in this fight. Please volunteer and donate and in November vote for David Silverberg for state Senate from District 28.
The Paradise Progressive 