Gwen Graham criticizes Rick Scott on nursing home calls, ‘Schools of Hope’

Gwen Graham filed a public information request for Gov. Rick Scott‘s cellphone communications after it was reported last month administrators with the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills made four distressed calls to Scott’s private cellphone.

A month later, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate says she hasn’t received very much information back.

The governor’s office said the calls had been deleted. That’s crucial since it was the lack of air-conditioning after the power went out at the facility that ultimately led to the deaths of 14 seniors shortly after Hurricane Irma swept through South Florida.

“The reality of what Gov. Scott deleted from his private phone is critical evidentiary value because 14 people died,” Graham said Thursday afternoon. “So it came in on his private phone — but it was public business — and I believe under the law of Florida he was required to retain it.”

Graham spoke to Florida Politics while taking a break during her latest ‘workday,’ where she helped prepare loaves of Cuban bread to bake at La Segunda Bakery in Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood.

It was her first appearance in the Cigar City since she headlined the Hillsborough County Democratic Executive Committee’s Kennedy-King dinner last month, less than a week after Hurricane Irma barreled through Florida. It was at that appearance where she castigated Scott and the state’s response to Irma, becoming one of the first to publicly question the governor, who initially and still now has received mostly raves for his handling of the storm.

“Irma had exposed a failure of planning on behalf of the state of Florida, and I’m even more sure today that the state has a lot of work to do to be ready for the next storm,” Graham said while taking a break.

Graham, 54, a lawyer and former Leon County school system administrator, also criticized Scott for failing to veto the HB 7069, the controversial education bill that included the ‘schools of hope’ provision. The measure requires school districts to give a proportionate share of the money they raise for construction and maintenance through a local property tax over to eligible charter schools operating in their county, with their share determined by enrollment numbers.

The measure was a pet project of House Speaker Richard Corcoran, a Land O’ Lakes Republican. Graham says she supports the more than a dozen local school boards that have since filed lawsuits challenging the proposal’s constitutionality.

She contends that Scott and Corcoran “struck some backroom deal” so that Corcoran would back Scott’s wish for $85 million in funding for Enterprise Florida, something that the governor and the House Speaker had previously been at odds with all session.

Graham called it another nail in the coffin for public education in Florida, insisting it would be different if she were elected governor in 2018.

“I’m going to take the other end of that hammer and start extracting those nails and do what’s right for public education again,” she vowed.

Her campaign said it was the 44th Workday of her gubernatorial campaign, a tradition started by her father, former Florida Governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham, where they spend entire shifts working alongside Floridians. She said such events are the most beneficial part of campaigning, mainly because of the people that she meets and the friendships she develops.

“(It’s) being able to have folks that I can turn back to and talk to when I’m governor about what’s going on in their lives, how can I make sure that we have a stronger environment for small businesses and family-owned businesses,” she says, adding that the people who are working every day are the ones “who see what can be fixed to make it better.”

Shortly after Graham’s workday, Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine announced he will make a major announcement next Wednesday — an event expected to reveal his gubernatorial bid joining Graham, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum and Orlando-area affordable housing businessman Chris King.