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Backroom Briefing: Weekly political notes from The News Service of Florida<\/p>\n
By Jim Turner \u00a92026 The News Service of Florida<\/p>\n
TALLAHASSEE \u2014 Gov. Ron DeSantis reiterated this week that Florida won\u2019t fund a new stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays.<\/p>\n
But state money could be used in other ways to assist the baseball team as it looks to create a \u201clive, work, play and learn district\u201d on land at Hillsborough College\u2019s Dale Mabry Campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019ve got, you know, kind of a shared vision that could potentially be very, very good,\u201d DeSantis said Tuesday during an appearance at St. Petersburg College in Pinellas Park. \u201cBut ultimately, you know, I want to just see, see this be a successful enterprise in one way or another.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rather than directly using state money for a stadium, DeSantis cited a 2023 move to provide $4 million from the Job Growth Grant Fund program for an Interstate 75 interchange project to help the Buc-ee\u2019s convenience-store chain with a planned location north of Ocala.<\/p>\n
The money went to the city of Ocala and the Florida Department of Transportation to increase the pace of work on the interchange.<\/p>\n
DeSantis also used the Job Growth fund, which is designed to provide money for infrastructure projects and job-training programs, to construct a road around Miami Freedom Park, a massive mixed-use development that includes a 25,000-seat soccer stadium for Inter Miami.<\/p>\n
DeSantis said at the time that the $8 million in road work would help create construction jobs, relieve future traffic in the area and potentially increase tourism in a new business district.<\/p>\n
DeSantis\u2019 Buc-ee\u2019s comment preceded the Hillsborough College Board of Trustees\u2019 approval on Tuesday of a nonbinding agreement for the Rays to use 113 acres of the Dale Mabry Campus for a proposed stadium and accompanying mixed-use development.<\/p>\n
The development, which would include educational buildings, could eventually emulate The Battery Atlanta, a 10-acre mixed-use project that the Atlanta Braves developed next to the taxpayer-funded Truist Park northwest of Atlanta.<\/p>\n
While the agreement doesn\u2019t require Hillsborough College to do the project, college President Ken Atwater described the opportunity as \u201ctransformational\u201d for the school and the student experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy reimagining the Dale Mabry Campus within a dynamic, mixed-use district, we are enhancing the educational experience while strengthening our role as an economic and civic anchor for the community,\u201d Atwater said in a statement.<\/p>\n
BUDGET EARMARKS<\/p>\n
With the House and Senate expected to release initial budget proposals in the next couple of weeks, senators have requested more than $5.5 billion for nearly 2,600 projects and programs in their home districts.<\/p>\n
In the House, more than 2,800 proposed \u201cmember projects\u201d seek $6.37 billion.<\/p>\n
The proposals, often derided by critics as \u201cturkeys\u201d or \u201cpork,\u201d seek money for such things as local organizations, museums and road, education and environmental projects. They range from a $10,000 request by Rep. Omar Blanco, R-Miami, for the non-profit Page by Page, Inc., to advise children and school administrators on how to conduct book drives to a $100 million request by Rep. Wyman Duggan, R-Jacksonville, for infrastructure improvements at the University of Florida.<\/p>\n
A proposal filed Monday by Sen. Danny Burgess, R-Zephyrhills, asks for $50 million to make improvements to Hillsborough College\u2019s Dale Mabry Campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe campus improvements will provide multi-function, multi-use spaces for instruction, workforce training, local stakeholder development, and community events and programming,\u201d the proposal said. \u201cThe campus improvements will also create a hub for high-value partners to increase public access to academic and workforce training opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
As in most years, many of the proposals are filed in both chambers.<\/p>\n
A 2025-2026 budget approved by lawmakers in June included more than 1,600 member projects, with a total tab of more than $2 billion. DeSantis used his line-item veto power to slash about $300 million of the spending.<\/p>\n
When the 2026 legislative session opened on Jan. 13, Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, talked of \u201cthe strong fiscal responsibility Floridians expect and deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, again this year, the Florida Legislature will pass a balanced budget that holds the line on state spending, pays down debt, cuts taxes and saves for the future,\u201d Albritton said.<\/p>\n
SOCIAL MEDIA POST OF THE WEEK<\/p>\n
\u201cI am fine with whatever fate awaits me. If this catastrophic error of judgement makes me unemployable, so be it. I made a mistake. I admitted to it. I want to make it right, and if that means never working in politics again, it\u2019s a consequence I am ready to accept.\u201d \u2014 Christina Pushaw (@ChristinaPushaw), an official in Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 administration after her ties with gubernatorial candidate James Fishback were confirmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Backroom Briefing: Weekly political notes from The News Service of Florida By Jim Turner \u00a92026 The News Service…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[29208,412,135,3815,137,136],"class_list":["post-127985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-rays-stadium","tag-ron-desantis","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}