Florida
Florida is the southernmost contiguous state in the United States. The state is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Straits of Florida. Florida is the 22nd-most extensive, the 3rd-most populous, the 8th-most densely populated of the U. S. states. Jacksonville is the most populous municipality in the state and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States; the Miami metropolitan area is Florida's most populous urban area. Tallahassee is the state's capital. Florida's $1.0 trillion economy is the fourth largest in the United States. If it were a country, Florida would be the 16th largest economy in the world, the 58th most populous as of 2018. In 2017, Florida's per capita personal income was ranking 26th in the nation; the unemployment rate in September 2018 was 3.5% and ranked as the 18th in the United States. Florida exports nearly $55 billion in goods made in the 8th highest among all states.
The Miami Metropolitan Area is by far the largest urban economy in Florida and the 12th largest in the United States with a GDP of $344.9 billion as of 2017. This is more than twice the number of the next metro area, the Tampa Bay Area, which has a GDP of $145.3 billion. Florida is home to 51 of the world's billionaires with most of them residing in South Florida; the first European contact was made in 1513 by Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, who called it la Florida upon landing there in the Easter season, known in Spanish as Pascua Florida. Florida was a challenge for the European colonial powers before it gained statehood in the United States in 1845, it was a principal location of the Seminole Wars against the Native Americans, racial segregation after the American Civil War. Today, Florida is distinctive for its large Cuban expatriate community and high population growth, as well as for its increasing environmental issues; the state's economy relies on tourism and transportation, which developed in the late 19th century.
Florida is renowned for amusement parks, orange crops, winter vegetables, the Kennedy Space Center, as a popular destination for retirees. Florida is the flattest state in the United States. Lake Okeechobee is the largest freshwater lake in the U. S. state of Florida. Florida's close proximity to the ocean influences many aspects of daily life. Florida is a reflection of multiple inheritance. Florida has attracted many writers such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, continues to attract celebrities and athletes, it is internationally known for golf, auto racing, water sports. Several beaches in Florida have emerald-colored coastal waters. About two-thirds of Florida occupies a peninsula between the Gulf of the Atlantic Ocean. Florida has the longest coastline in the contiguous United States 1,350 miles, not including the contribution of the many barrier islands. Florida has a total of 4,510 islands; this is the second-highest number of islands of any state of the United States.
It is the only state that borders both the Gulf of the Atlantic Ocean. Much of the state is characterized by sedimentary soil. Florida has the lowest high point of any U. S. state. The climate varies from subtropical in the north to tropical in the south; the American alligator, American crocodile, American flamingo, Roseate spoonbill, Florida panther, bottlenose dolphin, manatee can be found in Everglades National Park in the southern part of the state. Along with Hawaii, Florida is one of only two states that has a tropical climate, is the only continental state with either a tropical climate or a coral reef; the Florida Reef is the only living coral barrier reef in the continental United States, the third-largest coral barrier reef system in the world. By the 16th century, the earliest time for which there is a historical record, major Native American groups included the Apalachee of the Florida Panhandle, the Timucua of northern and central Florida, the Ais of the central Atlantic coast, the Tocobaga of the Tampa Bay area, the Calusa of southwest Florida and the Tequesta of the southeastern coast.
Florida was the first region of the continental United States to be visited and settled by Europeans. The earliest known European explorers came with the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León. Ponce de León spotted and landed on the peninsula on April 2, 1513, he named the region Florida. The story that he was searching for the Fountain of Youth is mythical and only appeared long after his death. In May 1539, Conquistador Hernando de Soto skirted the coast of Florida, searching for a deep harbor to land, he described seeing a thick wall of red mangroves spread mile after mile, some reaching as high as 70 feet, with intertwined and elevated roots making landing difficult. The Spanish introduced Christianity, horses, the Castilian language, more to Florida. Spain established several settlements with varying degrees of success. In 1559, Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano established a settlement at present-day Pensacola, making it the first attempted settlement in Florida, but it was abandoned by 1561.
