Editor's Note: Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, visited various spots in Crestview for his Neighborhood Day.
He visited WAAZ-FM 104.7 and WJSB-AM 1050; Davidson Middle School; the Crestview Area Chamber of Commerce office; the Robert L.F. Sikes Education Center at Crestview's Northwest Florida State College campus; the Rotary Club of Crestview; North Okaloosa Medical Center; the Crestview News Bulletin; and he walked door-to-door to discuss concerns with residents.
Here is our interview with Gaetz. We used questions from our readers and news staff.
—
Today is Crestview Neighborhood Day, and your itinerary has been full. So far, what have residents asked you about?
What I'm hearing during this Crestview Neighborhood Day is people are concerned about local issues.
They want to know, "Is my hospital going to be OK?" depending upon what happens with the health care policy debates and budget debates in Tallahassee.
There are a lot of concerns about schools. "Why are Okaloosa County schools declining in quality? What can we do?" We had a parent who came by this morning and has a gifted child, and had a lot of questions about kind of the backing up on gifted education that he says is occurring.
And questions, of course, about transportation, about Highway 85 and what we're going to do about that.
And then questions from the chamber of commerce — "What are we going to do to encourage diversification of our economy so that if the Pentagon catches a cold, we don't get pneumonia?" Or, God forbid, if there's another oil spill and we get brought to our knees? "What are we doing … so that my Main Street business in Crestview will survive?"
Those are the questions that I'm hearing, and that's the kind of input that I'm hearing.
So as I go back and get prepared to vote on the budget, it's not the big philosophical questions that seem to be troubling folks in Crestview. It's 'What about the future of my community?" "What about transportation problems here?" "What about health care access here?" "What about the school system here?" And, "Is there a way to kind of turn around the slow decline?"
—
What do you say to residents raising concerns about the school system?
It's a tough question and a ticklish question for me.
I'm a former superintendent of the schools. And I was fortunate — and it certainly wasn't because of me — but when I was superintendent, our Okaloosa schools moved from 27th in the state to the best-performing school system in Florida history, and we stayed at that level for four years.
What I told the gentleman (who raised concerns about education for gifted children) this morning was, "Get like-minded parents who are as well concerned about making sure that their children receive individualized education and teaching, whether they're kids who are struggling or kids … who are gifted children, and sit down as a group and meet with the superintendent and let the superintendent know what your concerns are."
Parent concerns and parent involvement drove Okaloosa schools from being a mediocre school system to being the best in the state.
The public was simply tired of having to explain why our schools weren't in the top tier.
Now, our schools are still in the top layer, but they've begun to decline, and I think it's parent concern and taxpayer concern that can provide the impetus to lift our schools again.
We have effective teachers, but our teachers need support, and I think that support needs to come from parents.
—
There's often the perception that North Okaloosa County — Crestview, Baker, Laurel Hill, Holt and surrounding communities — benefit less from state funding. Do you share that perception?
I think historically that has been accurate. More recently, I believe, Crestview and the north county is coming into its own.
We've built four new schools in Okaloosa County in recent years. All four of them have been in the north end of the county.
It's now time, in my judgment, to have transportation infrastructure investments in the north end of the county.
In my judgment, the worst traffic problem we have in the county now is Highway 85 during peak drive time.
It seems to me that we need to work together with our federal partners, with the county and the city and the state government, to develop a solution to the Highway 85 traffic problems that occur at least twice a day, and at least all day long, here in Crestview.
I think that will show … that we're taking seriously that traffic problem as well as the problems elsewhere.
But if you look at the funding that has come from the state during the two years that I was president of the Senate, we put extensive improvements in the Crestview airport; extensive improvements into state roads in the north part of the county; we provided more education funding than ever before in the county's history for the north end of the county. So I think the tide is beginning to turn, as it should, toward the population center, and that's Crestview.
Crestview is now the largest city in Okaloosa County and, therefore, we ought to be providing the services where the services are needed. Increasingly, it's in the north end of the county as well as the south end of the county.
So historically, I think the north end has been shortchanged, but I believe that more recently, in most metrics of funding and performance, the north end of the county is doing better, as it should."
—
What is your position on oil drilling in Gulf waters?
I oppose oil drilling in Florida's sovereign waters, and the reason why is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that we had in 2010. That was in federal waters, not in Florida sovereign waters, but we sweated it out every single day as the oil moved closer and closer to Northwest Florida beaches.
Fortunately, we only got some oil on the beaches, but if we would have had the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurring in state sovereign waters close to Florida, it would have caused substantially more environmental and economic damage.
Our beaches here are the greatest God-given resource that we have in Northwest Florida, and I don't believe we need to risk them for drilling within the state's sovereign waters.
The Congress can make their own decision about federal waters, but as far as state waters are concerned, I'm opposed to any drilling near the Florida shore.
—
How should oil spill money benefit Northwest Florida?
There's another source of funding as well: the state of Florida, our attorney general, has initiated a lawsuit on behalf of the state because our state suffered losses in terms of lost revenue and lost business.
So you've got the losses suffered by individual businesses, and they — in most cases — have made claims against BP; and then you've got, obviously, the federal claim … and then you have a state claim.
I sponsored legislation, the Oil Spill Recovery Act, in the Florida Senate. It passed the Florida Senate, passed the Florida House, (was) signed by the governor, and ensures that 75 percent of all fine and settlement dollars recovered by the state come directly to the communities affected by the oil spill, and that's coastal Northwest Florida.
Our goal there with that legislation is to make sure that the money does not get drained away in Washington or in Tallahassee but benefits the communities that really took he economic brunt and perhaps the environmental disadvantages associated with the spill.
My objective in sponsoring that legislation — and seeing it through — is to ensure that local people, not state officials, not federal officials, could decide how the money should be used.
… We certainly shouldn't use it for projects that just generate temporary jobs but instead we ought to use this once-in-a-generation, maybe once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put a third leg under the stool of the Northwest Florida economy.
We have the military and military-related economic activity; we obviously got tourism; but this morning I met with the chamber of commerce leaders here in Crestview. Their concern is, "What are we doing to generate non-military, non-hospitality related economic activity?"
That's what we ought to be using this money for.
Now, in the Oil Spill Recovery Act that I sponsored, there was a direct appropriation of $30 million to immediately prime the pump for economic diversification.
All of that money has been used for grants and economic incentives through the Haas Center at the University of West Florida — they're the ones that administered the funds — so that we could start and grow small businesses that give us a non-military, non-hospitality leg into the economy.
—
What are your plans after your current term?
My term in the Senate is over on Election Day in November of 2016, and I don't have any, you know, specific plans beyond that date.
There are some people who believe that the state of Florida would be better off if I got out of Tallahassee, and they suggested that maybe I should go to Washington.
Sen. (Marco) Rubio, who's running for president, has chosen to vacate his United States Senate seat. I think it's an indication of how scrambled the political situation in our state is, that people are even talking to me about running for the United States Senate.
Should Congressman (Jeff) Miller decide to run for the United States Senate, there are people talking to me about running for his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
But we've made no decisions about that. It's not the No. 1 topic on my plate.
The No. 1 topic for me is successfully completing the budget session that starts next Monday with a balanced budget so that Florida lives within its means and meets its critical needs.
—
Email News Bulletin Editor Thomas Boni or tweet him.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Gaetz talks education, Crestview roads, oil spill and political future