The Florida Commission on Ethics’s advocate, in a joint agreement with former Volusia County Council ember Heather post, is recommending that Post pay a $1,000 fine for failing to file her financial disclosure form for 2021 on time. The agreement also calls for Post to be publicly reprimanded and censured.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, October 5, 2023
The Nobel Prize for Literature is announced this morning, making this the most important day of the year. No drug court today. Bach’s Toccata in C Minor, and a few words from the late Alan Siegal on good writing.
If You Think the House Is Fractured, Look at America
The House of Representatives did something that had never been done before in the nation’s history: It ousted the speaker of the House. Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, lost his job in a vote of 216 to 210. Charles R. Hunt of Boise State University’s School of Public Servic offers a sense of what this historic development might mean for the government at the moment, as well as for American democracy over the longer term.
With $719,000 Almost Certainly Lost to Fraud, School District Turns to Insurance in Hopes for Recovery
Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly this afternoon confirmed that the amount of money the Flagler County school district lost in a wire-transfer phishing scheme is $719,583, but that “it’s close to 100 percent long gone.” The district made the payment on Sept. 22. Its fraudulent nature was not detected until Tuesday morning–11 days later, an eternity of comfort for phishing scams to evade controls and make it out of the country.
Woman Survives Suicide Attempt Off Flagler Beach Bridge as Rescuers Pull Her from Intracoastal
A woman survived an apparent suicide attempt off the Flagler Beach bridge early this afternoon as passersby immediately alerted authorities, and paramedics dove into the Intracoastal to rescue her.
Sheriff Chitwood’s Dangerous, Irresponsible Attacks on News-Journal’s Frank Fernandez
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood’s repeated, vilifying and unjustified attacks on News-Journal reporter Frank Fernandez irresponsibly and dangerously inflame his social media base at a time when reporters’ safety is nothing to take lightly–the more so when a law enforcement chief who should know better is stoking the flames. Volusia County media should respond in concert.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, October 4, 2023
Bridge and Games at Flagler Woman’s Club, James Taylor is back in court, battling his life term, the Flagler County Republican Club meets, Weekly Chess Club for teens, more Gatsby and the 7 Train in snow.
Where the Supreme Court Stands on Banning Books
Until the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a newer case, the lower courts will look to existing precedent, set in a legal ruling that dates back to 1982. In that ruling, the court declared that school personnel have a lot of discretion related to the content of their libraries, but this “discretion may not be exercised in a narrowly partisan or political manner.”
Flagler School District Loses ‘Significant Amount of Money’ in Apparent Phishing Scheme Involving Vendor
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a case of fraud, or phishing, targeting the Flagler County school district and one of its vendors. The district may have lost as much as $700,000 intended for one of the contractors building the Matanzas High School addition. If it is a case of phishing, the likelihood of recovering the money is not high, especially since the district may not have been timely either in discovering the fraud or in reporting it.
Bob Snyder, ‘Giant During Covid,’ Steps Down from Flagler County Health Department He Led for 11 Years
Bob Snyder, who’s led the Flagler County Health Department since 2013, was the co-architect of the county’s response to the Covid pandemic and more recently ensured that the department’s funding more directly reflect the county’s population, after decades of imbalance, stepped down and opted for retirement Sunday, six months before he was planning to do so.