"In speaking with tens of thousands of my friends and neighbors across Miramar, Pembroke Pines, Southwest Ranches, and Weston, all of you told me what you expect from state government.
Through these many conversations, your expectations have become my marching orders when, with your support, I get to Tallahassee."
BETTER SCHOOLS FOR OUR KIDS
We need to approach education from the perspective that it is the best investment we can make for the future of every Floridian.
Encourage improvement through competition by allowing parents to have a choice in their children’s education.
Establish and maintain a strong cadre of highly qualified teachers through better pay and incentives.
Increase emphasis on both STEM and Career and Technical Education (CTE) by using public-private-labor partnerships to focus education toward viable, well-paying careers in fields needed across Florida.
Beyond a rigorous foundational curriculum that includes core courses in STEM and language arts, we also need to provide our students with civics and American history classes as well as critical thinking and life skills that will allow graduates to better function and thrive in the 21st-century world.
Right-size school systems across the state by increasing the number of front-line educators and behavior health personnel while decreasing the percentage of non-faculty administrative staff.
Make Florida schools safer with more intelligent security systems and proactive behavior health education and training for all school staff.
Expand the Florida Bright Futures Program by providing prorated tuition forgiveness for graduates of Florida colleges and universities with advanced degrees who go on to get jobs in Florida.
SAFER STREETS FOR OUR FAMILIES
The most basic premise for the existence of any government is to protect and serve its people.
Everything else is secondary.
Support our front-line first responders at every level with the best quality equipment, together with advanced education and training, to do their jobs safely and evenly.
Make healthcare and pharmaceutical costs transparent.
Help South Floridians struggling with opioid addiction.
Stop the “export” of Florida medical students out of the state.
Protect Floridians with pre-existing conditions.
Improve our emergency management systems across the entire state through whole-of-community mitigation and education, training, and exercise programs.
Establish a robust, redundant, and interoperable regionalized emergency radio communication system and 911 call centers.
Aggressively go after criminals engaged in Medicaid and Medicare fraud and elder abuse.
PROTECT AND PRESERVE OUR ENVIRONMENT FOR OUR FUTURE
Nature is Florida’s most valuable asset. From our incomparable coastlines, our estuaries teeming with life, and the flora and fauna that make their homes in these ecosystems, collectively, these treasures make up our incredible Florida Everglades. Not only is it unique and beautiful, but this ecosystem is also existential for preserving our state.
Protect our drinking water and aquifers through a top-to-bottom review and improvement of all existing laws and regulations.
Complete the full implementation of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) of 2000.
Create public-private programs to develop new ways to deal with the sources of toxic algae blooms.
Ban the building of new incinerators across the state and start the process to sundown existing ones while moving toward Zero Waste programs that include recycling and composting.
Our Native American tribes in Florida consider the land a sacred trust, so should government at every level. We should partner with federal, tribal, and local partners to expand and, when possible, interconnect our park systems across the state.
SUPPORT ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES FOR EVERYONE WILLING TO WORK
South Florida is growing. We need to get ahead of this growth and be proactive and ready rather than reactive, as the latter only leads to paying more and getting less.
We must actively develop opportunities to encourage major domestic and international corporations to relocate and invest in South Florida and, in the process, create good-paying jobs for our people.
I will lead and promote forward-leaning legislation to take full advantage of our geography and our position as the nation’s southern gateway to the world, to expand international trade opportunities through long-delayed improvements to the airports and seaports of South Florida, to bring them into the 21st Century.
Promote creating a series of local incubators to foster the development and successful growth of high-tech and traditional small businesses.
We must right-size our state expenses to keep our taxes low and ensure we NEVER implement a state income tax in Florida.
