Ocala Gazette | July 1 - July 7, 2022

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022

OCALA’S STAR

Fourth appeal filed in the fire fee case

By Jennifer Hunt Murty jennifer@ocalagazette.com

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Contender and Master of ‘Cue Rashad Jones with the Master of ‘Cue banner, as seen on BBQ Brawl, Season 3.

Local pitmaster Rashad Jones wins Food Network’s third season of ‘BBQ Brawl’

By James Blevins james@ocalagazette.com

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ashad Jones, owner of Big Lee’s BBQ in Ocala, won Food Network’s third season of “BBQ Brawl” during the airing of the show’s season finale Monday night.

The local celebrity, businessman and pitmaster had gathered his family, friends and many supporters to the Bank Street Patio Bar in Ocala on June 27 for a finale watch party, which he simultaneously shared on Facebook Live.

After the watch party witnessed his win, Jones stood up and gave a short but impassioned speech, raw joy apparent on his beaming face.

“I feel this is a huge moment for Ocala.

This is a huge moment for what we do in barbecue,” said Jones on Facebook Live.

“It’s one thing to hit homeruns in your own backyard. It’s a different thing to go into a stadium that you’ve never played in before, against players you’ve never played against before, and see if you can

still hit that same homerun.”

Jones thanked his wife and kids, his in-laws and his Big Lee’s family of workers and patrons, all of which helped to keep his family-owned business going strong while he was away in Austin, Texas, last year shooting the television show.

“They held it down so I could focus,” said Jones. “I’m just very grateful.”

The show, which premiered on the Food Network on May 9 and was available for streaming on discovery+, ran for eight episodes, airing every Monday.

Set at the famed Star Hill Ranch, “BBQ Brawl” starred superstar chefs Bobby Flay, Anne Burrell and Jet Tila, who mentored and coached nine upcoming stars in the barbecue world, including Jones, with culinary battles that tested their skills and their ability to work together as a team.

Competitors were divided into three teams under the tutelage of Flay, Burrell and Tila. In each episode, the three captains guided the hopefuls in two rounds of grilling and smoking challenges.

And in the show’s Monday finale,

a panel of judges featuring barbecue legend Rodney Scott, famed chef Brooke Williamson and lifestyle personality Carson Kressley decided that after eight hard-fought episodes Jones was worthy of being crowned “Master of ‘Cue.” Jones will next appear across Food Network’s digital platforms to become its official BBQ expert for the year.

Previously, in 2017, Jones won celebrity chef Guy Fieri’s culinary contest, “Guy’s Big Project,” competing against 10 contestants and was awarded a full six-episode primetime series called “Eat, Sleep, BBQ,” which aired on the Food Network in December of that same year.

Big Lee’s - Serious About Barbeque is located at 342 N.E. First Ave., in Ocala. To learn more, visit www.mybigleesbbq.com.

For savory images of Jones’ barbecue art, visit Big Lee’s Instagram at username “mybigleesbbq.” For exclusive barbecue tips from the stars of Food Network’s “BBQ Brawl” and more, visit www.FoodNetwork.com.

fourth appeal of the court ruling involving $80 million in refunds to Ocala Utility customers has been filed, this time by a resident in a unique situation. He is both a class member of the group that sued Ocala over fire fees and was a lawyer with the firm that defended the city during the long-running dispute.

Attorney George Franjola, who worked on the case from 2014 through May 2020 while he was with the city’s firm of Gilligan Gooding Batsel Anderson & Phelan P.A., is challenging the way the legal fees are being determined.

Franjola told the Gazette that he never opted out as a claimant in the suit while simultaneously working as an attorney for the city defending the case. He left the law in May 2020 and says he did not discuss with his former colleagues the appeal he has filed as an individual.

The case stems from a classaction suit filed in 2014 over the roughly $15 a month that more than 89,000 Ocala residents and businesses paid for fire services as an add on to their Ocala Electric Utility bills. During the trial, the city’s attorney argued Ocala implemented the tax in 2006 to spread the cost of fire services across a broad group of citizens, some of whom would not typically be paying them because they didn’t own real property or were tax-exempt. An appellate court found the fees constituted an illegal tax, and a judge ordered the city to refund the nearly $80 million in fees that was collected from utility customers over the eight years.

Franjola’s appeal focused on See Fourth, page A3

Findings from investigative report are headed to the governor Caroline Brauchler caroline@ocalagazette.com

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fter an investigation into complaints filed against a Marion County School Board member was completed by an independent source, the board unanimously decided on Tuesday that the findings should be sent to the office of the

governor for further review.

The investigation lasted for several months and was conducted in response to a Title VII complaint accusing Board member Don Browning of causing hostility in the workplace. Browning was found to have not contributed to a ‘hostile work environment,” but his words and actions were found to have

amounted to ‘bullying and harassment’ as defined by the school board’s policy.

The complaint that began the investigation was filed by an anonymous school board employee in January of 2022. The board opted to have an outside neutral party to conduct the investigation and sum up the findings, which was done by

Stephanie Marchman, attorney at law for GrayRobinson, P.A. “It was reported by various witnesses in this case that they have never been treated in the manner Member Browning has treated them,” said Marchman in the final investigative report. “These dedicated public servants deserve better.”

The report assessed

allegations made by the complainant in comparison to the factual findings discovered during the investigation, which include a variety of sexist and racist remarks that witnesses claimed under oath that Browning had made.

“It is substantiated that Member Browning’s See Report, page A3

Don Browning of District 2 speaks during a meeting of the Marion County Public School Board at the MTI auditorium in Ocala on April 26, 2022.

[Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2022.

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2022 Elections............................... A2 Economic Grants.......................... A5 Brent Hall....................................... B1 State News...................................... A9 Calendar......................................... B5

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

County Commission, School Board races are now set for 2022 elections

By James Blevins james@ocalagazette.com

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he official qualifying period for County Commission and School Board candidates in the upcoming Marion County 2022 election cycle ended on Friday, June 17.

The salary for a county commissioner is on average $144,488 a year and the salary for a school board member is $39,732 a year. To see who made the final list of candidates for each respective race, read below:

County Commission, District 2

Incumbent Republican Kathy Bryant qualified to run for reelection to her District 2 seat on the Marion County Board of County Commissioners (MCBOCC), according to the Marion County Supervisor of Elections website.

First elected in 2010, Bryant is running for her fourth consecutive term on the county Kathy Bryant commission. She was reelected in both 2014 and 2018. Bryant’s career outside of the county board is selling real estate in Marion County.

Bryant currently has $149,115 in contributions as of June 27, according to election officials, the most of any candidate running by a large margin, regardless of County or School Board race. She also has $14,793.41 in campaign expenditures.

Gina Capone also qualified for the District 2 race as a write-in candidate.

A write-in candidate may qualify for any office and run without party affiliation, but also must qualify during the official qualifying period and must comply with the residency requirements of the office sought, according to Starley Ard, public relations coordinator for the Marion County Election Center.

They are not entitled to have his or her name printed on the ballot, however. A space will be provided on the general election ballot for write-in candidates to have their names printed by the voter. It is up to the write-in candidate to educate voters to write in his or her name in the space provided.

Republican Elizabeth Del Zotto, who active filed for the race earlier in the month, did not qualify by the June 17 deadline.

Bryant is the lone state-qualified candidate in the District 2 race who is not a write-in candidate.

Therefore, she will be the only candidate listed on the ballot in her race.

County Commission, District 4

Carl Zalak III

Rachel Sams

Incumbent and current board chair Carl Zalak III qualified to run for reelection to his District 4 seat on the MCBOCC—but the Republican is also joined by perhaps the most crowded field in all of the local elections this year.

Rachel Sams and Keith Poole both qualified to race against Zalak, as well as two write-in candidates, Brian Christian Donnelly and Seth Posner.

Zalak built his career before joining the county board working in the waste industry. He currently owns Busy Bee Waste Services, 605 N.E. 14th St. in Ocala.

Sams, who is running as a Republican, is a former officer with the Ocala Police Department. She is currently a financial

associate with Thrivent.

Poole, likewise running as a Republican, is a general contractor who owns KAP Design Group, LLC, and sits on the License Review Board for the county.

Keith Poole

As of June 27, Zalak has $132,000 in contributions and $60,911.85 in campaign expenditures.

Sams has $37,595 in contributions, $7,658.28 in-kind and $13,658.90 in expenditures.

Poole has $48,170 in contributions, $1,800 in-kind and $20,251.50 in expenditures.

School Board, District 2

The District 2 seat is up for a special election this year.

There will be another election when the fouryear term officially goes back on the ballot in 2024.

Incumbent Don Browning said he would not be running to defend his District 2 seat.

Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Browning to the Marion County Lori Conrad School Board (MCSB) in 2021 to replace Beth McCall, who was elected in 2020.

His term ends in November.

Lori Conrad qualified to run for Browning’s seat. She will face off against the only other statequalified candidate in the race, Joseph Suranni.

Conrad, an elementary school teacher for more Joseph Suranni than 25 years at varying grade levels throughout her career, had previously run for the District 1 seat on the MCSB in 2020 but lost to current board member Allison Campbell in a highly contested race, ending in a run-off.

Suranni has worked for the MCSB for nearly 16 years, starting as an ESC teacher. He is currently the student services manager at Belleview-Santos Elementary. He has worked there since 2006.

As of June 27, Conrad has $28,600 in contributions and $1,935.71 in expenditures. Suranni is listed as receiving $1,800 in campaign contributions.

Since there are only two candidates who qualified for the race, the winner will be decided in the Aug. 23 primary.

School board races are nonpartisan and are four-year terms. Board members are elected countywide but must live in the district they represent.

Earlier this year, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law legislation that imposed school board term limit requirements statewide. The new term limit clock starts running after the 2022 election cycle. From there, school board members would be limited to a 12-year limit or no more than three terms.

School Board, District 3

Incumbent and board chair Eric Cummings qualified to defend his seat in this year’s coming election. His term started in 2018.

Cummings is a pastor at the New Zion Missionary Baptist Church, 728 N.W. 6th Ave. in Ocala.

Lone challenger Steve Swett, who is a retired postmaster from Dunnellon, qualified to run Eric Cummings against Cummings, who has raised $4,165 in campaign contributions since first announcing his candidacy in mid-February. He also reported $1,113.99 in in-kind donations and $3,049.67 in expenditures.

Swett has raised $3,380 in contributions, with $354.12 in in-kind donations and $2,123.02 in expenditures.

School Board, District 4

Incumbent board member Nancy Thrower qualified to run for her second term on the MCSB. She will run unopposed and will be automatically reelected in August.

Having lived in Ocala for more than 28 years, Thrower is a special needs educator, small business owner and community volunteer. She Nancy Thrower started her education experience as a special needs classroom aide at North Marion High School in 1987.

Thrower was first elected in 2018. She currently has $13,060 in contributions, $1,775 in in-kind donations and $2,025.70 in expenditures, according to the Marion County Supervisor of Elections website.

Juan “Tito” Ocasio III had filed to run against Thrower but did not qualify by the June 17 deadline.

School Board, District 5

Incumbent Kelly King has opted not to run in 2022 after two terms on the board.

Her eight years in office was the most of anyone currently on the MCSB. Candidates Sarah James and Taylor Smith both qualified on June 17 for the race to fill King’s seat in November when her term is officially up after August’s election.

Sarah James A University of Florida graduate who received her doctorate in Educational Leadership from National Louis University, James claims 10 years of experience in public and private school education, working as a teacher in Pre-K through Grade 10.

Horse farm manager Taylor Smith, 24, who graduated from West Port High Taylor Smith School in 2016, now lives and works on the Circle T Farm, helping to breed thoroughbred horses and cattle.

According to the Supervisor of Elections website, James has $5,400 in campaign contributions, $236.60 in in-kind donations and $3,710.98 in expenditures. Smith has $3,325 in contributions, $398 in in-kind donations and $1,732.38 in expenditures.

Parish Tanner had previously filed to run in the District 5 race but withdrew in late April.

Voter Information

The voter registration deadline is July 25. Election Day will be held on Aug. 23. Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.

Early voting begins on Aug. 13 and runs through to Aug. 20, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The mail ballot request deadline is Aug. 13 by 5 p.m. Mail ballots must be received by the Supervisor of Elections office by 7 p.m. Election Day to be counted.

For more information or to view a list of candidates who have filed, contact the Marion County Supervisor of Elections Office at (352) 620-3290 or visit www.VoteMarion.Gov/Campaigns.

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

Fourth appeal

Judge Robert Hodges listens to George Franjola raise objections to attorneys fees during the May 10, 2022 hearing at the Marion County Judicial Center. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2022.

Continued from page A1 a specific part of the final order entered on May 16 by Marion County Circuit Judge Robert W. Hodges in which

he awarded legal fees of nearly $6.4 million (approximately 8.06% of total refunds) to Bowen|Schroth, the firm that represented the Ocala’s utility customers who paid the illegal tax during the eight

years of litigation.

In the order, Hodges outlined factors he considered in determining reasonable attorneys’ fees, including the “novelty and difficulty of the question involved.” The case was unique in that this issue had not been considered or decided by a higher court.

The Florida Bar explained in 2019 article how attorney’s fees and a multiplier should be calculated. First, the court determines a reasonable number of billable hours. Next, the court determines a reasonable hourly rate.

Bowen|Schroth took the case based on a contingency fee agreement that only entitled them to compensation if they were successful in their efforts for the plaintiffs. In those cases, the court can consider a “contingency risk factor” that would provide for a multiplier of the attorney’s fees.

Franjola’s appeal focuses on this fee multiplier.

Franjola told the Gazette he does not view his individual role in the case as a conflict of interest because the claimants aren’t the “real parties in interest” in cases like this.

The appellate court has ordered that the city of Ocala be included in Franjola’s appeal. However, Franjola said the city has no interest in how much money the

class members must pay in legal fees, so he is not adversarial with the city, and his appeal does not pose a professional conflict of interest between him and his former client.

“I think this is an appeal with some merit that will benefit the poor taxpayers of Ocala who are bearing the burden of this misguided effort,” stated Franjola.

Speaking to the ups and downs throughout the six years he worked on the case, Franjola said,“I won three times in the [local] trial court and lost three times on appeal.”

“I need to win one of these times, don’t you think?” Franjola added with a chuckle.

The objections of Franjola have not stopped the city from disbursing attorney’s fees ordered by the court to Bowen|Schroth and starting the claims process to get refunds to residents and businesses.

In the same May 16 ruling, Hodges ordered the city hold aside $100,000 in anticipation of attorneys for the customers incurring more attorneys’ fees.

If the time records from the first three appeals presented during the May 10 hearing are any indication of how timeintensive these appeals have been for the attorneys for the class, Franjola’s latest appeal may eat up a good portion of that fund the court set aside.

Report headed to Governor Continued from page A1 behavior has caused the complainant to become distressed and upset while at work, so much so that [redacted] has requested to no longer work with him,” according to the report.

Other notable factual findings include but are not limited to the determination that Browning would ask school board employees for additional favors, needlessly extend the duration of board meetings, publicly embarrass other board members and ignore and invalidate both Black and female employees, according to the report.

The report also quoted several witness’ recollections of offensive comments made by Browning to school board members and employees, including “stating to an African American school board employee ‘your people were colored, then they’re Black, now they want to be called African American.”

Another statement a witness claimed during an interview was that “Member Browning looked up and down a female school board member, telling her ‘That is a great dress, and I’ve seen a lot of great dresses,’” according to the report.

The school board did not have any authority to enact disciplinary action against the member in question and could

only offer statements and send any allegations of malfeasance, impropriety or misfeasance to the office of the governor for further review and determination, according to Board attorney Jeremy Powers.

“This has very serious implications to my ability to perform my duties as assigned by the governor and as I swore to uphold,” Browning said. “I’m very happy to include the governor in this entire scenario, and let’s move forward and follow our policy of treating individual board members with the highest level of professionalism and respect.”

Eighteen individuals were interviewed throughout the course of the investigation, including Browning himself, and a variety of written documentation was received and reviewed. Browning said that he felt that the claims were unprecedented, and since he was found to not have created a hostile work environment, the investigation caused harm to his reputation and made him the victim of harassment.

“One of my primary concerns was how people considering running for office would say ‘I’m not going into that venue,’” Browning said. “I would request the governor wholeheartedly to make a thorough investigation of the parties involved in the context

of what I consider to be gross harassment.”

Browning said that he has already filed a human resources complaint against the school board itself and would possibly be taking further action.

“I would like to see and request an independent investigation of the circumstances leading up to this,” Browning said. “There has been repeated and intensifying retaliation against this board member and I would like to see that investigated thoroughly.”

The other members of the school board were able to offer comments and participate in discussion both about the findings of the investigation and their opinions on what action should be taken. Board Member Kelly King used a portion of her comments as an opportunity to speak directly to Browning and express her disapproval of his actions and of his response to the complaints.

“I have looked at this as a distraction from the education of our Marion County public students,” King said. “I think you trying to put a complaint against this board is fine if that’s what you need to do. But that is to deflect your actions and your complaints and to deflect what you have done—because you, sir, have a bruised ego. You are the one that has harassed our employees.”

