The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 19

ETH SHOT CORAL SPRNGS OFFICER IS RECOVER! 0 FTH M'AMI DOLPHN GETS AGGRAVATED BATTERY CHARGE ill CPINiO JACKIE BUENO SOUSA -Wi TALLAHASSEE Sansom facing more scrutiny More legal troubles may be on the way for former House Speaker Ray Sansom as the grand jury that Indicted him reconvenes to examine additional evidence over his favorable dealings with Northwest Florida State College ing of longtime Northwest Florida State College president Bob Rich-burg Both men were indicted on felony charges of official misconduct over S6 million Sansom put in the 2007 state budget tor the college Though the school and Sansom said the project would be an emer- TURN TO SANSOM 2B Attorney Willie Meggs told The St Petersburg Times "I just want them to understand and see some things that learned Meggs declined to say hat the documents are other than they are correspondence between the central figures in a controversy that cost Sansom R-Destin one of the most powerful political positions in Florida and resulted in the fir BY ALEX LEARY Herad a-ass-e TALLAHASSEE The grand jury that indicted ousted House Speaker Ray Sansom will reconvene Wednesday morning to review evidence that surfaced after the charges were filed in ApriL "We've just gotten a few more documents Probably the ones they didn't want you to see" State PHOTOS BY JOHN PtNNTf 'TO TOE MIAMI HERALD TROPICAL RETREAT: The Little White House in Key West above where President Harry ruman spent 11 working vacations 4 underwent an extensive restoration Truman had his own bedroom below left so his wife wouldn't be disturbed in case of an emergency The president had a small desk in the corner of the living room bottom left KEY WEST Crew wasn 7 afraid lo lake rishy approach We don't have Rudy Crew anymore But we can still kick him around exactly what some members of the Miami-Dade School Board were doing last eek hen they commented on a recent review of one of initiatives The former schools superintendent forced to resign last fall took a $100 million gamble by creating the School Improvement Zone The three-year program which ended in the 2007-08 school year focused on longer school days improved educational materials and extensive tutoring at the county's 39 worst-performing schools It was an all-out effort to turn around those institutions A study released last week gave the program mixed reviews at besfICritics immediately noted that it had been idea and declared it a total waste of money Instead of blasting Crew for taking a chance and risking failure we should commend his entrepreneurial approach AURA OF CHANGE From the moment he became superintendent Crew brought an aura of innovation and change been missing since he left He was willing to take a chance which of course means failure is a possibility Now you can argue that easy to take risks with other peo- money But if that were true be seeing many more innovative and creative initiatives from public leaders Instead most of our public institutions move along day to day doing things as always done them and wondering why the results change The problem a lack of ideas Ideas are cheap Put 10 relatively smart people in a room and get half a dozen good ideas Yet consider yourself lucky if just one person in that room has the courage stamina and know-how to execute the idea That was the value of Rudy Crew Was he perfect? No and neither was the School Improvement ZonefTo sell the idea Crew did what officials are prone to do to get public approval: He overpromised saying that the schools in the program would show significant improvements in state tests within three years POSITIVE IMPACT The School Improvement Zone had some positive impact It generated high expectations for students and helped teachers collaborate better Reading scores also improved dramatically at many of the schools At Santa Clara Elementary principal Marie Caseres credits the program with helping her school boost its state-issued grade frpm a before the program started to an A last year had everything to do with the Caseres says initiative forced everyone to take a good hard look at the data and change our But not enough schools showed the same of improvement to warrant the extra cost It been all bad news lately at our schools A national study last month showed that on-time graduation rate went up more than 10 percentage points to about 55 percent It was among the bigger increases of the US cities studied In a Miami Herald story about the graduation-rate boost current Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho credited secondary-school reform a program that allows high-school students to be more career-oriented and take more electives That also was one of major ESBatives That time nobod92Saentionedhis name FIT FOR PREZ AFTER A SEVEN-YEAR RESTORATION THE LITTLE WHITE HOUSE WHICH SERVED PRESIDENT TRUMAN IS HOPING TO LURE OBAMA BY CAMMY CLARK cclark a MiamiHerald com KEY WEST President George Bush considered coming to Key West a year ago for trade talks with the president of Mexico and prime minister of Canada but there was a sticky problem The Little White House which got its name during the 11 working vacations President Harry Truman spent there was too hot White House did a sweep with 10 people in black suits including ladies in black said Bob Wolz executive director of the Little White House museum it was like 95 degrees in the building The president sweat So they turned us Now the $300000 air-conditioning system is operational part of a seven-year $1 million historic restoration dedicated last week by George McGovern the former senator and presidential candidate With cool air and new upholstery the wooing of President Barack Obama has begun The Key West City Commission Little White House brass and Democratic US Rep Kendrick Meek all have extended invitations to Obama to use the comfy presidential quarters complete with phonograph piano and poker table TURN TO WHITE HOUSE 2B MiamiHeraldcomflorida View a photo gallery of Key Little White House GAMBLING Poker players pushing of argument RACE Housing crisis may haunt gubernatorial hopefuls The poker community is shunning the label in its attempt to re-brand poker as a game of skill The race will likely focus on crippled housing market and whether Alex Sink and Bill McCollum had a role in promoting or preventing the mortgage crisis outlawed In states such as Florida where poker is already legal Internet poker players would still benefit from increased gambling options If the federal government deems poker a skill game it would be exempt from the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act that passed Congress in 2006 The law cast a cloud over the legality of Internet gaming and prompted some websites to no longer accept US players Poker advocates now feel their skill message is gaining TURN TO POKER 5B BY MICHAEL VASQUEZ mrvasquez aMiamiHerald com Forget for a moment that poker games often take place in casinos or that poker pots containing hundreds of dollars (or more) can be awarded based on the simple turn of a card If you buy the counter argument made by the biggest boosters then poker is in fact a game of skill not a game of chance Should lawmakers in state capitals and Congress agree it could mean a major expansion of online poker and games of live poker could take place in dozens of states where poker is lum spent 20 years in Congress all of them on the committee that oversees banking and he advocated many of the issues When McCollum left Congress in 2001 he became a lobbyist His first client: the Mortgage Bankers Association of America With next race likely to be overshadowed by a fractured economy and crippled housing market a central question will be whether Sink or McCollum had any role in promoting or pre- TURN TO MORTGAGE CRISIS 2B BY ALEX LEARY AND MARY ELLEN KLAS HeraldT imes Tallahassee Bureau TALLAHASSEE When Democrat Alex Sink announced she was running for governor last week the Republican Party instantly branded her a invoking the ugliness of subprime loans corporate greed and government bailouts But by raising questions about Sink the chief financial officer and longtime Bank of America executive the party walks a precarious line The own candidate Attorney General Bill McCol vi 1 9.