Anti-Social

Nikki Fried Wants to Be Dem Chair, and Chat GPT in the classroom

February 19, 2023 Tony Winton & Thom Mozloom Season 7 Episode 6
Anti-Social
Nikki Fried Wants to Be Dem Chair, and Chat GPT in the classroom
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Former Florida Agirculture Commissioner Nikki Fried wants to be the chair of the Florida Democratic party, which took a drubbing in November's election. What is her plan to turn the party around in the Sunshine State.

And the Chat GPT artificial intelligence software has exploded into all kinds of fields, what about education? We talk with a Sofia Barnett, a writer for WIRED magazine about how the program is fueling debate on what constitutes plagiarism

Plus, the local news from the island paradise, including a crackdown on scooters. 

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Thom Mozloom:

The views expressed on the following program are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent those of the Key Biscayne independent portions of the following program were pre recorded

Unknown:

I think I will always be my friend

Tony Winton:

live from Key Biscayne, Florida, this is antisocial, the weekly public affairs program where we look at topics in the news from the sunny island paradise and Key Biscayne, Florida, sometimes national, sometimes local, but we always try to have fun. I'm Tony Winton, I'm Mike Davey, subbing for

Mike Davey:

Tom moslem, who is somewhere lost at sea, lost at sea,

Tony Winton:

or I don't know, probably lost in thinking about spring training. And you know, what's going to happen next?

Mike Davey:

Let's go Mets.

Tony Winton:

Let's go myths. It's a good thing. He's not here today. Mr. Mayor, thank you. We have a really interesting show today. It's going to get into two completely different topics. But they're both fascinating guests. And one of them involves a an upcoming event here in politics in Florida. And of course, Mr. Mike Davey, you are a two term mayor of Key Biscayne, sort of the village council ran for the state assembly at one point right State House here in Florida. So it's a field you know, probably more about that as a direct participant than I do.

Mike Davey:

I know a little bit about it. I've I've been on the winning end and the losing end. So I get what it's all about. But it's interesting. And now that our party is just got an election coming up. This Friday, it's March 27. Is that correct? 2020.

Tony Winton:

Right. And I introduce our guests, Nikki fried right, the former Commissioner of Agriculture in Florida and a candidate for governor and now you are running to be chair of the state Democratic Party.

Nikki Fried:

Yes, that is very,

Tony Winton:

okay, tell us why you would first off, let's tell us why you would want that job.

Nikki Fried:

You know, it's not a job that I actually sought after. Even after November, January to November, December, January, I was getting a lot of calls of people asking me to run for this position. And felt that that was not where the next chapter of my life was going to be leading us to. But watching the last few weeks of what is happening in Tallahassee, watching, you know, one party have such control over our state. And so many of these policies that are having such drastic impacts on the people of our state, and people calling me, what are we gonna do about, you know, this permitless carry? What are we going to be doing about our higher ed system. And I knew that there is no way that we're going to be able to stop these things today, until we get more Democrats actually elected into office. And knowing from my experience of being our only statewide elected Democrat, fact that I know politics understand it. I have a master's in campaigning, rolled up my sleeves and said, Alright, I'm in. Let's go, let's go change our state. Let's go change our party.

Mike Davey:

So I guess my first question is, what what is your plan for March 25? As you said, we are we've gotten select the last election, we got whacked all across the board, Democrats, I am a registered Democrat. I was a Republican, I'm recovering now. And so I guess my question is, what what's your plan? What's your plan of action? We've got how many months until the 24 elections? What would you do? If you if you get put if you're elected on March 25? What's your plan? How are we going to get how we're going to get going?