WEC DEVELOPMENT CAN BUILD 20 FEET TALLER

By James Blevins james@ocalagazette.com

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ary Robert’s Equestrian Operations, LLC, in conjunction with Arena House Shows of Ocala, received a special use permit (SUP) by the Marion County Board of County Commissioners last week, June 21, during the board’s regular meeting.

The county board voted 5-0 in favor of a height increase from 75 feet to 95 feet concerning an approximate seven-acre portion of a 270.60-acre parcel.

The height increase pertains to the new proposed commercial building just south of the main entrance to Northwest 80th Avenue at the World Equestrian Center, according to county officials. The height increase does not pertain to the new hotel currently under construction.

Zero letters of opposition to the SUP were received, according to the county.

Both county staff and the planning and zoning commission recommended approval of the SUP with some conditions.

Condition one, the maximum building height could not exceed 95 feet; condition two, all development of the site shall meet the requirements of the existing planned unit development; and condition three, the applicant shall submit a shadow study with the site plan and prove that the new maximum height will not cast more shadow on parcels to the east, adjacent to Southwest 80th Avenue.

David Tillman, engineer for the applicant, asked that the third condition be pulled from the list of requirements.

“There’s no way that it’s not going to catch more shadow on the adjacent property,” he said to the commission.

“This was properly advertised. Next-door neighbors were notified. There’s been zero comment on it outside of us not wanting this condition. There is going to be more shadow cast. There’s no way to prevent it.

It’s 20 feet taller.”

The commission ultimately voted unanimously to approve the SUP without the third condition included.

School Board chair Rev. Eric Cummings emphasized clarity in the fact that the board could not have investigated the matter internally. He said that since the complaint was against an elected or appointed official rather than between two employees, the board opted to have a neutral third party investigate any possible wrongdoing in accordance with board policy.

The only decision on the table for discussion was whether to pass on the findings to a higher authority, he said.

“It was in the authority of this district to handle this situation with all due diligence and professionalism and to make sure that this investigation went forward in such a way that it would not be tilted in either direction,” Cummings said. “Yes the ‘hostile work environment’ was unsubstantiated, but there’s a ‘but’ here. Member Browning’s conduct amounts to bullying and harassment as defined by school board Bullying and Harassment Policy 2.15.”

Cummings emphasized that the matter would have been investigated with equal thoroughness if it had been any other member of the school board and said that the board would have dealt with any Title VII complaint with a similar amount of seriousness and severity.

“As a board we have to

support our staff. We support our staff by following the process of what should happen. Because it’s a board member, it should be processed all the way through and let due process handle it. Let the governor make a determination on whatever he wants to do or not do—it’s out of our hands,” said Cummings.

Board Member Nancy Thrower said that her hope, now that the investigation is over, is that the school board may return to its normal operations and focus on the responsibilities they have as public officials.

“In emotionally charged situations I try to shift my mind more toward the facts as much as I can, which I’ll admit is difficult,” Thrower said. “I’m really passionate about my role as a school board member, and I’ve been steadfast in saying that each of us is individually responsible for our words and our deeds— and I stand by that.”

Thrower recommended that the board institute a policy that the findings from any investigation based on complaints against members of the board be automatically reported to the governor, rather than giving the school board an option.

“In this situation, the governor has the power, and it is what it is,” Thrower said. “I’ll finish by saying I found this whole thing extremely distasteful.”

CAREER FAIR: MCPS LOOKS TO HIRE HUNDREDS FOR UPCOMING SCHOOL YEAR

By Ocala Gazette Staff

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arion County Public Schools (MCPS) will be holding its firstever Hometown Hiring Career Fair on Tuesday, July 19, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at three local schools, according to a June 29 press release.

Marion Oaks Elementary, 280 Marion Oaks Trail, Ocala, 34473, Fort King Middle, 545 N.E. 17th Ave., Ocala, 34470, and Belleview High, 10400 S.E. 36th Ave., Belleview, 34420, will serve as host sites for the event designed to attract classroom teachers, paraprofessionals, custodians, bus drivers, food service

personnel and Marion Afterschool Program workers.

As of the date of this reporting, 22 schools and several departments will be hiring simultaneously at all three campuses. School administrators, district leaders and others will conduct interviews at all three locations as well, according to MCPS officials.

Interested parties can visit www.marionschools.net/careers for the latest vacancies. For more information, contact the MCPS Employment Services Office at (352) 671-7787.

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

OPINION

Equestrian ≠ Farmland Preservation

By Ocala Gazette Editorial Board

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orse Farms Forever members recently announced their “victory” amending the Future Land Use Element that is part of Marion County’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan.

The amendment, adopted April 30 by the Marion County Board of County Commissioners, states all applications for Zoning Requests and Special Use Permits “be consistent with and preserve, protect and support and enhance the rural, equestrian, and farmland character of the Farmland Preservation Area.”

In their press release, the group members indicated “this Amendment helps protect the Farmland Preservation Area from incompatible Zoning Requests and Special Use Permits.”

They said they worked for 14 months on getting this language added to the county’s comprehensive plan while at the same time they were striking a deal with the developers of the World Equestrian Center, who sought to construct a hotel, RV park, 3-acre lot homes, polo fields, and a 9,000-seat stadium on the 1,000-plus acre WEC property formerly known as the Ocala Jockey Club. This property is smack dab in the middle of the FPA and at least 10 miles outside the county’s Urban Growth Boundary.

HFF publicly supported the developer’s project, despite being aware it would come at a cost to the rural character of the area.

Thank goodness for the professional planners on the county staff, who cited some significant objections to the proposal.

County planners recommended the commissioners deny WEC Ocala Jockey Club’s request for the following reasons: • Not consistent with the county’s Comprehensive Plan.

• Will adversely affect the public interest.

• Will not be compatible with the surrounding land uses.

During discussion of the proposal, a few red flags went up when the board was informed it would need to use eminent domain procedures against neighboring property owners so that the adjacent two-lane West County Road 318 could be widened to four lanes to accommodate the WEC Jockey Club. Also, there was the question of where on the scenic property did the developers intend to put a required wastewater treatment plant.

A massive project with elements such

as these hardly enhances characteristics of rural farmland, but the proposed equestrian use and the developer’s reputation for high-end flourishes seemed to make the decision a little more palatable to three of the commissioners, Jeff Gold, Carl Zalak and Michelle Stone.

Over strenuous objections from a packed audience, they voted to approve the project, after the developer agreed to drop plans for the 200-room hotel.

That square footage approved is in addition to the large concrete block barns the Roberts family, developers of the WEC and this project, have historically built on their properties since these are considered exempt from permitting and are classified for agricultural purposes.

Commissioners Craig Curry and Kathy Bryant both cast dissenting votes, explaining they, too, saw the project going against protections in place for the preservation area.

Equestrian shows create economic activity for the region, but they come with urban development ramifications.

Why not steer them to the urban growth boundary (UGB)? According to the last county workshop, there are still at least 55,000 acres within the UGB available for development. Arguing that an equestrian use makes an urban project compatible with surrounding rural areas is as illogical as city dwellers putting a horse in their backyard and calling it a farm.

Other horse show venues, like HITS and the Florida Horse Park, have positively impacted our community financially for decades. Yet, they have not required the level of urbanization WEC seeks. Also, most equestrian sport has not historically drawn a significant number of spectators; so why does this project need a 9,000-seat stadium? Especially when it has an 8,000seat stadium just twelve miles away?

We’d also point to Live Oak International - one of the annually wellattended equine events – which handles their crowds just fine on a farm without a 6,000-9,000 seats and stadium lights.

We would argue that someone who makes their living from the land deserves protection from development, especially if they do so in an area that has been set aside as—wait for it-- a Farmland Protection Area. The best farmland preservation tool is an actual working farm, where people raise livestock, grow food and earn money through agricultural practices. If we want to get serious about farmland preservation, we need to make

policy decisions that support those legitimate ag purposes.

The designation of “Ocala/Marion County, The Horse Capital of the World,” was made official in 2001 because of the area’s unique history and involvement breeding and training thoroughbreds since 1956 when Florida-bred Needles became the first Sunshine State product to win the Kentucky Derby (he also won that year’s Belmont Stakes). That legendary racehorse is credited with selling more real estate in Ocala than any agent.

Unfortunately, Marion County farms that breed and train horses have become fewer and fewer. Today, the community points to WEC as the qualifier for the title.

Since our chamber of commerce and elected officials love to hold us up next to Lexington, Kentucky, which also trumpets itself as the Horse Capital of the World and the center of the Thoroughbred breeding universe, we must point out some inconvenient facts. A comparison of mares bred reports and annual foal crops between Florida and Kentucky reveals that Kentucky’s foal crop in 2020 was 7,918,

while Florida’s foal crop was only 1,458.

Although the number of horses produced has declined in both regions, the drops are much more notable in Florida.

Further development keeps the door open to more erosion of the equine foundation that began with Needles in 1956. It endangers the limestone-rich water and soil and combination of minerals that makes the Ocala area one of only a handful of locales in the world that produces such healthy and resilient horses of all breeds with strong skeletal structures.

Ocala/Marion County has been home to champion horses for decades. If ornately appointed showplaces for horses to compete in continue to crop up and dot the landscape, Ocala can still be a place where champions are crowned. But with fewer and fewer thriving horse farms in the area, those champions will just be trotting through, while local residents foot the costly bills for increased traffic, wastewater treatment, dangers to wildlife habitats, as well as harm to the environment and urban sprawl.

“Arguing that an equestrian use makes an urban project compatible with surrounding rural areas is as illogical as city dwellers putting a horse in their backyard and calling it a farm.”

Gazette Editorial Board

The Spirit of ’76: Protecting us against the Putin Playbook

By Ken Paulson

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s we gather to celebrate Independence Day, it’s a good time to reflect on how our most fundamental freedoms have served this nation well.

It’s an even better time to think about what would happen if those liberties were taken away.

Sadly, the latter doesn’t take much imagination in 2022. Your closest video screen will show you scenes of Russian troops pummeling Ukraine with the support of a majority of the Russian people.

The Russian public has been told that their country is doing noble work ferreting out “Nazis” and that the West is engaged in its usual persecution of Russia and its people. Surveys say most Russians believe it.

In times of war, people always want to see their government as the good guys, but it’s still a little hard to grasp how that many people can be so thoroughly misled.

That’s the power of the Vladimir Putin playbook. The Russian president quickly and with little opposition eliminated the freedoms of speech and press.

First, Putin bandied around allegations of “fake news,” undermining domestic news media that had far more

latitude than their Soviet Union counterparts.

Then he coordinated a plan with the national legislature to pass a law imprisoning those who “lied” about the war, including even calling it a war. Russian media of integrity had to close up shop, and international journalists in Russia had to temper their reporting.

That left the internet as the one avenue for Russians to learn the truth about their country’s misdeeds. Putin then banned social media outlets and sharply limited access to international news sites.

In short order, the Russian people were isolated, left to believe the lies of their government.

It took just weeks for Putin to wipe out freedoms of press, speech and dissent.

Could anything like that ever happen in the United States? As unlikely as it may seem, there are some areas of concern.

After all, over the past 60 years, certain presidents from both parties have been known to mislead the public about the purpose and progress of wars.

And the use of “fake news” claims to evade responsibility began with politicians in this country, only to be adopted by totalitarian leaders around the globe.

Today there are active efforts

to overturn New York Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 Supreme Court decision that made investigative reporting viable in the United States. And there are many politicians, again of both parties, who want to control how private social media companies are run.

Do I believe that America could fall victim to something resembling the Putin playbook? No. But it’s also no longer unthinkable.

It’s not a coincidence that the first step would-be dictators take is to shut down the press.

That eliminates questions and accountability, both of which are anathema to those who abuse power.

There are some today who choose not to be informed, saying the media are biased. Well, there are tens of thousands of media outlets in this country, including manipulative cable channels, partisan sites that masquerade as news providers and those sites that would entice us with clickbait. But there are also many core news organizations of integrity, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, PBS and the very newspaper you’re reading right now. They’re the ones we need to support with readership and subscriptions.

From the very beginning of this nation, Americans understood the importance of a

A July 4th message free press aggressively reporting on people in power. In an era when newspapers were fiercely partisan and unfair, that first generation of citizens still insisted on journalists being protected by the First Amendment.

That shouldn’t surprise us.

After all, the model was right there in 1776 in the document we celebrate this week.

The Declaration of Independence called out King George III, reporting a list of injustices perpetrated by the mother country against its colonies. We had “unalienable rights,” it said, and they were being violated. Americans were no longer going to put up with this “long train of abuses and usurpations.”

That is the same spirit with which America’s free press has exercised its duties since 1791.

Abolitionist newspapers took on slavery, suffragist papers focused on injustices against women and news organizations

spanning centuries have reported on scandals, corruption and racial injustice.

We live in a highly polarized time, when it’s easy to dismiss the views of those with whom we disagree and deride those who publish the facts we don’t want to acknowledge.

We have to take care, though, that our internal political wars don’t turn us away from the core principles contained in the Declaration of Independence.

We remain a free people and need to be vigilant in protecting our rights and documenting the abuses in people in power, not just when the other guy’s party is in office. That’s the real spirit of ’76.

Ken Paulson is the director of the Free Speech Center, a nonpartisan and non-profit center based at Middle Tennessee State University. www.freespeech.center

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

How does Ocala decide what businesses get economic incentive grants?

By Jennifer Hunt Murty jennifer@ocalagazette.com

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fter the May 17 Ocala City Council meeting, in which the board approved one economic incentive grant for a company but denied a second grant for a different company, the Gazette sought to explore the reasoning behind these decisions.

The newspaper noted, for example, that the city staff-generated return-oninvestment, or ROI, analysis attached to each request differed considerably in both format and the formula. Is the same process used for all such requests? If so, why were they so different? If not, why not?

Also, the Gazette asked city staff to explain how these economic initiative requests are handled. Does it make a difference if one comes by recommendation of the Ocala/ Marion County Chamber & Economic Partnership?

At issue were two requests, the first from R&L Carriers. The company sought $300,000 to offset the costs of water, sewer, fire impact fees and building permit fees for their 125,000-square-foot trucking logistics center that is within the city limits. The council unanimously approved the grant without discussion.

The second request, this one from GTI Florida, LLC, a medical marijuana growing facility, asked for a rate reduction of up to a 20% for five years from Ocala Electric Utility. According to the information in city agenda item, the company has spent almost $30 million erecting two buildings totaling 130,000 square feet at the site of the former Mark III facility.

This request was unanimously denied.

So, what did one request have that the other one lacked?

R&L is owned by the same billionaire developers behind World Equestrian Center, which is also represented by the same lawyers who represent the city of Ocala, Rob Batsel, Jr. and Jimmy Gooding.

When asked about this, city spokesperson Ashley Dobbs told the Gazette in an email, “City Attorney reviewed the R&L agreement for form and legality. The City Attorney has no role in ROI analysis, only city staff prepared the analysis.”

Dobbs indicated that the developer approached the city with its application for the grant on Feb. 4, 2022. She did not know if the company specified whether it would move forward with the project regardless of whether the city gave them the grant.

GTI Florida’s site is just outside the city limits, a point raised by Councilmember Jay Musleh during the May 17 meeting, meaning Ocala would not receive any property tax revenue.

“Now, I want to say that we don’t just say, well, if you don’t live in the city, we’re not going help you out,’’ he said at the time.” We want all of Marion County to

grow. But we were we just talking about raising our (Power Cost Adjustment) rate (for Ocala Electric Utility customers).

We’re doubling it, and yet we’re (asked) to give a significant rebate back to a non-city [business].”

However, the city’s economic investment program expressly allows the city “to create economic growth within the Ocala city limits and utility service areas through both the attraction of new business and encouragement of existing business to grow and expand.’’

Since GTI was in the utility service area, it qualified.

Musleh also pointed out GTI was building the facility regardless of the incentives and has no choice but to purchase power from OEU. “We just raised [electric] rates and now we want to give a discount here?” Musleh asked rhetorically.

During the discussion of GTI’s request, City Manager Pete Lee noted, “I’ve had discussions with Mr. Sheilley about this project from the beginning,’’ referring to Kevin Sheilley, president and CEO of the CEP. “One aspect was the 50 full-time positions with $54,000 minimum (salary).”

So, again, what set the two requests apart?

The ROI analysis attached to each request differed in both format and the formula. GTI’s included how much revenue they’d contribute to the city’s general fund, even though they were outside of city limits. R&L’s analysis spelled out no such detail.

Although both included an analysis on electric utility revenue, for GTI, the city included how much the wholesale power cost the city. This cost was not included in the R&L analysis. GTI’s analysis also included state impact; R&L’s didn’t.

Interim city manager, Pete Lee, confirmed there is no set formula staff uses when doing a ROI analysis for these grants. The differences reflect the thought processes of the staffers and the specifics of each applicant’s request.

Dobbs said it made no difference if a request comes backed by the CEP. In these two cases, the companies dealt directly with city staff. She indicated that both businesses qualified for an incentive grant, but ultimately, the “Council … decides whether to fund each project.”

