By Compiled from Times wires
Published May 3, 2003
FORT LAUDERDALE - Broward County's embattled elections supervisor submitted her budget proposal for next fiscal year a day late Friday.
Miriam Oliphant's proposal was due Thursday, the state-mandated deadline, but her staff said Friday it was delayed by equipment problems.
"We're required to give two copies to the budget office, but the copier wouldn't, without jamming, produce the second copy," which was 200 pages, said Richard Wallsmith, Oliphant's chief financial officer.
Some county commissioners didn't appreciate the delay. "She once again failed to meet the requirements of her office," Commissioner Lori Parrish said.
Oliphant, 48, has already been criticized for overspending her budgets last year and this year and for mishandling last September's gubernatorial primary, in which voters received bad ballots and inaccurate registration information, some polls opened late and others closed early, and thousands of votes were not counted until a week after the election. In this year's budget, she failed to budget any money for February's municipal primaries.
She recently announced she intends to seek re-election.
State's 17th suspected SARS case identified in Miami-Dade
TALLAHASSEE - A 23-year-old Miami-Dade man is the latest suspected SARS case in Florida, health officials announced Friday.
The man was in isolation at home with a fever and respiratory symptoms, the Florida Department of Health said. He is the state's 17th suspected case of severe acute respiratory syndrome, along with three probable cases.
The Health Department said the man had traveled to an "affected" area. On Thursday, a 12-year-old Polk County boy was identified as the latest probable SARS case in Florida, and a 32-year-old Miami-Dade County man was listed as suspected.
A suspected case is someone with a fever greater than 100.4 degrees, a respiratory problem such as a cough or shortness of breath and who has traveled to an area where SARS is common or had contact with an infected patient. A probable case also has shown X-ray evidence of pneumonia or respiratory distress.
Worldwide, the disease, believed to have originated in southern China, has killed nearly 400 people. More than 5,400 cases have been reported in about 20 countries. In the United States, there have been 222 suspected and 52 probable cases but no deaths.
Lee residents file lawsuit over lost citrus trees
CAPE CORAL - Seven Lee County residents are suing the state over the destruction of citrus trees in the state's eradication program.
The group is seeking class action status in the lawsuit filed Thursday against the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in Lee Circuit Court. It mirrors a lawsuit filed by homeowners in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.
The latest suit seeks damages for the healthy trees Lee County residents have lost because of citrus canker, a highly contagious disease that poses a serious threat to Florida's $9-billion citrus industry.
Like the homeowners in the other suits, Lee County residents are seeking compensation for the trees the state took that weren't showing signs of the disease. The Department of Agriculture's policy is to remove any trees within 1,900 feet of a diseased tree.
While the state has provided tree owners a $100 Wal-Mart voucher for the first tree destroyed and $55 for each additional tree lost to state canker crews, the plaintiffs say that's not nearly enough.
"This isn't anything new," said Liz Compton, a spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture. "We have other challenges to the canker law. We will defend ourselves as we have with the other suits."
Girl pepper-sprayed after defying no-jaywalk order
FORT LAUDERDALE - A deputy used pepper spray on a 12-year-old girl and wrestled her to the ground when she ignored repeated orders to stop jaywalking, the Sheriff's Office said.
Broward County sheriff's Deputy Michael Roberto was issuing jaywalking tickets to students crossing a busy highway Thursday when he asked the girl to stand next to his motorcycle so he could give her a citation, the deputy's report said.
But the girl, who was not immediately identified, became upset and began to curse, Roberto said in the report. The girl, who is 5 feet 1 and 134 pounds, also walked away, ignoring four more orders to stop, and threatened to hit Roberto, the report said.
"After the last warning and order, it became apparent that I had to choose between a physical fight and using the pepper spray," Roberto wrote. "I sprayed her in the face."
