Monthly Archives: July 2007

Unchanging: The Florida Dept. Of Children and Families is still screwing up, and kids are dying,

It was the fourth time in as many years that state child welfare workers had visited the home of Stephanie Dorismond.

The oldest of five children, Stephanie, 15, had told North Miami Beach police that her uncle had asked for sex and that a family friend had molested her. An investigator took less than a week to devise a safety plan:

''Mom told [to] ensure the safety and wellbeing of the child at all times,'' he noted in his report.

Case closed.

But even as Department of Children & Families investigator Williams R. Ajayi moved on to his next case, Stephanie, a slim girl with a glowing smile, was already in peril. On April 10, a day before DCF closed its case, a counseling group assigned to work with the family told Ajayi that the teen had run away from home.

Records show Ajayi did nothing.

And Stephanie was found dead in a hotel room soon afterwards.

I'm really starting to like our Governor, Charlie Crist.

Other than as regards the DFC (which he cleverly handed over to a Democrat), our new governor is governing as a centrist — for example by taking some actions that will help slow global warming — which turns out to be great politics:

Something that was once unimaginable in Florida happened last week: A Republican governor hosted a global warming summit.

Then he issued a series of executive orders aimed at greatly reducing air pollution from cars, utilities and new homes.

He's also putting solar panels on the Governor's Mansion, asking utility companies to build more windmill generators and ordering all state vehicles to use ethanol or other biofuel blends.

It's official: Charlie Crist is the un-Jeb.

You might dismiss acting to slow global warming as a bit of a stunt. It's a popular issue, and we here have more to lose than most as it's too hot already, and most of the state is only feet above sea level.

But consider this next fact: Governor Crist just vetoed an obscure but very awful bill that would have totally transformed Florida's administrative procedure laws. The bill would have dramatically limited agency rulemaking powers, and would have made it much easier and more profitable for private parties to challenge previous rules and all non-rule documents, not least by in effect stopping all rules from taking effect when challenged, no matter how silly the challenge.

Vetoing it was absolutely the right thing to do, and won't win points with the far-right anti-government crowd, but it can hardly be called grandstanding.