Murder rate: No place to hide: County crime statistics from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement analyzed by The Florida Times-Union editorial page indicate Duval County leads the state’s counties in murder rate for the seventh year in a row. The numbers show that Duval is the only county in double digits when it comes to the per capita murder statistic, with nearest challengers Orange and Miami-Dade not even close. This is probably the first time in at least 20 years that Miami-Dade hasn’t finished first or second in murder rate among Florida counties, even if it just barely trailed Orange. For practical purposes, Duval County is Jacksonville, which is a consolidated city-county government. The editorial notes that one out of every 10 murders in Florida during 2005 happened in Duval County, even though the county has only about 5 percent of the state’s people. How many people in Florida would have picked Duval over the more populated Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Pinellas, Palm Beach and Orange counties as having a higher murder rate?

Records rev up:
National Transportation Safety Board reports, Federal Aviation Administration inspection and enforcement records, lawsuits: *Ronnie Greene of the Miami Herald takes a three-part look at the risky business of cargo service and how cargo pilots are crashing in large numbers and how near misses are all-too frequent. This is hair-raising stuff (*free registration required) …
Florida Public Employees Relations Commission filings: *Katherine Lewis of the Naples Daily News on the status of the Collier County school system’s union contract negotiations (*free registration required) …
State Auditor General’s audit report: Brad Buck of the Leesburg Daily Commercial on a stinging audit of the Lake County School District …

Florida Sunshine Review:
St. Petersburg Times, by Will Van Sant: Not all Florida government Web sites are up to speed on new spam law …
Florida Times-Uniion editorial: Supreme Court made a wise decision in giving Manatee courts clerk the green light with pilot program regarding records …

July 10, 2006

Florida Sunshine Review:
Sarasota Herald- Tribune, by Todd Ruger: Manatee County court clerk pilot Web site will take a year to gear up and be available …
Palm Beach Post editorial: Supreme Court made good call regarding online access to clerk’s records …
Bradenton Herald, by Nicholas Azzara: Supreme Court program makes Manatee County a pilot program for greater access to online court records …
*Orlando Sentinel, by John Kennedy: State to try out Internet access for court records as pilot program (*free registration required) …
Palm Beach Post, by Alan Gomez: More study ordered before most court records return to online access …
St. Petersburg Times, by S.I. Rosenbaum: Social event involving potential contractors and two Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority members raises questions …