Spotting Big Tech and AI in local politics. Also, a college turns trash into treasure

This is Florida Matters Live and Local. We're broadcasting from the doctors Lorraine Rubus and Neil Frankel studio at WSF in Tampa. I'm Matthew Petty. A little bit later this hour, we're going to talk about how political ads created using artificial intelligence are being used in Florida's primary election. But there's another layer to the story of AI and politics, and that's the big tech companies which are investing heavily in AI. They're also spending millions of dollars to try and help elect AI-friendly politicians. Jason Garcia, who authors the Substack Newsletter Seeking Rents. It's about money in Florida politics. It's been digging into the story, and he joins us now. Jason, thank you so much for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me, Matthew. And you can weigh in. Maybe you've got some questions about who's paying for political mailers, where campaigns are getting their support from, and big tech's influence on elections. The number is 813-7562. That's 813-7562 talking about big tech weighing in on Florida elections. You can also email Florida Matters at WUSF.org. Jason, Mesa is reportedly spending about $65 million on helping elect tech-friendly politicians around the country. What have they actually said about that effort? Yeah, they have, the way it's been described by the operatives that have set up the PACs that they are talking about, they're looking for sort of politicians that are forward-thinking on AI and sort of tech regulation issues at the state level, which is obviously becoming a very big deal as more and more states around the country are looking to sort of... try and proactively get in front of managing AI and all the different uses and applications and ways it can affect sort of every element of society right down to political campaigns. And there's a couple of different packs, as you mentioned, funneling money into those campaigns. I got a little bit of a kick reading the names because they're quite similar in some ways. You've got forging our future and then making our tomorrow. I sort of wondered if maybe those names had been generated by AI, but what can you tell us about those packs? Yeah, they've set up and these, they've got like, Pax by the same name in different states plus super PACs. But like making our tomorrow is the name of the entities they are using to play in Democratic primaries to support Democratic candidates that the, you know, in races where there are two Democrats facing each other. They think one will be better for them on AI policy. Making Our Tomorrow is what they're using to pay for ads in those races. Forge the Future Project is the entity, the collection of PACs they're using to play in Republican primaries where they're sending. advertisements on behalf of Republicans competing in Republican primaries. And we've seen both of them be active in Florida already. Yeah. Now, one race that you signal single out in your reporting, it's a state Senate race here in Tampa, state reps, Fentress, Driscoll, and Michelle Rainer are facing off in a Democratic primary. And of course, that kind of came about because of the redistricting. But where are you seeing META's influence in that particular race?

Yeah, in one particularly prominent way in that it is sending advertisements mailers to residents of district Democratic voters in Senate District 16, urging them to support Fentress Driscoll. They're praising her, urging her as the best candidate. And these are mailers coming from, if you look at them, it'll say paid, sponsored by Making Our Tomorrow, which is Facebook's. pack to play in Democratic primaries. And what's sort of interesting about these is, you know, of course, these mailers don't say don't have the name meta or Facebook on anywhere on it. It says instead it's this pack name. But also it doesn't get into anything, it doesn't say anything about the issues that meta actually cares about it. There's nothing about artificial intelligence. There's nothing about data centers. There's nothing about social media regulation. Instead, it's a bunch of different issues, you know, like protecting democracy or supporting schools. So it's a little bit disingenuous in that. These ads don't say anything about why the company paying for them is actually paying for them. What I noticed too, and there's an image of one of these mailers on your story on seeking rents, but what I found interesting is it's got a bunch of kind of logos down the bottom of, you know, fairly kind of left-leaning organizations, unions and the like. I mean... What are the rules around those or what kind of input would there have been, if any, from any of those groups that they're saying, these groups support this candidate and, you know, you should too. Yeah, if those organizations have endorsed the candidate, there's nothing to stop a third party from coming along and sort of pointing out those endorsements. So I wouldn't suggest that that doesn't say, for instance, like the teachers union or whatever other organizations, they might be alluding to had any role in this. That's a pretty common tactic when third party groups weigh in, either both positively or negatively sort of highlighting, you know, third party validators for a candidate. Yeah. If you're just joining us on Florida Matters Live and Local, we're talking about. Talking with investigative journalist Jason Garcia about Mesa, that's Facebook's parent company and its involvement in state politics, especially here in Florida and Tampa Bay specifically. If you've got questions, you can call in with those 8137556562. That's 813755652. Maybe you've received one of these mailers or seen one of these ads on the internet. You can also email Florida Matters at WSF.org if you've got questions or comments. I mean, what makes this particular race worth noting? Because it is kind of unusual, right, for a company the size of measure to get involved in state politics on this level. Yeah, it's not necessarily unusual for a company the size of meta to get involved generally. Like for instance, meta has also made more than $100,000 in campaign contributions to various elected officials in the Florida legislature, particularly over the last few months. What is sort of unusual is to see a company so directly intervene in an election this way. Like it is, it is meta controls these packs. This is meta advertising for Fentress Driscoll in this race. And so that is that is an

