Florida’s governor was slow to respond to the pandemic and his Covid-19 vaccine distribution plan has been marked by chaos, but critics say he’s been quick to recognize the political gold in those precious doses.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, ignored federal guidelines and prioritized getting senior citizens — one of Florida’s most potent voting blocs — vaccinated first.
When Holocaust survivors and Cuban survivors of the Bay of Pigs debacle — revered members of two other key Florida voting blocs — got their first shots, DeSantis made sure he was there for the news conferences.
And now the governor stands accused of using the Covid-19 vaccine to reward powerful political supporters and developers by setting up pop-up vaccination sites in planned communities they developed and where GOP voters predominate.
Responding to recent criticism from both Republican and Democrats in Manatee and Charlotte counties, both south of Tampa, where one site was set up last week and another began dispensing doses on Wednesday, DeSantis said local lawmakers should be more grateful
“I’ll tell you what, I wouldn’t be complaining,” the governor said. “I’d be thankful that we are able to do it.”
DeSantis said that his “seniors first strategy” zeroes in on retirement communities that are willing to help organize vaccination events and that Manatee County has trailed other parts of the state in getting needles into the arms of residents ages 65 and older.
The governor said the state had set up similar sites at the Kings Point community in Palm Beach County, Sun City Center in Hillsborough County, and The Villages retirement community northwest of Orlando.
“If Manatee County doesn’t like us doing this, we are totally fine with putting this in counties that want it,” he said.
There was no response from the DeSantis administration when NBC News reached out for comment, but on Thursday the governor was in Largo in Pinellas County at another hurriedly arranged pop-up vaccination operation.
There DeSantis boasted about vaccinating the 2 millionth senior citizen in Florida, a 94-year-old Korean war veteran named Vern Cummings whose vaccination was broadcast live on FOX News.
Earlier, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a South Florida Democrat, blasted DeSantis for threatening Manatee County.
“To threaten that he would pull vaccine if people don’t like the way the distribution system is working is vile and shows the callous indifference he has had in how the vaccine has been handled,” she said on Wednesday.
But there is little to stop DeSantis from distributing the vaccines any way he wants.
In December, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released recommendations on who should be getting vaccinated first. But the Trump administration essentially left the distribution of the doses up to governors, said Philip J. Palin, a veteran government consultant who specializes in delivering supplies to survivors of catastrophes.
This allowed DeSantis to put senior citizens in the same category as front-line health care workers, and the result was chaos when some counties began offering shots on a first-come, first-served basis.
In Charlotte County, officials said they were caught unaware when a vaccination station suddenly opened last week in the Kings Gate retirement community in Port Charlotte and 3,000 doses were dispensed.
Harvey Goldstein, who sits on the county’s GOP executive committee and does not live in the development, said he first learned of the pop-up when a regular Republican Party meeting was canceled so that some of the members could get their shots.
“It looks like they were allowed to jump the line ahead of the 90,000 people in the county who are still waiting to get a shot,” Goldstein, 81, told NBC News.
“If you set up rules about who should get vaccinated first they should apply to everyone. I haven’t heard any rationale for them to get their shots ahead of the people who registered in the county.”
Goldstein said he suspects the reason Kings Gate got special treatment is because it was built by Benderson Development and “they swing a heavy hammer in Tallahassee.” NBC News has reached out to the company’s marketing director, Julie Fanning, but there was no immediate response.
Charlotte County Democratic Party Chair Teresa Jenkins said DeSantis’ decision to open a vaccination center in Kings Gate created the appearance that “politically connected people who are likely to vote for the governor are getting prioritized.”
“There’s quite a bit of anger out there,” Jenkins told NBC News. “So many of us get online every morning trying to get a vaccination appointment. We have people who are waiting and waiting and waiting for their shots. And here we see vaccinations being distributed in areas where there are mostly political supporters of Gov. DeSantis.”
Of the 1,900 residents of Kings Gate, Jenkins said, only 150 are registered Democrats.
“That says something,” said Jenkins. “And we’re very angry about it.”
Some of that anger was on display Tuesday at a meeting of the Manatee County Commission, where many attendees first learned that 3,000 doses were being delivered Wednesday to another pop-up vaccination station in Lakewood Ranch, a wealthy development that straddles the Manatee and Sarasota county border.
“For the life of me, I can’t understand why we would vaccinate the most affluent neighborhoods in the county ahead of everyone else, especially the underserved neighborhoods and large number of manufactured home parks in our community,” Manatee County Commissioner Misty Servia, a Republican, wrote in a text message to The Bradenton Herald.
Lakewood Ranch’s parent company, Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, is owned by the Illinois-based Uihlein family, which has given millions to the Republican Party.
Family member Dick Uihlein gave $900,000 in 2018 and 2019 to the Friends of Ron DeSantis political committee, according to state election records. He and his wife, Liz, were also big bankrollers of ex-President Donald Trump’s campaign and were highly critical of federal pandemic restrictions.
In an email to The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Schroeder-Manatee Ranch spokeswoman Lisa Barnott said that neither Dick nor Liz Uihlein were shareholders in the company.
“The state [Gov. DeSantis] called our CEO and asked to hold a pop-up clinic in Lakewood Ranch,” she wrote. “We connected them with our county commissioner, who coordinated the use of the county-owned Premier Sports Campus.”
The commissioner in question was Manatee County Commission Chairwoman Vanessa Baugh, a Republican who is close to DeSantis and who defended the decision at the public meeting Tuesday.
“It’s a good thing, not a bad thing,” Baugh said. “Did I even stop to think that this board and others would be so upset about it? No, to be honest, I didn’t. I think it was a great idea.”
Shortly after NBC News reached out to Baugh for elaboration, her spokesman sent a statement from the commissioner which read, in part:
”I fully support the Governor, his Covid-19 response and his team’s decision to vaccinate a group of seniors who have a below state average for receiving vaccinations,” it said.
Baugh closed by thanking DeSantis “for standing strong in the face of so much media criticism.”
“Florida has stayed open, kept families employed and still managed the pandemic better than most any other state,” she wrote.
Florida, according to the latest NBC News tally, has reported 1.84 million Covid-19 infections and nearly 30,000 deaths due to the coronavirus, some of the worst numbers in the nation.
Most of those infections and deaths came after DeSantis, a staunch Trump supporter, claimed victory over the virus during a White House visit in April and reopened the state over the objections of health experts.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
