A playlist of classic jams like Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing and Bruce Springsteen’s Glory Days sang a crowd of local political power players in Manatee County on Wednesday at Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new park, featuring the governor in the foreground. the park’s inauguration ceremony.
Hours before a political fundraiser in the community, DeSantis made a stop at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Former Florida Senate President Bill Galvano, Rep. Will Robinson, Rep. Randy Gregory, Manatee County Commissioners, Bradenton Council members, Sheriff Rick Wells, notable figures and a handful of members of the community, among others, attended the event which was too closed. of the general public.
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Members of the media were allowed to attend the inauguration ceremony even though the Sarasota GOP event honoring Florida first lady Casey DeSantis in Sarasota was closed to the media. DeSantis did not respond to questions from the public.
“As governor, I appreciate when our local governments do well, and I also note when they don’t do as well, and I will say that in this part of the state we have had great partners to moving the state forward,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis addressed the attack in Israel during his speech at Wednesday’s meeting. He estimates that between 700 and 1,000 American citizens, mostly residents of Florida, have returned home on state-chartered flights.
“You see this terrible terrorist attack in Israel with Hammas, and they are massacring Israelis. There were more Jews killed on October 7 than at any time since the Holocaust,” DeSantis said. “We had a lot of Floridians there, they weren’t getting any help from the State Department. They weren’t getting any help from the embassy. The best they would do is throw them in Greece and then charge them for it. That.”
Officials then gathered around DeSantis for the unveiling of a name tag bearing Gov. Ron DeSantis Park, now on display.
The park has undergone recent county-funded renovations and has been named after the governor of Florida in 2022 after members of the local Republican Party chapter flooded a county poll with votes to rename the park after DeSantis.
Although the park did not have an official name before the renovations, it was often called Kinnan Park in homage to the nearby Kinnan Elementary School. The park now includes two dog parks, two separate playgrounds, pickleball courts, fitness trails, restrooms and solar lighting.
“I got three votes,” Manatee County Chairman Kevin Van Ostenbridge said Wednesday. “There were 350 votes cast and, overwhelmingly, Governor DeSantis was the winner.”
More:Manatee County community park to be named after Gov. Ron DeSantis
The event was closed to the general public. Corey Bleakley, an executive with Women’s Voices of Southwest Florida, challenged the exclusive nature of the event on the eve of a political fundraiser. Bleakley was part of a group of Sarasota residents and Manatees to protest.
“We have a public park opening, and this is by invitation only,” Bleakley said. “The campaign is losing money, so I believe this is a last-ditch effort to consolidate the presidency.”
