Florida News that impacts you – May 21st
Bottom Line: Your daily recap of the some of the biggest news from around the state that impacts you in South Florida.
- The state’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation announced the emergency declaration which enabled HOA’s extra authority under the Emergency Powers Act, will begin to expire June 1st. The change will prevent HOA’s from limiting owner access to common areas including gyms and pools.The emergency declaration has been in force for HOA’s since March 27th.
- The state cleared eight additional counties to resume vacation rentals bringing the total to 16 of Florida’s 67 counties. The ban on vacation rentals had been in effect since late March. Counties are currently able to submit requests to the state for consideration.
- Governor DeSantis weighed in on former state employee Rebekah Jones’s allegations that she was fired because she wouldn’t manipulate the Florida Department of Health’s dashboard numbers in a way that’d reflect favorably for the state. The governor stated Jones was: not even a data scientist … not involved in collating data, she lacks the expertise to do that. She is not an epidemiologist. She is not the chief architect of our web portal, that’s another false statement. What she was doing was putting data on the portal which the scientists didn’t believe was valid data. So, she didn’t listen to the people who were her superiors. She had many people above her in the chain of command. My initial findings, which I originally reported yesterday, are consistent with DeSantis’s claims. Rebekah Jones repeatedly attempted to included people who had COVID symptoms but had not tested positive into the state’s count. The effect inflated the state’s cases by an average of 10%. Additionally, Jones has faced criminal charges for cyberstalking and sexual harassment.
- In a Thursday meeting and presser with VP Mike Pence in Orlando, DeSantis called Orlando a bright spot which would launch Florida’s return. This coincided with the reopening of Disney Springs. Today Universal Orlando is presenting its reopening plans to the state for consideration.