Jacob Ogles
The state still won’t fund a road to Moffitt Cancer Center.
Gov. Ron DeSantis once again vetoed funding for a connector road to access a Moffitt Cancer Center Life Sciences campus in Pasco County. That cleared $5 million out of the state budget he signed on Thursday.
Last year, then-Senate President Wilton Simpson had made a priority of $600 million in funding for that Moffitt campus in his home county, only to see DeSantis nix the whole deal.
Simpson later won election as Florida Agriculture Commissioner.
That type of commitment for Moffitt did not make it into the budget this year, but state Rep. Randy Maggard, a Dade City Republican, did seek funding for the roadway to make the campus accessible. He had sought $25 million for the project, but only $5 million was ultimately included in the budget approved by the Legislature.
Jamie Wilson of Moffitt and lobbyist Sydney Ridley of The Southern Group argued in a budget request that it was in the best interest of the state to pave a road to Speros so that employees and visitors to the center could safely drive there.
But the road hit a roadblock at the Governor’s desk. A list of almost $511 million vetoed projects included several line-items designates for specific roadways.
The Moffitt campus road was the most expensive of those to be killed by DeSantis. It held the same $5 million price tag as a Kathleen Road widening in Lauderdale Lakes that the Governor also stripped from the budget.
Other major road projects axed by DeSantis include a $4 million expansion of Fruitville Road in Sarasota, $1.5 million for design and construction on the Biscayne-Everglades Greenway, $1.5 million for reconstruction of Fort Florida Road, $1.25 million Auburndale Roadway improvements in Miami and $1.1 million tor route enhancements for Manatee County Area Transit.
Despite the budget veto last year, Moffitt leaders committed they would continue to pursue the Pasco County campus. The center is planned on 775 acres off Suncoast Parkway at State Road 52.
13 comments
Dont Say FLA
June 16, 2023 at 8:16 am
Florida can’t afford to be paving any roads to any cancer centers. The DeSantis campaign comes first. There’s still trans drag queens out there to get rid of. Disney is still in Orlando. Gotta get rid of them, too. There’s Mexicans in Mexico. Gotta keep them out of Texas. This stuff is expensive! Just take the 4 wheeler to the cancer center. You got enough pain meds. You’ll be fine!
Dan
June 16, 2023 at 1:53 pm
What a stupid idiot you are. Why don’t you just leave Florida and move to hell where you belong
Tina
June 16, 2023 at 2:24 pm
Dan, he is not an idiot if you live in Florida and you don’t realize that this is what DeSantis is doing, Then you must have your head in the sand.
You need to realize that DeSantis ONLY cares about DeSantis. He will do anything to get a head. Scary times in Florida for all of us.
LOUISE
June 16, 2023 at 7:53 pm
I agree! DeSantis is trying to create a world for DeSantis. No concern for adversity, compassion, and common sense. His utopia would be an all-white, stepford wife, handmaid tale world, with HIM as the Wizard. He is ruining FLORIDA. And keep your comments about moving somewhere else to yourself, Florida is OUR state.
K Centanni
June 16, 2023 at 9:36 pm
Sounds like you are the stupid idiot.
Hannahbea
June 16, 2023 at 8:17 pm
You are definitely a Democrazy
Jorge
June 17, 2023 at 6:38 am
Love it!
You are so right!
How long must Florida endure Wrong DeSatan?
Josh Green
June 16, 2023 at 10:41 am
And he wonders why he earned the nickname “Ron Death Sentence”.
His Covid response basically murdered thousand, and now he can’t even find a few bucks to help cancer patients reach their treatment center?
S Bath
June 16, 2023 at 2:22 pm
Oh but BUCEE’S. Is so needed in Ocala. The benefits would’ve madeI 4 travel so much safer if it had been put in Haines City interchange on I 4.
Ann De Witt
June 16, 2023 at 2:26 pm
The biggest mistake was electing him he has destroyed Flordia
Traci
June 16, 2023 at 4:23 pm
Thanks Ron on behalf of myself and every woman fighting breast cancer. HOPE your wife never faces what we have!
Tracy
June 17, 2023 at 9:50 am
Pretty sure she did.
Tina
June 17, 2023 at 11:34 am
Traci you are correct, of course it would be different if it affected him or his family or the donors that are giving him the big bucks. That is the way that he rolls. When are all of the people of Florida going to realize that DeSantis just cares about DeSantis?
Comments are closed.