Alex Sink, the Chief Financial Officer for Florida and Current Democrat Nominee for Governor, announced today that she is going to (drum roll, please) audit the Department of Management Services Courthouse Contracts. (cymbal clash).
The issue is over the funding and construction of a soon to be finished First District Court of Appeals Courthouse. Apparently, while she was CFO, the State approved and funded this huge new courthouse in 2007 and construction will soon be complete on it this November.
Apparently this huge construction project was under taken in secrecy and almost was completed without Ms. Sink’s knowledge, because she says right here in her press release (funded by our tax dollars) she was unaware of the scope and size of the project until the St Pete Times ran an article about it earlier this month. I quote from Ms. Sink’s OWN Press release:
“Following a St. Petersburg Times investigative piece that dubbed the project Florida’s ‘Taj Mahal,’ CFO Sink ordered a preliminary review of documentation to support payments for the project, which found cause for an audit. CFO Sink detailed plans for the audit in a letter to DMS Secretary Linda South today.”
Now, I might be a cynical SOB, but this audit seems to have been announced just as the campaign for Governor begins to heat up. I have a counter-proposal to make to Ms. Sink. What the hell were you doing for the last three years and are you going to wait on Newspapers to give you things to do if you are elected Governor? Inquiring minds want to know…
Also, are you using taxpayer dollars to make political points? For transparency sake, can you open all your state funded Email and correspondence so we taxpayers can see why it took you so long to discover that a “Taj Mahal” was being built under your nose and you did nothing about it until a Newspaper ran an article? Also, can you, for transparency’s sake (Remember, you are an Obama supporter, so you got to be transparent!) can we inspect the campaign communications of your staff so we taxpayers can be sure that this was not a coordinated act between your State funded staff and your campaign staff with an eye on scoring votes in November?
The issue, as I see it, is not that Tallahassee approved a boondoggle of a Courthouse. Hell, if you want to investigate a REAL waste of taxpayers’ funds, investigate the High Speed Rail that is going to be built between Tampa and Orlando. We ain’t talking millions there, we are talking BILLIONS. The issue is you making a issue of something you should have noticed three YEARS AGO!
And, as I am posting a link to this article on “The Buzz”, “Naked Politics” and “Post on Politics” and emailing it to your state funded contact email, this should give you the proper authority and gumption to go after some big game. After all, technically it will be on the Online version of the Saint Pete Times so you are hereby authorized to do..something, apparently
That’s just what Florida needs right now, a Governor who takes her cue from the Deadwood Press. The real scandal here is CFO Sink’s naked use of her authority to make a grandstanding act that is, after all is said and done, a day late and 48 million dollars short.
Primary Season is over Sink, and you got a fellow transplanted North Carolinian, fellow Wake Forest Graduate and a distant relative (Via the Snow Clan of Surrey County, NC) on your case. Gloves are off, cousin. I was never one much for family reunions anyway.
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Great stuff as usuall! I hear Rick was in rare form in Orlando today. Apparently they’ve been coaching him up on his public speaking.
So was there money misused, improprieties, lavish spending? Typical that the right diverts an investigation’s timing to political timing. Stick to who did what.
Legislature appropriated but she signed the checks and was supposed to monitor spending..Epic fail on Her part, esp since she brought up the subject…
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