unusual tactic that we don't see too often. And if people are trying to, you know, follow the money, what should they be paying attention to on a mail? Because as you point out, there's a lot that's missing here. It's not like they're advertising, hey, we support these hyperscale data centers and this is why we're supporting this candidate. But what are some clues that people could be looking out for? Yeah. So, I mean... It is always a key to try and do what you can to sort of follow the name of the sponsor and search it backwards. So, like, I mean, it can be as simple as like doing a Google search. So for instance, anybody getting a Making Hour Tomorrow Mailer or a Forge the Future project, seeing a Forge the Future project online. If you Google the name, you'll eventually come across news stories about this. I think you alluded to this. New York Times reported earlier this year that META had put $65 million into these super PACs that it intended to spend across the country. paying for these um paying for uh supporting pro a i candidates in in state legislative primaries around the country so just doing even that basic level of research would help someone figure out that like this this name you have never heard is actually a name you have heard quite a lot about yeah okay um so A couple of big sources of debate and controversy in Florida, of course, in recent months, social media regulation and hyperscale data centers. So just kind of remind us, Jason, what's been happening in Tallahassee and at the local government level with those issues, maybe starting with social media regulation? Yeah, so the state of Florida, and this is an interesting dynamic in this, this Ventress Driscoll, Michelle Rainer races. The state of Florida passed a law a couple of years ago, essentially exposing social media companies like meta, which operates Facebook and Instagram. to potential like financial penalties if they allow children to open up accounts. So if this law is supposed to bar sort of children under the age of 16 from having social media accounts and social media companies that don't prevent that from happening can face real legal exposure under this law. This is a law opposed by social media companies. And that law, one of the lead sponsors to that was Michelle Rayner, sort of the opponent of Fentress Driscoll, who Facebook and Meta is now promoting. Separately, there was also a big push. this year in the legislature to start setting state regulations around artificial intelligence. This was a big source of contention in the Florida legislature this year and it ended up not passing. This was one the AI industry was successful in in terms of avoiding any kind of state level regulations. And you know, this has been a big issue federally where the president, Donald Trump, does not want states regulating AI. And so. You know, that has been another issue. And then third, related to all this is, as you mentioned, data centers, which, you know, hyperscale data centers are necessary to power AI. That's part of what's driving this.

The legislature, that was another big policy debate this year in Tallahassee. And the legislature did pass a bill this year regulating data centers. But the bill they passed was weakened substantially before it was actually signed by the governor due to lobbying from data center interests like utility companies, like meta, like big tech companies. Yeah. Okay. So are you seeing it even filter down to local government? Because local governments have been... heavily involved in the debate around where to cite these data centers, right? And sometimes there isn't a huge amount of information about who's behind them, but there is definitely a lot of concern from a lot of residents in some of these places that we don't necessarily want a hyperscale data center popping up in our backyard. Yeah, we are starting to see this money filter down, not necessarily from meta specifically, but from data center developers definitely. And I'll just give you one quick example. There was a large controversy in Palm Beach County recently about an AI, a proposed AI data center called Project Tango, because as you mentioned, there's so much confidentiality around this, we never actually know the actual tenants or the actual tech company that will be using them. But Project Tango, so the developer behind Project Tango at one point made a $10,000 donation to the chair of the Palm Beach. County Commission. So they're starting data center interests, AI interests are starting to spend enormous sums at the local level too. And you're right because the law that the legislature passed this year around data centers, I mentioned it's sort of, it was, it was much weaker than what it was initially began at and it was significantly weaker than what supporters will oftentimes cast it as. But one of the one of the positive things he did do was it. It very clearly explicitly authorized local governments, empowered local governments to control zoning decisions around data centers. So that does make your county commissions and your city councils particularly important when it comes to whether or not to rezone property and allow construction of a data center. Indeed. Just in the last kind of 15 seconds or so we have left here, Jason, and what are you anticipating for November when it comes to big tech's involvement in Florida elections? Oh, we're going to see enormous amounts of spending. We just did an analysis at seeking rights that showed that data center interests have already spent more than $22 million on Florida elections ahead of the 2026 cycle. More than a quarter of that, more than $5 million has been spent in support of Byron Donalds's, who's the heavy favorite to win the Republican nomination for governor in the August 18th primary. We're going to see even more of that. AI and data centers will be one of the absolute dominant issues in election. up and down the ballot this fall. So there will be just vast quantities of money spent this fall. Jason Garcia, author of the Substack Newsletter Seeking Rents, talking about money in politics in Florida. Thank you so much for joining us, Jason. Really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me, Matthew. Well, going up next, continuing with the theme of AI in politics, how do you spot a political ad you created using AI? You can weigh in 813-756-2. Tell us what you're seeing. Florida Matters Live and Local continues in a moment.