Nikki Fried:

There's a lot that there's a lot, and it's not going to be just one thing, not one thing is going to be the magic bullet here. It is going to be a combination of how we organize, how we communicate, how we fundraise. I have been it's been one of my biggest pet peeves during being a commissioner being commissioner and an elected is the lack of coordination between our organizing groups on the ground, to our elected officials to the actual party apparatus. There's a lot of things internally that that are that are not going well. And I think a lot of it is our image. And what I've sent to a lot of people in our state in the last few weeks when I've been having a lot of these conversations is that I can give a million dollars to let's say Miami Dade and to go register new voters. But if the voters don't like our brand, I don't care how much money you throw at them. They're not going to register as Democrats. So we got to do some real true soul searching and when me at the helm of the kind of the party, being able to help advise, I think that I'm somebody who comes in from a different kind of perspective and outside the Bach's kind of ideology, looking at different ways and how to handle certain issues, and figuring out that we have to do a better job on listening to the people on the ground. tude. Many times you see Democratic candidates and elected, who push their own political agenda. These are the things that they want to talk about. These are the things that are important to them, instead of listening to the people of our state, and we've had no work, no outward communication until right before elections that has to stop, you know, we need to make sure that we're doing year round what I call wellness checks, that we're talking to Democrats throughout the state on a consistent basis, that we're doing town halls and to our communities. We're investing in our communities. We're obviously doing voter registration, we're asking for people to trust us again. And so that's again, a lot of branding. That's a lot of leadership. That's also recruitment of candidates, making sure we're recruiting the right type of candidates. I haven't a whole platform idea. But it's also things that I've been thinking about for four years, as sitting as an elected, what are some things that I would have liked to have seen the party do more to support my efforts as an elected the party right now and doesn't support as much as we should be?

Tony Winton:

Why, why is that though? I mean, I guess my question is, what's your what's your autopsy? I mean, you went through a painful situation, and then the drubbing that the party took statewide, the National reaction donors not not wanting to fund races in Florida. And this is a state that voted for Barack Obama. What what is, what is the autopsy? And what is your prognosis? What is your prescription?

Nikki Fried:

It's, it was a complete failure, it's it's not been something that happened overnight, it's 30 years in the making. And it has been, it's a lot of what I say that in Florida, that the Democrats would rather be the king of the kingdom of one than the prince of the kingdom of a million. And in that people are not willing to take a step back to support other people, that they push their own, their own, you know, opportunities and their own desires to be the head of whatever it is, whether it's running for governor, or running for a mayor or the races. And so we've got to take an approach that we all have to be working together, the internal fighting of the Democratic Party is nauseating. And the type of bombs that get thrown at one another says to the rest of the people of our state, or why would I want to support them, they can't even get along. And I think that that is really an end, Republicans have a right now a much worse situation. But we've got to be certain to focus on how to bring people together to realize that there are lanes, there is going to be you know, a section of our of our communities in our state in our party, that are more progressive in nature. And that's okay. And that's a good thing. You know, they they represent a faction of people that feel like they don't have a seat at the table. But that lane is also not more important than a lane of your more moderate perspective. But the moderates also have to respect that there's value added from our progressive lane. And until we start creating this big tent environment, and start recognizing that we're not that Democrats, if we might not see eye to eye on the same policy, that's okay. That's what makes us a big tent. And that's what politics is supposed to be is to come together and work through those issues, not attack one of those, the problem that we're having that a lot of electeds don't lean in enough into the local local party. And so a lot of times the party is made up of volunteers that are well intended, good hearted, but may not have the experience or the knowledge of how to organize an event or what it takes strategy wise to make sure that we're going into the right communities, and that we're putting in the resources. And so the elect is I'm going to be asking them to lean back in, lean back into those local democratic clubs and caucuses, and local organizing, use their leadership skills that they have acquired, and being an elected office, lean in and help the locals. But I can tell you that in the four years that I was commissioner, as anybody who follows me I tweet on a pretty consistent basis. I got retweeted five times, five times in those four years from the Florida Democratic Party. And it wasn't because there was animosity, and it wasn't because I was saying the right things is because that's not how they were thinking. They were thinking that they had a job on the ground to do and that's to get more people registered to turn up more votes. And they don't realize that when they lift up the elected that are doing good job that helps and all of that overall mission. Why in the world that after the Democrats in DC, passed the infrastructure bill was there not town was or not press conferences in every congressional district, talking about what what that bill is going to do for the people in those communities. These are types of things that I am thinking outside the box to try to make sure that we're putting together the people that during the work on the ground, which is our art clubs, our caucuses, the people that are registering voters, and the people that are there actually electing have got to come together and start working as a party. It is going to take a lot of work and we are not going to hit a homerun and 20 Before it's going to be rebuilding. And that's my commitment is to help on this rebuilding help on the infrastructure changes, start looking at things from a different prism, and utilizing the resources and skills and the in the connections that I have made, not just in the last four years. But being a lifelong Floridian and the connections that I've made throughout my entire career.

