Nancy Smith

As South Florida experienced torrential rain Wednesday, with more promised through the weekend, folks in communities east, west and south of Lake Okeechobee nervously watched the big lake rise.

Those who scoffed in March at the South Florida Water Management District's Python Elimination Program can eat their words now.

Something smells rotten at the Florida Department of Transportation.

It looks as if the child care communities in Miami and Chicago each will get their wish.

The Florida State College System (FCS) had Gov. Rick Scott's back in 2012 when he challenged all 24 institutions to offer a four-year, $10,000-degree program.

George Sheldon must have a lot of friends in Florida. Certainly somebody should ask the folks at Our Kids Miami-Dade/Monroe -- the ones who offered Sheldon their top job at $210,000 a year without much of a search for anybody else -- why they didn't aim a little higher? 

Whatever you say about Gov. Rick Scott, he can juggle and chew gum at the same time. 

The National Ocean Service is narrowing the field of new leadership at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) nearly a year after an investigation of "waste, fraud and a hostile work environment" at the Sanctuary concluded that -- yes -- changes have to be made there.

It wasn't their intention, but Florida Supreme Court justices' Gretna decision sure started the engine on the Legislature's 2018 gravy train. 

UPDATED: Rick Scott will veto House Bill 7069. I feel it. He might even veto the Florida Education Finance Program, or FEFP, which is the majority of funding for K-12 public schools. The only thing he's waiting for is assurance leaders in the Legislature don't have the votes to override him.

Apparently Annette Taddeo didn't announce her candidacy on May 9 in the Senate District 40 special election after all. Never mind that virtually every media outlet in Tallahassee and Miami carried it at the time. She announced it Tuesday. That's today. Apparently.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't give the time of day to an editor-turned-flack who whines on Facebook  about the press mistreating his boss and mistreating a Florida technology company to which George Sheldon gave $811 million in consulting contracts. But I'll make an exception for Neil Skene. 

Not everybody readily understood why Gov. Rick Scott chose Clewiston, a farming community in the heart of the EAA, as the stage for Friday's ceremonial signing of Senate Bill 10.

This column is a vehicle for a number of items in a bits-and-pieces, strictly opinion, sometimes irreverent format. Look for "Just Sayin'" to run once a week in this spot.

The words "first, do no harm" should be embedded in every legislative swearing in. What a shame it's too late for the 2017 legislative session.