5:44
Sandra Averhart talks to Florida House Dist. 3 Rep. Jayer Williamson of Pace about the upcoming legislative session.
District 3 Rep. Jayer Williamson speaks from the floor of the Florida House.
Credit Courtesy Florida House of Representatives
Florida’s 2021 Legislative Session gets underway in a couple of weeks. In the run up to the start of the session on March 2, lawmakers have been in Tallahassee attending committee meetings. WUWF recently checked in with District 3 Representative Jayer Williamson of Pace to talk about the tough work ahead.
“There’re a lot of impacts we’ve had from coronavirus, where revenues are down,” said Williamson, projecting a budget shortfall of about $2.8 billion in this budget year, and possibly a shortfall of up to $1.8 billion next fiscal year.
POLITICO
Get the Florida Playbook Newsletter
Email
Sign Up
By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or updates from POLITICO and you agree to our privacy policy and terms of service. You can unsubscribe at any time and you can contact us here. This sign-up form is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Good Thursday morning.
The daily rundown Between Tuesday and Wednesday, the number of Florida coronavirus cases increased by 7,537 (0.4 percent), to 1,798,280; active hospitalizations went down by 181 (3.4 percent), to 5,126; deaths rose by 160 (nearly 0.6 percent), to 28,208.
Stand and deliver To borrow a sports cliché that the former Yale University baseball team captain should understand: Bashing the media has now become one of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ go-to pitches.
Masks are welcome but not required, Collins said.
Menu-wise, AJ’s will offer drink specials, food specials and specialty Super Bowl burgers.
“We have a lot of Bud(weiser) girls passing out swag,” Collins said. “It’s a very fun, tailgate environment to watch the game. Every year, we give away a big screen TV during the game at some point. You do have to be present to win that, and you can register before the game starts at the Destin location.”
AJ’s shows football games every weekend. The crowd has tapered off some, Collins said.
“It’s been a moderate crowd, solid,” he said. “For the Super Bowl, we expect much of the same; a decent turnout but we don’t expect it to be over the top.”
Because of the global pandemic and economic recession that took over most of 2020, Navarre Beach, like many tourist destinations, saw its tourism tax revenues plummet in March, April and May as beaches shut down and uncertainty about the coronavirus crippled vacation markets globally.
But curiously, by the end of the year Navarre Beach was bucking the trend seen throughout much of the rest of the Panhandle its tourism tax revenue was up almost 27% in October and 55% in November, a surge that helped soften the downturn seen at the beginning of the pandemic.
“We lost our money in March, April and May, but we still came in at $3.5 million for the whole year, which is only $400,000 less than the year prior,” Santa Rosa County tourism director Julie White said in an interview with the News Journal on Wednesday. “We would have made way over ($3.5 million) if we hadn’t been shut down in March, April and May, so we would have had a record-breaking year, over $4 million
Fantasy Land
photograph courtesy visit south walton
The Dolphin Reef is one of four artificial reefs created by the nonprofit South Walton Artificial Reef Foundation to provide havens for sea life and destinations for snorkelers. Other reefs are shaped like a seahorse, a sea turtle, and a cobia fish.
This isnât the Gulf Coast of your childhood. Sure, the pristine, white beaches and quiet, turquoise waters have always been there. But, for most of the twentieth century, Floridaâs major tourist destinations were concentrated in the southern part of the state. There, travelers flocked to the glitz of Miamiâs South Beach, the spring break mecca of Fort Lauderdale, the roar of racing-obsessed Daytona, and the history of Cape Canaveral and the Space Coast. Along the Panhandleâs Gulf Coast, there wasnât much between Panama City and Pensacola except seagulls and fishing boats.