Re-upping a little history lesson from Sunday's edition of Seeking Rents:
Shortly after he took office in 2019, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put four people all at once on the seven-member board that runs Orlando International Airport.
Shortly after he took office in 2019, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put four people all at once on the seven-member board that runs Orlando International Airport.
The new DeSantis majority — urged on by advisers like political consigliere Matt Gaetz and the governor’s chief of staff — quickly launched an attempted hostile takeover of the agency, which spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on vendors, contractors & concessionaires.
One of the first things DeSantis’ people on the board tried to do was oust the airport’s existing general counsel and replace him with their own hand-picked lawyers.
During the ensuing uproar, one of the players involved in the controversy told me that there were three key positions needed to control a place like the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority: The board chair, the executive director and the general counsel.
I thought of that earlier this month during the first meeting of the new board of trustees at New College of Florida, where DeSantis had just installed six ideological allies all at once.
Within the span of about an hour, the DeSantis appointees ousted the previous board chair and replaced her with one of their own.
They fired the university’s president and replaced her with Richard Corcoran, a former Republican state House speaker and DeSantis advisor.
And they announced plans to replace New College’s general counsel with Bill Galvano, a former Republican state Senate president and DeSantis friend.
And now that Team DeSantis has taken total control at New College, DeSantis is asking the Legislature to give the school a lot more money to spend: Starting with an immediate $15 million infusion to recruit new faculty and students, plus other “institutional restructuring” costs.
The Legislature is expected to hand over that $15 million next week.
DeSantis and his new appointees have made a lot of noise about “recapturing” higher education and turning New College into an overtly conservative classical college.
But this New College takeover is also about gaining control of money and contracts.
But this New College takeover is also about gaining control of money and contracts.
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