Here are the city’s two economic incentive programs: “Small Business Investment Program: The purpose of the Small Business Investment Program is to create economic growth within the Ocala city limits and utility service areas through both the attraction of new business and the encouragement of existing businesses to grow and expand. This program is intended for small businesses (minimum 5 employees, maximum 50 employees) that exhibit the need for financial assistance of up to $25,000.

Under this program, the City may, on a case-by-case basis, provide financial

Councilman Jay Musleh speaks during the Ocala City Council meeting at Ocala City Hall in Ocala on Tuesday, May 3, 2022.

[Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2022.

assistance to or on behalf of a company where a positive return on investment to the City and/or the community can be determined. The City may also create, by addenda to this program, other shortterm special recurring or non-recurring economic sustainability programs to address specific economic needs and issues; and may do so city-wide or on a site or area-specific basis. Assistance may include, but is not limited to: the waiving, crediting, or payment of fees; reduced rent on city-owned property; grants; capital improvements; required infrastructure improvements; and grant matching funds among others.

Economic Investment Program: The purpose of the Economic Investment Program is to create economic growth within the Ocala city limits and utility service areas through both the attraction of new business and encouragement of existing business to grow and expand.

Under this program, the City may, on a case-by-case basis, provide financial assistance to or on behalf of a company where a positive return on investment to the City and/or the community can be determined. The City may also create other special recurring or nonrecurring economic sustainability programs in response to changes in the local economy and may do so city-wide or on a site or area-specific basis. Assistance may include, but is not limited to; the waiving, crediting, or payment of fees, reduced rent on city-owned property, grants, land donation or exchange, capital

NEW! Same Day Dispensary Service!

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improvements, required infrastructure improvements, grant matching funds, gap financing, and loan guarantees among others.”

Musleh told the Gazette after the May 17 voted that he wished the city didn’t issue economic grants at all. But pointing to other communities that offer incentives to attract economic development, he said the city has to be competitive and continue offering them.

Councilmember Ire Bethea said he feels economic incentives should only be granted when there is a direct economic benefit demonstrated for the people of Ocala, a view echoed by councilmember Jim Hilty. Both pointed to job creation and utility revenue as direct benefits of economic incentives.

Notably, during interviews with city management and council members, need was not a factor in whether a business qualified for a grant. The sense was that incentives were better placed with companies able to move forward with their project with or without the grant since there was less concern about whether they could deliver on their business plan.

However, neither the council members nor city management answered the Gazette’s question on how a grant could be considered an “investment” for either GTI or R&L since both companies are wellestablished and plan to move forward with their projects regardless of whether the city sweetened the pot with incentives.

A6

JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

FDA advisers recommend updating COVID booster shots for fall

File photo: Jim Quinn of Dunnellon gets the Moderna COVID-19 vaccination at the Florida Department of Health Marion County in Ocala on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. [Bruce Ackerman/ Ocala Gazette] 2021.

By Lauran Neergaard and Matthew Perrone Associated Press

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t least some U.S. adults may get updated COVID-19 shots this fall, as government advisers voted Tuesday that it’s time to tweak booster doses to better match the most recent virus variants.

Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration wrestled with how to modify doses now when there’s no way to know how the rapidly mutating virus will evolve by fall — especially since people who get today’s recommended boosters remain strongly protected against COVID-19’s worst outcomes.

Ultimately the FDA panel voted 19-2 that COVID-19 boosters should contain some version of the supercontagious omicron variant, to be ready for an anticipated fall booster campaign.

“We are going to be behind the eight-ball if we wait

longer,” said one adviser, Dr. Mark Sawyer of the University of California, San Diego.

The FDA will have to decide the exact recipe, but expect a combination shot that adds protection against either omicron or some of its newer relatives to the original vaccine.

“None of us has a crystal ball” to know the next threatening variant, said FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks.

But “we may at least bring the immune system closer to being able to respond to what’s circulating” now rather than far older virus strains.

It’s not clear who would be offered a tweaked booster — they might be urged only for older adults or those at high risk from the virus. But the FDA is expected to decide on the recipe change within days and then Pfizer and Moderna will have to seek authorization for the appropriately updated doses, time for health authorities to settle on a fall strategy.

Current COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives globally. With a booster dose, those used in the U.S. retain strong protection against hospitalization and death but their ability to block infection dropped markedly when omicron appeared.

And the omicron mutant that caused the winter surge has been replaced by its genetically distinct relatives.

The two newest omicron cousins, called BA.4 and BA.5, together now make up half of U.S. cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Pfizer and Moderna already were brewing boosters that add protection to the first omicron mutant. Their combination shots, what scientists call “bivalent” vaccines, substantially boosted levels of antibodies capable of fighting that variant, more than simply giving another dose of today’s vaccine.

Both companies found the tweaked shots also offered some cross-protection against those worrisome BA.4 and BA.5 mutants, too, but not nearly as much.

Many scientists favor the combination approach because it preserves the original vaccines’ proven benefits, which include some cross-protection against other mutants that have cropped up during the pandemic.

The question facing FDA is the correct recipe change.

Both companies said they’d have plenty of omicrontargeted combo shots by October but Moderna said switching to target omicron’s newest relatives might delay its version another month.

Further complicating the decision is that only half of vaccinated Americans have received that all-important first booster. And while the

CDC says protection against hospitalization has slipped some for older adults, a second booster that’s recommended for people 50 and older seems to restore it. But only a quarter of those eligible for the additional booster have gotten one.

Marks said that by tweaking the shots, “we’re hoping we can convince people to go get that booster to strengthen their immune response and help prevent another wave.”

The logistics will be challenging. Many Americans haven’t had their first vaccinations yet, including young children who just became eligible — and it’s not clear whether tweaked boosters eventually might lead to a change in the primary vaccine. But the FDA’s advisers said it’s important to go ahead and study updated vaccine recipes in children, too.

And one more complexity: A third company, Novavax, is awaiting FDA authorization of a more traditional kind of COVID-19 vaccine, proteinbased shots. Novavax argued Tuesday that a booster of its regular vaccine promises a good immune response against the new omicron mutants without a recipe change.

Advisers to the World Health Organization recently said omicron-tweaked shots would be most beneficial as a booster only, because they should increase the breadth of people’s cross-protection against multiple variants.

“We don’t want the world to lose confidence in vaccines that are currently available,” said Dr. Kanta Subbarao, a virologist who chairs that WHO committee.

INPATIENTS WITH COVID-19 TOP 3,800

By Florida News Service

C

ontinuing a gradual increase, the number of Florida hospital inpatients with COVID-19 has topped 3,800, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The data showed 3,807 inpatients with COVID-19, up from

3,746 on Tuesday and up from 3,612 on June 22.

Also, the new data showed 380 patients with COVID-19 were in intensive-care units, up from 362 on Tuesday. Florida during the past two months has seen significant increases in numbers of reported COVID-19 cases amid the spread of subvariants of the coronavirus.

“The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.”

- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) Publisher Jennifer Hunt Murty jennifer@ocalagazette.com Bruce Ackerman, Photography Editor bruce@ocalagazette.com James Blevins, Reporter james@ocalagazette.com Caroline Brauchler, Reporter caroline@ocalagazette.com Rosemarie Donell, Reporter rosemarie@ocalagazette.com Sadie Fitzpatrick, Columnist sadie@ocalagazette.com Greg Hamilton, Editor greg@magnoliamediaco.com Amy Harbert, Graphic Designer amy@magnoliamediaco.com Susan Smiley-Height, Editor susan@magnoliamediaco.com

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HOUSING PRICES CONTINUE TO RISE

Share your news

302 SE Broadway Street, Unit 420 is shown in Ocala on Tuesday, February 22, 2022. realtor.com lists the condo for sale and pending at $345,000. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2022.

By Ocala Gazette Staff

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ccording to a report recently released by Florida Realtors Association for activity in the month of May, the statewide median singlefamily sales price for homes rose another month to $420,000, up 21.8 percent from the previous year. Statewide median

sales price for townhouses and condos median was $322,000, up 28.8 percent from the previous year.

The statewide single-family inventory of active listings totaled 40,013, an increase of 31.5 percent in listings from a year ago.

In the same report, Ocala/Marion County’s May median sale price for

single family homes continued its creep up to $289,000, a 28.4% jump from the year before.

The townhouse and condo market in the Ocala/Marion County also had a significant increase, with a median sales price of $ $207,000, up 47.9% from the previous year.

The Ocala Gazette invites you to share your important news events with the community. Email your submissions to info@ocalagazette.com. Please include your name and contact information on the submission.

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A7

JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

BUSINESS

Did corporate greed fuel inflation? It’s not biggest culprit

By Paul Wiseman AP Economics Writer

F

urious about surging prices at the gasoline station and the supermarket, many consumers feel they know just where to cast blame: On greedy companies that relentlessly jack up prices and pocket the profits.

Responding to that sentiment, the Democratic-led House of Representatives last month passed on a party-line vote — most Democrats for, all Republicans against — a bill designed to crack down on alleged price gouging by energy producers.

Likewise, Britain last month announced plans to impose a temporary 25% windfall tax on oil and gas company profits and to funnel the proceeds to financially struggling households.

Yet for all the public’s resentment, most economists say corporate price gouging is, at most, one of many causes of runaway inflation — and not the primary one.

“There are much more plausible candidates for what’s going on,” said Jose Azar an economist at Spain’s University of Navarra.

They include: Supply disruptions at factories, ports and freight yards. Worker shortages. President Joe Biden’s enormous pandemic aid program. COVID 19-caused shutdowns in China. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And, not least, a Federal Reserve that kept interest rates ultra-low longer than experts say it should have.

Most of all, though, economists say resurgent spending by consumers and governments drove inflation up.

The blame game is, if anything, intensifying after the U.S. government reported that inflation hit 8.6% in May from a year earlier, the biggest price spike since 1981.

To fight inflation, the Fed is now belatedly tightening credit aggressively. On June 15, it raised its benchmark short-term rate by three-quarters of a point — its largest hike since 1994 — and signaled that more large rate hikes are coming. The Fed hopes to achieve a notoriously difficult “soft landing” — slowing growth enough to curb inflation without causing the economy to slide into recession.

For years, inflation had

remained at or below the Fed’s 2% annual target, even while unemployment sank to a half-century low. But when the economy rebounded from the pandemic recession with startling speed and strength, the U.S. consumer price index rose steadily — from a 2.6% yearover-year increase in March 2021 to last month’s four-decade high.

For a while at least — before profit margins at S&P 500 companies dipped early this year — the inflation surge coincided with swelling corporate earnings.

It was easy for consumers to connect the dots: Companies, it seemed, were engaged in price-gouging. This wasn’t just inflation. It was greedflation.

Asked to name the culprits behind the spike in gasoline prices, 72% of the 1,055 Americans polled in late April and early May by the Washington Post and George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government blamed profit-seeking corporations, more than the share who pointed to Russia’s war against Ukraine (69%) or Biden (58%) or pandemic disruptions (58%).

And the verdict was bipartisan: 86% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans blamed corporations for inflated gas prices.

“It’s very natural for consumers to see prices rising and get angry about it and then look for someone to blame,” said Christopher Conlon, an economist at New York University’s Stern School of Business who studies corporate competition. “You and I don’t get to set prices at the supermarket, the gas station or the car dealership. So people naturally blame corporations, since those are the ones they see raising prices.”

Yet Conlon and many other economists are reluctant to indict — or to favor punishing — Corporate America. When the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business asked economists this month whether they’d support a law to bar big companies from selling their goods or services at an “unconscionably excessive price” during a market shock, 65% said no. Only 5% backed the idea.

Just what combination of factors is most responsible for causing prices to soar “is still an open question,” economist Azar

acknowledges. COVID-19 and its aftermath have made it hard to assess the state of the economy.

Today’s economists have no experience analyzing the financial aftermath of a pandemic.

Policymakers and analysts have been repeatedly blindsided by the path the economy has taken since COVID struck in March 2020: They didn’t expect the swift recovery from the downturn, fueled by vast government spending and record-low rates engineered by the Fed and other central banks. Then they were slow to recognize the gathering threat of high inflation pressures, dismissing them at first as merely a temporary consequence of supply disruptions.

One aspect of the economy, though, is undisputed: A wave of mergers in recent decades has killed or shrunk competition among airlines, banks, meatpacking companies and many other industries. That consolidation has given the surviving companies the leverage to demand price cuts from suppliers, to hold down workers’ pay and to pass on higher costs to customers who don’t have much choice but to pay up.

Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston have found that less competition made it easier for companies to pass along higher costs to customers, calling it an “amplifying factor” in the resurgence of inflation.

Josh Bivens, research director at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, has estimated that nearly 54% of the price increases in nonfinancial businesses since mid-2020 can be attributed to “fatter profit margins,” versus just 11% from 1979 through 2019.

Bivens conceded that neither corporate greed nor market clout has likely grown significantly in the past two years. But he suggested that during the COVID inflationary spike, companies have redirected how they use their market power: Many have shifted away from pressuring suppliers to cut costs and limiting workers’ pay and have instead boosted prices for customers.

In a study of nearly 3,700 companies released last week, the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute concluded that markups and profit margins last year reached their highest level since the 1950s. It also found that companies that had aggressively

raised prices before the pandemic were more likely to do so after it struck, “suggesting a role for market power as an explanatory driver of inflation.”

Yet many economists aren’t convinced that corporate greed is the main culprit. Jason Furman, a top economic adviser in the Obama White House, said that some evidence even suggests that monopolies are slower than companies that face stiff competition to raise prices when their own costs rise, “in part because their prices were high to begin with.”

Likewise, NYU’s Conlon cites examples where prices have soared in competitive markets.

Used cars, for example, are sold in lots across the country and by numerous individuals. Yet average used-car prices have skyrocketed 16% over the past year. Similarly, the average price of major appliances, another market with plenty of competitors, jumped nearly 10% last month from a year earlier.

By contrast, the price of alcoholic beverages has risen just 4% from a year ago even though the beer market is dominated by AB-Inbev and spirits by Bacardi and Diageo.

“It is hard to imagine that ABInbev isn’t as greedy as Maytag,” Conlon said.

So what has most driven the inflationary spike?

“Demand,” said Furman, now at Harvard University.

“Lots of government spending, lots of monetary support — all combined together to support extraordinarily high levels of demand. Supply couldn’t keep up, so prices rose.”

Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco estimate that government aid to the economy during the pandemic, which put money in consumers’ pockets to help them endure the crisis and set off a spending spree, has raised inflation by about 3 percentage points since the first half of 2021.

In report released in April, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis blamed global supply chain bottlenecks for playing a “significant role” in inflating factory costs. They found that it added a staggering 20 percentage points to wholesale inflation in manufacturing last November, raising it to 30%.

Still, even some economists who don’t blame greedflation for the price spike of the past year say they think governments should try to restrict the market power of monopolies, perhaps by blocking mergers that reduce competition. The idea is that more companies vying for the same customers would encourage innovation and makes the economy more productive.

Even so, tougher antitrust policies wouldn’t likely do much to slow inflation anytime soon.

“I find it helpful to think about competition like diet and exercise,” NYU’s Conlon said.

“More competition is a good thing. But, like diet and exercise, the payoffs are long term.

“Right now, the patient is in the emergency room. Sure, diet and exercise are still a good thing.

But we need to treat the acute problem of inflation.”

Carnival shares cruise higher on gains in revenue, bookings

By Associated Press

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ong-battered shares of Carnival Corp. jumped more than 12% Friday as the cruise line owner reported a big increase in revenue, occupancy levels, and bookings for future trips.

However, the company posted a $1.83 billion second-quarter loss and said the effects of the pandemic and higher fuel prices will lead to another loss in the third quarter.

The cruise industry was shut down by the pandemic and chafed under regulations that were only recently eased by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even now, a nascent recovery in cruising is uneven, with more demand in the U.S. for nearby cruises, such as Carnival trips to the Caribbean, than more far-f lung itineraries.

Carnival, which operates nine cruise brands, said 91% of its fleet is sailing again. Ship occupancy in the quarter that ended last month rose to 69%, compared with 54% in the previous quarter. Bookings

nearly doubled from the first quarter and were the strongest since the beginning of the pandemic, the company said.

CEO Arnold Donald said some of the increase in bookings came from people who put off decisions during a surge in COVID-19 earlier in the year, and some reflected pent-up demand after more than two years of the pandemic.

“People are getting more comfortable living with this virus.

They are anxious to travel,” Donald said in an interview. “We are wellpositioned because people still take vacations, and we are a much better value than a land-based vacation.”

The Miami-based company said the loss equaled $1.64 per share after non-recurring items. The average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for a loss of $1.14 per share.

Revenue was $2.4 billion, falling short of the $2.83 billion average Zacks forecast.

Even with Friday’s gains, Carnival shares are still down 46% since the start of the year.

A8

JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

Who is in the box?

Above: The cast of “Who’s in the Box?” led a procession of audience members looking into the coffin to find a mirror, reflecting the presentation’s message that we are all in this fight together and that when someone dies from gun violence, we ourselves may be the next victim.

