Assistant director elevated to head state parks system
By Times Wires
Published August 28, 2003
TALLAHASSEE - Michael Bullock was picked Wednesday to head the state Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Recreation and Parks.
Bullock has worked in the park system 31 years, beginning as a landscape designer. He later served as the head of the Bureau of Design and Recreational Services. Since 1996, he has been the assistant director, overseeing daily operations of the state's 157 parks and more than 1,000 employees.
"I am confident that he will keep Florida's state parks the best in the nation," said DEP Secretary David Struhs.
Bullock replaces Wendy Spencer, 42, who resigned June 30 after heading the parks division less than two years. According to published reports at the time, she was asked to leave after disagreeing with her DEP bosses' plans for reorganizing the parks system.
Court rejects request to stop Hill's execution
TALLAHASSEE - The state Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request by two antiabortion lawyers to stop the scheduled execution of Paul Hill next week for the murders of a Pensacola abortion doctor and a clinic escort.
The court ruled unanimously that the lawyers can't intervene without Hill's permission unless they can show he can't seek relief on his own. Hill wants to die and isn't appealing his sentence.
The attorneys, Michael Hirsh, of Kennesaw, Ga., and Roger J. Frechette, of New Haven, Conn., argued that Hill can't be put to death until he's served two federal life sentences for the same crime.
Hill, 49, is scheduled to be executed Sept. 3 for the 1994 murders of Dr. John Bayard Britton and retired Air Force Lt. Col. James Barrett outside the clinic.
Cabinet okays allowing cables among coral reefs
TALLAHASSEE - A plan to route undersea fiber-optic cables through gaps in South Florida coral reefs won approval from Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Cabinet over opposition from some environmentalists.
The new rules provide incentives to telecommunications companies to route cables through five natural corridors in the reefs off Broward and Palm Beach counties instead of through denser coral beds where the cables could cause more damage.
Cables would be banned from the coral and sponge-rich areas off Biscayne Bay and the Florida Keys under the rules approved Tuesday.
The fiber-optic cables, operated by companies such as AT&T, provide high-speed telephone, Internet and other links to Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Thirteen cables are in use in Florida and two are proposed.
Some environmentalists said the cables will still threaten the reefs, pointing to past accidents, including one off Hollywood in 1999 when cables came loose and dislodged 283 corals.
Prosecutors won't pursue sex charges against priest
MIAMI - A suspended Miami priest will not be prosecuted for alleged sex crimes against children because the statute of limitations has expired, the State Attorney's Office said.
The Rev. Ricardo Castellanos had been accused of assaulting three former altar boys. All were older than 12 when the assaults allegedly occurred, meaning the state's statute of limitations to bring charges was four years. Two attacks allegedly occurred in the 1970s, the third in 1988.
Castellanos has denied the accusations. Castellanos had been suspended by the Archdiocese of Miami. There is no timetable for his possible reinstatement, spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta said Wednesday, because an archdiocesan review board has not completed its investigation.
Another priest suspended for more than a year as the state investigated allegations that he sexually abused two altar boys in the 1970s was reinstated by the archdiocese last week. The Rev. Alvaro Guichard returned to his altar at St. Francis de Sales Church Saturday.
