A city leader said Fine later tried to block the release of the text messages through a public records request and wanted a city attorney who was overseeing the request to be fired.
Fine denied he threatened to get the funding pulled or that he ever spoke about firing the city attorney.
In the text messages between Fine and West Melbourne City Councilman John Dittmore, obtained late Friday through a public records request, Fine told Dittmore that funding requests for the charity and the city in a state budget recently submitted for approval to Gov. Ron DeSantis would be on the governor’s chopping block.
The reason: city police officials had invited Jenkins to participate in a Special Olympics fundraising event by the West Melbourne Police Department, but had neglected to invite Fine.
“Jenkins just put your project and special Olympics funding on the veto list,” Fine wrote.
As Dittmore tried to intervene, the text messages show, Fine again said the Special Olympics funding was “at risk,” calling the move to invite Jenkins a “huge (expletive) by the bureaucrats.”
“Smart move is to cancel with apology for wading into politics,” he wrote.
Fine rejected Dittmore’s subsequent invitation to attend the event, which took place Friday at a Chick-Fil-A restaurant on Palm Bay Road, calling Jenkins a “whore.”
“I’m not going to jack (expletive) where that whore is at,” he wrote. “You guys will have to raise a lot of money given that’s who you want to honor, not the person who got you money in the budget.”
The $112.1 billion state budget, passed by the Florida Legislature and sent to the governor’s desk last month, included $1 million in various appropriations for the Special Olympics and a $460,000 flood risk reduction project affecting about 500 homes in West Melbourne’s Westbrooke neighborhood.
Dittmore told FLORIDA TODAY that, in a follow-up phone conversation with Fine, the State House representative objected when he found out the texts would be released by West Melbourne city attorney Morris Richardson as part of a public records request filed by Jenkins, and suggested Richardson should be fired.
“He was very displeased and frustrated with the fact that our city attorney made the decision that some of this stuff was going to be public,” Dittmore said. “He made references to the fact that we should consider terminating his employment.”
Fine denied Saturday that conversation ever took place and said he never threatened to ask DeSantis to veto the items. He said the “veto list” comment was a remark about the “negative attention” brought to the event by Jenkins, who attempted to “politicize” it when she posted about the event on social media.
“When you have someone like Jennifer Jenkins come and politicize charity events, it creates problems,” Fine told FLORIDA TODAY. “If you want to be in a charity event, fine. But when you go on Facebook and you politicize it, you put it at risk.”
Fine did not answer further questions pressing him on the nature of the “risk” he referenced.
A review of Jenkins’s Facebook account in the lead-up to the event shows several posts in which Jenkins touted the fundraiser with pictures of her in a mock jail uniform, holding a placard reading “#BailJenkins,” a riff on Fine’s “#JailJenkins” slogan he has often used in his own Facebook posts.
The fundraiser event was billed as participants “bailing out” various community leaders, who were “jailed” on the roof of Chick-Fil-A, according to ads posted by the West Melbourne Police Department.
While Fine said he did have the ability to ask DeSantis to veto line items in the state budget, he denied asking DeSantis to do so.
“If I (had the intention to do that), I would have. I haven’t. Never planned to. Didn’t do it,” he said.
Messages seeking comment to DeSantis’s press office were not immediately returned Saturday. FLORIDA TODAY has reached out to Special Olympics Florida.
Richardson said the city never intended to be caught in the crossfire of the fight between Jenkins and Fine. The invitation to attend the fundraiser was sent to the entire school board and to Brevard Superintendent Mark Mullins, he said. Only Jenkins responded that she would attend.
“In organizing this fundraiser for the Special Olympics, the City of West Melbourne certainly did not intend to become involved in an unrelated political dispute,” Richardson said in an email. “I trust that better angels will prevail, and that our leaders will not allow this to impact worthy projects and causes.”
Dittmore said a since-deleted Facebook post he made late last week attempting to apologize to Fine for Jenkins’ involvement in the event was an attempt to “smooth over” the situation before it “got out of hand.” He said he deleted the post when supporters of Fine and Jenkins began to argue in the comment section.