Left: Josh Gaydon (shooter J Reed) and Caleb Little-Thomas (victim Malik Jackson) portray a fateful moment when one life is lost and another is destroyed in “Who’s in the Box?” Right: Information booths in the lobby of the Marion County Tech Institute offer insights on how to prevent youth gun violence.

“Who’s in the Box?,” a production involving local law enforcement, government officials, schools, nonprofits and churches, pleads with the public to confront youth gun violence.

By Julie Garisto julie@magnoliamediaco.com

A

visibly depressed high school student, hunched over in a hoodie, gets mercilessly teased by peers for his unfashionable attire. One day, he has had enough and fatally shoots one of the offending students point blank.

Convicted as an adult, the young felon soon realizes the consequences of his crime; his pain compounded by the broken hearts of loved ones -- most notably the tears of two mothers, the victim’s and his own.

While this scene played out during the first act of “Who’s in the Box?” -- a dramatization performed by the actors and singers of Gainesville’s Star Center Theatre -- similar youth shootings have continued to trouble Ocala neighborhoods and communities across the nation.

On June 3, a 14-year-old was shot outside Laurel Park Apartments. Statistics estimate that up to 50 percent of shootings go unreported.

According to recent research, firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S. More than 2,100 children and teens die by gun homicide every year. Black children and teens are 14 times more likely than white children and teens of the same age to die by gun homicide.

Bishop Christopher Stokes, the cocreator of the “Who’s in the Box?” chooses not to focus on the gun safety debate. He’s more concerned with preventing tragic outcomes and returning communities to villages of extended family support, a founding philosophy of two Gainesvillearea outreach hubs: One Community Church and the Willie Mae Stokes Community Center, named in Bishop Stokes’ mother’s honor.

“I have really been focused on one just the whole prevention aspect,” Bishop Stokes said.

“My fight is to stop these young people from killing each other. Yes, we can ask them to put down the guns, but what happens if we don’t offer them something to pick up to replace it? That’s where we are now, returning to the village concept, where everybody is there for everybody.”

“Who’s in the Box?” was first staged in Gainesville in January. Bishop Stokes teamed up with author and playwright Romona Jackson to create the production concept, which includes law enforcement, local government, youth and other stakeholders in the community.

“I wanted to really show the life of what a single mom really goes through,” Jackson told the “Gazette.” “When you’re in the ministry like I am, you hear so many different stories and you hear so many different testimonies. I wanted to depict what was being reflected in the community. Moms are trying to be the mother and the father, and kids are trying to fight for respect because they’re either being bullied or they’re trying to be a part of the in-crowd, and, ultimately, they choose the gun as the loudest, deadliest way to get respect.”

Word of mouth about “Who’s in the Box?” made its way south to Ocala, where Community Liaison Coordinator Tara Woods teamed up with Ocala Police Chief Mike Balken and Bishop Stokes to figure out how to present the multifaceted, interactive production locally.

City Council President Ire Bethea joined the effort and chaired the “Who’s in the Box?” committee. The group of stakeholders met weekly over the course of the past few months.

“We are seriously hoping that quite a few people got something out of the production,” Bethea said. “This is not a one-time-and-done deal thing. We definitely will be meeting in about a week.

We’re gonna critique the outcome and where we go from here.”

Bethea and his cohorts’ efforts culminated in an impactful performance

at the Tech Institute on June 23. The audience of youth and adults of all ages and backgrounds showed up during a severe thunderstorm to attend the event.

Members of the audience appeared to be moved by the performances and talks despite some audio glitches.

Powerful, wrenching vocal performances from the actors who played the mothers in the show, Tradina L Thomas and Stephanie McCray, highlighted the dramatization.

The event featured two acts. Act I was the dramatization of a shooting based on real-life events. Act II comprised spirited sermons by Bishop Stokes and Pastor Jamie Pullings of Ocala’s Welcome Stranger Missionary Baptist Church.

In attendance were a procession of local law enforcement officers. Ocalabased nonprofits engaged youth and adults in the lobby, providing information on jobs, services and other outreach, and SunTran busses brought in youth and families from throughout the city. Marion County Schools collaborated to bring the performance’s message to pupils and parents.

A mock funeral procession during the conclusion of Act II, invited everyone in the audience to look inside a casket in front of the stage, where a mirror was propped in place of a body.

“In all of society today, people are hands-off, and I mean that literally and figuratively,” Bethea added. (Imitating an angry parent) ‘You don’t say, my kid did that …’ but as far as the message to put the guns down in “Who’s in the Box?,” I think it was outstanding. I think that there were a lot of people who saw some things close to the casket. They were looking away.”

Bethea’s sentiment reflects the theme of Bishop Stokes and Rev. Pullings’ sermons.

Both religious leaders asked the crowd, “Who’s in the box?” and responded, “We’re in the box.” They wanted to drive home that youth shootings aren’t “their problem”

but “our problem,” and one day it could be one of us in the casket as a result of community gun crime.

The free public event involved the Ocala Police Department, Department of Juvenile Justice, Marion County Sheriff ’s Office, Marion County Children Alliance, Marion County Public Schools and the City of Ocala.

Teens 13 and older, who live in areas determined to be “at-risk” made up the youth contingent. The two-hour presentation also involved Marion County Children’s Alliance and the Public Policy Institute.

The lobby portion included a snack, a meal and community resources will be available for families. SunTran busses provided transportation Pick up locations were available at Howard Academy Community Center, Howard Middle School, Steeplechase, Dr. N. H Jones, Pavilion Oaks, Deer Run, Berkley Pointe and Sutton Place.

“This is just the beginning,” Bethea said of the collaboration. “This doesn’t end here.”

Mayor Kent Guinn, Police Chief Mke Balken, Ocala City Council President Ire Bethea and other city officials rose during Bishop Stokes’ sermon during the “Who’s in the Box?” presentation at Marion Tech Institute.

A9

JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

State DeSantis vetoes bill on business lawsuits

By Jim Turner Florida News Service

A

controversial measure that would have given businesses power to sue cities and counties to recoup lost profits was among five bills that Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed Friday.

While the veto of the business measure (SB 620) drew praise from local-government and environmental groups, DeSantis left open the door for lawmakers to consider similar, but more targeted, legislation in the future.

DeSantis on Friday also signed 32 bills that passed during the legislative session that ended in March. They included a bill that will allow cities and counties to restrict smoking at beaches and parks that they own (HB 105) and a pandemic-related measure that will prevent emergency orders “directly or indirectly” blocking religious institutions from conducting services or activities (SB 254).

In addition to the business bill, DeSantis’ vetoes included nixing a high-profile measure (SB 1796) that would have revamped the state’s alimony laws.

Senate leaders made a priority of the business bill, which would have allowed businesses to sue cities and counties if ordinances caused at least 15 percent losses of profits. In a veto letter, DeSantis suggested lawmakers take a different approach in the future to assist businesses.

DeSantis said local governments sometimes “unreasonably burden businesses through policies that range from the merely misguided to the politically motivated.”

“Indeed, this was illustrated by the bizarre and draconian measures adopted by some local governments during COVID-19, necessitating the state to overrule these edicts to protect freedom and opportunity for Floridians,” DeSantis wrote.

But DeSantis took issue with the bill being “broad and

ambiguous,” which he said could result in “unintended and unforeseen consequences and costly litigation.” He suggested lawmakers pursue “targeted preemption legislation when local governments act in a way that frustrates state policy and/ or undermines the rights of Floridians.”

Generally, preemption bills give the state control over issues that otherwise might be decided by local governments.

In supporting the veto, Dominic Calabro, president and CEO of Tallahassee-based Florida TaxWatch, echoed that the legislation could have had “many unintended, yet significant, consequences.”

“In an already exceptionally litigious state like Florida, it would have resulted in an influx of financially motivated and malicious lawsuits, costing local governments more than $900 million annually,” Calabro said in a statement. “Local government’s only response would have been

to either increase taxes or reduce services, and in both cases, this bill would have hurt hard-working taxpayers across the state.”

Paul Owens, president of the growth-management group 1000 Friends of Florida, called the veto a “clear victory for local leaders and their constituents.”

1000 Friends previously argued the measure “would have a chilling effect on the ability of local governments to regulate noise ordinances, parking, puppy mills, bar hours and more, and to address sea level rise and other critical issues facing our communities.”

The bill would have applied to businesses that have been in operation for at least three years and would have allowed them to file lawsuits seeking lost profits for seven years or the number of years the businesses had been in operation, whichever was less.

Before the bill passed in March, House sponsor Lawrence McClure, R-Dover, said it would cause local governments to “pause” before they enact ordinances that

would hurt businesses.

City and county governments argued it would tie the hands of local governments from making changes sought by residents and even a majority of businesses.

Local governments from Escambia County to Palm Beach County requested DeSantis veto the measure.

Of 275 bills approved during the regular legislative session, two continued to await action Friday from DeSantis. They were a bill (HB 461) about studentservice requirements for the Bright Futures Scholarship Program and a bill (SB 898) that would require apartment landlords to conduct background checks on all employees.

The background-checks bill is dubbed “Miya’s Law,” after Miya Marcano, a Valencia College student who was killed in September. The suspected killer, who later committed suicide, worked as a maintenance worker at her Orlando apartment complex.

DeSantis vetoes alimony overhaul

File photo

By Dara Kam Florida News Service

A

cting on one of the most emotionally charged issues of the 2022 legislative session, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday vetoed a measure that would have overhauled the state’s alimony laws.

DeSantis’ veto marked the third time that supporters of changing the alimony system have successfully shepherded bills through the Legislature only to have them nixed. Former Gov. Rick Scott twice vetoed such legislation, with a standoff over the issue leading to a near-fracas outside Scott’s office in 2016.

The bill this year, in part, would have done away with permanent alimony and set up maximum payments based on the duration of marriage. As in the past, the measure drew emotional debate during the

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legislative session that ended in March.

One of the most-controversial parts of the bill (SB 1796) would have changed the process for modification of alimony when people who have been paying seek to retire. Critics argued the proposal threatened to impoverish older ex-spouses who have been homemakers and depend on the payments.

DeSantis’ veto letter Friday pointed to concerns about the bill allowing ex-spouses to have existing alimony agreements amended.

“If CS/CS/SB 1796 were to become law and be given retroactive effect as the Legislature intends, it would unconstitutionally impair vested rights under certain preexisting marital settlement agreements,” the governor wrote.

Many ex-spouses who appeared before legislative committees to speak against the

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bill said they agreed to give up assets at the time of their divorces in exchange for permanent alimony awards.

But proponents of the overhaul argued the bill would “modernize” Florida’s alimony laws by making the process more equitable and predictable for divorcing families.

“We are incredibly disappointed by the veto of this much needed bill. Today, Gov. DeSantis chose divorce lawyers over Florida’s families and parents who love their children and who want to be a part of their lives,” Marc Johnson, a Tampa lawyer who is president of the prooverhaul group Florida Family Fairness, said in a prepared statement.

Under the measure, people married for less than three years would not have been eligible for alimony payments, and those who had been married 20 years or longer would have been eligible to receive payments for up to 75 percent of the terms of the marriage.

Another part of the bill would have required judges to begin with a “presumption” that children should split their time equally between parents. Scott largely pinned his 2016 veto of an alimony bill on a similar child-sharing provision.

The Family Law Section of The Florida Bar, which lobbied against the bill, thanked the governor “for understanding the bad precedent the retroactivity” of the measure would have established.

“If signed into law, this legislation would have upended thousands upon thousands of settlements, backlogging the courts and throwing many Floridians’ lives into turmoil,” the statement, attributed to the section’s chairman, Philip Wartenberg, and immediate past chairwoman, Heather Apicella, said.

People and organizations on both

sides of the issue heavily lobbied DeSantis’ office.

The “First Wives Advocacy” group tweeted Friday that it had delivered a petition to DeSantis with more than 2,000 signatures asking for a veto.

As of Friday, the governor’s office had received 5,939 emails in support of the bill and 1,250 in opposition, along with 349 phone calls in favor and 289 against the measure.

When asked for a tally of phone calls and emails about the bill, DeSantis’ office also provided excerpts from messages pleading with the governor for a veto.

A message from Felice Schulaner argued that the alimony changes would primarily hurt women and families.

“The likely consequences are that women will largely be the most impacted, particularly women who divorced after long marriages where they might have put their careers on hold to support their now ex-husbands. How many women will be forced into poverty? How many women will lose their homes?” part of Schulaner’s message said. “I get that your rich male friends might want to divorce their wives for a new model, but the injustice of this is extraordinary.”

In another message, Murielle Fournier wrote that she made an “amicable global settlement” with her ex-husband “in good faith.” Under the agreement, her ex-husband isn’t allowed to modify his payments.

“It’s a contract that I made under the current law. I work and have to rent a room because I can’t afford to rent my own place. I don’t own a home, no retirement plan. No nest egg. This bill will devastate me financially,” she wrote.

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

State, NRA point to Supreme Court ruling in gun case

11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

By Dara Kam Florida News Service

A

s they battle over a 2018 Florida law that raised the minimum age from 18 to 21 to buy rifles and other long guns, attorneys for the state and the National Rifle Association are trying to use a new U.S. Supreme Court ruling to bolster their arguments.

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a New York law that placed strict limits on carrying concealed weapons in public. Gun-control advocates have expressed concerns the decision could severely restrict states’ ability to regulate guns.

The ruling prompted Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office and the NRA to quickly make filings at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the gun-rights group is challenging the constitutionality of the 2018 Florida law. The appeals court heard arguments in March but has not ruled on the challenge.

The state’s attorneys, relying on previous court rulings, have argued that gun regulations are permissible if they are consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation.

Examples of other regulations include preventing felons and certain people with mental illness from having guns.

In a three-page “supplemental authority” filed Thursday, Moody’s office cited the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in the case known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen to defend the Florida law.

Senior Deputy Solicitor General Christopher Baum pointed to parts of Justice Clarence Thomas’ majority opinion to support the state’s stance about regulations being allowed if they are consistent with traditions.

“Analogical reasoning requires only that the government identify a well-established and representative historical analogue, not a historical twin,” Thomas wrote.

Florida “has made that showing here,” Baum wrote.

“Those under 21 may be prohibited from purchasing firearms because such restrictions are firmly grounded in historical tradition,” Baum wrote.

The state’s lawyer also highlighted part of a concurring opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote that the decision in the New York case “does not expand the categories of people who may lawfully possess a gun, and federal law generally forbids the possession of a handgun by a person who is under the age of 18.”

And Baum relied on a separate concurring opinion, which was authored by Justice

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The state has not cited any “historical law treating ordinary, law-abiding young adults like those convicted of a felony or adjudicated as mentally ill --- in the context of the right to keep and bear arms or otherwise,” the NRA’s lawyer argued.

“Florida’s age-based ban is not relevantly similar to restrictions imposed after due process. It is inconsistent with Bruen,” Sweeney wrote.

State lawmakers increased the minimum age to purchase long guns to 21 after the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Federal law already barred sales of handguns to people under 21.

The NRA immediately filed a lawsuit, arguing, in part, that the state age restriction infringes on Second Amendment rights of young adults, who are authorized to use weapons when they serve in the military or in law enforcement.

Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker upheld the law last year, saying that he was following legal precedents. Walker, however, also described the case as falling “squarely in the middle of a constitutional no man’s land.”

It remains unclear when the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal will rule in the NRA’s appeal of Walker’s ruling.

COURT REVIVES $12.6M ‘BAD FAITH’ CASE

By Florida News Service

federal appeals court said Tuesday that a jury should decide whether Amazon.com infringed on the trademark of a Miami-based pornography company.

Wreal, LLC, which created a porn streaming platform known as FyreTV, filed a lawsuit after Amazon launched Fire TV, which provides devices for streaming. In a 46page opinion, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the case involves the “likelihood of confusion” based on Amazon’s use of Fire TV, also known as fireTV. A federal district judge granted summary judgment in favor of Amazon. But the panel of the Atlanta-based appeals court overturned that decision and said a jury should decide whether trademark infringement occurred.

“Here, the record evidence establishes that Amazon acquired actual knowledge of Wreal’s registered trademark and still launched a product line with a phonetically similar name,” said Tuesday’s opinion, written

by Judge Barbara Lagoa and joined by Judges Charles Wilson and Andrew Brasher.

“The two marks (trademarks) at issue are nearly identical, the commercial strength of Amazon’s mark is consistent with Wreal’s theory of recovery, the parties’ services are the kind that a reasonable consumer could attribute to a single source, and the record establishes that Amazon intended to swamp the market with its advertising campaign.”

Brett Kavanaugh and joined

by Chief Justice John Roberts, that said the New York ruling decided “nothing about who may lawfully possess a firearm or the requirements that must be met to buy a gun.”

But in supplemental authority also filed Thursday, the NRA’s lawyer argued that the state failed to demonstrate that Florida’s age restriction has a long connection with the past.

The state cited “no historical analogues imposing a burden comparable to the complete prohibition on young adults purchasing a firearm,” attorney John Parker Sweeney wrote.