Mike Davey:

I think that's great. I think you really touched on a point that I believe I believe is critically important is we see politicians when they're running for office. And we don't tend tend to see them at events, when they're not, frankly, unless there are elections, and they're coming back. And they're trying to fundraise. And I think what we need to do, what I'd like to see Democrats do is come out and hold that little town halls on Key Biscayne and in Miami that really draw people in because people are tired, they're tired of sort of being forced fed stuff for four months of the year, and then being ignored for the for the other 20 months of the two year cycle. And so I think that's great, I think we need to do it, it's got to be done. Now, it's got to start in April of 2023. If you want people to come out and 24

Nikki Fried:

Correct. And if none of that stuff costs money, having town halls, having press conferences are free. And then you have earned media that shows that and I have even you know, part of my platform is also having monthly town halls, where you're bringing in all of the electeds from those areas, you know, whether it's Key Biscayne and all the electeds and invite the Republicans, because in an invite NPAs. Because if we're actually going to create a state that we all want to live in, we all have to get along. And this all one way or the highway attitude doesn't work. And in fact, I've had lots of these conversations with a lot of leading Republicans in our state after after my primary. So what's next? And I said, Look, democracy only works when you have too strong parties, and you're able to bring people to the table to make decisions and for the betterment of the collective. Man. Last question. Yep.

Tony Winton:

I'm gonna say we're running out of time, your rival has picked up a lot of endorsements, as I'm sure you know, how, what is your strategy, if you can share a little bit of that with us about closing the gap in the short time that you have left?

Nikki Fried:

Well, there is no gap. I have got about 300 more votes than her already. But that's so basically, the way it works inside the party, is that there are we have what's called a weighted vote system, that there are certain every single committee men and women across the state of Florida have a certain amount of vote, some are more weighted than others, like in more blue areas, they've got more votes, then you have a 25 votes that are for the house and for the Senate. Congressional delegation has a certain amount of votes. And so a lot of the endorsements that that others haven't announced, don't have any votes. The people that we have been targeting are the ones who are actually the voters of the party. And so in a lot of the electeds, you know, have said to me, Look, I didn't know you were getting into this race. Obviously, I've already previously endorsed and I said, that's fine. I know that that's, that's okay, because if we're going to come together afterwards, we need to continue having these types of dialogues. So we're very confident that on the 25th, that we're gonna, we're gonna win this on the first ballot by the type of support and the diverse coalition that we are in fact pulling together.

Tony Winton:

Right. Oh, Nikki fried, thank you for joining us in your quest to be the chair of the Democratic Party in the state of Florida. And we hope you will join us if you're successful, or even if you're not, we hope that you'll join us again on antisocial Thank you

Nikki Fried:

have a great day back.

Mike Davey:

And we are back live here at antisocial haze. My first time is the full time. So I'm trying to

Tony Winton:

look at the patterns. Alright, I had my wife

Mike Davey:

sending my golf cart registration to me these are these are third world first world problems. Okay.