Welcome back to Florida Matters Live and Local. I'm Matthew Petty. AI has entered politics. Attack ads have always been part of the political process, but with the addition of AI, it does feel like uncharted territory. This week we've been talking about different aspects of this primary election from voting for judges to casting a ballot non-presidential election years. Today we're going to chat about artificial intelligence in political campaigns, how to spot AI-created ads, the rules around candidates using them and what this means for the democratic process and here to break it all down for us. This reporter Megan Bowman from WSF's your Florida team, Megan, thanks for stopping by. Of course. We want to hear from you as well. Maybe you've got questions or concerns about AI and political ads. Maybe you've seen some peculiar ads generated by AI. Let us know what you're seeing and how you're feeling about this. Give us a call. 8137556562. That's 8137556562. You can also email Florida Matters at WSF.org.org. All right, so Megan, just how prevalent is artificial intelligence in political campaigns right now? Yeah, so AI is really being used in all aspects. So from tools like Microsoft co-pilot for emailing and apps even on the back end. But what voters like, you know, you and me will need to watch out for this cycle or AI generated video content, a recent study analyzed 40,000 posts from LinkedIn and Facebook and found 90% of them were either... mostly or entirely AI generated. And, you know, that's not all. When you open up a social media app on your phone, you're immediately using AI in that algorithm, right? It shows you what it thinks it wants you, what you want to see. So I think Alex Modavan from the Pointer Institute says it best. I am very concerned about the information ecosystem right now, about the state of social media. All they're seeing is AI or rage bait. I mean, I got fooled by a ring camera video with, I don't know if you've seen the one with the squirrel eating the hot chip, right? Where it just kind of like. And then it falls over really quickly. But, you know, AI is getting so good that people are able to quickly create these deep fakes that, you know, are, in fact, fake, but look very real. And he mentions rage bait, too. That's sort of part of the driver of these algorithms, right? If you're mad about something, you're going to keep scrolling. Well, or sharing or posting, right, if it resonates with you. Yeah, indeed. When it comes to AI and elections, and you mentioned that the stat you mentioned is pretty striking 90% or so created by either entirely or partially with AI. That's pretty studied. That's a lot. So when it comes to AI and elections, I mean, what visual cues are there? What other cues should voters be looking for? Well, off the bat, you have to ask yourself, does something align with your values completely? Do you agree with the messaging 100%. Does it seem too good to be true?

Chances are, if that's the case, right, it probably isn't real. Like some AI content, like one portraying Representative Jared Moskowitz as a baby in a diaper, that's, you know. I'm assuming that was an attack ad, not something in favor. Right, right. That's like clearly AI, right? But it's not always that obvious. So past that when, you know, you're watching an ad, Mahatabon says there are some things you can do. Open that image and zoom all the way in. You can look for inconsistencies in like the horizon. Maybe a road disappears where it's not supposed to. Or you can zoom really, really close into someone's buttons. And maybe that button has like three holes. And then the other ones have four holes. So like you had said, right, things move so quickly on social. You know, we swipe so fast to the next video. It will really require voters this cycle to kind of take a second and fact check everything they see in here. I'm just thinking, too, of, you know, when you watch an influencer on YouTube or Instagram, whatever they say, you know, like and share. Like, that's kind of baked into how you interact with these. And subscribe, right? Yeah, like share and subscribe. So it's kind of an automatic reaction. And to the point of doing things so fast, so quick, whether it's swiping or scrolling or whatever it is or sharing. I mean, sometimes you do that without thinking, right? It's reflective. You think this is really getting my... my goat so I'm going to share this thing and before you know it you've shared something and you go back and look hang on a minute maybe that's actually not real and you can't really judge who all has seen that so things can spread like wildfire I mean you know think about it this way a video gets posted and maybe it's not real and it gets shared how many of those same people are going to see maybe the correction video yeah that's right by then the horses out of the barn we're talking about AI in political campaigns, how it's used in ad creation. What I maybe hear from you? What have you seen? Maybe you've been tricked by a squirrel eating a hot chito or something a little more serious in the way of an AI ad for political reasons. Give us a call. 813755-652. We're with your Florida's Megan Bowman, WSF's reporter covering all things Tallahassee and how it impacts everyone in the state of Florida. 813755-652. talking about the impact of AI generated ads in this election. So, I mean, does Florida actually have a law about an AI disclaimer? So the short answer is yes. States have tried to regulate AI, but it's a little difficult because free speech, the First Amendment. covers falsehoods. But USF cybersecurity expert, Marvin Pazos Rivia, says, you know, because AI is advancing so rapidly, it's hard not to have these huge loopholes in the laws. AI's advancing so fast that is ahead of the likelihood of developing this legal framework before it gets to advance, right? Now, Florida law requires AI generated content that is knowingly false intended to harm candidates or deceive voters to include a disclaimer saying it was created by AI. And that statute says, you know, has to.

