{"id":34793,"date":"2015-02-01T15:41:18","date_gmt":"2015-02-01T20:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=34793"},"modified":"2015-02-01T15:41:18","modified_gmt":"2015-02-01T20:41:18","slug":"gov-scott-visits-fgcu-reacts-to-fdle-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2015\/02\/gov-scott-visits-fgcu-reacts-to-fdle-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Scott Visits FGCU,<br> Reacts To FDLE Scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-34794\" title=\"Scott at FGCU\" src=\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Scott-at-FGCU-300x140.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"140\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Scott-at-FGCU-300x140.png 300w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Scott-at-FGCU.png 665w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Florida Governor Rick Scott is coming under fire in SWFL.<\/p>\n<p>Scott visited Florida Gulf Coast University Friday to talk about his proposal to eliminate sales tax on college textbooks, but he couldn\u2019t escape the controversy surrounding the recent resignation of one of the state\u2019s top law enforcement officials.<\/p>\n<p>The governor remained steadfast in his assertion that his office handled the resignation of Gerald Bailey properly. Bailey,\u00a0who resigned as Commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in December after 8 years, has since said he was forced out. He\u00a0has also accused Scott of back-room political maneuvering and interfering in FDLE business.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->\u201cThose allegations against me are completely ridiculous and untrue,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n<p>Scott\u2019s fellow cabinet members have recently expressed concern\u00a0about the way Scott\u2019s office handled Bailey\u2019s resignation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe way that [Bailey] was treated at the end of his distinguished career was shabby,\u201d Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam told Tallahassee reporters Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRick Scott and I have not said one single word to each other about this nor communicated through anyone about this,\u201d said Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.<\/p>\n<p>A St. Petersburg attorney has filed a complaint, calling for Governor Scott\u2019s office to be investigated for violating the state\u2019s Sunshine Law for not properly consulting the rest of the cabinet before allegedly forcing Bailey\u2019s resignation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy staff sat down with the staff of the other cabinet officers, none of them objected. Gerald Bailey was given the opportunity to step down, he did,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n<p>Scott\u00a0did not answer when asked if he would cooperate in any possible criminal investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Florida Governor Rick Scott is coming under fire in SWFL. Scott visited Florida Gulf Coast University Friday to talk about his proposal to eliminate sales tax on college textbooks, but&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}