Miami Dolphins bill would bring state money to aging stadiums

A bill drafted by the Miami Dolphins would give Florida sports teams $3 million a year in state money to improve older stadiums, provided the owner pays for at least half the cost of a major renovation.

Under the law, the stadium would need to be 20 years old and the team willing to put in at least $125 million for a $250 million renovation. That’s less than the $400 million redo of Sun Life Stadium that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross proposed this week, which he hopes will win state approval thanks to his offer to fund at least $200 million of the effort to modernize the 1987 facility.

Miami-Dade and Florida would fund the rest through a mix of county hotel taxes and state general funds set aside for stadiums. Sun Life currently receives $2 million a year through the program, and the Dolphins want to create a new category that would give them an additional $3 million.

While the Miami Marlins and Miami Heat both play in stadiums subsidized by county hotel taxes, the Dolphins receive no local dollars. The bill would change that by allowing Miami-Dade to increase the tax charged at mainland hotels to 7 percent from 6 percent, and eliminate the current rule that limits the money to publicly owned stadiums. Sun Life Stadium, in Miami Gardens, is privately owned but sits on county land.

The bill pits enthusiasm for one of Florida’s most popular sports teams against a lean budget climate and lingering backlash against the 2009 deal that had Miami and Miami-Dade borrow about $485 million to build a new ballpark for the Marlins. Ross also must navigate a Republican-led Legislature that has twice rebuffed his requests for public dollars.

“I would be surprised if that bill even got a hearing in committee,” said Mike Fasano, a Republican representative from the Tampa area and a critic of tax-funded sports deals. “I’m a big Dolphin fan, and have been for years. But with all due respect, we’ve got people who are struggling throughout this state right now . .. The last thing we should be doing is giving a professional sports team or facility additional tax dollars.”

While the bill would open up the $3 million subsidy to other the teams, the Dolphins see it as unlikely that another owner would be willing to put up as much money for renovations as Ross, a billionaire real estate developer.

If the bill were enacted today, any stadium opened before 1993 would be eligible for the money, provided it could show the proposed renovation would generate an additional $3 million in sales taxes.

Ross and his backers are pitching the renovation as a boon to tourism, with Sun Life a magnet for the Super Bowl, national college football games and other major events. The National Football League is considering South Florida and San Francisco for the 2016 Super Bowl, and the Dolphins say approval of renovation funding is crucial to winning the bid.

Sen. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Gardens, who sponsored the Senate bill, said the funding makes sense because when Sun Life hosts a Super Bowl, the entire state benefits from both tourism dollars and publicity.

“It’s a small price to pay for economic development, and for all the shine we get from major sporting events,” said Braynon, whose district includes Sun Life. Rep. Eduardo “Eddy” Gonzalez, R-Hialeah, is the sponsor on the House side.

Read More..

Jackson Health System, unions reach major agreement

The Jackson Health System and its unions announced Tuesday a wide-ranging agreement that settled the hotly contested issue of emergency room staffing and resolved class-action grievances and a federal lawsuit sparked by the layoffs last spring.

“This was a true negotiation of all our outstanding issues,” said Martha Baker, president of SEIU Local 1991, which represents Jackson’s nurses and other healthcare professionals. “It’s truly a win-win.”

Chief Executive Carlos Migoya said in a prepared statement that the decisions were “difficult” but “in the transformation of Jackson we always analyze all of our business assumptions and latest data as we look for new opportunities to provide high quality healthcare at lower costs.”

The central issue involved management’s agreement to stop its quest to out-source physician and certain other staffing at the Jackson Memorial adult ER and the Roxcy Bolton Rape Treatment Center -- a move that had drawn the heavily publicized ire of many feminist leaders.

Baker and others had gone many local radio and television shows to decry the out-sourcing possibility as the beginning of “privatizing Jackson.”