Tony Winton:

We're gonna make sure you turn off the phone during during the show. But we're back on antisocial. I'm Tony Winton. And we are just had an interesting a segment there with what's you know, could be a game changer, you know or not. Right you if you look at the numbers that Florida had in the last election, you know, one way to look at it is there's no place to go but up. Well, I

Mike Davey:

think that that's what I keep saying I think it's obvious that this is what I think Florida needs two parties. The country needs two parties. And so the Democratic Party here in Florida, the health of the party here in Florida is only going to help health of the state overall.

Tony Winton:

Well out. It's a something we'll be watching. We know that the last election here, there was a lot of, I guess, in this particular area is a good example of kind of the the chord we didn't get into with with misread. But, you know, the the late decision about who was going to be running as a Democrat in the congressional district. And then even, you know, a long lead time in the State House races where you have a popular State House Representative deciding not to run for reelection, and then plenty of lead time and then not being able to, to, you know, capture or recall the seat with the Democrats. Republicans are able to flip a seat here. And then in the state senate district, same thing. Well, well, very interesting. Yeah, that's that's a longer story involving a thing and rejected redistricting, everything else. But even still a theoretically winnable, see there had been a democratic seat in the past. You know, again, staying and staying in the win for Republicans, a credit to the Republican organization, certainly. But you know, raising questions here locally for for people who are Democrats,

Mike Davey:

there's there's plenty of room to grow for the Democratic Party in the state of Florida.

Tony Winton:

All right, well, moving from politics. Now to our to our next segment, we have another interesting and fascinating, it's been in the news a lot. And if you haven't heard about it, I would encourage you to search about this new technology. I guess it's not super new, but the one that's exploded into the public stream anyway, as a technology called Chat GPT.

Mike Davey:

It is it is interesting, and I frankly, wish I'd had it when I was in high school, my grades probably would have been better probably in college as well. Well, my daughter is not allowed to use this, I just want to put that out there if Mia you are not allowed to use that

Tony Winton:

was that is exactly the topic we're going to be talking about with our next guest. Her name is Sophia Barnett. She's joining us from Providence, Rhode Island. She is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in wired and Teen Vogue and many other places, and recently wrote a story for Wired, in fact about how universities, educators in general are now confronting this. This incredibly, I think it's an amazing technology, you can have a conversation that pulls data from everywhere, you can ask it to write poems, or write or write code, I guess people have told me it can do, it's really kind of this. If you think where we are with artificial intelligence, you know, just as today, imagine what the potential holds. Sophia Burnett, welcome to antisocial.

Sofia Barnett:

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Tony Winton:

What, in doing the reporting for your story? Were you you kind of desire, you got different types of opinions from different institutions. Do you think the educational community is just now coming to terms to this? They've been hit? Kind of, like? Hard? Yeah, by surprise off guard.

Sofia Barnett:

I mean, I would not necessarily say that this is an entirely new phenomenon. I think that the circumstances with Chachi PT are very specific, because there hasn't really been artificial intelligence that can do this much for students or for people who are just generally looking to produce any sort of content online. But this is not to say that this is like the first time that the education world has ever experienced conflict with internet tools and potential sources for plagiarism. Back when Wikipedia popped up, everybody sort of sort of freaked out a little bit because then you have these these online articles, these these information from anywhere available on the internet without necessarily being like able to be attributed to somebody because it's just on Wikipedia. So I think that the question of universities and schools looking at chart to jot chart GPT through an angle of plagiarism is not necessarily a new phenomenon. But I will definitely say that artificial intelligence being able to do this much for people who are enrolled in schools is definitely new.