In 1565, the settlement of St. Augustine was established under the leadership of admiral and
Recall election
A recall election is a procedure by which, in certain polities, voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before that official's term has ended. Recalls, which are initiated when sufficient voters sign a petition, have a history dating back to ancient Athenian democracy and feature in several current constitutions. In indirect or representative democracy, people's representatives are elected and these representatives rule for a specific period of time. However, where the facility to recall exists, should any representative come to be perceived as not properly discharging their responsibilities they can be called back with the written request of specific number or proportion of voters; the recall referendum arrived in Latin America shortly after its introduction at the US subnational level, in 1923 and 1933, to Cordoba and Entre Ríos provinces both in Argentina. There, recall exists at the provincial level in Chaco, Chubut, Córdoba, Corrientes, La Rioja, Rio Negro, Santiago del Estero and Tierra del Fuego.
It is included in Buenos Aires City. In 1995, the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia enacted representative recall. In the province of British Columbia, voters in a provincial riding can petition to have their representative in parliament removed from office if that MLA is the premier. If enough registered voters sign the petition, the speaker of the legislature announces in parliament that the member has been recalled and the lieutenant governor drops the writ for a by-election as soon as possible, giving voters the opportunity to replace the politician in question. By January 2003, 22 recall efforts had been launched. No-one has been recalled so far, but one representative, Paul Reitsma, resigned in 1998 when it looked as if the petition to recall him would have enough signatures to spur a recall election. Reitsma resigned during the secondary verification stage and the recall count ended. In Nova Scotia, the Atlantica Party campaigned for a recall in the 2017 provincial election. In Colombia, the recall referendum was included by the constitution in 1991.
The constitutional replacement was launched as an answer to the movement known as la séptima papeleta, which requested a constitutional reform to end violence, narcoterrorism and increasing citizenship apathy. The definition of recall referendum in relation to programmatic vote was approved, it obliges candidates running for office to register a government plan, on considered to activate the recall. Since the time the mechanism was regulated by Law 134 in 1994, until 2015, 161 attempts led 41 referendums and none of them succeeded since the threshold of participation was not reached. In 2015, a new law reduced the number of signatures required to activate a recall referendum and the threshold; the change in the regulation quickening the registration of promoters, led to a considerable increase in the number of attempts. Article 14 of the Constitution of Latvia enables the recall of the entire Saiema, though not of specific representatives: Article 14: Not less than one tenth of electors has the right to initiate a national referendum regarding recalling of the Saeima.
If the majority of voters and at least two thirds of the number of the voters who participated in the last elections of the Saeima vote in the national referendum regarding recalling of the Saeima the Saeima shall be deemed recalled. The right to initiate a national referendum regarding recalling of the Saeima may not be exercised one year after the convening of the Saeima and one year before the end of the term of office of the Saeima, during the last six months of the term of office of the President, as well as earlier than six months after the previous national referendum regarding recalling of the Saeima; the electors may not recall any individual member of the Saeima. Early policies of the New Zealand Labour Party included support for "the recall". Article 10 of the constitution of the Philippines allows for the recall of local officials; the Local Government Code, as amended, enabled the provisions of the constitution to be applied. Elected officials from provincial governors to the barangay councilors are allowed to be recalled.
