*Day 118 (sic)*-- Florida Freedom Summer of 2024:  Republicans have made
Florida the place to be in that presidential election year.   *The GOP
added supermajority control of both the state senate and the state house to
their landslide victories for the governorship, the state attorney general,
the U.S. Senate seat, and an increased number of U.S. Congressional seats,
though there were two significant wins for young Democrats, one in the
Orlando area, the other in Tallahassee.


Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is almost certain to be a presidential candidate.
In the U.S. Senate, Rick Scott (R-FL) has challenged Mitch McConnell (D-Ky)
for the minority chair.   Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) undoubtedly will make
his presence felt.  In short, Florida likely will the reddest state in the
union by 2024.

The Democratic party is in total disarray.  De facto Jim Crow has never
left the state north of South Florida, and the latter landscape is dotted
with enclaves of fanatic anti-Communist communities established by refugees
from Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Venezuela, and lack of
unity between the black and Puerto Rican populations there.

Turning Florida blue would guarantee the return to democracy which has been
jeopardized since the GOP deniers questioned the legitimacy after the 2020
election.

The absence of a coherent statewide Democratic party has opened the door to
new faces for present and future leadership.  By now, this audience
certainly knows of the ascendancy of U.S. Rep,-elect Malcolm Frost, the
Afro-Cuban who at 25 is the youngest member of Congress.  However, State
Rep-elect. Gallop Franklin (D-FL), 34 years old, a clinical pharmacist, and
an assistant professor in pharmacy practice at Florida A&M University
(FAMU) makes his first appearance here.  He won a landslide victory in the
Tallahassee state capital area.

Frost’s potential as a leader was recognized this week by the Andrew
Goodman Foundation, which is named for one of the tgree martyrs who was
killed by racists early in the Mississippi Freedom Summer of1964.  The
Foundation supports college “ambassadors” on the ground primarily it seems
on college campuses to organize grassroots groups on the now familiar
issues of  racial and ethnic discrimination, abortion rights, gun control,
fossil fuel divestment, student loan forgiveness.  The Foundation appears
to be able to provide trainers and certainly a training program for
volunteers in 2024.  Volunteers including the martyred Andrew Goodman, 20,
of Queens, N.Y. were trained in non-violence tactics at Oberlin College,
before going on location in and around Mississippi.

Also with regard to potential leaders, another black, Andrew Gillum, former
Tallahassee mayor, is back in the news.  Gillum lost to Ron DeSantis (R-FL)
four years ago, in a tight race.  Gillum was discredited during the
campaign.  Now his lawyers have asked for a hearing in federal court in
Tallahassee, based on new evidence that their client was targeted by the
FBI during that election process.

Gillum and his longtime advisor, Sharon Lettman-Hicks, were indicted in
June 2022 on charges that they schemed to solicit and ultimately pocket
donations to his 2018 campaign. Both were charged with one count of
conspiracy and 19 counts of wire fraud, with Gillum facing an additional
charge of lying to the government.  His lawyers argued that the FBI had
similar evidence against white candidates but did not pursue those
charges.  Donald J. Trump has boasted that he “fixed” DeSantis’ win in 2018.

So for a central location for the Florida Freedom Summer of 2024 both
Orlando at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in the Orlando area, and
FAMU are possibilities.  In 1964, by hindsight, a central location for
strategizing might have been helpful in coordinating the Mississippi
Freedom Summer.  Toogalo College in Jackson, MS, did offer some opportunity
for central planning but leadership generally was spread out across the
state.

Also to be considered as a central location is Gainesville, FL, the home of
the University of Florida (UF), and its 55,000 plus students, and Santa Fe
Community College (SFCC) with a few thousand more. The site is desirable
precisely because of its current disarray in city and county governments,
and the selection of a controversial president, U.S. Sen. Benjamin Sasse
(R-Neb) to head UF starting in February 2023.  Dissatisfied students and
black residents fearful of gentrification in their neighborhoods make the
young population ripe for organizers seeking to register and enable voters,
and to provide training and orientation about the failure of state and
local governments and UF in Florida to respond politically to many of its
people, despite the landslide victories for Republicans.