Mike Davey:

Yeah, I was wondering in reading your article it to me, it brought up the idea of when people used to buy papers, you know, they purchase the paper. So when you're when you're going to school, you're earning your degree, you're at Brown, you're earning your degree from Brown, and you're not really earning that degree. If you're going out and buying a degree, you're buying a paper or buying some some study. And I think that would be how I would equate it is if you're using AI to write your paper, it's one thing to maybe clean it up. And so could somebody brought up spellcheck, right, are you not allowed to use spellcheck anymore? Are you not allowed to use any sort of artificial intelligence to check your papers? But there's a distinction to be made right there. There's my work that's being corrected maybe by this API, or the API is work that I'm just putting my name on and handing in and I think that's probably where we're going to get to eventually.

Tony Winton:

What's the kind of concern you know, when you talked to educators how are they approaching this formulating policy?

Sofia Barnett:

Yeah, so I I've spoken to educators in higher education than I also spoke to people who are in administrative levels at high schools and middle schools, although they were not directly mentioned in the article, since the focus was specifically higher education. But I will say that my article was released, I think, probably two weeks ago. So things might have changed since then. But the last time that I talked to people, I was told that there are new software developments coming out where people can check for watermarks or run things through new complicated online processes that can determine if it was pre written. In Charge GPT itself, I've heard that there's going to be a watermark and like, sort of thing that's placed inside somewhere not necessarily saying charge GPT. But flagging that it's not generated authentically from a student, whether that be random capitalization in paragraphs or sentences or it be unnecessary spacing, things like that just sort of small tiny things that professors will be able to flog. I am taking classes right now, obviously, I'm at University and I've had several professors put in, don't use Chow GPT very deliberately and very, very clearly in their syllabi, so that students are aware that this is now being implemented into plagiarism policies, which I also do think is really interesting at the higher education and just generally within the American education system as like all levels.

Tony Winton:

And on the on the flip side, are there examples where it's seen as an educational tool? You know, yes, it can answer it can answer a lot of questions.

Sofia Barnett:

Yeah, no, no, totally. I've talked with students and educators who believe that it is a helpful research search engine. And again, someone compared it to Grammarly, which is an online tool dot can tell you when your sentences are too wordy or tell you that you should use more transitions and just generally improve the quality of whatever you've pasted into the textbox. And I think that there obviously benefits and that it's, if you use it correctly, sort of like a calculator, I can speed things up for you, it makes sure that you're getting the information that you need. And you can input in very specific prompts so that you can make sure that everything is taken care of and that is a new development that is certainly going to be helpful for students and educators everywhere.

Mike Davey:

I suppose that's that's the point in terms of what what are we going to school for, are you going you're going to school really to learn how to law school, let's say you go to school, not so much to learn the material, but to learn how to be an attorney how to think like an attorney and things like this may may assist with that. In that regard, you don't want somebody in high school to be able to turn in their paper, their their term papers that they've just did the night before,

Tony Winton:

I can tell you that is already in use in journalism here in in Miami, the Miami Herald is using AI to write stories on real estate. And they are using it to write stories for restaurant inspections, that it's a combination of something called a data scraping tool that goes onto public websites, collects the data, the data is input into the AI and then the AI generates a story that says this household for something, or these restaurants were fined for health code violations, et cetera, et cetera, the same thing can be done with sports, agate, the line scores, and sure details. Information can be gleaned, of course, the problem when when there's no human being there, it it can it has made stupendous errors before, you know, that sometimes have not been caught before publication. So that's what before Well, you know, that is the that's the that's the question editor teacher, someone. And I've also read that it's, you're in the legal profession, Mike, that, that this can be used for legal writing, that that it's it's people are seeing, not necessarily chat TPT but similar bots that could do similar types of work

Mike Davey:

in the legal profession look, if I've got a motion that I want to draft, I go to the court filings and I find some case that's similar to mine I look through their motions and I find a motion and I will use that as certainly check on their case law and I will use that to format my own brief. Because that's you build off everybody else, you know, we all we all are building on those who came before us. So it's interesting it is an interesting tool. It is can be both good and it can be bad I think we want our children anyway as they are in their their formative years. We want them to learn how to learn and how to think and process things for their for themselves. But once you get to a certain level, I could see where this would be a very useful tool.

