Commissioners and sheriff agree: We need more deputies on the road and working in the jail
The commissioners did not dispute the need for eight additional road deputies. If anything, they favor Woods bringing on more. They also support Woods proposal to hire four more detention deputies and four more detention assistants at the Marion County Jail, where all agree the existing staff needs reinforcement.
The commissioners objection was Woods plan to spend money elsewhere, such as five additional call takers for non-emergency calls at the communications center. The county believes that task can be handled by its existing staff.
Marion County to focus on trash prevention with new litter task force ocala.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ocala.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Florida whistleblower Rebekah Jones gives a look behind the scenes
The fired data expert shares text messages, emails and her own thoughts with the Miami Herald, revealing an unlikely ally in Gov. DeSantisâ administration.
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Rebekah Jones stands outside her office at the Florida Department of Health where she built the COVID-19 data dashboard. [ Miami Herald ]
By Sarah Blaskey, Miami Herald
Published 1 hour ago
Updated 1 hour ago
Just hours after the police entered her home, guns drawn and warrant to seize her electronics in hand, Rebekah Jones, Floridaâs ousted data guru for COVID-19, sent a warning to one of her most secret confidantes â Jared Moskowitz, top aide to Gov. Ron DeSantis for the stateâs COVID-19 response.
Rebekah Jones during an interview with WPTV News in 2020
(Screengrab via YouTube) The former dashboard manager alleges a vast data conspiracy in Florida; not a word of it is true.
This is a story about Rebekah Jones, a former dashboard manager at the Florida Department of Health (FDOH), who has single-handedly managed to convince millions of Americans that Governor Ron DeSantis has been fudging the state’s COVID-19 data.
When I write “single-handedly,” I mean it, for Jones is not
one of the people who have advanced this conspiracy theory but rather is
the person who has advanced this conspiracy theory. It has been repeated by others, sure: by partisans across the Internet, by unscrupulous Florida Democrats such as Nikki Fried and Charlie Crist, and on television, by MSNBC in particular. But it flows from a single place: Rebekah Jones. To understand that is to understand the whole game. This is about Jones, and Jones alone. If she falls, it fal