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Tallahassee Update

District 93 Has Major Bills Signed by the Governor

recently had the honor of accompanying Governor Ron DeSantis as a delegate
on his Business Development Mission to Israel. While there, we signed historic
Ilegislation to prevent discrimination in our schools. As a proud cosponsor of
Representative Randy Fine’s HB741: Anti-Semitism bill, I was honored to be a part
of this historic trip and bill signing. The bill amends the Florida Educational
Equality Act to add religion as a protected class with regard to discrimination
against students and employees in Florida’s K-20 public education system. It passed
unanimously in the Florida House and the Florida Senate. The Governor delivered
the keynote address at the Israel-American Business Summit, and emphasized that
Florida, “is the most pro-Israel state in our country.” This will undoubtedly
encourage more trade and tourism between Israel and Florida.
Governor DeSantis signed the $90.9 Billion budget, which became effective on July
1st. The budget includes $400 million specifically to fund the Everglades restoration
project along with $100 million for springs restoration, $50 million for water
Chip LaMarca quality projects and $25 million for red tide and green algae prevention. An
District 93 State Representative additional $220 million of the budget is dedicated to help restore areas that were
devastated by Hurricane Michael last October, and $140 million in funding is
dedicated to communities that are still recovering from Hurricane Irma to help with
affordable housing. Hurricane Irma generated $50 billion in damages for all of
Florida, and at least 15,000 families have already signed up for the program.

I am proud to announce that Governor DeSantis signed three of my bills, HB 325,
HB 727 and HB 9.
HB 325: Costal Management, was my highest priority legislation, because of the
positive impact it will have on our environment, economy and tourism industry.
Florida’s beautiful beaches are home to many different species of animals and
plants, which are reliant upon having clean and healthy coastlines. This will modern
and refine the criteria for ranking beach and inlet sand management projects to
better capture the economic importance of protecting and enhancing our beaches.

HB 727: Anti-Hazing, is critically important to all college and university students,
but specifically for the family of Andrew Coffey, after the loss of their son at Florida
State University. Our Anti-Hazing bill will provide immunity from prosecution to the
person that calls ‘911’ and stays or helps the individual when rescue arrives. The
legislation also expands the law to allow fraternity leadership who aided in the
planning of the hazing, but were not present, to be charged with a crime. This Anti-
Hazing bill would offer fellow students the protection of amnesty should they find it
necessary in an event, to contact the authorities in the event of a person being in
danger of their health or life.
Lastly, Governor DeSantis also signed HB 9: Community Redevelopment Agencies,
which reforms the process for counties and municipalities to create and renew
community redevelopment agencies (CRAs) as a means of redeveloping slum and
blighted areas. The bill requires that money in the redevelopment trust fund may only
be used pursuant to an annual budget adopted by the board of commissioners and
only for those purposes specified in law. This bill ensures that CRAs are held
responsible for using funds appropriately and includes ethics training for the members.

24 The Landings & Bay Colony