At least 25% of the electorate in a specific place must have their signatures verified in a petition in order for the recall to take place. The president, vice president, members of Congress, the elected officials of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao cannot be removed via recall; the last recall election above the barangay level was the 2015 Puerto Princesa mayoral recall election. Recall regulations were introduced in Peru by the Democratic Constituent Congress which drafted a new constitution after Alberto Fujimori's autogolpe in 1992. Between 1997 and 2013, more than 5000 recall referendums were activated against democratically elected authorities from 747 Peruvian municipalities; this makes Peru the world's most intensive user of this mechanism. While recalls are not provided for at the federal level in Switzerland, six cantons allow them: Bern: Recall of the executive and legislative has been possible since 1846. 30,000 signatures (4% of al
Lauren Poe
Lauren Poe is the mayor of Gainesville, where he has lived since 1982. Poe received his bachelor's degree in History, as well as his Masters in Social Sciences from the University of Florida, he is married to Emily Monda-Poe. Together they have 2 daughters and Beatrice, he has taught in Alachua County since 1998: first at Ft. Clarke Middle School and Santa Fe College. Lauren Poe first ran to represent Gainesville's second district and won in 2008 in a close runoff election. Note that all candidates in Gainesville municipal elections run as non-partisan. Poe is a registered member of the Democratic Party And the results from the runoff: He ran for re-election and lost in the April 12, 2011 runoff after the March 15, 2011 election was split between multiple candidates. Runoff results: The following year Poe won an at-large seat in a runoff. Runoff results: Poe was subsequently elected to mayor on March 15, 2016 beating his opponents, incumbent Ed Braddy and challenger Donald Shepherd with 57% of the vote.
Official mayoral profile Legislative and public events calendar Local news candidate profile Political facebook page Official Campaign Page
WUFT (TV)
WUFT, virtual channel 5, is a Public Broadcasting Service member television station licensed to Gainesville, United States. The station is owned by the University of Florida, maintains studios and offices at Weimer Hall on the University's campus. On cable, WUFT can channel 5 in Ocala. There is a high definition feed offered on Cox digital channel 1003 in Gainesville and channel 1005 in Ocala, it is available on Comcast Xfinity channel 25 in Jacksonville. WUFT first signed on the air November 10, 1958 as the third educational television station in Florida; the station was a major beneficiary of a quirk in the FCC's plan for allocating stations. In the early days of broadcast television, there were twelve VHF channels available and 69 UHF channels; the VHF bands were more desirable. Since there were only twelve VHF channels available, there were limitations as to how the stations could be spaced. After the FCC's Sixth Report and Order ended the license freeze and opened the UHF band in 1952, it devised a plan for allocating VHF licenses.
Under this plan all of the country would be able to receive two commercial VHF channels plus one noncommercial channel. Most of the rest of the country would be able to receive a third VHF channel. Other areas would be designated as "UHF islands" since they were too close to larger cities for VHF service; the "2" networks became CBS and NBC, "+1" represented non-commercial educational stations, "1/2" became ABC. However, what would become of the Gainesville market is sandwiched between Jacksonville to the northeast, Tallahassee to the northwest, Orlando and Tampa Bay to the south; this created a large "doughnut" in North Central Florida. WUFT was fortunate enough to gain that license, as a result, Gainesville became unique in that a public television station was the market's oldest television station. WUFT rebranded in August 2010, calling itself "Florida's 5"; the station's digital signal is multiplexed: WUFT is the only PBS affiliate in the state of Florida to not carry the national 24/7 PBS Kids network on one of its subchannels.
WUFT discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 5, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 36. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 5. WUFT-TV broadcasts local newscasts staffed and produced by students in the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. WUFT-TV broadcasts two main newscasts, along with a variety of special reports and half-hour specials. First Edition a six-minute newscast, airs weekdays at noon for 100 shows per year. WUFT News - First at 5:00 is a half-hour weekday newscast at 5 p.m. which airs 200+ days per year. Starting in the Spring of 2014, WUFT-TV added a 6 p.m. newscast, thirty minutes long, but that has since been canceled, leaving just the 5 p.m. news.
Before the move to 5 p.m. the newscast used to be on at its long-time home at 5:30 p.m. to avoid competing against ABC affiliate WCJB. When it was moved to 5 p.m. the same reason existed. Http://www.wuft.org/news/first-at-five/ WUFT website Query the FCC's TV station database for WUFT BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WUFT-TV
The Political Graveyard
The Political Graveyard is a website and database that catalogues information on more than 277,000 American political figures and political families, along with other information. The database attempts to capture basic biographical and office-holding data for its political figures. Besides where they are buried, it records dates and locations of birth and death, offices held and the applicable dates, organizational affiliations, cause of death, it reports their relation with other politicians listed, their political party, limited military history. The names are sorted and indexed by surname, positions held, religion, cause of death, final resting place, with each entry having fewer than five lines of text; the name comes from the website's inclusion of the burial locations of the deceased. The site was created in 1996 by Lawrence Kestenbaum an academic specialist at Michigan State University, on staff at the University of Michigan. Kestenbaum was a county commissioner, in 2004 was elected to be County Clerk/Register of Deeds of Washtenaw County, Michigan.