Tony Winton:

So if you What are you hearing from students?

Sofia Barnett:

I am hearing generally positive things from students and I would say that that is probably because people at these institutions spend Typically Brown I can speak for brown but at other Ivy League's, I have friends who have mentioned that it's just helpful in minimizing workload for a lot of people. And that's not to say that these students are plagiarizing, which I do think is important to note because obviously, you can use this tool outside of plagiarism. And I think I spoke with a student who was on Bryn Mars, students committee for academic integrity. And she told me that there's concerns across the board the student board for academic integrity, because they are afraid that it's going to lower the overall quality of a degree from Bryn Mawr. And I've also heard similar things from educators, high school educators, and college educators, both who are expressing concern at how students who choose to defer to chart GPT to produce papers or research assignments, whatever the case may be, they will eventually end up going to these institutions of higher education less prepared than other people have been in previous years, like my generation is probably going to the last line of that. And there are concerns that now students are going to be underperforming in colleges. And they're going to be just generally less educated and not as strong of critical thinkers, because they have this tool and they might overuse it because again, we are students and a lot of the time people just need to get something done. And people will cheat in a lot of circumstances to produce if they are someone who's a high achiever or minimize time, like it's something that happens, and I've seen up close, it's the truth.

Tony Winton:

That's a question I had, you know, thinking about, not just the immediate aspect of is this paper legit? Is it plagiarized? Is it the work your own, the longer term kind of thing about? I guess, you know, part of the reason is we do the show here out of out of a school. And it's a lot of focus on early learning. And a few years ago, they the teachers here removed electronic devices, iPads and other things from the preschoolers, because the studies were showing that the tactile experience of having a book and reading led to better retention comprehension and development than having the stimulation, I guess, of an iPad or another kind of a device. And my question is, is this something happened subtly in the brain? Where reliance on a technology like a jet jet GPT, which essentially is, in some respects, like, I guess, autopilot, for lack of a better term, right? I'm wondering does it create a foster a kind of lack of mental

Mike Davey:

sharpness, in critical thinking? I think that was Sofia's point about critical thinking. It's not I don't think people do it. maliciously. For the most part, certainly, there's people who are trying to gain the system at all, but most people it's expediency, right? You've got six papers do toward the end of the semester, like I got, I can do this one, this one this one, but I can write this one on. I can do this one through chat GPT and this one, so you're not really thinking again, militia. It's just you're exhausted and you want to get things done, you know the material, but you'll review the chat GBT document that is produced I get. That's the danger of it, though. Right? We're trying to teach critical thinking that's the key that we go to school to learn how to be critical thinkers, I hope. And so that that is the challenge going forward.

Tony Winton:

We will see I did reach out to the Miami Dade County Public Schools to see if they had a policy on it and as of yet they do not it is still being studied. So add that it's one of the largest school districts in the United States of Miami.

Mike Davey:

If you want to get a policy here in the state of Florida, all you have to do is put a P ahead of it. Well, the policy and

Tony Winton:

that's a whole different show. But But yeah, it's it's gonna be interesting to see how it plays out that the positives and the negatives and Sophia Barnett, again, a freelance journalist and whose works appeared in wired and Teen Vogue and student at Brown. Oh,

Mike Davey:

you'll just have one more question, Sophia. How do we know that you wrote your article and you didn't use Chad GPT to do it? The world will

Sofia Barnett:

never know. Fair enough. Fair enough. vouching is it is my work. Interview extra at the very bottom from charge GBT that I hope you enjoy.

Mike Davey:

I did. I did very much. Appreciate it.

Tony Winton:

Thank you, Sophia. Sophia, for joining us from Rhode Island again for being our guest on antisocial and we'll be back. And we are back live on anti social radio show and now on YouTube, actually, but that is we're hoping to get a wider distribution on the video end as well and be able to bring you some visual content once in a while. I'm Tony Winton, I am Mike David. Well, Mr. Mayor, again, thank you for filling in for our co host, Tom Masoom, who I told her told he told me he was in Broward County today. Like, that's an excuse.