be displayed prominently and say created in whole or in part with the use of generative artificial intelligence. But here's the issue. We were just kind of talking about it. You watch a video, you're scrolling, right? At the end, the required AI statement appears, remember it said, in whole or in parts. So which parts are real? Which parts were AI? No one will really know except the person who produced it. Now, you've also looked into some measures, social media platforms have in place to help people detect AI. Can you tell us a little bit about how they work? Yeah, so many social media platforms will ask users to identify AI generated content, but that's on the poster side, right? So if someone's goal is to put out malicious content, there's a good chance they may or may not click that little AI button. So because it's advancing so rapidly, it's hard to even pinpoint what its capabilities will be by November. And the thing is, is it won't just come from the candidates themselves. also come from groups or possibly even other countries trying to influence our votes with misinformation. And I mean, at the end of the day, that's why it's going to be so important that we fact check and look up everything we see in here. So before we let you go, Megan, what advice do you have for our listeners? Yeah. What I said, right? Double check. Use a Google reverse engine. I mean, look everything. If something comes out and you notice that's the only place you've seen it, no other outlet is reporting that same story. Chances are it's not real. Ask yourself those questions. Does it agree with my viewpoints 100%? And just kind of take a second and think before you share something immediately. Like really look it up and yeah, just. Become a digital fact checker yourself. Well, Megan, I think we do actually have a call. We're going to go to a break, but maybe we can just have you stick around for a moment or so and see if we can get this call answered. So if you're on the phone, just stay on the phone. We are talking about AI created ads in politics in this particular primary election with Megan Bowman from WSF's your Florida team. We'll be back in a moment with some more. Megan do stay with us. Florida Matters Live and Local continues in a moment.

Welcome back to Florida Matters Live and local. I'm Matthew Petty. We're just chatting about the use of AI in politics, particularly AI-created ads. I want to hear from you, too, if you've got a question or a comment, 813-755-6562 is the number. Where this is WSF's Megan Bowman. And let's go to the phones. We've got somebody calling in with a question. You're on the air. What is your comment, sir? yeah a couple months ago i saw a an attack ad on james fishback and it was he was at his house or something opening a door and inviting all these people in while they were showing like eros and communists and all this other stuff and at the end it was like this is what james fishback wants florida to look like oh okay so and did it say did it say this is created by ai No, I didn't. Okay, but you were, you were, I would savvy enough to know that this is not a real... Yeah, obviously. Okay. Like, why would James actually let someone videotape them at his house, letting people in? You know what I mean? Sure, all right, yeah. It doesn't make sense. Yeah, thanks for your comment. I mean, that seems like a kind of a little bit of an extreme example in some ways, Megan, but... I actually, I remember that one. I did see that one. But, you know what he said kind of resonates, right? You asked if there was that AI... disclaimer and he said no it probably wasn't made by their campaign or an actual campaign because the campaigns that would make it would need to have that disclaimer but say some content creator makes it that they don't you know I guess that they wouldn't need to put that under the law, right? Right, so there may be some different rules if it's not part of the official campaign. Exactly. So, and then if it gets shared online, you're going to see these. So there was one... A few months ago, I want to say that came out from one of the candidates for Governor Jay Collins. Well, he shared it on X. That did not have that, but, you know, it had him as a superhero fighting the other candidates. Clearly AI, right? You know, so that didn't have that. So, yeah, there are still some that don't actually have that thing. And that's, again, like what he said, you know, I don't think Fishback would open his door. Well, you have to fact check it, right? Like if you don't, if it's, if you go, hmm, that doesn't sound right or that doesn't feel right, chances are, you know, follow your instincts. Yeah, right. And back to your point earlier about the ad involving the candidate. kind of as a baby, right? I mean, some of them are just obviously. Yeah, you know, that's obviously he's not going to be on the house floor in a diaper, right? That's not realistic. Yeah, we've been speaking with WSF's Megan Bowman about artificial intelligence and campaign ads. You can find our earlier election conversations and WSF's voter guide on our website, WUSF.org. And if you've got questions that you want answered or comments that you want considered the email addresses.

