Senator Paula Dockery's Letter

Lakeland Chamber Wrap-Up – May 21, 2008 Remarks by Senator Paula Dockery Good Morning Chamber members and guests, I'm sorry I couldn't be here with you today. As a member of the Governor's Commission on Open Government, I have a responsibility to attend public hearings throughout the state, and at the present, I am in Ft. Lauderdale for a two day hearing. Government in the Sunshine is a concept I take very seriously and believe that the best policy is that which is openly discussed, questioned and debated. Public involvement is the key to good government.I'm sure by now that my colleagues have done a wonderful job of reporting to you on the highlights of the recent Legislative session including funding for the USF campus, property insurance reforms, health care changes, energy policy and the implementation of the extension of the Florida Forever land acquisition program.In my new role as Chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, I kept busy determining which of the hundreds of bills referred to my committee that we would hear and move along in the process, and as Chairman of the Law and Justice Policy and Calendar Committee had to make tough choices about which bills would come to the floor of the Senate. I sponsored several criminal justice bills that are explained on the back of your handouts so I won't go into detail, but I thoroughly enjoyed working with the Sheriffs, the police, FDLE, the court experts and our corrections officials in hammering out the details of the Exploited Children's Rights Act, the No Contact Order Legislation, the mandatory life sentence for the murder of a police officer, and the increased penalties for lewd and lascivious molestation on a child under 12. My main focus of the Legislative Session was devoted to an issue that many of you asked me to address. Let me spend a few minutes talking about CSX and what ultimately transpired. In May 2007 when I returned from Session, I started receiving numerous phone calls, emails and visits asking me to get involved and to stop the proposal to increase freight train traffic in downtown Lakeland. Most of these early requests came from businessmen and women, followed by homeowners in the Lakeland and Winter Haven communities. As I started to look into the matter, I learned that their concerns were related to the Central Florida Commuter Rail Project. As a strong proponent of mass transit and particularly passenger rail, I couldn't understand how a commuter rail project in the four counties around Orlando could have a negative effect on us. I started asking question of the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and realized that they were not interested in providing thorough answers. After I submitted a public records request for all documents related to the project, I received 27 boxes of loose paper in no particular order and got to work trying to piece together the story. As it turns out, this project is not so much a commuter rail project as it is a freight project. The information available would have you believe that the total cost of the project is $650 million of state taxpayer money, with a potential of $350 million in federal money, and $150 million commitment in local taxpayer money. However, there are many unanswered questions that could bring the price tag of this entire project to somewhere between $1.5-2 billion dollars. Very little of that cost is related to commuter rail. The constituents that I have heard from are concerned primarily with four things: 1) the increased freight through downtown Lakeland 2) the location of the proposed ILC in Winter Haven 3) the lack of a statewide integrated commuter rail plan, so that one day Polk and Hillsborough and other counties can be served 4) the secrecy surrounding the negotiations between CSX and FDOT, and lack of coordination or information provided to those areas outside the commuter rail corridor that could be receiving the brunt of the negative impacts My original intention was to try to mitigate the damages that would be caused to Ocala, Plant City, Lakeland, Auburndale, and Lake Wales, but it became clear every time I offered a suggestion of improving the project, the response was always the same – “This is a done deal.” I came to find out that FDOT had the ability to move monies around to fund all of these separate components without any legislative approval necessary. The one piece of legislation that FDOT needed to pull this entire deal together was a provision that would take the liability off of CSX and any of its subcontractors, and place that liability onto the backs of Florida taxpayers. This liability transfer had two components: 1) Indemnification of CSX and subcontractors 2) Sovereign Immunity Senator Carey Baker, Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, sponsored a stand-alone piece of legislation transferring both of these components of liability. I serve on that committee, and Senator Baker never brought his bill forward. Midway through the legislative session, he withdrew his bill from further consideration when it became apparent that he didn’t have the votes to pass it out of his own committee. By then, numerous legislators had been made aware of the desire of DOT and the proponents from the Orlando area to see the liability proposal pass, and yet from a public policy perspective, many legislators were against that transfer. It became obvious that there would be an attempt to amend that language onto another transportation bill that had already passed out of the transportation committee and that was not referenced to the judiciary committee, where the liability language needed to be heard. Meanwhile, in conversations with proponents of the deal, primarily FDOT and CSX, and some other elected officials, the answer was still the same – “This is a done deal” – when changes were proposed. Our only hope of forcing those who negotiated this sweetheart deal for CSX to make any concessions to those areas being negatively affected was to stall implementation of the liability transfer. In the end, on the last day of session, we were able to prevent that language from being added onto any transportation bill. The sad reality is that the proponents of this deal, which was hatched in large part in secret and which did not reach out to neighboring governments, attempted the same type of stealth maneuverings through the Senate legislative process, and in the end, 27 of the 40 Senators did not allow that to happen. It is important to keep in mind that only 5 of the 40 Senators ever heard the bill in any committee, and it was never debated on the floor of the Senate. There is too much money on the table for CSX, FDOT, or certain elected officials to let the deal die, and in fact, both commuter rail and the freight improvements could go on without the liability transfer, so we did not in effect kill the commuter rail project. But CSX and FDOT are insisting on the liability transfer, so things are at a temporary standstill. This breather gives us the opportunity to have a real seat at the table for the first time and to restructure a deal that has a vision for statewide commuter rail. It gives us an opportunity to divert traffic out of city centers, and a chance to openly, in public hearings, discuss the formation of a true commuter rail system that is a win-win situation for all. We should take this time to demand some answers in an open public forum and insist on some input if the deal is to go forward. It is my hope that we will rejoin forces and bridge the gap throughout Polk County to improve the current costly plan or to find a better alternative. In the meantime, Representative Dennis Ross and I are exploring other commuter rail options that would cover the entire I-4 corridor and still be more efficient and less costly to the taxpayers, since the current proposal is primarily a freight rail subsidy. I could not have asked for a better partner than Representative Ross, who fought the good fight in the House, and nearly defeated what was said to be a “done deal,” against leadership’s influence, with a vote of 56-59. His closing argument was highly touted throughout the Capitol complex. To those of you who asked us to get involved and stood with us to the end, I thank you for your courage and unwavering moral support. There are two important lessons to be learned in this. The first is that government in the sunshine truly does produce better public policy. The second is that we should never so quickly accept the fact that something is a “done deal.”