Mike Davey:

I just think he couldn't get somebody to bail him out. But that's just my theory.

Tony Winton:

Okay. Well, you know, I'm sure I'll hear from him later. But this is the segment where we talk a little bit about what's going on in the island paradise. And often the issues that we talk here, they may seem local, but they actually could be statewide or national issues on the one I'm thinking of, is when we just talked about at a council meeting last night story, the independent involving e bikes, e bikes and E scooters. And you are you haven't been out of office that long. That was it was an issue for your council.

Mike Davey:

It was it was and it remains unfortunately remains an issue with it is, again, an issue of state preemption. They have laws on the books up there in Tallahassee that preclude us from making decisions at the local level, as to the life safety of our residents that are not just essentially banning banning the devices. And so there was a vote last night to support the Chief Chief Sousa, by prohibiting the E bikes and scooters from the village green and giving the authority to the police to start finding people, if they find them to be riding them improperly or operating them on the village green, which I think is a good step. But my concern is that we are only just we're just waiting for a tragedy to forestall to follow us here on the

Tony Winton:

you know, here's some insight, the political, it's a difficult issue politically, right, because you've got it, they're very popular, it came out of nowhere. And you have a constituency that's going to that has said it and at some point I've been to the meetings, I've heard the parents say this, my child is responsible, my child used to go to go to school, they have wearing a helmet, it's a way to not not use a car and reduce traffic congestion on the streets. How do you how do you approach that? And how do you how do you make a tough decision?

Mike Davey:

Well, look, if I was sitting up there right now, I think Brett moss said it well, last night when he called them toys were we're talking about toys for kids, and we're putting life safety on hold for toys. I would have been more in favor, frankly, of a moratorium until we have the ability, the capability at our level to regulate them. These are 12 and 13 year olds, they're not again, it's not malicious on the on the part of the children I get the parents want to be good to their kids. But these things go 30 miles an hour, and they're on a sidewalk, and they don't understand I've seen kids get hit riding bicycles across, you know, across intersections, these things go so much faster. And their reaction time is so much less that it's just it's a dangerous situation. And I don't believe unfortunately, I don't think it's if we're going to have a tragic we just had a kid get hit on electric scooter last Friday. And as I understand it, it was completely the kid was I mean, you say fault. But he was just riding, he wasn't thinking about it, he wound up in the windshield. Unfortunately, his parents had him wearing a helmet because if he hadn't had a helmet, we might have had a tragedy we might have had somebody dead and we're very fortunate thus far that that hasn't happened. But you can't life safety has got to be of paramount importance in in government.

Tony Winton:

Alright, so but there are things and so this is a tough decision right there this the police department can right now start enforcing state law. Correct. motorized scooters are not allowed on sidewalks. That's true. And they're that they're not. And they could be writing citations, and also the E bikes when they're motorized. If you're not pedaling also, already currently, on sidewalks not allowed this what they have asked for it. I want to make sure our listeners understand and what the council did last night is they are they're starting with a an enforcement at the village green and other parks. Right, right where that's it's clearly village property. But they have decided they're not going beyond that kind of enforcement zone. I think that the idea is that a message is going to be sent for a month or so it's going to cook $10,000 in extra police costs. And they're going to try and do this while maybe the state legislature maybe can make a change in the law, but why not use these other tools that are available?

Mike Davey:

So yeah, what you do then is you put 12 and nine year olds 10 year olds in the bike lanes on Crandon Boulevard, and now you're cutting on the street because actually they can't even use the bike lanes. So now you've got them on crane and Boulevard on these devices competing with like 4000 pound cars And I just that's an even bigger danger than allowing them to be on the sidewalks at this time. It's not a great situation for anybody. I understand why they're taking this approach and trying to educate people and take them a less draconian step, my position would be let's let's, let's put a moratorium on the use of these things until we get some some capability from the state.

