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The Ocala Star-Banner took a hatchet recently to the state’s $1.2 billion CSX/Orlando freight expansion and dump deal, both in a straight news story and in an editorial.
Versions of the editorial promptly appeared in The (Lakeland) Ledger and the Gainesville Sun. Two of several money paragraphs:
“Why aren’t the fiscal conservatives, or just the fiscally responsible, in Tallahassee asking why the state of Florida is paying a national corporation that made a record $2.2 billion profit last year - up 26 percent from the year before, incidentally - so much for a project that some observers say could be done for one-third or less than the current projected price tag? When a recent study declared the Orlando commuter project the costliest railroad acquisition in U.S. history - $10.5 million per mile - where were our representatives in Tallahassee demanding a reassessment of the project’s scope and cost?
DOT officials say that since the CSX money was appropriated by the Legislature in 2006 for the commuter line, hence, for CSX, it does not need the Legislature’s approval to move forward with the project. That, of course, begs the question: Who, exactly, is running state government, and what happened to checks and balances?”