Florida Matters at WUSF.org. Megan, thank you so much for joining us. Okay, thanks. Well, coming up next, we're going to talk with an outdoorsman and writer about hunting pythons in the Everglades. Now, the number of snakes has been tallied. Novices and veterans ventured into the Everglades and captured and dispatched nearly 300 Burmese pythons was part of Florida's annual 10-day Python Challenge that happened in July. It's even a new documentary about the unique event called The Python Hunt. The $10,000 prize, is that for the biggest snake or the most snakes? I believe it's for the most snakes. Well, you are about to meet a Python hunter who's the star of the documentary and took part in this year's Python Challenge. You want to hear from you. How do you feel about the Python challenge? Is this a good way to get rid of invasive animals? You can join the conversation. Call 813-755-6562. Or email Florida Matters at WUSF.org. And joining us... To talk about all things, Pythons is a star of the aforementioned documentary and participant of the annual Python Challenge as outdoorsman and writer Toby Benoit. Toby, thank you so much for joining us. Well, I appreciate your invitation, Matthew. Thank you. Now, this year's first prize winner for the Python Challenge brought in 96 Pythons. That is a lot of snakes. How many snakes were you able to bag this year? Well, I only bag four myself. Tom got real lucky, and he wandered into a couple of nests of hatching pythons. Okay. And was able to snatch up all the babies to get those large numbers. It paid off for him. I mean, he was our overall winter this year. Yeah. And that was a fantastic achievement at 96 snakes. That was great. Is that the highest? Like, kind of tell me how that compares to an average? year's winner if you know some of the details because that does sound like an awful lot of snakes but it sounds like it's maybe just kind of luck more than anything 100% luck I mean it's right place at right time in years past The folks that were able to get the highest numbers of snakes wandered in on nests. And on average, you'll pick up 36, 38 snakes and turn in the babies and they win the grand prize. I caught four adults, but that's nowhere near close enough to get in on the prize money. What does it feel like, though, bagging an adult snake? Because they can get quite big, right? The Burmese Python, if you sort of let them alone, they can grow quite large. Yeah, and they get up to about 20 feet and a couple of hundred pounds of muscle. Huh. And I haven't laid hands on a 20 footer yet, but I wouldn't mind it. I think I'd enjoy that. What's the biggest snake that you've caught? Firstly, it was 14.3. Okay. And that was a lot of python. How heavy is that?

She weighed about 140 pounds. Wow, that is kind of, it's hard to imagine that. I'm sort of thinking like a snake that size must be, yeah, pretty hard to manhandle. It is. I had some help. I wrestled with her for a good 15 or 30 seconds, you know, and the whole time I was trying to get a buddy of mine to step in. He was too busy laughing at my efforts. He finally got over his good humor and gave me a hand. But, you know, the big constrictors are solid muscle. They're remarkably strong animals. So the bigger, they get harder it is to handle them alone, I'll tell you that. Yeah, so there's an element of danger in it, like wrangling with an animal that size? It can be dangerous, particularly if you're hunting by yourself. Just last year, a friend of mine, Mike Maruski, he got wrapped up by a 16-footer. He was by himself, and she got his arms pinned, and he was passing out when another hunter came on the scene. Wow. And dispatch a snake and got it off of him. So, I mean, it can have danger, but to date nobody's been killed. Nobody's been seriously injured. Yeah. A few years have been chewed up a little bit and you drop a little blood on the ground, but you dispatch a snake move on for another one. Well, that we know of, right? I mean, there could be somebody who's been dispatched by a snake and we just don't know about it because they're gone. They are missing persons reports all over South Florida. So, I mean, anything is possible. If you're just joining us on Florida Matters Live and Local, we are talking with Toby Benoit. He's an outdoorsman and writer and participant in the annual Python Challenge. If you've got questions for Toby, give us a call. 813-755-62. That's 813-755-62. You can also email Florida Matters at WUSF.org. You've been participating in this call for some years now, Toby, what got you into it and what keeps you coming back? Well, I started to hunting snakes in 2017. I was actually challenged by one of my readers through the newspaper. They wanted to know if I was aware of the python problem, and I was aware, but I had no idea of the scope until I actually returned to South Florida. And I used to guide hog hunts for the big cypressiminal tribe back in the 19, early 90s. And when I went back in 2017, I was just floored because it's a, it's a ghost town. There's no mammal life. There's sections of our Everglades where the mammal life has been depleted about to 98% to put that in perspective. I just returned from 13 days and 12 nights of hunting. And I saw one possum. No deer, no raccoons, no hogs, no foxes, otters, or anything. I saw one lone possum. and all that time. And it's just, it's devastating. Yeah. We've got a caller actually. Nathaniel is calling in from Gulfport. Nathaniel, what's on your mind? Well, I think that this hunt is a fantastic idea. But unfortunately, I do kind of think of it more of the smoke screen being used by our government to actually handle the problem. I mean, what was the reward? A thousand dollars or something like that?

