It wasn’t just the aroma and flavor of coffee that was percolating. It was also the chance to meet East Hillsborough County state representatives that was brewed.
Three Representatives spent about two hours fielding questions from about 120 area residents and business owners, March 27 in Hillsborough Community College Plant City’s Trinkle Center, while offering some of their own legislative reports and personal insight into a few issues relevant to Florida and Plant City.
During the Plant City Chamber of Commerce’s “Capitol Coffee,” Sen. Danny Burgess (R), District 23, Rep.Lawrence McClure (R), District 69 and Rep. Danny Alvarez(R), District 69 presented brief “legislative reports” and then fielded submitted audience questions read from cards by the event’s moderator, Chris Chambers, vice-president of business development and strategy at the Paratus Group, Tampa.
Following coffee and doughnuts in the center’s foyer at 8:30 a.m., the presentation began at 9 a.m. with the three representatives having five minutes each to present some of their personal accomplishments and goals for the state.
Those included: the drive for road resurfacing in Hillsborough County and Plant City, especially east Interstate 75; ways to use work experience and apprenticeships to substitute for college degrees to hire state employees; veterans issues including a veterans’ history project; veterans’ benefit packages; a tax exemption for the agriculture sector; and a pilot mental health program for first responders, veterans and law enforcement.
“When I was at the sheriff’s office, I remember going to one suicide scene after another…these men and women taking their lives, and thinking, ‘We have to do something better,’” said Alvarez, a Miami native who serves on the State Fair Committee, among others.
Another audience question dealt with what the legislature is doing regarding the “struggles the younger generation” is facing between “rent, home prices, gas, food, etc.”
Burgess said that was “one of the most important questions asked today” and blamed inflation, the rising cost of gas and living expenses.
“I can’t believe where it’s gone from when I just got out of law school and started my career,” said Burgess. “What a meaningful wage was then, where rent was then isn’t anywhere near what it is today. It’s depressing.”
Burgess discussed the rising cost of all home insurance due to hurricanes, inflation, rising housing prices and population growth. He said there’s no “magic bullet that cures that overnight.” He said the return of large insurance providers to Florida shows a return to a healthy insurance marketplace — “Not today, but hopefully in the near future.”
Other questions regarding the last legislative session included significant changes made for property insurance, a bill limiting access to social media for minors and their positions on legalized recreational marijuana.
McClure said social media was “tearing up the fabric of this country” and children shouldn’t be exposed to Artificial Intelligence forms of lives. Burgess added in the future, people will see social media in the same light as “the tobacco litigation of the 80s and 90s” and the need to balance First Amendment rights with the need to safeguard children.
Other topics discussed were:
Child labor laws.
The marketing of “laboratory-grown meat.”
Social security for the “younger generation.”