Sasse already has prompted the displeasure of both the faculty and the
students.  Each of their leadership organizations expressed no confidence
in Sasse, and decried the selection process.  To this day, despite public
record requests from the faculty union, and from me, UF has refused to
release the names of any of the 700 candidates, especially the 11 others
said to be finalists.

Local county and city governments here also are in turmoil for vastly
different reasons.  Each has long ignored the student population in favor
of so-called permanent home owning residents and small businesses owned by
whites.  Both also have failed the concentrated black poor population.
Alachua County Commissioners now will be elected from single-member
districts after a referendum passed on Nov. 8.  Progressives especially
blacks argued against the change, though usually single-member districts
are favored over at-large races.  The Democratic party fears losing total
domination of future county elections, but it may be an opportunity for new
leadership to emerge.

The city has a new mayor and three new commissioners on a seven member
legislative body.  But two factors will make it very difficult for the
Commission to get much done in 2023-24, though there will be no further
local election until a primary in August 2024.

Gainesville since 1927 supposedly is governed primarily by its charter
officers who are in charge of administration of the City.  Theoretically
they can only be removed for cause.   However since 2015, under Tea Party
Republican Mayor Ed Braddy, the commissioners have eroded the power of the
charter officers.

Five of the six charter offices are or will be held by interim managers,
because of resignations and terminations.  The city auditor has tendered
her resignation; her predecessor was fired in 2019.  The last permanent
city manager was fired; the Equal Opportunity (Equity and Inclusion)
 director resigned; the director of utilities was fired.  The city attorney
resigned to take a post in Levy County.  The sixth, the city clerk, also
resigned, but later rescinded that action.  Two assistant manager posts and
a chief of staff no longer exist.

A commissioner barred by term limits claimed that the turmoil arose because
Gainesville has too many charter offices.  The city originally had only a
manager and city attorney.  The other four posts were added subsequently,
the last being the EO director. That office was created to assure at least
one charter officer would be black.

However, in fact, for nine years under two Democratic mayors, change of
commissioners was rare between 2004 when the EO operation went into effect,
and 2015.  Under Braddy, the charter officers were undermined, especially
after an unqualified visionary was made city manager.

Compounding all of the city’s problems was Pegeen’s Folly, the creation of
a biomass plant, first under a 30-year lease agreement, and then by
purchase from a first time developer.     The City had erred in
anticipating that biomass materials would be the wave of the future, but
instead lower natural gas prices have diminished interest in the product.
Further, biomass has not been shown to be an environmental asset.  No one
was interested in purchasing biomass from Gainesville.  The result directly
or indirectly has been maintenance of a utility service which has proven to
be the most expensive in the state.     The city is dependent on the
utility for revenue.  Lower utility rates and the city loses income.  The
city supervises the utility company personnel and fired its director.

The chaos has resulted in the utility operation being the second highest in
rates in the State.  With Republicans and Sasse in power, the little hope
that UF would contract with the City for provision of utilities has
vanished.

Finally before November 8, three term-limited city commissioners joined a
fourth to end the exclusionary zoning plan which had protected
single-family home ownership from the incursion of multi-family units.
  Commissioner Harvey Ward (D-FL), Gainesville mayor elect, opposed the
removal of exclusionary zoning, but did not commit to restoring the home
owner protection  if he were elected to the vacant position.

Gainesville’s state senator and one of two representatives are DeSantis
white men.  Our U.S. representative is a Republican 2020 election denier.
The lone Democrat elected at either the state or federal level as a State
Rep is in her 80s.

The Gannett-owned Gainesville Sun this month abandoned its editorial page
entirely.  No columns are published.  So far in more than a week including
a Sunday no letter to the editor has been published.  On some days, there
is no local news whatsoever.   A media vacuum has been created.

However, there is the campus daily, the I*ndependent UF Alligator, *which
has come into its own, this year.  In sum, any of three
locations—Gainesville, Orlando, and Tallahassee—would be ripe for selection
of a central location for Florida Freedom Summer of 2024.  If Gainesville
were chosen, the leadership likely would have to come from outside, which
would be my preference.

By Gabriel Hillel, for Florida Freedom Summer of 2024.

*These daily posts were started on 711 2022.  Today is the 118th day since
the beginning.  Somehow, I became confused among the dates and erroneously
believed that we had completed more.  The numbering system was thrown off.
We should be on track now.

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