Q&A of the Day – Is Nikki’s Fried’s SMART plan appropriate or legal?
Each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
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Today’s entry: Hi Brian, I listen to your show every morning and appreciate all the hard work and research that you put into each of your stories. I just finished listening to Florida's Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried's "Major Announcement" this morning and was quite disillusioned with her rogue COVID initiative. She talks about how we are all are divided and should be united in the COVID fight. I found this message divisive and the opposite of what it appeared she was trying to portray. This sounded like a big publicity stunt. It is quite obvious she is no fan of the Governor and is campaigning to be the next governor. It appeared she was using the cover of her position to twist this as a consumer issue. Do you think that her press conference to push her COVID initiative was above and beyond her responsibilities as Agriculture Commissioner?
Bottom Line: I’ll start by addressing what the responsibilities of Florida’s Agriculture Commissioner entail. It’s highly instructive to the overall conversation. Here’s the mission statement of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services:
(The mission) is to safeguard the public and support Florida's agricultural economy by:
• Ensuring the safety and wholesomeness of food and other consumer products through inspection and testing programs
• Protecting consumers from unfair and deceptive business practices and providing consumer information
• Assisting Florida's farmers and agricultural industries with the production and promotion of agricultural products
• Conserving and protecting the state's agricultural and natural resources by reducing wildfires, promoting environmentally safe agricultural practices, and managing public lands.
Do any of those tasks specifically include creating a public awareness campaign regarding personal safety health measures? Not exactly, right? If the campaign were focused on what the Department is doing to protect the food supply during the pandemic, including those who specifically work in the agriculture industry in the state, it might be justifiable. However, broadly addressing a statewide public health initiative? That’s the role of a governor in conjunction with the related agencies which include the Florida Department of Health and Florida Emergency Management Division. Agriculture, is well, about agriculture. This isn’t the first liberty Nikki has taken with that office. You’ll remember that one of her first acts in office was to place her face on gas pump inspection stickers in violation of Florida’s policy regarding the use of official materials.
What’s more is the clear absurdity of her initiative. Here’s what Governor DeSantis rolled out two days prior to Nikki’s “SMART” plan. DeSantis’s One Goal, One Florida campaign includes three steps:
- Proper hygiene
- Social distancing
- Wearing a mask
Here’s Nikki’s SMART plan:
- Social distance
- Mask up
- Avoid crowds
- Remember to wash hands
- Throw away disposable items
Here’s a question...of those five points which of them aren’t included in the Governor’s plan? They all are completely in sync, though with the added annoyance of redundancy to attempt to create an acronym for the word smart (how is avoiding crowds different than socially distancing & throwing away disposables different from proper hygiene?). So, the actual official in charge of these policies created a plan that achieves everything the official not tasked with these responsibilities created after the fact. Yes, Nikki is clearly posturing for a run for governor in 2022 and it’s the least surprising thing ever. Nikki has no background related to the job she was elected to perform. She’s a Fort Lauderdale attorney. The closest connection she has to agriculture is a potential conflict of interest as she’s engaged to the founder of Surterra Wellness, one of Florida’s largest medical marijuana operators. What we’ve witnessed and what we continue to witness is what’s to be expected when you elect a Fort Lauderdale attorney to run the state’s agriculture department and it’s no surprise that she’s been positioning herself for her gubernatorial run from the day she took office.