Under the deal, management reserves the right to explore out-sourcing for the Jackson Memorial pediatric ER as well as the Jackson North and Jackson South ERs. But if those departments are out-sourced to other companies, the employees in them will be able to remain Jackson employees.

“Keeping these critical public services in-house is absolutely what’s best for patients and Jackson’s bottom line,” Baker said in a prepared statement.

The other major Jackson union, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1363 also won a victory when management decided to abandon its exploration of out-sourcing the Central Business Office operations -- a move that would have thrown about 100 AFSCME employees out of their jobs.

Viviene Dixon-Shim, president of the AFSCME local, pointed out that the group had been producing constantly improving results and there was no need to replace them.

Many of the other settlements involved settling union protests arising from management’s decision to eliminate 1,100 positions last spring that included the dismissal of about 370 full-time clinical nurses, with about 300 part-timers hired to take their place -- a change management said it needed to get flexible scheduling.

SEIU filed a lawsuit, formal grievances and planned to take an official protest after declaring a negotiating impasse to the county commission.

All those issues were resolved Tuesday, when management and labor negotiators agreed to a complex series of scheduling changes that in the long run will reduce scheduled overtime while bringing back some of the part-timers to full-time work status.

Another issue involved a contract clause that meant SEIU workers lost 40 hours of personal leave unless a union task force could find $15 million in efficiencies to reduce system costs. The agreement Tuesday acknowledged that the task force had found savings and restored the 40 hours of leave.

The financial parts of the agreement will need to be approved by Jackson’s board and the Miami-Dade County Commission.

In other news Tuesday at the committee meetings of Jackson’s board:

•  Chief Strategy Officer Jeffrey Crudele said state changes in Medicaid payments starting July 1 could cost Jackson at least $45 million – and “the impact could be much greater.” For-profit hospitals, meanwhile, are likely to see their Medicaid payments significantly increased, Crudele said.

•  The board expressed concern when Migoya said that the University of Miami was planning to open a second pediatric bone marrow transplant program, in addition to its present one at Jackson Memorial.

Jackson has started heavily promoting its transplant program, which uses UM doctors working at Jackson Memorial. By UM looking to do transplant elsewhere, board member Joe Arriola said, “This is a real stab in the back.”

After the meeting, UM spokeswoman Christine Morris responded to a request for comment with a brief statement: “We continuously work with our expert doctors and leadership at Jackson to make sure that our patients get the best possible care.”

•  The Jackson board approved a consent decree that resolved a Department of Justice complaint that started four years ago about sub-standard inmate health services. Assistant County Attorney Randy Duvall said most of the issues have been resolved gradually over time.

•  Jackson earned a $1.5 million surplus in December, but days of cash on hand was an ultra-low 12 days -- far below the 174 days of cash that a financially healthily public hospital would be expected to have.

Read More..

Why the Atlantic removed the Scientology advertorial

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – The Atlantic apologized on Tuesday for posting a sponsored advertorial from the Church of Scientology, celebrating its leader David Miscavige.

The sponsored post, which went live Monday at 9:25 a.m. PT, touted 2012 as “milestone year” for the secretive church, which has been steeped in controversy throughout the years.

It was taken down about 8:30 p.m. and replaced by a message saying the magazine had “temporarily suspended this advertising campaign pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads.”

“We screwed up,” Natalie Raabe, an Atlantic spokeswoman told TheWrap after the firestorm of criticism and mockery the advertisement generated on the web. “It shouldn’t have taken a wave of constructive criticism – but it has – to alert us that we’ve made a mistake, possibly several mistakes.”

The Atlantic issued the following statement:

We screwed up. It shouldn’t have taken a wave of constructive criticism – but it has – to alert us that we’ve made a mistake, possibly several mistakes. We now realize that as we explored new forms of digital advertising, we failed to update the policies that must govern the decisions we make along the way. It’s safe to say that we are thinking a lot more about these policies after running this ad than we did beforehand. In the meantime, we have decided to withdraw the ad until we figure all of this out. We remain committed to and enthusiastic about innovation in digital advertising, but acknowledge – sheepishly – that we got ahead of ourselves. We are sorry, and we’re working very hard to put things right.