One clutch of, yeah. Actually, what was the prize money? Do you remember, Toby? The overall top price took home $10,000, but it was $25,000 put up on the line by our governor to attract people. We had nearly 1,000 participants, and they took out 280 snakes. But honestly, it's a drop in the bucket. I don't believe that the organizers of the Florida Python Challenge ever had in mind to use that as a tool to significantly reduce the snake numbers, more so just to bring awareness to the part of the wildlife and our native ecosystems throughout the South. And it's been very effective in that regard. Yeah, Nathaniel, what do you think about that? I mean, is that you're saying that there needs to be like a different kind of effort or maybe more substantial efforts to eradicate the snakes? Well, clearly, to receive them getting further and further north every year. And yes, this is definitely bringing a lot of attention to it. But, you know, someone who's even as in touch with the news and current affairs as I am, I barely hear anybody ever talking about what it is that our government is actually doing other than drawing attention to it to stop it from happening. And, you know, frankly, my dollar, please make the rewards $100,000. So let's get some real hunters down there. Let's do it three times a year. You know, because like that man just said, we're about out of mammals. You know, how much further can we push the state to a point where we're just never going to have Florida wildlife back again? And now what we're going to have is snakes, iguanas, and Brazilian pepper trade. Give me a break. Nathaniel, thanks for your call. Yeah, I mean, Nathaniel's pretty passionate about this. And Toby, I'm wondering about that point about the snakes kind of pushing further and further north each year. What are you seeing? Oh, they definitely are pushing further and further north. We can't keep up with the populations. What we've been doing just, it's been effective, but it's not enough. As it is right now, the state of Florida employees 100 licensed state contractors to get out and hunt. They give them $6 an hour for their troubles and $25 for the first four feet and $20 for every put beyond that per snake. So if they're catching snakes, they're not hurting. You know, they're doing pretty good. Yeah. But it's not enough. You know, we bring in the Python challenge down. We have a lot of private guys like myself. I'm not a contractor. But I still go down and I hunt the snakes. And my only reward is that I get to skin them and I can sell the skins. And basically, if I catch enough, I can pay for my trip. Otherwise, I'm just, I'm riding on my own dime, but I'm not motivated by trying to make money off of it. I'm trying to do what's right for the ecosystem. We created this problem. It's up to us to solve it, and you can't wait on the state to do it for us. I mean, they've tried programs. They spent millions of dollars on failed programs to control the population. The most recent was the robot bunnies.

They created robot bunnies, put them in cages with little solar panels to keep the bunnies charged up. And then they put motion sensors around the cages. So when the snake approaches the robot, then a biologist can go and pick up the snake. 16 months later, they haven't caught a single snake. I guess the snakes are maybe a little more cunning than we're giving them credit for. Yeah, well, I mean, they're an alpha predator. They're super intelligent animal. They, you know, they're not easily fooled. The most effective program they have are the contractors out. scouring the back roads and the levees nightly looking for them. You see it, you pick it up, you know, and they've done well. I think 27,000 have been picked up by the Florida Wildlife Commission in the last 10 years. Yeah. Just a couple of questions before we wrap up here, Toby, but how do you humanely kill a snake when you're out on a hunt? Well, they have specific guidelines on how we dispatch the animals. We're supposed to bludgeon the head to stun them, and then we drive a sharpened metal object like a screwdriver. I use a pocket knife. You know, through the brain, scramble the brain, pith it, and then you just throw it in your cooler. And then you've got a recipe on the Hernando Sun about fried python nuggets, right? What does it taste like? Yeah. Well, they're pretty good. I mean, honestly, to an uneducated palate, it tastes like chicken, you know, but it's a white flaky meat, very, very similar to chicken. It really tastes whatever season that you put it with. It's kind of a neutral flavor. And it's enjoyable. I would love for the FDA to clear it. so that we can put it in restaurants. I think that would go a long way toward getting more people involved so that we can sell the meat. But, you know, kind of like the lionfish kind of plan to capture them and then get people to cook them and show them in restaurants. Toby, it's been great talking with you. Toby Benoit, we've been talking about capturing pythons. He's an outdoorsman, a writer, and a python hunter. Thank you so much. Very welcome. Thank you. We're still ahead. We're going to talk about how college students are using the idea of trash to treasure to learn about sustainability at Ickard College. That's when Florida Matters Live and Local continues. Stay with us.