The site and its underlying database were developed from a personal interest triggered by the Biographical Directory of the U. S. Congress, its original data source. Since his personal research, the information contributions of hundreds of volunteers have expanded the information available, it is licensed under the "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0" Creative Commons License. Over the years the definition of "eligible political figure" has been expanded, it now includes most high federal officials, all elected and some appointed statewide officeholders, many mayors. It lists unsuccessful candidates, presidential electors, delegates to U. S. presidential nominating conventions of the major political parties. Politicians are listed alphabetically, by office held or sought, by location of birth and death; some are listed in categories, including occupations, ethnicity and organizational affiliation and awards. Politicians accused of crimes or touched by scandal are listed by the nature of the accusation, as well as by decade and by state.
Cause of death is broken down into dozens of categories. The site lists political families. Individuals listed on the site are linked together if their relationship meets the Rule of 1/1000 common ancestry; each cluster of three or more linked politicians is treated as a family, with family name and location assigned by an algorithm. The site's largest cluster, with 2,134 members, is called "Two Thousand Related Politicians"; the largest subset family is the Huntington-Chapin-Waterman family of Connecticut, with 229 members
Craig Lowe
Stuart Craig Lowe, better known as Craig Lowe, is an American politician and former Mayor of Gainesville, Florida. After winning a runoff election on April 13, 2010, by a margin of 42 votes Lowe became Mayor-elect of Gainesville, he was sworn in on May 20, 2010, becoming the first gay Mayor of the city. He lost his bid for re-election on April 16, 2013 to former city councilman Ed Braddy after being arrested for a DUI during the campaign, he was first elected to the Gainesville City Commission to fill the newly created District IV seat for a one-year term in April 2003 and served through his third consecutive term and second full term until being sworn in as Mayor. Mayor Lowe served as Chair of the Gainesville City Commission’s Equal Opportunity Committee, a member of the Regional Utilities, Community Development, Countywide Visioning & Planning committees as well as the local Community Redevelopment Agency, the Gainesville/Alachua County Metropolitan Transportation Planning Organization and the Alachua County Library Governing Board.
Lowe was a member of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition, an organization formed in 2006 and co-chaired by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston mayor Thomas Menino. Lowe was raised in Atlanta, Georgia, he received a B. S. A. degree in Soil Science from the University of Georgia. After moving to Gainesville in 1982 he received a master's degree in zoology from the University of Florida. Commissioner Lowe ran for re-election unopposed in 2004. A runoff election was held on April 2010 with Lowe and Marsh as the candidates; the unofficial results indicated that Lowe had 6,098 votes and Marsh 6,063 votes, excluding provisional ballots. 17 provisional ballots were verified, yielding 12 more votes for Lowe and 5 more for Marsh. As the margin was less than 0.50% between the candidates, an automatic machine recount took place on April 16, 2010. The recount verified the unofficial results, including verified provisional ballots, leaving the vote tallies unchanged; these are the certified results of the election.
