So is Florida politics "teared, smeared and bleared" with trading favors (to borrow and adopt a line from the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins)? You tell me. This stinks on ice. This looks to me like a stinky no-bid contract too benefit a rich GQP contributo. Is it a contract violation of public policy? See Restatement of Contracts, 2d,, sec 178 (Contract Violations of Public Policy).
Article states: "The state recognized what a unique opportunity this was — to purchase land on our state’s one-of-a-kind coast for a new state park,” Mixon wrote. But the property won’t become a state park after all. Records show, and Kuchta confirmed, that the property will be managed by Okaloosa County."
From Tampa Bay Times:
Lobbyist wrote proposal directing Florida to buy controversial, pricey 4 acres
Florida politicians, including prominent Republicans, expressed outrage and confusion over a fast-tracked state purchase of 4 acres of sandy land in Destin for $83 million last month,raising questions about how the unusual deal bypassed typical safeguards for conservation buys.
Newly obtained public records provide an answer: The proposal that led to the purchasecame from a lobbyist representing the property owner who stands to profit.
Rhett O’Doski hand-delivered an early version of the state budget language to the aide for Sen. Jay Trumbull, R-Panama City, in March, email records show.
O’Doski represents Pointe Resort LLC, one of the two companies listed as owners of the property. Both are registered in corporate filings to Robert Guidry, a Louisiana business owner who has donated to Florida politicians’ campaigns, including Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier — both of whom voted to approve the deal.
“Attached is the same budget language that I handed you yesterday,” O’Doski wrote to Trumbull’s aide, Andrea Gainey, on March 26. The draft directed the state to purchase a property in Okaloosa County next to a local government park, but did not name the parcel, its owners or the price.
Less than three months later, on the last day of budget negotiations in June, Trumbull inserted similar language into the state budget, according to public records and reporting by Politico. The new paragraph required that the state prioritize buying the 4 acres, leapfrogging over long-standing conservation priorities. To make the purchase, the state would use money set aside for the Florida Wildlife Corridor, a continuous tract of preserved land down the spine of the state designed to benefit animals like bears and panthers, even though the Destin property isn’t part of it.
The proposal O’Doski gave to Trumbull’s office included a key detail: Florida’s environmental regulators could use appraisals that had already been commissioned by the seller, giving the landowner greater sway over the price.
State law outlines a checklist of rules for appraisals to ensure taxpayer dollars are spent on properties that advance the state’s long-term conservation goals. But experts interviewed by the Times have said this purchase deviated from the typical appraisal process and resulted in what they consider to be an exorbitant cost.
The email records were obtained through a public records request by independent journalist Jason Garcia of the Seeking Rents newsletter, who provided them to the Tampa Bay Times.
Lobbyists often write language that lawmakers include in the budget, said Mike Fasano, the Pasco County tax collector, who was a longtime Republican member of the Florida Legislature. This case is unusual, he said, only for how obvious the fingerprints are.
This is nothing new,” Fasano said.
Floridians became aware of the multimillion-dollar acquisition days before DeSantis and the Cabinet voted to buy the property. It immediately stood as an outlier compared to recent conservation purchases, including a 2020 acquisition for the last remaining piece of private land within Topsail Hill Preserve State Park, a few miles down the road from the Destin property. The Cabinet approved buying that 4.5-acre tract for $882,500, or about 1% of the cost of the Destin land.
“Something that’s extremely important here, which was deliberately hidden, is the actual price of the property,” said Eric Draper, the former director of state parks under DeSantis until he retired in 2021. “Nobody who saw that budget language could have possibly understood this money was being stolen from the Florida wildlife corridor to enrich a donor.”
Guidry’s companies had purchased the property less than 10 years earlier for under $8 million.
Guidry has not responded to the Times’ requests for comment, including a voicemail left Tuesday. Neither Trumbull nor O’Doski responded to emails and texts. DeSantis’ office also didn’t respond to emails requesting comment Tuesday.
Days after his initial email to Trumbull’s office, O’Doski sent the same budgetary language again, saying that he had buy-in from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
“We sent this over to DEP and they are good with how it reads,” he wrote.
In an emailed statement, agency spokesperson Alex Kuchta said that writing budget language is not the agency’s job, and it “does not approve or endorse proposed budget language outside of our own agency budget and policy recommendations.”
Kuchta has previously noted that the land purchase will expand public access by adding to the adjacent park.
Colleen Castille, who served as the head of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection under former Gov. Jeb Bush from 2004 until 2007, reviewed the records and said it’s yet another way elected leaders skirted typical procedure for conservation projects.
“The land purchase process has been, for decades, transparent and fair to all concerned,” she said. “But in this case, numerous steps for protecting that transparency have been violated.”
DeSantis and two members of the Cabinet, Uthmeier and Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, both voted to approve the Destin purchase. But in an unusual moment of intraparty tension, Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia said he opposed the deal. His spokesperson has since said Ingoglia took issue mainly with the property’s price.
In an Oct. 14 social media post, Okaloosa County Board chairperson Paul Mixon praised the purchase. Records show Mixon’s campaign received eight separate $1,000 checks from Guidry or businesses registered to him.
“The state recognized what a unique opportunity this was — to purchase land on our state’s one-of-a-kind coast for a new state park,” Mixon wrote.
But the property won’t become a state park after all. Records show, and Kuchta confirmed, that the property will be managed by Okaloosa County.
The Tampa Bay Times launched the Environment Hub in 2025 to focus on some of Florida‘s most urgent and enduring challenges. You can contribute through our journalism fund by clicking here.
©2025 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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