Welcome back to Florida Manors Live and Local. I'm Matthew Petty. Well, one thing people at Eckett College know how to do is reduce, reuse, and recycle, at least the folks behind trash to treasure do. At the end of the school year, they collect what students leave behind, fix it up and sell it to the incoming students in the fall. The effort is led by Evan Bolia. Eckett College is Director of Sustainability. He's also a graduate of Eckerd, and he joins us today. Thank you for being with us, Evan. Thank you for having me. Okay, so tell us more about your role. I mean, Director of Sustainability, what do you do? Well, I oversee the Office of Sustainability at Eckerd College. It's... We oversee a bunch of environmental programs on campus during the entire year. During the academic year, we have the recycling program. We also have the Eckerd College farm as well as our Eckerd College bike shop. And then during summertime is when we transition to also include adjacent to the recycling program, the Trash to Treasure Program. Okay, so tell us about that because this is, This was your brainchild, right? The trash to treasure thing. Well, I can't take all the credit for it. Other colleges do this as well. And two students came to me in fall semester of 2013 talking about waste mitigation strategies during moveout. And being alumni, I was well-versed in seeing what kind of items are left behind during move-out week. We have... just under 2,000 residential students that live on campus and specifically 500 seniors moving off campus every every May and there's just an enormous amount of trash and we used to throw roughly 50 tons of trash during the month of May and students were were aware of this and wanted to do something about it. They came to me with this idea of implementing a waste mitigation strategy that other colleges have done called Trash to Treasure. And they were curious if I would work with them and try to rally support from the administration and get other students to participate in this as well. So what are some of the things that you collect? Well, some of our most popular items are all dorm essentials, really, but mini fridges and microwaves, Swifers, the Sterolite 3, plastic 3 tier storage boxes, you know, we've got printers, mirrors, brooms, vacuums, all dorm essentials. How much work is involved in kind of... you know collating all the stuff and just making sure it works because you want to make sure you're you're not selling somebody a dud fridge for example

Absolutely. It takes a whole community really to make this happen. It starts during May, during finals week. We rally about 40 student volunteers and myself to go around the dorms to collect all the items and bring it to an art gallery on campus that's dedicated for us over summer. And then we have five summer interns that work for 15 hours per week. cleaning, sorting, organized testing, repairing, and selling to our incoming student class. So yes, we do test everything. We plug in all the mini fridges overnight. If they work, then we clean them. Same with the microwaves as well. But it takes about eight to ten weeks to do a thorough job on everything. And so the interns who are working on this... program, this trash to treasure program. I mean, that does sound like an awful lot of work. This is kind of self-sustaining in a way, right? Because what you, you know, the proceeds of the sale, that goes into helping the internship program. That is correct. So based off of all the money we make, last year, for example, we made roughly $25,000. And based on the money that we make from the prior year, we use it to hire interns for the following summer. So this year, we have five trash to treasure interns. We have five students in the bicycle repair shop and five students out on the farm. And so the bicycle bike shop students over summer or the bike shop interns over... Summer are fixing up all the leftover bicycles. And we have 110 bicycles that were left behind mostly by graduating seniors that have been then fixed up and are ready for a whole another life. Students on the farm have been, again, the soil ready for fall semester planting so we can do more CSA boxes and provide our cafeteria with more fruits and vegetables, as well as we started a cut flower farm on our campus farm as well. And then the Trash or Treasure interns, yeah, they've just been cleaning, sorting, organizing, and based off, yeah, the money that will be making from the sale, it'll go to pay for all the interns next summer. I'm just kind of captivated by this idea of an art gallery full of all the stuff. I mean, there's something kind of cool about that. I know sometimes there's art displays which are literally piles of things, and you've kind of meant to interpret that, but there's something quite poetic about that idea. Absolutely, I agree. It almost feels a little dystopian at times when you're walking through 12 foot high stacks of sterolite plastic storage boxes. Like, it's way taller than me. And we do bring it up to the ceiling. And then having, we had 227 mini fridges left over by graduating class of roughly 500 seniors. So, yeah, it's just seeing all them. And out of the 227, I think we had six that didn't work this year. The rest are ready for second life, or third or fourth, because we have also, we've been noticing, we've been doing this program since, what, 20, yeah, since 2014. And we've been noticing some refrigerators coming, and microwaves coming back around again. That's kind of awesome, isn't it?