Prior to the runoff election on 16 April 2013, Lowe was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. The incident took place on 21 March 2013. On 1 April 2013 Lowe entered into a deferred prosecution agreement aimed at first-time DUI offenders to resolve the charges against him. Mayor Lowe's City of Gainesville Biography page
Gainesville, Florida
Gainesville is the county seat and largest city in Alachua County, United States, the principal city of the Gainesville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population of Gainesville in the 2017 US Census estimates was 132,249, a 6.4% growth from 2010. Gainesville is the largest city in the region of North Central Florida, it is a component of the Gainesville-Lake City Combined Statistical Area, which had a 2013 population of 337,925. Gainesville is home to the University of Florida, the nation's fifth-largest university campus by enrollment, as well as to Santa Fe College. Gainesville is located at 29°39'55" North, 82°20'10" West, the same latitude as Houston, Texas. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 62.4 square miles, of which 61.3 square miles is land and 1.1 square miles is water. The total area is 1.74% water. Gainesville's tree canopy is both dense and species rich, including broadleaf evergreens and deciduous species. Gainesville is the only city with more than 10,000 residents in the Gainesville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, it is surrounded by rural area, including the 21,000-acre wilderness of Paynes Prairie on its southern edge.
The city is characterized by its medium size and central location, about 90 minutes' driving time from either Jacksonville or Orlando, two hours from Tampa, five hours from either Atlanta or Miami. The area is dominated by the University of Florida, which in 2008 was the third-largest university by enrollment in the US, as of 2016 was the fifth-largest. Gainesville's climate is defined as humid subtropical. Due to its inland location, Gainesville experiences wide temperature fluctuations for Florida, it is part of USDA Plant hardiness zone 9a. During the hot season, from May 15 to September 30, the city's climate is similar to the rest of the state, with frequent afternoon thunderstorms and high humidity. Temperatures range from the low 70s at night to around 92 °F during the day on average; the all-time record high of 104 °F was reached on June 27, 1952. From November through March, the Gainesville area has a climate distinct from much of peninsular Florida with 16 nights of freezing or below temperatures and sustained freezes occurring every few years.
The all-time record low of 6 °F was reached on February 13, 1899, the city experienced light snow and freezing rain on Christmas Eve, 1989. Traces of snow were recorded in 1977, 1996, 2010 and 2016; the daily average temperature in January is 54.3 °F. As with the rest of the state, cold temperatures are always accompanied by clear skies and high pressure systems. Temperatures reaching 100 °F or falling below 20 °F are rare, having occurred on June 16, 2015 and January 11, 2010; the city's flora and fauna are distinct from coastal regions of the state, include many deciduous species, such as dogwood, maple and sweet gum, alongside palms, live oaks, other evergreens. Thus the city enjoys brief periods of fall color in late November and December and a noticeable, prolonged spring from mid-February through early April; this is a pleasant period, as colorful blooms of azalea and redbud complement a cloudless blue sky, for this is the period of the lowest precipitation and lowest humidity. The city averages 47.33 inches of rain per year.
June through September accounts for a majority of annual rainfall, while autumn and early winter is the driest period. Since the 1990s, suburban sprawl has been a concern for a majority of the city commissioners; the "New Urbanization" plan to gentrify the area between historic Downtown and the University of Florida may slow the growth of suburban sectors and spark a migration toward upper-level apartments in the inner city. The area north of the university is seeing active redevelopment. Many gentrification plans rely on tax incentives that have sparked controversy and are sometimes unsuccessful. University Corners, which would not have been proposed without a $98 million tax incentive program by the city, was to be "a crowning jewel of the city's redevelopment efforts", 450 condos and hotel units and 98,000 square feet of retail space in eight stories covering three city blocks, on 3.4 acres purchased for $15.5 million. 19 thriving businesses were demolished in April 2007, but in May 2008 deposit checks were refunded to about 105 people who reserved units, in July 2008 developers spent "$120,000 to beautify the site, so we won't have this ugly green fence."Gainesville's east side houses the majority of the city's African-American community, while the west side consists of the student and white resident population.
West of the city limits are large-scale planned communities, most notably Haile Plantation, built on the site of its eponymous former plantation. The destruction of the city's landmark Victorian courthouse in the 1960s, which some considered unnecessary, brought the idea of historic preservation to the community's attention; the bland county building that replaced the grand courthouse became known to some locals as the "air conditioner". Additional destruction of other historic buildings in the downtown followed. Only a small handful of older buildings are left, like the Hippodrome State Theatre, at one time a feder