The timing of the ad was no surprise. New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright’s book-length exposé on Scientology – based on his 2011 profile of former Scientologist Paul Haggis – is due out Thursday.

Sponsored content, otherwise known as native ads or advertorials, have become a popular source of revenue for online publications, including Forbes and Business Insider.

But, normally, advertisers do not want comment threads under their paid-for content, and while this has never been a problem for previous Atlantic clients, the heated feelings surrounding Scientology erupted in the comment section below the article.

The Atlantic’s marketing team was moderating the comments – about 20 in all before the post was pulled – as they were posted, Raabe said.

“In this case, where a mistake was made, where we are taking a hard look at these things, is there were comments allowed on this post,” an Atlantic official with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap. “For a subject like this where people very strong feelings, we realized there’s not a clear policy in place for things like commenting.”

The Church of Scientology told TheWrap no one was available to speak on the controversy, and its media relations team did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Why the Atlantic removed the Scientology advertorial
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/why-the-atlantic-removed-the-scientology-advertorial/
Link To Post : Why the Atlantic removed the Scientology advertorial
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

What Keeps the Stars Going Thru Awards Season?

Awards season in Hollywood can seem like one mad dash to the finish line (i.e. the Oscars), so what gives stars the energy to attack the red carpet night after night? ET found out at the Golden Globes.

RELATED: ET's Full Golden Globes Coverage

Engaged couple Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell took to caffeinated beverages, as did Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston.

"Well, I had a coffee on the ride here and [Kristen] had a tea," said Shepard.

"So we are pumped!" Bell interjected.

"Oh yes!" Cranston said when asked if he drinks coffee. "I drink heavily!"

VIDEO: Rob Marciano's First Red Carpet Assignment

Chris Tucker seemed to be on a natural high, turning the Weinstein after-party into a dance hall with ET's Brooke Anderson.

"That's Jungle Love," joked Tucker, referencing the song by the Steve Miller Band.

Kate Hudson's answer was simple: "I think it's just adrenaline."

As for ET, our red carpet runs on Dunkin'.

Read More..

State judges heading to Bronx to help clear up 900 felony case backlog

A “SWAT Team” in black robes is heading to the Bronx.

The squad of experienced judges from across New York State, are being dispatched to Bronx Criminal Court to help clear up its astounding backlog of more than 900 felony cases.

Brooklyn Judge Patricia DiMango will spearhead the six month operation that will establish a “blockbuster part” where the judges from upstate and Long Island will adjudicate 270 cases that are three years or older, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman said at a Citizens Crime Commission conference at the Fordham Law School.

In an interview with the Law Journal after his remarks, Lippman referred to the 10 Bronx-bound judges as a “SWAT Team.”

The decision to deploy the super-judges comes several months after Lippman dismantled the disastrous 2004 merger of Bronx’s lower Criminal Court with its Supreme Court in an attempt to reduce the backlog of misdemeanor cases – which increased the felony caseload.

The Bronx currently has 931 felony cases that are more than two years old compared to Manhattan which comes in second with 217 pending cases.

“This acute backlog of felony cases is entirely unacceptable to all of us in the courts and the entire justice community in Bronx County. It simply cannot continue any longer.”

This is “something we have never done before with regard to criminal cases,” Lippman said.

Part of the team is expected to arrive Wednesday on a reconnaissance mission to determine where the new judges will hang up their robes and establish a support staff of law clerks, court officers and court reporters, said Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon who was recently named administrative judge for Bronx Criminal Court.

The team is expected to attack certain cases by offering take-it-or-leave-it plea deals. If rejected the case goes immediately to trial.