“At the time of the founding, no law imposed restrictions on young adults’ ability to purchase firearms. The 19th and 20th century laws cited by appellee (the state) did not impose a burden comparable to the ban because they allowed young adults to purchase at least long guns,” Sweeney wrote.

Sweeney also used Thomas’ words to defend the gun-rights organization’s opposition to the law.

The Bruen ruling “rejected a ‘handful of late 19th century (laws)’ as insufficient to establish historical tradition and rejected 20th century laws as lacking ‘insight into the meaning of the Second Amendment,’” Sweeney wrote.

more than $12.6 million in a jury trial. Brink later filed a bad-faith lawsuit against Direct General to try to collect the money.

Generally, bad-faith lawsuits contend that insurers didn’t address claims properly.

Brink’s lawyers contended that Direct General acted in bad faith because it didn’t settle the accident claim and did not properly communicate and advise the policyholders, according to Tuesday’s majority opinion.

A jury ruled in favor of Direct General, but Brink’s attorneys argued that a district judge had given improper jury instructions.

The appellate panel, in a 2-1 decision, agreed Tuesday.

The majority opinion, written

by Judge Britt Grant and joined

by Judge Jill Pryor, said “we express no view on the merits of Brink’s argument that Direct General acted in bad faith by failing to advise its insureds (the policyholders). All we hold is that when a party properly argues a theory of liability grounded in state law, a district court abuses its discretion if it causes prejudice by failing to instruct the jury on that theory.”

Judge R. Lanier Anderson dissented, writing that he had “no doubt” that the district court’s rejection of a proposed jury instruction by Brink’s attorneys “did not cause Brink prejudicial harm.”

STATE SAYS ACHIEVEMENT GAPS NARROWING

By Florida News Service

T

he state Department of Education on Tuesday touted results from 2022 standardized tests as narrowing achievement gaps, with Black and Hispanic students showing improvement on math and Englishlanguage arts exams.

Data published by the department showed 55 percent of students in third through eighth grades scored “level 3,” which is considered satisfactory, or higher on the mathematics portion of the Florida Standards Assessments and end-of-course exams, a 4 percentagepoint increase from last year. In English-language arts, scores stayed the same for third- through 10th-grade students, at 52 percent earning at least satisfactory scores.

The department pointed to data related to specific demographics of students. According to the department,

Hispanic students showed an increase of 6 percentage points over last year on the Florida Standards Assessments and end-of-course exams in third through eighth grades.

African-American students increased performance by the same margin on the math exams in third through eighth grades, a department news release said.

Hispanic and African-American students in third through 10th grades also showed a 1 percentage point increase on English-language arts exams over last year.

This school year was the last time that the Florida Standards Assessments will be administered to students.

Legislation passed during the 2022 legislative session and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in March required that the assessments be replaced by a “progress monitoring” testing system.

A11

JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

Judge denies requests to block controversial law

By Jim Saunders Florida News Service

A

federal judge Monday rejected arguments by attorneys for teachers, a student and a diversity consultant that he should block a controversial new state law that restricts the way race-related concepts can be taught in classrooms and workplace training.

Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a 23-page order that largely denied a request for a preliminary injunction against the law, which is slated to take effect Friday. Walker, however, did not rule on an injunction request by a University of Central Florida professor, after ordering attorneys to file additional briefs.

Lawmakers passed the measure (HB 7) — dubbed by Gov. Ron DeSantis as the “Stop WOKE Act — during this year’s legislative session after fierce debate.

A group of plaintiffs filed the lawsuit April 22 after DeSantis signed the bill, arguing, in part, that it violated First Amendment rights. They also challenged rules approved last year by the State Board of Education that included banning the use of critical race theory, which is based on the premise that racism is embedded in American society and institutions.

Walker, who held a hearing last week, said in the order Monday that four of the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to obtain a preliminary injunction. Those plaintiffs were Donald Falls, who teaches high-school government and economics in Manatee County; Jill Harper, a Leon County substitute teacher; a child identified as RMJ who is an incoming kindergarten student in Nassau County; and Tammy Hodo, president of All Things Diverse, a consulting firm that provides training on issues such as diversity and inclusion.

While writing that he was not “determining whether the challenged regulations are constitutional, morally correct or good policy,” Walker said the teachers, student and consultant had not shown injury-related proof needed to establish standing.

For example, he wrote that the State Board of Education, which is a defendant in the case,. can withhold funding from school districts that do not comply with the regulations. But Walker said the teachers did not show how that would directly injure them.

“Plaintiffs’ logic goes like this: pursuant to its statutory authority, the Board of Education will withhold funding from the teachers’ school districts if they violate the challenged provisions,”

he wrote. “In turn, members of the school board will withhold money from the teachers’ individual schools — or, perhaps, put pressure on officials at those schools to discipline the teachers. In other words, the teachers’ theory of traceability and redressability flows from the Board (of Education) to the school district, from the school district to the teachers’ school, and — only then — to the teachers. Thus, plaintiffs’ argument requires the court to stack multiple layers of inferences.”

As another example, he said Hodo did not establish that she has been injured by the law.

“Dr. Hodo does not claim that she has lost clients, that clients have told her they will no longer hire her, or that clients have even expressed trepidation about hiring her,” Walker wrote.

Walker, however, left unresolved the preliminary injunction request by Robert Cassanello, an associate history professor at the University of Central Florida.

That came after the plaintiffs’ attorneys last week filed a document pointing to a proposed rule that is scheduled to go before the state university system’s Board of Governors on Thursday.

The proposed rule would direct how the law should be carried out by universities.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys cited part of

the proposal that, for example, raises the possibility faculty members could be disciplined for not complying with university regulations on the issue.

Walker ordered attorneys for both sides to file briefs by noon Tuesday on whether the proposed rule could affect Cassanello’s legal standing in the case.

The law lists a series of racerelated concepts that would constitute discrimination if taught in classrooms or in required workplace-training programs.

As an example, part of the law labels instruction discriminatory if it leads people to believe that they bear “responsibility for, or should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of, actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin or sex.”

As another example, the law seeks to prohibit instruction that would cause students to “feel guilt, anguish or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin or sex.”

Two businesses and a consultant who conducts workplace training filed a separate challenge to the law last week in federal court in Tallahassee. That case is pending.

New Laws: From Big Budget to Strawberry Shortcake

By Jim Turner Florida News Service

N

early 150 laws that Florida legislators passed this year are set to hit the books Friday.

The new laws range from a record $109.9 billion budget to naming a state dessert.

Some of the measures face legal challenges, such as a bill that would prevent abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and a bill that would restrict how racerelated concepts are taught in schools and workplace training.

In all, lawmakers sent 280 bills to Gov. Ron DeSantis. Of that total, 149 that were signed or were awaiting signatures Monday had July 1 effective dates. Seventy-five took effect immediately when signed. Others are slated to take effect Oct. 1, Jan. 1 or at other times.

As of the end of last week, DeSantis had vetoed 11 measures passed this year.

Here are some of the bills that will become law Friday:

BUDGET AND TAXES

--- DeSantis signed a $109.9 billion budget (HB 5001) for the 2022-2023 fiscal year, which will start Friday. The record spending plan was bolstered by federal stimulus money and higher-thanexpected state tax revenues.

--- Lawmakers passed a wideranging tax plan (HB 7071) that includes a series of sales-tax “holidays” on such things as back-

to-school clothes and supplies and a one-month suspension of the state gas tax in October.

EDUCATION

--- Dubbed by DeSantis as the “Stop WOKE Act,” lawmakers passed a measure (HB 7) that restricts how race-related concepts are taught in schools and workplace training. It has drawn a court challenge.

--- Lawmakers approved a measure (SB 1048) to replace the Florida Standards Assessments testing program in public schools with a “progress monitoring system” that would test students three times a year.

--- Lawmakers passed a measure (SB 1054) that will require high-school students, starting in the 2023-2024 academic year, to take financialliteracy courses.

--- Lawmakers passed a bill (HB 1467) to place 12-year term limits on county school-board members and to increase public scrutiny of school library books and instructional materials.

--- In an issue that fueled a national debate, lawmakers passed a measure (HB 1557) that prohibits instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third-grade and requires that such instruction in older grades be age-appropriate. It has drawn a court challenge.

— Lawmakers approved a measure (SB 7044) that requires state colleges and universities

to change accreditors at the end of each accreditation cycle and revamps the process of reviewing professors’ tenure.

HEALTH CARE

--- Amid national legal and political battles about abortion, lawmakers passed a measure (HB 5) that prevents abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The law faces a court challenge.

— Lawmakers passed a measure (SB 1950) that will help set the stage for the Agency for Health Care Administration to award billions of dollars in Medicaid managed-care contracts.

— As the use of telemedicine has increased, lawmakers approved a bill (SB 312) that expands the authority of physicians to prescribe controlled substances through telemedicine.

--- Lawmakers passed a wideranging Department of Health bill (SB 768) that will prevent renewal of licenses for medical-marijuana businesses that have not started to grow, process and sell cannabis.

LAW ENFORCEMENT

--- Lawmakers passed a wideranging bill (HB 3) that includes offering $5,000 bonuses as a tool to recruit law-enforcement officers from other states and provides $1,000 bonuses for lawenforcement officers and other first responders in Florida.

--- Lawmakers approved a plan (SB 226) that will cover veterinary costs of retired lawenforcement dogs. Handlers of

retired dogs will be able to receive up to $1,500 in reimbursements for annual costs.

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AND SPECIAL DISTRICTS

--- In an issue stemming from Walt Disney Co.’s opposition to a new law involving instruction in schools about gender identity and sexual orientation, lawmakers passed a bill (SB 4-C) that will dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which plays a key role for Disney. The law takes effect Friday, starting the clock on the June 1, 2023, dissolution of Reedy Creek and five other special districts in the state.

--- Lawmakers passed a measure (SB 105) that will allow cities and counties to restrict smoking at beaches and parks that they own. They will not be able to ban smoking unfiltered cigars.

--- The Legislature passed a bill (HB 7055) that made a series of changes related to cybersecurity, including prohibiting local governments from making ransom payments when hit with “ransomware” attacks.

WATER AND INFRASTRUCTURE

--- Lawmakers passed a measure (SB 1038) that will give Putnam County until July 1, 2024, to have a feasibility study to determine if a port could be created on the St. Johns River in Palatka.

--- With the state threatened by rising sea levels, lawmakers passed a measure (HB 7053) that creates a new resiliency office directly under the governor and expands the Resilient Florida Grant Program.

JUVENILES AND FATHERS

--- Lawmakers passed a measure (HB 195) that will expand the ability of minors to have arrest records expunged if they complete diversion programs.

The law will not apply to arrests for forcible felonies and felonies that involve the manufacture, sale, purchase, transport, possession or use of firearms.

--- In a priority of the House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, lawmakers passed a bill (HB 7065) that includes creating the “Responsible Fatherhood Initiative” within the Department of Children and Families.

STATE SYMBOLS

--- In a nod to the strawberry industry around Plant City, lawmakers approved a bill (SB 1006) that designates strawberry shortcake as Florida’s official state dessert.

Court backs man in religious sign dispute

By Jim Saunders Florida News Service

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federal appeals court Tuesday sided with a man who challenged a Fort Myers Beach ordinance that prevented him from carrying a sign with a Christian message on the town’s streets.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a district judge should have granted a request

by Adam LaCroix for a preliminary injunction against the ordinance, which barred portable signs.

The panel did not agree with an argument by LaCroix that the ordinance was a “content-based” constitutional violation. But the judges said the town’s prohibition on portable signs likely violated the First Amendment.

“The rich tradition of political lawn signs perhaps is surpassed only by

America’s history of marches and rallies dotted with handheld signs and placards of every imaginable description and covering every conceivable political message,” Judge Stanley Marcus wrote in a 26-page opinion joined by Judges Jill Pryor and Britt Grant. “Images of demonstrators holding portable signs immediately spring to mind: the March on Washington, the Women’s March, the 2000 presidential election protests in Dade County and Tallahassee, the Black Lives Matter protests in nearly every city in the country, the Tea Party protests, the Women’s Suffrage March and many more. All of them involved people carrying portable signs. And all were easy to create and customize. If the town’s prohibition on carrying all portable signs were to stand, all kinds of expressive speech protected by the First Amendment would be barred.”

The opinion said Fort Myers Beach passed a sign ordinance to try to prevent

visual blight and barred portable signs.

It said LaCroix in October 2020 was “peaceably attempting to share his religious message on a public sidewalk” when he received a warning from a codecompliance officer about violating the sign ordinance. In December 2020, he received a citation.

“Although the record (in the case) does not tell us precisely the dimensions of the sign LaCroix held nor its exact message, we know that LaCroix said he shared his ‘religious, political and social message’ which ‘is one of hope and salvation that Christianity offers,’” Marcus wrote.

A town official subsequently dismissed the citation, but LaCroix filed a federal lawsuit alleging violations of the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and a state law known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster

Chappell last year rejected the request for a preliminary injunction, spurring LaCroix and his attorneys from the American Liberties Institute to take the case to the Atlanta-based appeals court.

The opinion Tuesday sent the case back to district court.

“The most natural reading of the ordinance leads us to the conclusion that all portable signs are banned — regardless of whether they are political, religious, advertising a garage sale or an open house,” Marcus wrote. “The ordinance’s ban on portable signs is content-neutral.

But portable, handheld signs still are a rich part of the American political tradition and are one of the most common (if not the most common) methods of free expression. The ban on these signs leaves the residents of Fort Myers Beach without an effective alternative channel of communication; it very likely violates the First Amendment.”

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

Surgical expertise that revolves around you.

Expertise. Innovation. Technology.

From minimally invasive procedures to complex surgery, AdventHealth Ocala is leading the way to reimagine surgical care. Backed by national awards and accreditations, our specialists use the latest innovations, like robotic surgical systems, that mean less pain, less scarring, and a quicker recovery – so you can feel whole and get back to the life you love.

AdventHealthOcala.com

849439972-02-AHO-GeneralSurgeryExpertise-PrintAd-OcalaGazette-11.22x20.indd 2

6/3/22 12:04 PM

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

People, Places & Things Legendary coach Brent Hall dead at 83

From left, Scott Brantley, Brent Hall and John Brantley. [Supplied]

By Brad Rogers Corrsepondent

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rent Hall, the legendary high school football coach who taught his champion-winning ways to two generations of Marion County boys, died last week. He was 83.

Hall, who gained acclaim after coaching Forest High to back-to-back state championships in 1974 and 1975, had a

storied coaching career across Florida.

He also coached Jefferson High School (Monticello) to a state championship in 1966 -- a team that included future NFL Hall of Famer Jack Youngblood.

“You hope to have a couple people in your life who make a difference,” said Trinity Catholic head football coach John Brantley, who quarterbacked Hall’s ’74 Forest championship team. “He definitely made a difference in a lot of young men’s

lives in our community.”

Hall died June 18, 2022, from prostate cancer. Born January 3, 1939, in Morgan County, Ohio, he was raised in Millersburg, Ohio, where he played high school football.

He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Jean Needham Hall; a brother, Royal Hall; children Tina Hall, Kyle Hall, Brent S. Hall, Kimberly Woodridge (Dean), William “Billy” Campbell (Greta), and Melissa Mosher (Brad); and by grandchildren William Hall, Dodie Hamrik, Dean Woodridge, Dean Paddock and Sean Campbell. He was preceded in death by his brother, Gary Hall, a daughter Lori C. Paddock and a grandson Benjamin Paddock.

Hall had a career record of 149 wins, 98 losses and 2 ties. In addition to coaching at Forest, he was head coach at Jefferson County (Monticello), Suwannee High (Live Oak), Spruce Creek (Port Orange) and Belleview High School.

His final stint was at Belleview, where he led the Rattlers to four consecutive postseason appearances. He retired from coaching following the 2000 season.

Hall was inducted into the Florida High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame (FHSAA) in 2001 and the Florida Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame (FACA) in 2003. In addition to winning a trio of state championships, Hall was named the FACA coach of the year four times – 1966, 1974, 1975 and 2000. In 2015, Belleview High named is football field “Brent Hall Field at the Strike Zone.”

Those who played and worked for Hall remember a no-nonsense leader who expected hard work and results.

“He knew what he was doing and knew how to get you to do your best and how to play your best,” said fellow Hall of Fame coach Dwight Thomas, though Hall was never “a rah-rah kind of coach.

He made kids believe. He made coaches believe. As a coach or a player, you were to do your job. That was what was

expected. And we did it.”

David Lancaster, a former Forest player and later an assistant coach under Hall, said “love of country” and its history were evident in the late coach’s approach on the football field.

Hall was a history teacher and school administrator throughout his career.

Lancaster remembers a conversation he had with Hall about Gen. George Patton.

“He coached his team in a lot of ways like Gen. Patton coached his men,” Lancaster said.

Brantley also remembered Hall’s weaving history into his coaching.

“He taught history,” Brantley said. “His Friday night speeches were built around battles and wars, and how we were going to win the war.”

Hall coached more than 1,500 young men in a career that spanned four decades.

In a 2015 interview with the Ocala StarBanner, it wasn’t the championships or the hall of fame inductions that he wanted to talk about, though. Rather, he wanted to talk about the players and coaches who had gone on to be successful in their lives and their communities.

