STILL WISHING FOR GAMBLING

Developer still working on gambling permits for Florida City By Patricia Borns pborns@MiamiHerald.com Florida City leaders plan to extend indefinitely a deadline for a developer to get state gambling permits before building a jai-alai fronton and casino on U.S. 1. A majority of the city commissioners said Tuesday night that they would support an ordinance rezoning two parcels totaling 23 acres belonging to Ft. Myers Real Estate Holdings LLC. In 2011, the company’s principal , David Romanik, proposed the project to the city, and commissioners later agreed — contingent on the company getting state gambling permits. The ordinance, which is expected to be on the commission’s May 7 agenda, would be the second extension given to the developer due to difficulties in obtaining the necessary permits to allow gaming on the site. Mayor Otis T. Wallace said that while the state’s recent ban on Internet cafe gambling might appear discouraging, he suggested the outlook for casino gambling might be more positive. “It was a lesser category that was eliminated altogether. I support the extension to see what the state does finally,” he said. Romanik’s concept plan for the Florida City property, which is on U.S. 1 next to the Florida Keys Outlet Center, included a jai-alai fronton, eventual quarter horse racetrack, poker card rooms and slot machines, targeted to the estimated 2 million visitors per year who come through Florida City en route to the Everglades and Florida Keys. In July 2012, the city agreed to rezone the parcel, from Planned Unit Development to Commercial Recreation, conditioned on obtaining the necessary gaming permit(s) within six months. Jai-alai frontons and horse tracks often attract only small crowds, but they enable the owners to install slot machines and card tables that can be more profitable. “I know what the statutes say, and we’re entitled to the jai-alai permit,” said Romanik, whose permit denial by the state Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering is on appeal. The proposed Florida City zoning ordinance would extend the commercial entertainment land use for the property indefinitely, requiring only an approved site plan, a development agreement with the city, and the state gaming permit for building to proceed. Industry watchers expect Florida gaming legislation to resume in about a year, after a study of gaming’s economic impacts has been conducted by Spectrum Gaming Group to better guide law makers’ decisions. “I’m very optimistic,” said Romanik , who attended the University of Florida’s law school with the mayor’s wife, Greer Wallace. “There will be millions of dollars for the city to harvest if this happens. It could mean up to 500 to 600 jobs,” Romanik’s original projection had been for 280 jobs, indicating his expectation that permitting, when it resumes, will be heavily leveraged on real or advertised economic benefits to the state and local community. Although many of the city’s unemployed will need additional training and occupational licenses to fill most permanent casino jobs, still, jobs of any kind and number would be welcomed in the town where Miami-Dade County estimates unemployment at 15 percent. “I’ve been to a lot of little towns like Florida City, and this mayor did a great job bringing in those big-box stores. That sold me right there,” Romanik said. Citing his track record of six wins to no losses in Florida’s First District Court of Appeal for the past five years, Romanik said the hurdles for obtaining the gaming permit are political rather than legal. “At least the mayor will know it’s not for lack of trying,” he said. Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/28/3366551/developer-still-working-on-gambling.html#storylink=cpy

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ARE YOU BEING QUESTIONED IN HOMESTEAD?

Phone survey is going on for your opinion: Is Homestead on the right path? Let us have your comments!

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Watch for SNAILS

By Barbara Liston ORLANDO, Florida | Sun Apr 14, 2013 1:50pm EDT (Reuters) - South Florida is fighting a growing infestation of one of the world's most destructive invasive species: the giant African land snail, which can grow as big as a rat and gnaw through stucco and plaster. More than 1,000 of the mollusks are being caught each week in Miami-Dade and 117,000 in total since the first snail was spotted by a homeowner in September 2011, said Denise Feiber, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Residents will soon likely begin encountering them more often, crunching them underfoot as the snails emerge from underground hibernation at the start of the state's rainy season in just seven weeks, Feiber said. The snails attack "over 500 known species of plants ... pretty much anything that's in their path and green," Feiber said. In some Caribbean countries, such as Barbados, which are overrun with the creatures, the snails' shells blow out tires on the highway and turn into hurling projectiles from lawnmower blades, while their slime and excrement coat walls and pavement. "It becomes a slick mess," Feiber said. A typical snail can produce about 1,200 eggs a year and the creatures are a particular pest in homes because of their fondness for stucco, devoured for the calcium content they need for their shells. The snails also carry a parasitic rat lungworm that can cause illness in humans, including a form of meningitis, Feiber said, although no such cases have yet been identified in the United States. EXOTIC INVASION The snails' saga is something of a sequel to the Florida horror show of exotic species invasions, including the well-known infestation of giant Burmese pythons, which became established in the Everglades in 2000. There is a long list of destructive non-native species that thrive in the state's moist, subtropical climate. Experts gathered last week in Gainesville, Florida, for a Giant African Land Snail Science Symposium, to seek the best ways to eradicate the mollusks, including use of a stronger bait approved recently by the federal government. Feiber said investigators were trying to trace the snail infestation source. One possibility being examined is a Miami Santeria group, a religion with West African and Caribbean roots, which was found in 2010 to be using the large snails in its rituals, she said. But many exotic species come into the United States unintentionally in freight or tourists' baggage. "If you got a ham sandwich in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic, or an orange, and you didn't eat it all and you bring it back into the States and then you discard it, at some point, things can emerge from those products," Feiber said. Authorities are expanding a series of announcements on buses, billboards and in movie theaters urging the public to be on the lookout. The last known Florida invasion of the giant mollusks occurred in 1966, when a boy returning to Miami from a vacation in Hawaii brought back three of them, possibly in his jacket pockets. His grandmother eventually released the snails into her garden where the population grew in seven years to 17,000 snails. The state spent $1 million and 10 years eradicating them. Feiber said many people unfamiliar with the danger viewed the snails as cute pets. "They're huge, they move around, they look like they're looking at you ... communicating with you, and people enjoy them for that," Feiber said. "But they don't realize the devastation they can create if they are released into the environment where they don't have any natural enemies and they thrive." (Editing by David Adams and Peter Cooney) U.S. Oddly Enough Africa

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