McKeon and David Bookstaver, the spokesman for the Office of Court Administration did not know if any of the judges will live in the city during the six month period.

“No community wants to be the one where more people are seated in jail waiting for a trial because of these kinds of delay,” McKeon said.

“This is a problem that needs to be addressed. It’s a problem where we really have to focus and bring the best talent around.”

Lippman is also putting the feet of criminal courthouse’s judges to the fire by require them to submit monthly reports listing all pending felony cases one year or older – and why the delay exist.

dmontero@nypost.com

Read More..

Coral Gables culinary students learn the art of sushi making

Christian Rivas is still years away from becoming a professional sushi chef, but his hand-crafted California roll looks good enough to serve professionally.

“The hard part was getting the roll to be in good shape,” Christian, a 16-year-old junior at Coral Gables Senior High, said of his first attempt.

The Gables student was one of about 30 who stood in rapt attention inside the school’s kitchen classroom. He is a member of the school’s culinary arts program.

On Tuesday morning, chefs and executives from Sushi Maki, including CEO Abe Ng, volunteered to teach these students about the restaurant business. The main part of the presentation was Kingston-bred director of sushi education Steve Ho Sang’s instruction on how to make sushi rolls and hand rolls.

Sushi Maki goes through three tons of fresh salmon every week, Ng said. The succulent Norwegian fish in front of the class, expertly filleted via Ho Sang’s knives, looked like half a week’s supply.

The executives were there as part of the Education Fund’s Teach-a-Thon program which brings business professionals into Miami-Dade County Public School classrooms. These pros volunteer to teach a class at the elementary, middle or high school level to help raise money for school activities such as Coral Gables’ culinary program and to promote the value of public school teachers.

“What a lot of people don’t realize is that teaching is really brain surgery,” said Linda Lecht, president of The Education Fund. “We want to call attention to the fact that teaching is a hard job and we, as a community, have to rally around our teachers if we are going to improve education. We want to get out the message of how important teaching is to our whole economy.”

Mercy Vera, Coral Gables’ culinary teacher, sought a partnership with The Education Fund — a North Miami-based non-profit that helps fund programs at Miami-Dade public schools from Homestead to Miami Gardens — to help prepare her students for careers in the profession.

The Education Fund’s latest fundraising campaign currently has $23,202 to split among 26 participating schools.

But having pros come into the classroom is also invaluable, Vera said, because it is impractical, if not near impossible, to cram 30 or more teenagers into a professional restaurant kitchen. And, of course, they would not be allowed to use the knives and other utensils. Here, in the school’s carefully stocked kitchen classroom, the guests give the kids a taste of reality.

“This brings a totally different dynamic to the classroom. This is an experience they normally wouldn’t have and this is the only way to show the children industry,” Vera said.

“I love the energy of public schools,” said Ng, 39. “I’m excited to do a restaurant 101, and to ignite a spark in them would be a big thing to me.”

The experience met with much enthusiasm from senior Jorge Castro, 19, who says he hopes to follow in the footsteps of Food Network star chef Bobby Flay, one of his inspirations in the culinary world.

“This is one of those jobs where you meet a lot of people and you make people smile when you make them good food and that counts — to see them smile,” Castro said.

Ng, a Palmetto High and Cornell grad, is part of a family that opened the Canton chain of Chinese food restaurants locally in 1975. His mom and dad still work at the South Miami and Coral Gables locations and the family also operates the spin-off Sushi Maki chain, which opened in 2000.

Ng enjoyed stepping out of the boardroom and into the classroom for his two-hour teaching experience.

“These students seem to have a good foundation,” he said as the students hustled to clean the kitchen. “The future generation of culinary, I’m optimistic about it.”

Follow @HowardCohen on Twitter.

Read More..

Children living in home of missing baby taken into DCF custody

The four young siblings of Brittney Sierra, the mother of a Hallandale Beach baby whose remains may have been found behind their former rental home last week, have been taken into custody by the Department of Children & Families.