“When you embark on a coaching career, you have high hopes,” Hall said. “I just believe in working day to day and staying true to yourself and the people around you.

That’s the key to success in life. Anything that comes after that is just gravy.”

Brantley said that was Hall every day.

“He was hard, but he was fair. He just wanted to bring out the best in every player he came in touch with. He sold the word ‘team.’ We didn’t have any individuals on our team at Forest.”

A memorial service for Brent Hall will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, July 1, at the First Presbyterian Church of Ocala.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests a donation be made in Hall’s name to one of the following: Marion County Youth Football League, Forest High School Football Booster Club or Belleview High School Football Booster Club.

Women’s Expo fosters empowerment, inspires passion

By Ocala Gazette Staff

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hose seated in a classroom listening to Ocala Police Department Major Angy Scroble were rapt as she talked about personal safety and offered tips about awareness of your environment and paying attention to details, such as tag numbers, when using a ride service.

Scroble shared incidents from her life that, she said, brought her some of the valuable lessons she shared with audience members on Saturday, June 25, at the Ocala Style Women’s Expo at the College of Central Florida.

Other guest speakers included Katherine O’Brien, DVM, owner of Maricamp Animal Hospital; Marion County Commissioner Michelle Stone and Marion County School Board

member Allison Campbell; attorneys Janet Behnke and Mary Catherine Landt; and business coach Stacey Ansley.

The expo also featured a wide variety of vendors, many of which offered gifts and treats along with information and even demonstrations about their services.

The event, which had a theme of fostering empowerment and inspiring passion, delivered on those topics as it served as a forum for sharing, socializing and bonding.

The PACE Center for Girls – Marion, a nationally recognized organization that provides young women an opportunity for a better future through education, counseling, training and advocacy, was the beneficiary of proceeds from ticket sales and a raffle.

“Women face challenges unique to their gender. It’s uplifting when we can come together during events like these for frank, empathetic conversation about how to navigate those challenges,” said Jennifer Hunt Murty, publisher of Ocala Style magazine, the event’s organizer.

Stacey Ansley

Photos By Bruce Ackerman Ocala Gazette

Top left: Major Angy Scroble of the Ocala Police Department speaks to women during the Ocala Style Magazine Women’s Expo at the Klein Conference Center at the College of Central Florida in Ocala on Saturday, June 25, 2022.

Middle left: Attorneys Mary Catherine Landt, left and Janet Behnke, right Bottom left: County Commissioner Michelle Stone, left and Allison Campbell, a member of the Marion County Public School Board, right

Dr. Katherine O’Brien of the Maricamp Animal Hospital

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

Appleton Museum of Art brings back programs

Maritza Jauregui teaches students how to sketch and visualize shapes as she teaches the Art Explorations class at the Appleton Museum of Art on East Silver Springs Boulevard in Ocala on Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2022. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2022.

Left: Alex Fagundo, 6, left, and his brother, Leandro, 8, right, learn to paint with other students on the first day of the Art Explorations class taught by Maritza Jauregui at the Appleton Museum of Art on East Silver Springs Boulevard in Ocala on Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2022. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2022.

Ocala’s renowned museum is again offering summer camps and other popular activities.

By Kenneth Witkowich Correspondent

T

he Appleton Museum of Art is back to offering summer activities and programs at full capacity after two years of limited operations due to the pandemic.

“This summer we are actually opening up our art camps again, so we are able to allow the community in,” said James Dickins, coordinator of finance services.

The museum is offering in-person, oneto two-week camps through July 29. The camps are recommended for ages 4 and up and the remaining themes include artists inspired by food, clay and pottery, pop art, meet the artist, fashion and more.

Dickins said the museum also has new exhibits and partnerships, notably

“Finding Beauty: A Collaborative Exhibition with Ocala Civic Theatre” and a recently acquired collection from the now-closed Foosaner Art Museum of the Florida Institute of Technology.

As well as including new exhibits, “We are focusing a lot on preserving our current collection,” Dickins said.

The Appleton’s current collection includes a European section with artworks from the Romantic, Post-Romantic and Orientalism movements as well as a section where Florida artists’ works are on display.

The museum has permanent collections of equine, Asian, African, maritime, modern and Pre-Colombian artworks.

Dickins said the Appleton’s collections are valued at more than $25 million and include over 10,000 individual pieces of art.

Dickins said there is a strong sense of

community at the Appleton, especially over the last two years when it was shut down or operating at limited capacity. To help maintain that connection, museum officials filmed educational videos about art and the museum for Marion County instructors and students who were forced to study at home because of COVID-19.

Educational and instructional videos and online resources are available on the museum’s website and the Appleton also has a mobile app that is free to download.

Dickins said this was a key way to keep the community engaged.

Collen Harper, manager of membership and events at the Appleton, said the museum was completely closed for eight months. It partially reopened in October 2020 with public health measures like mask requirements and limitations on

the number of guests, social distancing markers on the floors and hand sanitizers throughout the museum, which remained in place for the next year.

While the venue was closed, Harper said, people would still renew their memberships and support the museum, even though they could not enjoy the benefits. But when the museum got back to pre-pandemic operating hours, membership numbers came back in full force, she noted.

Hand sanitizer stations are still located throughout the museum and masks are available for those who want to wear them.

Harper said it is easy to maintain social distancing while enjoying the museum.

The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. To learn more, visit appletonmuseum.org

‘Elvis,’ ‘Top Gun’ tie for box-office crown with $30.5M each

Austin Butler, from left, director Baz Luhrmann, and Tom Hanks pose for photographers upon arrival for the premiere of the film ‘Elvis’ in London Tuesday, May 31, 2022. [Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP]

By Jake Coyle AP Film Writer

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az Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic “Elvis” shook up theaters with an estimated $30.5 million in weekend ticket sales, but — in a box-office rarity — “Elvis” tied “Top Gun: Maverick,” which also reported $30.5 million, for No. 1 in theaters.

Final figures Monday, once Sunday’s grosses are tabulated, will sort out which film ultimately won the weekend. With a high degree of accuracy, studios can forecast Sunday sales based on Friday and Saturday business, though numbers often shift by a few hundred thousand dollars.

But for now, the unlikely pair of “Elvis” and “Maverick” are locked in a dance off (if you favor “Elvis”) or a dead heat (if you prefer “Maverick”). That it was this close at all was due to both a betterthan-expected opening for “Elvis” and

remarkably strong continued sales for “Top Gun: Maverick.” The “Top Gun” sequel reached $1 billion in worldwide box office in its fifth week of release.

“Elvis,” starring newcomer Austin Butler as Presley, came into the weekend with expectations closer to $25 million.

Among recent music biopics, a $30.5 million debut puts the King ahead of the pace of Elton John (“Rocketman” launched with $25.7 million in 2019) though not in the same class as Freddie Mercury (“Bohemian Rhapsody” opened with $51.1 million in 2018).

“I’m less concerned with who’s number one and who’s number two, and I’m more concerned that we hit this big number given that this audience has been the slowest to return to movie theaters,” said Jeff Goldstein, distribution chief for Warner Bros.

About 60% of the audience for “Elvis” was over the age of 35. Older audiences

have been among the most hesitant to return to theaters in the pandemic but that’s changing — in part, Goldstein noted, because of “Top Gun,” which brought back fans of the 1986 original.

“Elvis,” which cost about $85 million to make, was propelled by strong reviews (78% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), good word of mouth (an A- CinemaScore) and a glitzy Cannes Film Festival premiere. It added $20 million overseas over the weekend.

“Elvis” ranks as Luhrmann’s second best opening after 2013’s “The Great Gatsby” ($50.1 million). Luhrmann was on the cusp of beginning production in Australia when, in an indelible early moment in the pandemic, star Tom Hanks tested positive for COVID-19. “‘Elvis’ was a risky proposition: the music is dated, the character is not directly familiar, and the lead actor is unproven on the big screen,” David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research wrote in a newsletter. “But critics and audiences are responding. This is the Baz Luhrmann show, a music, dance and sex appeal spectacular — it’s a hit.”

Meanwhile, “Top Gun: Maverick” continues to soar. The Paramount Pictures film became the first 2022 release to reach $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales, and the first starring Tom Cruise to do so.

In its fifth weekend of release, “Maverick” dipped just 32% domestically to bring its total so far to $521.7 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters. It continues to move up the record books, sitting 15th all-time domestically, not accounting for inflation. Internationally, the “Top Gun” sequel added another $44.5 million.

The “Elvis”/”Top Gun” showdown — along with the new Blumhouse horror release “The Black Phone” and big holdovers in “Jurassic World: Dominion” and Pixar’s “Lightyear” — made for one of the most competitive, and busy, weekends in movie theaters in the pandemic era.

Most studios came away celebrating, though Disney’s “Lightyear” dropped a

steep 65% in its second weekend. After opening softly last week, the “Toy Story” spinoff grossed $17.7 million domestically, falling to fifth place. “Lightyear,” which has made $152 million worldwide to date, will soon face more competition for families with the Friday release of “Minions: The Rise of Gru.” Counterprogramming came from Universal Pictures’ “The Black Phone,” the Scott Derrickson-directed supernatural thriller starring Ethan Hawke as an escaped killer. The Blumhouse production rode strong reviews (84% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) to a better-than-expected launch of $23.4 million.

After two weeks in first place, Universal’s “Jurassic World: Dominion” took in $26.4 million, sliding to third. It’s now passed $300 million domestically, and hauled in $746.7 million globally.

A much smaller-scaled film, “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,” debuted with good sales in limited release. The warmly received stop-motion animation film, in which Jenny Slate voices a one-inch-tall mollusk with a googly eye, opened with $169,606 on six screens, for a per-screen average of $28,267.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. (Tie) “Elvis,” $30.5 million.

1. (Tie) “Top Gun: Maverick,” $30.5 million.

3. “Jurassic World: Dominion,” $26.4 million.

4. “Black Phone,” $23.4 million.

5. “Lightyear,” $17.7 million.

6. “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” $1.7 million.

7. “Jugjugg Jeeyo,” $725,000.

8. “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” $533,000.

9. “The Bob’s Burgers Movie,” $513,000.

10. “The Bad Guys,” $440,000.

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

A new template for cultural empathy MCA embarks on a new exhibition concept to promote a more intimate understanding of others through the arts, inaugurated by artist and diversity advocate Dr. Sheni Meghani.

Dr. Sheni Meghani

By Julie Garisto julie@magnoliamediaco.com

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ccording to Dr. Sheni Meghani, enjoyment of the arts is a threedimensional experience that immerses the participant in culture and different sensual experiences -- sights, sounds, textures, flavors and aromas-- by way of the imagination.

But most, importantly, art also celebrates how similar we are.

Meghani inspires and educates workplaces and organizations as a diversity consultant with husband and partner Cain Davis. She also serves on the board of Marion Cultural Alliance and chairs the nonprofit’s programming committee.

Her upcoming exhibition event, “Glimpses of India: A Unique Immersive Experience of the Arts, Music, Culture, and Traditions of India,” will take over the Brick City Center for the Arts July 1-9. Expect a full slate of entertaining, informative events (see info box for details).

Meghani planned the exhibition to do more than display art and educate the public. Besides showcasing her art and culture in a variety of media -- including folk music and textiles -- “Glimpses of India” will serve as a pilot for future exhibitions, which will allow the Marion Cultural Alliance to issue calls for member artists and others to exhibit works centered on their cultural background in a variety of media, providing dialogue, folklore, history, real-life stories, everyday objects and other ephemera that allows people to see the world from their perspective.

“We can use this map to showcase different cultures that represent this community,” the Ocala resident effused.

She stresses that she wants her exhibition to be collaborative. “India is so diverse,” Meghani explained. “So, what I can share is a very, very minute portion of India, based on just my experience. So, I have invited the Indian community not just to attend but to participate.”

Meghani grew up in Gujarat, the western part of India. In her youth, she trained in Indian classical singing, dancing and painting. In her paintings, she shares the stories she heard, read and danced to as a child growing up in India. Her work blends singing and storytelling into a multisensory experience of her birthplace’s traditional folk-life. Her art conveys her view and appreciation of the peacock.

“The peacock has symbolized wealth, beauty, art and much more since the beginning of time,” she said.

Meghani enjoys wearing sarees. Expect to hear her singing Indian songs (yes, she has a lovely voice).

When she’s not creating art, Meghani engages the community, businesses and individuals through her work as a diversity and inclusion professional, as a Senior Partner of Diversified Consulting Concepts and as president of the Strategic Community Alliance Inc., a nonprofit organization.

In her art and as a representative of both organizations, she educates people with infectious enthusiasm and a sense of humor while sharing mindful ways to approach leadership, cultural competence and

diversity in an effort to promote inclusion.

She’s also a board-certified physician in internal medicine, geriatric medicine, palliative medicine and hospice care.

Empathy drives Meghani’s work as an artist and consultant. We can only imagine the ripple effect she might create by creating a new practice of immersing in another culture and walking in someone else’s shoes.

Dr. Sheni Meghani shares ideas about her art at the Brick. [Photo courtesy of the Marion Cultural Alliance]

“Melody of Painted Forest”

(markers on canvas, 16x20 inches) Based on the folk song that Dr. Sheni Meghani heard her mother singing growing up.

Glimpses of India Events | Register online at mcaocala.org Friday, July 1 - Thursday, July 9: gallery exhibit “Glimpses of India” paintings based on folklife of India. Free admission. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 pm, Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.)

Also on July 1, from 5 to 7 p.m.: Opening Reception: “Arts, Culture and Bites of India” Saturday, July 2, 1-3 p.m.: Guided tour of the exhibit and talk with the artist. Free admission.

Tuesday, July 5, 5:30-7 p.m.: Lecture Demonstration: Introduction to the folk culture of India.

Free admission, Wednesday, July 6, 5:30-7 p.m.: Lecture Demonstration: Music, Dance & Song. Festivals of India. Free admission.

Thursday, July 7, 5:30-7:30 pm - Art of Henna Class, $35 fee with all materials included.

Friday, July 8, 5:30-7 p.m., Indian Sari Workshop (opportunity for participants to wear sari).

Free. RSVP requested online at mcaocala.org

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

Sudoku is played on a grid of 9 x 9 spaces. Within the rows and columns are 9 “squares” (made up of 3 x 3 spaces). Each row, column and square (9 spaces each) needs to be filled out with the numbers 1-9, without repeating any numbers within the same row, column or square.

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very Friday, James Blevins, this newspaper’s in-house reporter and poet—who has seen his work previously published in “Salt Hill Journal,” “Pretty Owl Poetry,” “Stoneboat Journal,” “Mud Season Review” and

“AZURE,” as well as numerous other outlets both online and in print—chooses one poem for publication.

Additionally, Blevins will share a poem of his own, just for good measure, at the end of each calendar month.

A Lazy Day

By Paul Laurence Dunbar

The trees bend down along the stream, Where anchored swings my tiny boat.

The day is one to drowse and dream And list the thrush’s throttling note.

When music from his bosom bleeds Among the river’s rustling reeds.

No ripple stirs the placid pool, When my adventurous line is cast, A truce to sport, while clear and cool, The mirrored clouds slide softly past.

The sky gives back a blue divine, And all the world’s wide wealth is mine.

A pickerel leaps, a bow of light, The minnows shine from side to side.

The first faint breeze comes up the tide— I pause with half uplifted oar, While night drifts down to claim the shore.

Paul Laurence Dunbar, born in 1872 and the author of numerous collections of poetry and prose, was one of the first Black poets to gain national recognition. In 1893, Dunbar self-published a collection called “Oak and Ivy.” Two years later, his poems

began appearing in major national newspapers and magazines, such as “The New York Times.” Dunbar’s steadily deteriorating health caused him to return to his mother’s home in Dayton, Ohio, where he died on February 9, 1906, at the age of 33.

OCALA REC AND PARKS ANNOUNCES DEBUT OF NEW DEPARTMENT MASCOT

By Ocala Gazette Staff

J

uly is National Parks and Recreation Month—a time to highlight the impact of parks and recreation within the community.

And to commemorate this, the Ocala Recreation and Parks Department announced in a June 23 press release that it would launch the arrival of its new mascot, Rex the Squirrel, today, July 1, as part of the month-long celebration.

“We are thrilled to welcome Rex to the Ocala Rec and Parks team,” said Preston Pooser, Ocala Recreation and Parks director. “Rex will be a great ambassador to our department while providing an opportunity to interact with children, tweens and adults about fun activities and wildlife education within our city parks.”

Additionally, Rex’s Birthday Bash will be on Wednesday, July 20, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Tuscawilla Park, 800 N.E. Sanchez Ave. The family-friendly event will feature outdoor activities, face painting, free cupcakes and ice cream, provided by the Ocala Police Department Polar Patrol.

Rex will make appearances throughout the day as well, including photo opportunities.

Furthermore, throughout

the month of July, Ocala Recs and Park encouraged residents and visitors to share stories and pictures of how recreation and parks in the city have impacted their lives with the hashtag #OcalaRecPark, according to the press release.

