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By Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 18, 2000
Judge sets trial in foster care suit
MIAMI -- A federal judge who wants a mediated settlement in a lawsuit challenging Florida's foster care system said Tuesday he didn't like the state's attitude and set a trial date 16 months sooner than the state wanted.
A national coalition of children's rights groups charges that Florida's 15,000 foster children often are abused and neglected while under state protection and blames inept management for leaving children in foster care an average of three years.
The state has built a series of procedural hurdles in the case, including challenging the statewide scope of the lawsuit. "I right now do not like the attitude coming from the defendant," the state of Florida, U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno said.
Assistant Attorney General Cecilia Bradley asked the judge to avoid scheduling a trial and, when pressed, suggested November 2002.
Moreno said "2002 is just not even in my radar," and accepted the July 2001 date suggested by the children's advocates. "We can't just sit back," he said.
PENSACOLA -- Escambia County School Board member Harold "Hal" Mason, who was censured by colleagues for crude comments that included using the term "kinky-haired libs" in an e-mail to Gov. Jeb Bush, died Tuesday. He was 68.
Mason died at Baptist Hospital where he was admitted Sunday through the emergency room. Hospital officials said a chronic medical condition was a factor but declined to disclose a specific cause.
Critics demanded Mason's resignation this year, contending that "kinky-haired libs," which he called voucher opponents in the e-mail, was a racial slur. Mason said he was referring to a Pensacola News Journal editor, who is white.