![]() Hosseini did not respond to phone messages and emails.Ī UF spokeswoman, Hessy Fernandez, said it was common for the president to confer with the board chairman. The texts – released in response to a request under Florida's public records law – provide a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse into how senior university officials reacted under the pressure of discussions about how the school would work to keep students and others safe on campus during the pandemic. Hosseini responded: "Please send me a copy so I can forward." Courts subsequently upheld the order as lawful.įuchs said he was emailing students the following day: "No course will move even temporarily to online," Fuchs wrote. The state's flagship university moving classes online even temporarily would have been inconsistent.ĭays before the text exchange, DeSantis had issued an executive order banning mask mandates in primary and secondary schools. He attached an excerpt of an internal UF message raising the possibility of classes moving online for some colleges, including those for liberal arts, agriculture, engineering and business.ĭeSantis, who has made resistance to online classes and mask and vaccine mandates part of his political ideology, was pushing hard at the time to keep public schools and businesses in Florida open. "Governor's office have this," wrote Hosseini, a wealthy developer who has been an adviser to DeSantis and a Republican loyalist. "Could you let me know if you have any changes," Fuchs asked. They were discussing reports surfacing that at least some colleges on the main campus were preparing to move all their classes online for the first three weeks of the fall semester, which ends this week.įuchs, who has said previously in interviews that he does not have the authority to challenge decisions from the DeSantis administration, sent Hosseini a draft email he was preparing for faculty announcing there would be no move to online classes. 13 - as the delta variant was sweeping the U.S. The newly disclosed texts showed the chairman communicating with the university's president, Kent Fuchs, the evening of Aug. Morteza "Mori" Hosseini, who was elected chairman in 2018, is already under scrutiny over questions about his role in politically tinged decisions affecting the school. Ron DeSantis when administrators were considering temporarily moving some college classes online due to the pandemic, according to text messages. He also serves as board chairman at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.Įarly Sampling: Trump leads DeSantis among Florida voters, polls show.The chairman of the University of Florida board of trustees served as a liaison with the office of Gov. Hosseini founded Volusia County-based ICI Homes in 1980, according to his University of Florida biography, and has built thousands of homes and created some of the largest master development communities in Florida. "Does the agency have rules governing such loans or donations of tangible personal property?" "Was it maintained in a public building for a public purpose, or alternatively, was it used for a purely private purpose?" she wrote. However, Caroline Klancke, an attorney who is executive director of the Florida Ethics Institute, a nonprofit, suggested in an email to The News-Journal Wednesday the question of whether the golf simulator was a gift to the governor or an agency, the Governor's Mansion Commission, would depend on several questions. "In my mind, it subverts the principle of why we require gifts to be disclosed," Ben Wilcox, research director of Florida Integrity, a watchdog group, told Reuters. Florida law requires all gifts of $100 or more to be reported. Whether the golf machine was a "gift" to the governor is a key question. Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican strategist and the founder of the Lincoln Project tweeted: "Damn those elites with their golf simulators and private jet flights."Ĭryptid Politics, a Twitter account that supports DeSantis' campaign, wrote: "WaPo tries hit piece on buries lede that golf simulator loan was reviewed and approved as ethical according to FL Statutory Code." "Ron DeSantis' Florida Swamp in Action," Trump ally Jason Miller tweeted with a link to the Post piece. News of the loan generated swift reaction from some of DeSantis' opponents who support former President Donald Trump's bid for the 2024 Republican nomination for president. ![]() The governor has had access to a pricey golf simulator in the Governor's Mansion after it was lent by Mori Hosseini, a homebuilding magnate from Ormond Beach. Ron DeSantis, shown campaigning at the 8th annual Basque Fry at the Corley Ranch in Gardnerville, Nevada, on Saturday. ![]()
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