Dittmore said he was just looking out for city residents, who badly need the flood risk protection funding.
“My whole goal was not to let this politicization affect the City of West Melbourne,” he said.
Why is Fine feuding with Brevard School Board member Jennifer Jenkins?
“I’m not surprised by it,” Jenkins said of the incident Saturday, adding that she felt Fine had tried pulling similar attacks against her in the past.
“It’s typical for someone to attack a woman with sexual innuendos when they are threatened by their strength,” she said of Fine’s “whore” comment. “I’m no stranger to these attacks from him. He has constantly gotten a pass for his defamation and libel, and he’s just been emboldened by those who are supposed to be holding him accountable.”
Fine and Jenkins have been embroiled in a public and increasingly rancorous feud in recent months, stemming from Fine’s anger with Jenkins over her support last year of a mask mandate for Brevard Public Schools. The mandate, which was later revoked, bucked a state order from DeSantis banning such mandates.
The case was tossed after the court agreed with Fine’s attorneys that the Facebook posts — in which Fine called Jenkins “mentally ill” and a “child abuser” for her support of the mask mandate, and repeatedly suggested she had cheated on her husband — was protected political speech.
Criminal complaints made last year containing a host of allegations against Fine by Jenkins and Robert Burns, a Brevard County political consultant with whom Fine has also had a long-standing feud, were dismissed by the State Attorney’s Office.
An investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found the complaints — which included allegations of corruption of a public servant by threat, cyberintimidation and stalking — arising from Fine’s frequent Facebook posts about Jenkins and Burns either did not rise to the level of a crime or were permitted under Florida law.
Fine made national headlines this week with a bill he filed in the recent special legislative session that stripped the Walt Disney Co. of special self-governing rights it was granted over a 25,000-acre parcel in Central Florida that serves as home to its Florida theme parks.
The bill was approved by both the Florida House and Senate and signed Friday by DeSantis.
Ethics expert: This is what you would see in a dictatorship
The legality of Fine’s threats was not clear Saturday. An expert in political ethics who spoke to FLORIDA TODAY said she wasn’t sure if Fine had broken any laws.
However, Beth Rosenson, an associate professor in political science at the University of Florida, said it was certainly unethical.
“To threaten the city, that if they don’t disinvite her and apologize that he’s going to work to get the project vetoed, that’s an ethical violation of what he’s supposed to be doing in his job,” said Rosenson, author of “The Shadowlands of Conduct: Ethics and State Politics.”
“It sounds like a pretty egregious, sort of petty way to behave,” she said. “That’s not why people elect somebody.”
Fine’s efforts reminded her of the “personalized politics” often displayed by dictators, she said, where those seeking political favors are required to “bow down” and show fealty to leaders’ demands.
“It’s not how democracy is supposed to operate,” she said. “So I think there’s some pretty deep, profound implications of what he’s doing.”
Florida Republican Rep. @VoteRandyFine threatened to block state funding for the Special Olympics because he wasn’t invited to an event and a school-board member he doesn’t like was. Fine is the same guy who suggested protestors should be run over.https://t.co/oE6QDEcWuQ
Rep. Randy Fine just went down a long list of companies and universities who “messed with” him and the legislature and how he made them pay. Wow this was a crazy ass meeting
Florida state Representative Randy Fine was a cosponsor of the state’s new anti-cyberbullying law. Now, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating him for violating the very law he helped pass. https://t.co/Qc4whVaW3p
NEW: Jewish GOP FL State Rep suggests that all Palestinians are terrorist animals, and beneath "pigs, rats, and snakes," which are considered vermin in the Hebrew faith#TheUndercurrentpic.twitter.com/T74vh7MEhv
This is what happens when the Republicans in Florida are in power. They bully and throw tantrums like @VoteRandyFine He wants them to lock me up bc of my peaceful sit-in. Well he threatens to get funding vetoed when his feelings are hurt. #FLPol#disneyhttps://t.co/RkNXKswlpo
"Randy Fine has taken over $20K from Disney in political contributions. This woke money he has not returned," says @annaforflorida. "If you want to talk about free markets, I'm your girl…Florida Republicans want Disney to get back in line, continue donating to their coffers." pic.twitter.com/1tQtATDpdX
It may come as little surprise that many Americans are besieged by medical bills, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic grinds on. Perhaps more eye-opening is that this is often for debt they have already paid or do not actually owe.