The children, 8-year-old twins, a 10-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl, are the children of Renee Menendez, Sierra’s mother.

Sierra’s other two children had already been taken into DCF custody.

DCF picked up the children late Friday due to a “prior history” with the family, said spokeswoman Paige Patterson-Hughes. The were put into a state shelter over the weekend.

On Monday, a Broward County judge ordered there be no contact between the children and their parents.

Meanwhile, Sierra, 21, and Calvin Melvin, 27, are being held in Broward County jails on child neglect charges. The each are being held on $100,000 bond. Sierra is being represented by public defender Don Williams.

Tiny skeletal remains were unearthed behind the home at 106 NW First Ave., in Hallandale Beach Friday and Saturday. They are presumed to be those of 5-month-old Dontrell Melvin, who has not been seen in 18 months.

“The medical examiner will be examining the remains found on Friday and Saturday,” said Hallandale Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy. “DNA testing will be conducted for a positive ID. Until then, this is still an investigation of a missing persons case and a homicide case.”

He said that how soon the information becomes available depends on “the scientists and the protocols they use.”

Melvin and Sierra and two of Sierra’s children moved into another Hallandale Beach home just five blocks west of where they had been living when Dontrell disappeared about a year ago. They moved in with Sierra’s mother and her own four children.

The search for Dontrell began last week when authorities responded to a Department of Children & Families hotline call of alleged child neglect. When police arrived at the home, they found only two of Sierra’s children where there when there were supposed to be three.

Melvin had an explanation: He had taken Dontrell to live with his parents — the boy’s grandparents — because he and Sierra were experiencing financial difficulties. Officers went to the grandparents’ Pompano Beach home to check out the story, but the grandparents said it wasn’t true.

Police went back to talk to Melvin, but he was gone. He later turned himself in.

Melvin later offered police a variety of stories about his son’s disappearance. One was that he had left the boy at a North Miami-Dade fire station — which is legal under the state’s Safe Haven law, though only for about a week after a child’s birth.

Police didn’t believe him.

Sierra initially told police that Melvin walked out of their Hallandale Beach home with Dontrell in July 2011 — and came back without him. When she pressed Melvin about what he had done with the boy, he said he had given the child to his parents. She said she believed him, and life went on in the Hallandale Beach house, minus Dontrell.

Melvin and Sierra would have another child. There was also a third child — one by a different father — in the household.

Throughout the coming months, no one — not Sierra, not Melvin, not the boy’s grandparents nor other family members — reported to authorities that Dontrell had vanished.

Read More..

Smartphone data consumption tops tablets for the first time ever

Title Post: Smartphone data consumption tops tablets for the first time ever
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/smartphone-data-consumption-tops-tablets-for-the-first-time-ever/
Link To Post : Smartphone data consumption tops tablets for the first time ever
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

School bus drivers to strike Wednesday

The wheels on the bus won’t go ‘round.

The school bus workers’ union announced that a citywide strike will begin Wednesday — a brutal work stoppage that will send families of 152,000 yellow bus-riding kids scrambling for new travel options.

Officials of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union said at a midtown press conference that the strike was about making sure that the city doesn’t lay off experienced workers every time contracts for bus companies come up for bid.

The union, which represents 9,000 drivers, matrons and mechanics, has threatened a strike since mid-December, when the city put out bids for new busing contracts that lack the decades-old job protections.

AP

School bus drivers are set to go on strike starting Wednesday morning.

The union insists the protections are vital because the Department of Education cuts hundreds of routes annually in an attempt to save money — but then eventually ends up reinstating the bulk of them.

The protections ensure that someone who loses their job when a route is cut is also hired back — in order of seniority — when it’s restored.

“We don’t want to go on strike — a strike doesn’t help anybody,” one Queens driver told The Post. “But we don’t have a choice, because if we don’t strike on this issue, we don’t have a job.”