For more information, visit www.ocalafl.org/recpark or call the City of Ocala Recreation and Parks Department at (352) 368-5517.

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ANSWERS TO PUZZLES ON PAGE B7

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

LOCAL CALENDAR LISTINGS

Marion County Friday Market

McPherson Government Campus Field, 601 SE 25th Ave., Ocala 9am-2pm Shop locally fresh fruits and veggies, baked goods, jerky, freeze-dried treats, olive oils, seafood and more; recurs every Friday.

JULY 2 & 9

Yoga in the Park

Sholom Park: 7110 SW 80th Ave., Ocala 9am Snake into your cobra pose and get your downward dog going. Stretch out by the Sholom Park stage; recurs every Saturday morning. Visit sholompark.org for details.

JULY 2 & 9

Ocala Farmers Market

Ocala Downtown Market, 310 SE Third St., Ocala 9am-2pm A variety of vendors offer local fruits and vegetables, meats and seafood, fresh pasta, honey, jewelry, baked goodies, and arts and crafts. Check out some local food trucks and the occasional guest entertainer. Rain or shine; recurs every Saturday. Visit ocaladowntownmarket.com for more information.

JULY 2 & 9

plants, produce and hand-crafted items. Booth types vary with occasional meat vendors, food trucks and other goods. Saturdays, weather permitting.

templebethshalom@gmail.com.

JULY 2 & 9

ABCs of Dementia Workshop

Summer Sunset Polo

Florida Horse Park, 11008 South Highway 475, Ocala 6pm Once the sun goes down, the breeze kicks in. Free to the public, tailgate right next to the polo field and enjoy a unique evening out. Saturday evenings through September. For more info, ocalapolo.com

JULY 1-3, 6-10

Ocala Summer Series Weeks 4 and 5- Hunter/Jumper Show

World Equestrian Center Ocala, 1390 NW 80th Ave., Ocala All day Enjoy shows sanctioned by the United States Equestrian Federation and see a variety of horses and riders work the courses. Shows will run through August, many in the indoor arenas.

Grand Prix events take place Saturday nights in the Grand Arena. More than $3 million is prizes will be awarded. Spectators are welcome. WEC has restaurants onsite and shopping options. For more info, worldequestriancenter.com

JULY 3

Stone Creek Glee Club concert

Farmers Swap Meet

Rural King, 2999 NW 10th St., Ocala 9am-2pm A true farmers swap meet, where chickens, goats, turkeys, rabbits and sometimes even ponies are available, along with horse tack, home-grown

Ocala Tree of Life Sanctuary, 8075 SW 63rd Street Road, Ocala 4pm This free choral concert by the Stone Creek Glee Club is hosted by Temple Beth Shalom. Donations accepted, but not required. For more info,

government JULY 5

City of Belleview City Commission Meeting 5343 SE Abshier Blvd., Belleview 5:30pm-6:30pm Recurs every first and third Tuesday.

JULY 5

City of Ocala City Council Meeting City Hall, 110 SE Watula Ave., Ocala 4pm Recurs every first and third Tuesday.

JULY 6

with Best Junior Handler Overall. Free and open to the public for viewing; competing dogs must be officially entered. WEC has onsite food and beverage options. For more info, worldequestriancenter.com

Belleview Public Library, 13145 SE County Highway 484, Belleview 11am-1pm Caregivers are invited to this free dementia workshop hosted by Coping with Dementia and the Marion County Library System. The progress of the disease, how to cope with its challenges and how to be a better caregiver will be discussed. Free to all; reservations are strongly encouraged. Call 352-422-3663.

JULY 7

Farmers Market

The Town Square at Circle Square Commons, 8405 SW 80th St., Ocala 9am-1pm Large selection of fresh seasonal produce from local growers as well as baked goods, plants, handmade soaps and more; recurs every Thursday.

Visit circlesquarecommons.com for more info.

JULY 8-10

Citrus County Kennel Club AKC AllBreed Show

World Equestrian Center Ocala, Expo Center 2, 1390 NW 80th Ave., Ocala 8am-6pm Dogs of all breeds will be shown, from bulldogs to Bischons, Labradors to Lhasa apsos. Featured classes include National Owner-Handler Series and Best Junior Handler. Saturday’s featured class will be Best Puppy in Show and Sunday classes will conclude

JULY 6

Marion County Board of County Commissioners Meeting

McPherson Governmental Campus Auditorium, 601 SE 25th Ave., Ocala 9am (Normally, recurs every first and third Tuesday. This date rescheduled.)

JULY 10

Family Fundraiser

Fashion Cuts Hair and Beauty Academy, 3452 NE Jacksonville Road Noon to 5pm The event, to benefit a family in need, according to organizers, will include $5 barber cuts, festival braids and free food. To learn more, call 352-512-0333.

JULY 6

Marion County Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting McPherson Governmental Campus Auditorium, 601 SE 25th Ave., Ocala 2pm Final hearing meetings are on the first and third Tuesday.

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

arts JULY 1

Levitt AMP Ocala Music Series

Webb Field at Martin Luther King Recreation Complex, 1510 NW 4th St, Ocala 7-9pm Free music concerts sponsored by the City of Ocala and Marion Cultural Alliance include a variety of music genres. The July 1 artist will be Miles Nielsen and the Rusted Hearts, for the last night of the series. For more info, ocalafl.org or facebook.com/levittampocala

JULY 1-9

The MCA Experience: Glimpses of India

Brick City Center for the Arts, 23 SW Broadway St., Ocala 6:30 pm, opening reception; other event times vary Step into this immersive experience celebrating the music, culture and arts of India. Local artist Dr. Sheni Meghani will narrate and sing Indian folk stories and exhibit her paintings depicting folk-life, art, festivals and the saris of the women of India. Events include lectures, guided tours, art workshops and an opening reception. Most events are free to attend, registration required. Days and times vary, see mcaocala.org for more info.

JULY 2

Free First Saturday at the Appleton Museum of Art

Appleton Museum of Art, 4333 E Silver Springs Blvd., Ocala 10am-5pm Free admission for all to the permanent collection and special exhibits. Take this opportunity to

explore this art-filled space and the garden atrium.

Big Lee’s BBQ food truck is onsite from 11am-2pm.

For more info, appletonmuseum.org

JULY 3

Red, White and Ocala Symphony Blue

Reilly Arts Center, 500 NE 9th St., Ocala 3pm Celebrate the red, white and blue with patriotic music from the Ocala Symphony Orchestra.

Marches and American music are slated, along with music from the movie, The Patriot. Also, a special salute to our troops. Tickets are $15-$40 from reillyartscenter.com

JULY 5-6

Ocala Summer Movie Express

Regal 16 Theaters, 2801 SW 27th Ave.,Ocala Times vary, check website Tickets are $2 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays; check the theater website for showtimes. Movies the whole family will enjoy include: 7/05-7/06 Puss in Boots and Sing; 7/12-7/13 Sing 2 and Space Jam: A New Legacy; 7/19-7/20 Despicable Me 3 and Tom & Jerry; 7/26-7/27 Minions and Trolls: World Tour, and 8/02-8/03 The Boss Baby: Family Business and The Croods: A New Age. For more info, ocalamarion.com/events/ regal-16-ocala-summermovieexpress/

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Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. Visit appletonmuseum.org for details.

Marion Theater, 50 S Magnolia Ave., Ocala 10am More movies! The Summer Kids Film Series runs through August 5. Children enjoy movies for $3 (includes juice, popcorn and fruit snack) and adults for $5. Upcoming movies include Sing 2, How to Train Your Dragon, PAW Patrol, Where the Wild Things Are, The Lorax and Gnomeo and Juliet. Visit reillyartscenter.com/mariontickets for more info.

THROUGH SEPTEMBER 13

Summer Kid’s Film Series

THROUGH JULY 28

Summer Spotlight XXV: Town and Country

College of Central Florida Webber Gallery, 3001 SW College Road, Ocala Mon-Fri 10am-4pm This special collection, by the Visual Artists Society, is part of its Summer Spotlight series that displays local artists’ works in a variety of mediums.

Experience the creativity and see artwork done in photographs, digital media, paintings, 3-D objects and more. For more info, cf.edu/student-life/artsand-culture/webber-gallery

Journey to My Soul: Landscape of My Mind by Kelley Batson-Howard

City of Ocala Recreation and Parks Administration Building, 828 NE Eighth Ave., Ocala Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm This free art exhibits showcases the work of artist Batson-Howard, who creates abstract works to bring beauty to the world. Her work is variable, often colorful and full of whimsy. Open to the public. For more info, Kbatsonart.com

THROUGH NOVEMBER 6

Invented Observations: Photographs by Steven Benson

Appleton Museum of Art, 4333 E. Silver Springs Blvd., Ocala Tue-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 12-5pm Professor, educator and artist Benson has this exhibition of his photographs at the museum. His work represents humans’ search for meaning. For more info, appletonmuseum.org for details.

THROUGH JULY 31

A Strange and Picturesque Country: Etchings by Earl H. Reed

Appleton Museum of Art, 4333 E. Silver Springs Blvd., Ocala Tue-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 12-5pm Prints from the permanent collection by Earl Howell Reed. Although a largely self-taught artist, Reed’s work can be viewed in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American

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The Yellow Pony World Equestrian Center Ocala, 1390 NW 80th Ave., Ocala 6-9pm Dinner, drinks and entertainment. For details, visit worldequestriancenter.com

The Yellow Pony World Equestrian Center Ocala, 1390 NW 80th Ave., Ocala 6-9pm Dinner, drinks and entertainment. For details, visit worldequestriancenter.com

The Town Square at Circle Square Commons 8405 SW 80th St., Ocala 7-10pm Free and open to the public. Visit circlesquarecommons.com for details.

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JULY 2

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The Yellow Pony World Equestrian Center Ocala, 1390 NW 80th Ave., Ocala 6-9pm Dinner, drinks and entertainment. For details, visit worldequestriancenter.com

The Rundown

The Yellow Pony World Equestrian Center Ocala, 1390 NW 80th Ave., Ocala 6-9pm Dinner, drinks and entertainment. For details, visit worldequestriancenter.com

The Town Square at Circle Square Commons 8405 SW 80th St., Ocala 7-10pm Free and open to the public. Visit circlesquarecommons.com for details.

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The Yellow Pony World Equestrian Center Ocala, 1390 NW 80th Ave., Ocala 6-9pm Dinner, drinks and entertainment. For details, visit worldequestriancenter.com

The Yellow Pony World Equestrian Center Ocala, 1390 NW 80th Ave., Ocala 6-9pm Dinner, drinks and entertainment. For details, visit worldequestriancenter.com

Joe’s Garage Band

The Town Square at Circle Square Commons 8405 SW 80th St., Ocala 7-10pm Free and open to the public. Visit circlesquarecommons.com for details.

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

The chanchita may have the highest cold tolerance of all nonnative fish in Central Florida

Some specimens were caught with the classic hook and line, but chanchita often nests in the margins of rivers and streams, making them easier to catch with a net. [Rob Robins]

By Brian Smith Florida Museum of Natural History

W

hen Florida Museum ichthyology collection manager Rob Robins brought home fish samples from central Florida in 2017, he didn’t anticipate he’d be adding a new member to the state’s list of non-native species. But thanks to the sharp eye of a U.S Geological Survey colleague, what was initially thought to be one exotic fish turned out to be another, one that had gone unreported in Florida’s waters for almost two decades.

The interloper, called chanchita, is a cichlid fish native to the Paraguay and Paraná River basins in South America, and its appearance in Florida wasn’t the only surprise it had in store for biologists. In a new study, researchers have determined that chanchita, Cichlasoma dimerus, has the highest cold tolerance of all non-native species in the state tested thus far, raising questions regarding how far it could travel through Florida’s freshwater ecosystems.

Chanchita is the cold-hardiest of the bunch

Florida has the most established exotic fish species of any state, and scientists believe one of the biggest limiting factors for how much of the state these fish colonize is temperature. Despite its reputation for being one of the hottest regions in North America, temperatures vary across the state’s six-degree latitude span, and weather can be significantly colder in north Florida and the Panhandle than what most tropical fish are able to endure.

Higher cold tolerance means that the chanchita might colonize territory that other non-native fish haven’t, which could affect local fish populations.

To test the species’ cold tolerance, 50 chanchita were collected from waters across central Florida and taken to the U.S. Geological Society Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, where they were acclimated in large tanks. The location where each specimen was collected is displayed in the interactive map of Central Florida below.

After a period of acclimation, the fish were then divided into three groups: one control and two test groups. In the latter, the fish were monitored while the water temperature in their tanks was decreased by 1 degree per hour. Researchers noted the temperature at which fish lost the ability to swim in the first group and the temperature beyond which individuals were able to survive in the second.

Their results suggest that chanchita in the lab can withstand temperatures as low as 46 degrees Fahrenheit on average before losing equilibrium and can survive at a frigid 40.5 degrees Fahrenheit before dying. These findings likely make the chanchita wellequipped to survive central Florida’s winters and

possibly areas of north Florida as well.

Chanchita are good parents

Evidence suggests that the chanchita has been in Florida for at least 21 years, often being misidentified as black acara, Cichlasoma bimaculatum, even by well-trained scientists. Despite the mismatches with its doppelganger, a few enthusiasts and naturalists could sense that there was something fishy going on for years, making posts online that never garnered much attention.

It wasn’t until Mary Brown, a biologist working with the Wetland and Aquatic Research Center and senior author on the study, spotted them in their tank that the first official study was launched. “She just sees things differently than I do,” Robins said. “That’s how this all got started.”

Chanchita have many features that helped them survive in Florida beyond cold tolerance. While many other species lay their eggs and leave their newly hatched fish to fend for themselves, chanchita are much more involved in the hatching and parenting processes. Expecting parents dig small burrows in riverbeds to lay eggs in, and at least one parent stays with the eggs around the clock while the other looks for food or defends the nest. These nests are often dug in the margins of streams and rivers, away from the main channel, where predators may be lurking.

Once the eggs hatch, the parents continue to guard them until they’re ready to leave the nest, at times even carrying their young in their mouths when they need to be moved to a new location.

There is a possibility that chanchita travel among adjacent water sources during flooding periods, which it is believed to do in its native South American habitat. In Florida, there are a few stories of farmers near Kissimmee discovering chanchitas in their cattle ponds after tropical storms. This mode of travel may have facilitated their current distribution in Florida and allowed them to spread out farther.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see this fish go a little further north, up into the Gainesville area, and from there up into the Jacksonville area,” Robins said.

The authors published their study in the journal Management of Biological Invasions with senior author Pamela Schofield of the U.S Geological Survey. ____________________________ Funding for this study was provided by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Invasive Species program and the USGS Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, Gainesville, FL. The Florida Museum of Natural History has been inspiring people to value and protect the biological richness and cultural heritage of our diverse world for more than a century. Located on the University of Florida campus, the Florida Museum is home to more than 40 million specimens and artifacts, one of the nation’s largest natural history collections. For more Florida Museum research and collections news, visit https://www.floridamuseum. ufl.edu/science/ or follow us on social media, @FloridaMuseum.

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This chanchita specimen, caught in Barnett Park, Orlando, has black spots running down its dorsal fin to the tail and appears strikingly similar to a black acara. [BALTIMOREFISHING1, CC-BY-NC]

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

Functional dyspepsia can significantly affect quality of life

GRAB FRESH COD FROM YOUR FAVORITE FARMERS MARKET AND RUN HOME TO MAKE THIS DELICIOUS DINNER!

By Robert Kraichely, M.D. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research

D

EAR MAYO CLINIC: I have dealt with digestive issues for much of my 30s.

Ulcers run in my family. My doctor said that while I could have an ulcer, testing could determine if it is functional dyspepsia. What is the difference, what causes functional dyspepsia and is it treatable?

ANSWER: Functional dyspepsia, also called nonulcer dyspepsia, and peptic ulcers can feel much the same. But, unlike a peptic ulcer, which involves open sores in the digestive tract, functional dyspepsia involves recurring indigestion or stomach pain that has no obvious cause. Common signs and symptoms of functional dyspepsia include a burning sensation or discomfort in your upper abdomen or lower chest; bloating; belching; an early feeling of fullness when eating; and nausea. While not life-threatening, the symptoms can significantly affect your quality of life.

To begin the diagnostic process, your health care professional likely will perform a physical exam. Blood tests may be performed to help rule out other diseases that can cause symptoms similar to dyspepsia.

One component to help with diagnosis is endoscopy, in which a thin, flexible, lighted instrument called an endoscope is passed down your throat so that your health care professional can view your esophagus, stomach and the first part of your small intestine. Endoscopy also allows your health care professional to collect small pieces of tissue from your stomach or duodenum to look for inflammation or cancerous growths. This procedure is called a biopsy.

Your health care professional can determine whether an endoscopy is needed, but endoscopy generally is recommended in adults 60 and older who have symptoms.

A normal result on this test most often indicates functional dyspepsia. Endoscopy also may be performed on adults younger than 60 who have “alarm” features -- such as weight loss, anemia, difficulty swallowing or persistent vomiting -- along with dyspepsia symptoms. This is determined on an individual basis.