In a new report, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that people’s most common debt collection complaints last year had to do with efforts to collect on a bill that they said did not belong to them.
“In medical debt collection complaints, this issue makes up nearly half of complaints and, importantly, complaint volume about this topic has been increasing,” the federal agency said, noting that such bills often end up on people’s credit reports and force them onto a bureaucratic hamster wheel to clear their financial record.
Between 2018 and 2021, public complaints about collection attempts for medical bills consumers said they did not owe jumped 31%, the CFPB found. Roughly 1 in 5 U.S. households carries debt related to health care, according to federal data. Medical bills are the most commonly reported item on consumer credit reports, according to regulators.
“People also report learning of an outstanding medical bill only after experiencing a drop in their credit score and being told that only paying the bill would remove the negative collections information from their credit report,” the CFPB added.
750,000 complaints
The CFPB said that in 2021 it sent more than 750,000 complaints to roughly 3,400 companies for them to review. Among the agency’s other findings:
The median medical debt in the U.S. is $310.
In 2021, 15% of debt collection complaints were about attempts to collect on a medical bill.
Consumers receiving collection notices for a medical bill often report being unfamiliar with the listed provider.
Consumers also report that collection notices often contain large amounts of personal medical information.
Many Americans say they pay medical bills to avoid adverse financial and privacy consequences — even if they feel the debt isn’t valid.
Communities with more minority or low-income individuals, veterans, and young adults are more likely to have medical bills reported on their credit reports.
“Many Americans feel forced to pay medical bills that they have already paid or never owed to begin with,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement. “The credit reporting system should not be used as a weapon to coerce patients into paying medical bills they do not owe.”
In March, leading credit rating firms Equifax, Experian and TransUnion said they planned to drop most medical debt from consumers’ credit reports starting this summer.
Congress last year sought to address the problem of runway medical bills by passing the “No Surprises Act,” which protects people with health insurance from getting billed for receiving emergency medical care outside of an insurer’s network.
Under the law patients are still responsible for any deductibles and copays they normally would have to pay under their plan, but they may only be billed at their plan’s in-network rate.
New York Attorney General Letitia James urged a judge Friday to “coerce” former President Donald Trump into complying with a subpoena demanding searches of three of his mobile devices and multiple document storage sites.
Trump failed to meet a court-ordered March 31 deadline to turn over subpoenaed material, claiming he had none of the documents demanded by James’ office as part of its investigation into his company’s financial practices. A week later, James asked the judge overseeing her office’s investigation to issue a contempt citation and fine Trump $10,000 per day until he complied with the subpoena.
“The Court should put an end to Mr. Trump’s intransigence and subterfuge,” attorneys working for James wrote in the Friday evening filing.
Wild that he can just do his God-King act and ignore a subpoena like the laws of mere mortals don’t apply to him. Put him in jail. He’ll probably refuse to pay those fines since we’re just making it look like he’s above it all by asking way too nicely for him to please comply.
Those people with their “New York values” are now trying to shove books down everyone’s throat.
Normally I do not post these compilations of the shows, but this time the shows information on the different topics is important to share. For those using CC I watched it with the CC on for a bit and it was spot on even to the point of getting the person being interviewed stutter between words. It should be OK.
The Justice Department recently noted the violation of rights and disturbing conditions inside Mississippi’s largest prison, Parchman. The DOJ’s report found the prison fails to protect prisoners from violence or provide adequate mental health care. Parchman is just one example of why reforms are desperately needed in state prisons nationwide, which disproportionately incarcerate black and brown people.
Scottie's Playtime 