City officials said a 2011 court ruling struck down those protections — known as Employee Protection Provisions — as illegal, so that the city can’t include them in new bids for yellow bus routes.

Speaking before the confirmation of the strike, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said a walk-out by the union would be irresponsible, costly and damaging to the education of students.

“If there is a strike, it’s a strike against our students,” he said at a City Hall appearance. “And this will have a devastating impact on our students

The December bids at the heart of the dispute, which account for roughly one-sixth of the city’s 6,900 school bus routes, would replace current contracts with bus companies that are set to expire this summer.

DOE officials say the job protections force companies that win new contracts to hire workers based on seniority from companies that lose routes — making it virtually impossible for the city to ever cut its costs.

The city pays $1.1 billion per year to transport students in kindergarten through eighth grade to school.

Officials have announced contingency plans that include handing out MetroCards to students, and to parents of the youngest kids.

Where public transit isn’t an option, private drivers and taxi or car services would be reimbursed.

The city tried to remove the employee protections from its yellow bus contracts in 1979 — which led to a paralyzing, three-month strike by school bus workers.

Read More..

.CO sets sights on changing ‘the fabric of the Internet’

For the millions of people who equate the Web with .com, . CO Internet is out to change that mindset.

The Miami company that manages and markets the .co domain is already making impressive gains — more than 1.4 million in 200 countries have hung their businesses, blogs, personal projects or dreams on a .co virtual shingle. Still, that’s just a tiny fraction of industry titan VeriSign’s 105 million .com registrants.

“We want to change the fabric of the Internet,” Juan Diego Calle, founder and CEO of .CO Internet, said during an interview in .CO’s Brickell office. “We can only make that happen not by changing what happened in the last 25 years of the Web, which is owned by .com. We want to change the next 25.”

About 2½ years after the launch of .CO Internet, .co — the country code of Colombia — continues to be one of the fastest-growing Internet domains in the world and grew by 24 percent in 2012. .CO Internet is profitable and is projecting to bring in more than $25 million in revenues this year, the company said. The early success of .CO Internet, with operations in Miami and Colombia, is powered by passion and perseverance.

Calle moved to Miami from Colombia at age 15 with his family. He started several businesses, including one he sold in 2005 providing seed capital for what would come next. “I can’t say I ever sat still.” When he learned Colombia would be commercializing the country's .co domain extension in late 2006, he said it hit him like a lightning bolt.

With the right strategy and by “marketing the hell out of it,” the entrepreneur believed .co could solve a huge problem in the market — vanishing Internet domain names. If you’ve tried to nab a new .com address lately, you can relate — it’s difficult to find one that hasn’t been snatched up.

Calle thought that by appealing to the hearts and minds of the entrepreneur, .co could go where .info, .biz, .net or .me had never gone before. But first he needed the right team.

One of this first stops: The Big Apple, to visit Nicolai Bezsonoff, who had been an advisor and shareholder in Calle’s TeRespondo.com, a sort of Ask Jeeves for the Latin American market that was sold to Yahoo in 2005. At the time, Bezsonoff was the director of technology and operations at Citigroup.

“We went out for coffee, he started pitching me on a napkin. I said ‘really dude you want me to leave a big job at Citigroup for this?’ ” said Bezsonoff. “But he kept showing me the numbers … Later, that napkin was on my desk and it was one of those boring days and I kept looking at it and thought maybe I should.” He would become .CO’s chief operating officer.

Lori Anne Wardi, a lawyer and serial entrepreneur who was working at a venture capital firm at the time, became vice president in charge of brand strategy, business development and global communications. “She’s the heart and soul of the company,” said Calle. Eduardo Santoyo, based in Bogota, would become corporate vice president over policy and be the liaison with the Colombian government. “Some would say it was overkill talent but I needed the best. ... When you have a big dream, you have to think big and hire the right people,” Calle said.

Read More..