Alex Sink

Information For our Florida Readers

Here is the latest info from Florida CFO Alex Sink:

CFO SINK ANNOUNCES NEW ONLINE SEARCH FOR CONTRACTORS PARTICIPATING IN THE MY SAFE FLORIDA HOME PROGRAM

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink Wednesday announced the launch of a new online search tool that will help Florida homeowners participating in the My Safe Florida Home program find approved contractors. By visiting www.mysafefloridahome.com, homeowners will be able to search by county or type of work performed from a universe of nearly 150 contractors approved to participate with the program.

â€œToday we are giving Florida homeowners the tools to make informed choices about the professionals they hire to help them improve their homes,â€ said CFO Sink, who oversees the Department of Financial Services. â€œFloridians looking to harden their homes can turn to the My Safe Florida Home website and know that the contractors who participate with us are properly trained to perform essential hurricane mitigation improvements.â€

Nearly 14,000 Florida homeowners have received a free home inspection and are currently in the process of receiving their completed inspection reports with recommended home improvements. To be eligible for matching grants of up to $5,000, homeowners choosing to make one or more of the recommended mitigation techniques must use a participating contractor.

To become a participating contractor with the My Safe Florida Home program, all contractors must be licensed by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation or by a local authority for the work that they are performing through the program. All participating contractors must also complete or already have completed a four-hour course on residential wind-resistance retrofit improvements. As additional contractors qualify, the website will be updated regularly to reflect the current approved list of approved contractors.

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Words to live by

Lying on my cot, I came to the point that many people reach in a situation where they stop what theyâ€™re doing and say, "Wait a second. This is bullshit. This isnâ€™t right." Two guys in our battalion were dead, two families ruined. And try as I might, I couldnâ€™t figure out what the purpose of that was.

Things that had been welling up inside me all summer suddenly exploded in my head like a dozen Roman candles. I hated the president for his ignorance. I hated Donald Rumsfeld for his appalling arrogance and his lack of judgment. I hated their agenda. I hated Colin Powell for abandoning the Armyâ€”for not taking care of his soldiersâ€”when he could have done something to stop these people. I hated them because the Army had seen this insurgency coming. I hated them because they didnâ€™t listen to the people who told them this was a bad plan. I hated them because now, it meant that my guys could be next. It meant that I could be next. And I didnâ€™t want to die like thisâ€”not in a confusing mishmash of ideologies, purposes, and bullets.

I felt like we had been taken advantage of. We were professionals sent on a wild goose chase using a half-baked plan for political reasons. Lying there restlessly, I was reminded of a Schwarzenegger line in one of his moviesâ€”when, after being used and lied to, his muscle-bound character had expressed perfectly what was now on my mind: My men are not expendable. And I donâ€™t do this kind of work.

I longed for the clarity of purpose weâ€™d had in Afghanistan.

— Lieutenant Brandon Friedman, 101st Airborne, in his memoir, The War I Always Wanted: The Illusion of Glory and the Reality of War: A Screaming Eagle in Afghanistan and Iraq