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Another Optics Problem For Visit Florida

Visit Florida

Governor Rick Scott is catching some serious heat for shooting a Visit Florida ad in a Washington, D.C. studio.

WFTV-9 Orlando is reporting that Scott’s 30-second spot promoting Florida’s premiere marketing agency wasn’t filmed in Florida.

When pressed by a reporter, Scott couldn’t immediately recall where the mock-interview was filmed.  

“It was shot in a studio… Do you know what state that was shot in?... I’m not sure, I’ll have to get you that information… So you don’t know if it was shot in Florida?...I think it was shot while I was traveling. It was D.C. I’m pretty sure.”

Scott is wrapping up his “Fighting for Florida’s Future” tour with a stop in Panama City. Lawmakers have agreed to spend 25 million dollars on Visit Florida, far short of Scott’s initial demand for 76 million. Scott is hinting that he will veto the entire, 83-billion-dollar budget plan if he doesn’t get what he wants.

House Speaker Richard Corcoran calls Enterprise Florida's business tax incentives "corporate welfare," and launched a legal assault on Visit Florida when it refused to  disclose the terms of a $1 million-dollar contract with the rapper Pit Bull.

A Miami native, former WFSU reporter Jim Ash is an award-winning journalist with more than 20 years of experience, most of it in print. He has been a member of the Florida Capital Press Corps since 1992.