Yes. If you're just joining us on Florida Matters Live and Local, we're talking with Evan Bolia. He is Eckett College's director of sustainability, also graduate of Eckett College, talking about the trash to treasure program where they take stuff that the graduating seniors have left behind, make sure it works, and then sell it on to the next class. Maybe you are our graduate of Eckett College yourself. Maybe you've taken part of one of these trash to treasure programs, either this college or... elsewhere. Give us a call. 813755662 is the number. If you want to talk about the Sustainability Program here, 8137556562. Eckerd College's Sustainability Program, I should say. You can also send us an email, Florida Matters at WUSF.OIG. So, I mean, is this sale open to everyone or is it just students? It's restricted to the Eckerd College community. It's geared really towards the incoming student class is going to be buying the bulk of it. We do allow staff and faculty as well, but we're really closing our doors and keeping it for the Eckerd community. I'm sure we've garnered a lot of interest on Instagram and TikTok with over half a million views between Instagram and TikTok platforms on the recent promo video that we did. But yeah, I'm sure we'd sell out of all the items and we could possibly make slightly more money if we open it up to the public, but really we're trying to benefit. our student community and really get them to think about buying secondhand and what sustainability means on the very first day when they move on to campus. And hopefully this is an ethos and mindset that they'll bring with them for the four years of them with them for the rest of college and for the rest of their life afterwards. And I should note, too, from a practical standpoint, this sale is happening tomorrow, right? That is correct. Yeah, so we're like students at Eka College or people in the Eka College community, where do they go find it if they're not aware of it already? It's going to be in the Cobb Art Gallery, some very central area to campus, close to all the dorms, and right next to the check-in facility. Okay. Are you prepared? Like, is everything ready to go? Like, imagine it's quite a bit of a scramble at the last minute to make sure you've got everything lined up and the sale was kind of ready to happen. Yes, we are already. I try to instill a sense of urgency every single week with our students. There's almost a limitless amount of work that we can do as far as being able to clean anywhere from all the fans. I had them taking the parts of the fans and cleaning the dust off the blades. We've been cleaning, sorting, organizing all summer, and we are, I feel like we're ready.

The Five has been absolutely fantastic this summer. I'm very proud of all the work that they've done. Just back to the bike shop for a moment. So is there a bike program on campus? And if so, tell me more about that. Yeah, so we've had a community bike program called the Yellow Bike Program. They're all yellow bicycles that we have. They're the sun boardwalk models. We have 100 on campus, free use for the community, and they're to only stay on campus. And we have five white bicycles that are multi-speed that with your accurate email address, you can check out for free for up to six hours to take off campus to go to Publix or CVS or to the beach. And all the yellow bicycles, all 100 of them, are to stay on campus. and take it from the dorm to the classroom. They're never locked up. They're meant to get students less dependent on cars and just as a fun way to enjoy time outside on our beautiful campus. And we have a bicycle repair shop on campus with another Eckerd alumni, Dexter Howard, a 2010 Eckerd alumni, overseeing the bike shop with 15 work study students. And we have hours from 9 to 5 Monday. through Friday. And again, we take care of, they take care of all of the yellow bikes, the white bikes, as well as personal bikes and skateboards. Yeah. Just as we close out here, Evan, I mean, as a, as a Echard graduate all those years ago, well, she may not have been that long ago, but when you were going through Echid yourself, could you have foreseen, you know, what the sustainability program would become and what the students are doing now? No, I really didn't back when I was a student I was a little displeased that we didn't have an office of sustainability and it was just kind of different factions of staff and faculty kind of working in their own silos on different programs, say the yellow bike program when I was a student was run by campus safety and then it was eventually sent to the campus activities department or cycling rules run out of service learning. And so yeah, I could not have foreseen exactly where it is today. However, it makes sense with all of our environmentally minded students and their care for our campus community and the natural environment. We've been talking with Evan Collier. He's the sustainability director at Eckerd College and founder of Trash to Treasure. That sale is happening tomorrow for Eckett students and members of that community. Evan, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. That is our show for today. By the way, today is 813 Day. So happy 813 Day for all who celebrate. And if you want to check out the interviews we did on 813 Day with the Rolling Proud Run Club and members of Visit Tampa Bay. And the Plant City Chamber, you can check it out on WSF.org. Our show aired on Tuesday. Next time on Florida Matters Live and local kids have a lot on their plates these days, test, social media homework, how do you balance good grades and self-confidence? You'll meet an author who's got some practical tips. That's Monday at noon. Our executive producer is Grayson Doctor. Our producer is Quincy Walters. Our engineers are Jackson Harp and Geo Garvin. Jackson composed with theme music. And Natalie Jarron handled the video today. I'm Matthew Petty. Thank you so much for joining us and have a fantastic weekend.