If no abnormal results are found with endoscopy, a noninvasive breath or stool test to check for the Helicobacter pylori, or H. pylori, bacterial infection may follow to guide the course of treatment. This test also is used for adults under 60 with no alarm features. If H. pylori is present, your health care professional may recommend an antibiotic to eliminate the infection.

For those who test negative for the bacterium, as well as for those whose symptoms persist after antibiotic treatment and clearance of H. pylori, the first line of treatment is to reduce stomach acid. This may be performed using two types of medications: proton pump inhibitors or H2-receptor blockers. Proton pump inhibitors reduce acid by shutting down the tiny pumps within stomach cells.

Examples include esomeprazole (Nexium), lansoprazole (Prevacid) and omeprazole (Prilosec). H2-receptor blockers, including famotidine (Pepcid) and ranitidine (Zantac), reduce acid production by blocking histamine receptors in stomach cells.

If these options don’t manage your symptoms, other medications are available, including those that affect nerve endings in the stomach. Cognitive behavioral therapy also may be recommended to cope with the symptoms and reduce the stress that may trigger stomach pain.

Because functional dyspepsia lacks a fully understood cause and its symptoms overlap with other gastrointestinal conditions, the diagnosis of functional dyspepsia can be challenging. Researchers continue to explore better means of clearly identifying it. -- Robert Kraichely, M.D., Gastroenterology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota (Mayo Clinic Q & A is an educational resource and doesn’t replace regular medical care. E-mail a question to MayoClinicQ&A@mayo.edu. For more information, visit www.mayoclinic.org.)

CEO and Florida museum part ways following Basquiat raid

File photo: Orlando Museum of Art at Loch Haven Park in Orlando, Florida, as seen on Nov 29, 2019.

By Mike Schneider Associated Press

T

he Orlando Museum of Art has parted ways with its CEO in the days after the FBI raided the Florida museum and seized more than two dozen paintings attributed to artist JeanMichel Basquiat that are the subjects of an investigation into possible wire fraud and conspiracy.

The museum’s board of trustees is “extremely concerned” about the

exhibition of 25 paintings whose authenticity has been challenged, as well as an “inappropriate” email former CEO and director Aaron De Groft sent to an academic art expert when she asked that her name not be used in promoting the works, Cynthia Brumback, the museum board’s chair said in an emailed statement Tuesday night.

“We have launched an official process to address these matters, as they are inconsistent with the values of this institution, our business

Our 9-year-old recipe tester, Jack, said he “loved the buttered breadcrumb crunch on top” of the cod! [Elle Simone]

By America’s Test Kitchen The secret to success with this dish is a low- temperature oven (set to just 300 degrees) that ensures that the fish cooks slowly, without drying out. Crispy, buttery, garlicky panko bread crumbs get a head start in a skillet so they’re golden brown when the fish comes out of the oven. Finally, a mayonnaise and egg yolk “glue” adds rich flavor and helps the crumb topping stay put. Even kids who don’t usually like fish will like this dish!

Crispy Baked Cod Serves 4

Vegetable oil spray 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 3/4 cup panko bread crumbs 2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley 2 tablespoons mayonnaise 1 large egg yolk 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest, plus lemon wedges 4 (6- ounce) skinless cod fillets, 1 to 1 1/2 inches thick 1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and set a cooling rack inside the baking sheet.

Spray rack with vegetable oil spray.

2. In a 12-inch skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add panko, garlic, salt and pepper and cook, stirring often with rubber spatula, until lightly browned, 3 to 5 minutes.

3. Transfer panko mixture to a medium bowl. Stir in parsley and let cool for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, egg yolk, and lemon zest.

4. Use paper towels to pat fish dry. Spread mayonnaise mixture evenly over top of each fillet.

5. Working with 1 fillet at a time, coat the top of each fillet with panko mixture. Place fillets, crumb side up, on greased rack in baking sheet.

6. Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake until fish registers 145 degrees on instant- read thermometer, 30 to 40 minutes.

7. Remove baking sheet from oven. Place baking sheet on a second cooling rack.

Serve fish with lemon wedges.

(For 25 years, home cooks have relied on America’s Test Kitchen for rigorously tested recipes developed by professional test cooks and vetted by 60,000 at-home recipe testers. The family of brands -- which includes Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country, and America’s Test Kitchen Kids -- offers reliable recipes for cooks of all ages and skill levels. See more online at www.americastestkitchen.com/TCA.)

standards, and our standards of conduct,” Brumback said.

The statement didn’t say if De Groft resigned or was fired, and a museum spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to an emailed question about that on Wednesday.

In the email to the unnamed art expert, De Groft urged her to “shut up,” and he threatened to tell her employer that she was paid $60,000 to write a report about the pieces, when she said she no longer wanted to be associated with promoting the works and would consider it defamatory if the museum continued to use her name, according to a search warrant released Friday, the day of the FBI raid.

“You want us to put out there that you got $60 grand to write this? OK then. Shut up. You took the money. Stop being holier than thou. You did this not me or anybody else,” De Groft said in the email quoted in the search warrant. “Be quiet now is my best advice. These are real and legit. You know this. You are threatening the wrong people. Do your academic thing and stay in your limited lane.”

De Groft didn’t respond Wednesday to an email message sent via LinkedIn. According to the search warrant, federal art crimes investigators have been looking into the 25 paintings since shortly after their discovery in 2012. The controversy

gained more attention after the Orlando exhibit opened in February.

Basquiat, who lived and worked in New York City, found success in the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement.

The Orlando Museum of Art was the first institution to display pieces said to have been found in an old Los Angeles storage locker years after Basquiat’s 1988 death from a drug overdose at age 27.

Questions about the artworks’ authenticity arose almost immediately after their discovery. The artwork was purportedly made in 1982, but experts have pointed out that the cardboard used in at least one of the pieces included FedEx typeface that wasn’t used until 1994, about six years after Basquiat died, according to the search warrant. In addition, television writer Thad Mumford, the owner of the storage locker where the art was eventually found, told investigators that he had never owned any Basquiat art and that the pieces were not in the unit the last time he had visited. Mumford died in 2018.

De Groft has repeatedly insisted that the art was legitimate.

Before coming to Orlando, De Groft was director of the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., and deputy director of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida.

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

SPY SCIENCE EXHIBIT OPENS AT DISCOVERY CENTER JULY 2

File photo: The Discovery Center [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2020.

By Ocala Gazette Staff

T

he Discovery Center’s latest exhibit, Spy Science, is scheduled to open to the public on Saturday, July 2, according to a June 29 press release. It will remain on display through to Sept. 17.

The exhibit, which is sponsored by Marion Rotary Duck Derby, Ocala Electric Utilities, Fun4Ocala Kids and Duke Energy, will be open

Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Discovery Center, located at 701 N.E. Sanchez Ave. “Discover the history, science and even the Hollywood connections within the spy industry,” museum officials said, “when this new exhibit takes visitors inside the world of espionage.”

Guests can go undercover as an “Agent of Discovery” to find out the secret identity of the spy villain and solve puzzles and challenges along the way. They can also learn how disguises help spies to catch the “bad guy” and even rescue people while crawling through the villain’s lair, looking for clues, creating their own secret decoders and more.

General admission to the Discovery Center is $8 per person or $28 for a family of four. Annual memberships are also available for individuals and families.

By reservation only, Starlab Planetarium shows are held on Saturdays and tickets are $30 per 10-person group. Guests are encouraged to call ahead to book a reservation time for the planetarium.

An alternative planetarium-like show, NASA Solar System Exploration, is also available for a $3 add-on to the price of general admission.

For more information, call (352) 401-3900 or visit www.mydiscoverycenter.org.

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

Why attorney Ben Crump allowed ‘Civil’ filmmakers to follow his work on high-profile Civil Rights cases

Attorney Ben Crump, right, with Stanley Davis II and Shannon Thompson, parents of 13-year-old Stanley Dale Davis III, who was killed during an attempted traffic stop in Boynton Beach. [John McCall]

By Clayton Gutzmore Variety

C

ivil rights attorney Ben Crump commanded the attention of the audience inside the New World Center Performance Hall in Miami Beach for the kickoff to the 2022 American Black Film Festival on Wed. June 15, where he took the stage to introduce “Civil,” the upcoming Netflix documentary about his life and work.

“I keep getting asked, ‘Why did I do this?’ Crump recounted. “I said, I understand, we always have to fight in two courts when we’re fighting for the lives and the dignity and the humanity of Black people: the court of law and the court of public opinion.”

Speaking before crowd of filmmakers,

film fans and some personal friends, Crump declared how the documentary wouldn’t be possible without Kenya Barris, who knows how to portray the Black experience on film.

“Kenya created ‘Black-ish’ and wrote ‘Girls Trip’ and [created] ‘America’s Next Top Model’ ... We present those experiences in Black America, but we can have other experiences we believe are just as important,” Crump added, saying the the prolific producer is “necessary to our culture.”

Crump also thanked award-winning filmmaker Nadia Hallgren, who directed the documentary, as the trio took the stage with Netflix’s LaLani Smith and ABFF Ventures president Nicole Friday as part of ABFF’s opening night ceremony. (Roger Ross Williams and Lauren Cioffi also

produced the film).

Debuting on June 19 on Netflix, “Civil” follows Crump’s work as the killing of unarmed Black people like Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin and George Floyd devastated people of color across the United States and the world.

The documentary features behind-thescenes footage of the attorney tackling these cases, allowing audiences to witness his hectic year as he travels to represent the distraught families and advise them on how to ensure their loved one’s story is told. “‘Civil’ follows my life for one year during what we believe is the most significant call to action in Civil Rights history,” Crump told Variety on the red carpet before the screening. “One of the things about ‘Civil’ that I am so thankful to Nadia for is that hopefully everyone around the world will get to see the Black experience and our mission to raise the value of Black life.”

Crump believes that the documentary’s message is important now more than ever.

“We have to be civil to one another. We have to choose tolerance over this race replacement or lynch mob mentality,” he said. “We have to choose humanity over white supremacy. And most of all, we have to fight for love over hate.”

Barris also noted the significance of having “Civil” screen as part of the ABFF lineup. “Ben has been an advocate for us and Jeff and Nicole have been advocates for us, and combining those things, and people showing up for each other is what we’re all about, and how we continue to progress. To be part of that tradition means everything to me,” he explained.

As the documentary has traveled along the festival circuit, Barris says a few takeaways have come to the forefront as he talks to audiences and fellow industry vets.

“This isn’t about money or lawsuits;

it’s about humanity, it’s about the idea that our humanity has not always been seen in the way that we wanted,” Barris said. “I think that we need advocates to make sure that people see and hear us and understand that we have humanity as everyone else does.”

Onstage, Hallgren explained how she came to direct the documentary shortly after the debut of her last project, Netflix’s “Becoming,” which followed First Lady Michelle Obama.

“Kenya called me to ask if I was interested in filming a movie on Ben Crump, and it was like everything I had been asking for came true. We quickly grabbed our cameras and hit the road with Attorney Crump,” Hallgren shared.

“Civil” begins with an emotional scene, as Crump gets a phone call regarding the death of George Floyd. Audiences also got a view of Crump’s personal life, as the movie includes footage of the attorney early in his career, his days in college at Florida State University and how his work takes a toll on his family life due to his frequent traveling. The audience clapped and cheered along with footage of Crump’s successes, while the film also reveals the strain he endures in dealing with so many cases of injustice.

“All of them are significant. All of them matter. I try to fight every single one so we can get the biggest result possible in the civil arena,” Crump told Variety, explaining why he continues to push forward.

“Only the police can arrest people, and only the prosecutors can put them in jail,” he noted. “Still, as private lawyers, we can fight under the Seventh Amendment of the United States to get the highest verdict or the highest settlement possible.

We will continue to raise the value of Black life to the point where it is financially unsustainable for them to be able to kill Black people.”

Rick Steves’ Europe: Vernazza: Humble queen of Italy’s Riviera

Vernazza, the jewel of the Cinque Terre. [Dominic Arizona Bonuccelli/Rick Steves’ Europe]

By Rick Steves

Y

ou can search the entire Mediterranean coastline for the best rustic village, surrounded by vineyards and steeped in tradition, and not find a more rewarding escape than tiny Vernazza, my favorite of the five villages that make up Italy’s Cinque Terre.

The Cinque Terre is a stretch of Italy’s Riviera tucked into the mountainous shoreline between Genoa and Pisa. Long cut off from the modern world, this remote expanse only became easily accessible with the coming of the train.

Of the Cinque Terre’s five towns, Vernazza, overseen by a ruined castle and with the closest thing to a natural harbor, is the jewel. The occasional train popping in and out of the mountain tunnels is the only reminder that the modern world is still out there somewhere. It’s a tough community long living off the sea -- and, in

the last generation, living off travelers who love the sea. The church bells dictate a relaxed tempo. Yellow webs of fishing nets, tables bedecked with umbrellas, kids with plastic shovels, and a flotilla of gritty little boats tethered to buoys provide splashes of color. And accompanying the scene is the mesmerizing white noise of children at play, happy diners, and the washboard rhythm of the waves.

Vernazza’s one street connects the harbor with the train station before melting into the vineyards. Like veins on a grape leaf, paths and stairways reach from the main street up into this watercolor huddle of houses that eventually dissolve into the vines high above. A rainbow of laundry flaps as if to keep the flies off the stout grandmothers who clog ancient doorways.

At the top end of town, Vernazza’s scrawny access road hits a post, effectively a dead end for drivers. No cars enter this community of 600 people. Like the

breakwater holds off the waves at the bottom of town, the post holds back the modern storm at the top. But the town’s ruined castle no longer says, “Keep out.”

The breakwater is a broad, inviting sidewalk edged with boulders -- reaching out into the sea like a finger beckoning the distant excursion boats.

While Vernazza’s fishing fleet is down to just a couple of boats, locals are still more likely to own a boat than a car. Boats are tethered to buoys, except in winter or when the red storm flag indicates bad seas.

In that case they’re pulled up onto the little harborfront square, usually reserved for restaurant tables.

The humble town gathers around its pebbled cove, where well-worn locals enjoy some shade on benches and tourists sunbathe on the rocks. In summer, the beach becomes a soccer ground, where teams comprised of local bar- and restaurant-workers provide late-night entertainment.

Vernazza has two halves. Sciuiu (Vernazzan dialect for “flowery”) is the sunny side on the left as you face inland, and Luvegu (“dank”) is the shady side on the right. But from end to end, everything’s painted in one of the “Ligurian pastels,” as regulated by a commissioner of good taste in the regional government. High above, the castle -- now just a tower, some broken stone walls, and a grassy park -- served as the town’s lookout back in pirate days. Below the castle, an interior arcade connected houses -- ideal for fleeing attacks.

Village churches are always worth popping into. Vernazza’s is on the harborfront and is unusual for its eastfacing entryway, rather than the more typical western orientation. Hanging on the wall inside are three historic portable crosses -- replicas of crosses that (locals like to believe) Vernazzan ships once brought along on crusades to the Holy Land. During religious processions, these crosses are taken down and carried through town.

In front of the church, a mini piazza decorated with a river rock mosaic is a popular hangout. It’s where the town’s old ladies soak up the day’s last bit of sun and kids enjoy a rare patch of level ball field.

My evenings in Vernazza are spent sitting on a bench and people watching, either with gelato or a glass of local white wine (I usually borrow the glass from a bar; they don’t mind). During the passeggiata (evening stroll), locals meander lazily up and down the main street doing their vasche (laps). Sometimes I join in, becoming part of the slow-motion parade. Gelato in hand, I gaze up at the people looking out the windows of the faded pastel buildings like a gallery of portraits hanging on ancient walls.

Becoming part of that sleepy Riviera scene, it’s so easy to toss my busy itinerary into the sea and just be totally on vacation.

(Rick Steves (www.ricksteves.com) writes European guidebooks, hosts travel shows on public TV and radio, and organizes European tours. This article was adapted from his new book, For the Love of Europe. You can email Rick at rick@ricksteves.com and follow his blog on Facebook.)

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE

Juneteenth Celebration in Ocala brings out hundreds

D

espite the sweltering heat, hundreds of Marion County citizens gathered to participate in the Juneteenth Celebration at the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Complex at Webb Field in Ocala, on Saturday, June 18. Juneteenth is a federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. It specifically marks the anniversary of the announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army general Gordon Granger on June 19, 1865, proclaiming freedom for enslaved people in Texas.

Photos By Bruce Ackerman Ocala Gazette

Hundreds of people gather for the Juneteenth Celebration.

Yani Hamilton, 4, takes a bite of her icee as she tries to stay cool in the sweltering heat.

Sharington Houston, left, and Meisha Barnard, both of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority dance together.

Shay, left, and Na Heyma make icees.

Wanda Fulton, left, looks over items for sale at Zoy Chinchilla’s booth, Chi Chi’s Designs, with Zoy Chinchilla, right.

Kap Davis, right, and Garland Brigham, left, both of the Omega Psi Chi fraternity dance together.

Artwork from Marion Lenon’s collection is shown for sale.

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JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2022 | OCALA GAZETTE