Tony Winton:

Right? And that would be until until that happens, what kind of when you are, I'm sure you're very well connected. What kind of comments are you hearing from people from the other side, right from people who want to use them adults who want to use

Mike Davey:

them, and that's the other thing, you know, adults, but adults will take them in the street, right? Adult an adult can get uncrackable of I have a problem with an adult using it, and using it responsibly. That's absolutely fine. But it's it's the kids. And again, it's not they're not being bad kids, but they just don't, they don't have the same awareness. They haven't been trained in traffic laws. They're just they're not ready to handle that. And I know that look, there's a lot of good kids. And I agree with these parents, they come in they say my kids that my kids are good kitty that she choose responsible. She does everything she's supposed to do. She wears a helmet she, but it's just I would prefer that we are safer rather than than sorry. And I have I think I've mentioned this before I was walking my dog down the sidewalk a few weeks ago. And a girl was riding her ebike toward me, and she wasn't even going that fast. And she was wearing a helmet. But she was looking at her iPhone that was in the iPhone holder that her parents I would assume gave her for her ebike. And I thought that is such a foolish thing to do for your child to give them an iPhone holder for the eye for the ebike. You know, we have to be we have to be better. And I'd look there's no perfect solution for this right now. But I think we've got to be a little tougher now. So that we make sure that we can maybe we relax later.

Tony Winton:

Well, here's here's the thing, we don't know what the legislature is going to do. It's true that the bill that was introduced by our state representative Vicki Lopez is in front of four different committees. As of today, they did not have a Senate co sponsor, it. It's so it's future is uncertain. There's quite some time before the session adjourns. And you know, not everything gets passed. As a standalone bill, sometimes it's a sorted as amendment to another bill. Right. So so we'll see, we'll see what happens in that process. But there's a there's a potentiality here that the you might wind up session without any changes, and the only reaction that we'll be left with the action that could be taken would be at the village level.

Mike Davey:

That's correct. And I think then we're gonna have to we're gonna have to relook at it. And again, we are talking about toys, you know, again, an adult riding this in traffic, if they want to get to work that way, or they want to get around or anybody over the age of 16 with a license. Who's doing this? I mean, it's sort of like with golf carts, right, we do regulate golf carts. And we just we can't regulate these things right now, which is which is a little frustrating, again, that goes to my frustration with the state pre empting us on any anything they so choose. But it's about safety. That's what this comes down to. It's not if kids want to ride these things, great. I want them to be safe. And what we've got right now is just an unsafe situation for everybody concerned.

Tony Winton:

All right. Well, we will be continuing to follow that story in the Key Biscayne independent as well as a number of other issues that we're not we didn't have time to get to on this show. But another big one involving the environment pollution and Biscayne Bay and solid waste contract which we talked talked before did in fact get approved with a 6% increase and a 4% cap in two successive years so we'll see if passed by one vote it was a four three right yeah yeah so so what we'll see how that if it has any effect going forward or not, but thank you for joining us and filling in for Tom moslem have

Mike Davey:

a good time. I hope Tom stays on vacation.

Tony Winton:

You did have one really good question. No, I thought about how do we know we didn't ask Chet GPT so

Mike Davey:

how you know every once in a while,

Tony Winton:

we have no I mean, I he actually he has this thing he wants to do. Maybe he'll come on next show. But will he wants to have a contest to see who can fool us kind of like to tell the truth. And we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll see which one is a che which one's Chechi btw which are real? I like it a lot. All right, let's let's work on that together. And and we'll do it. Thank you, everyone for joining us on this edition of antisocial. I'm Tony Winton, Mike Davey. You save everybody.

Unknown:

Bear as you turn back the next day

Nikki Fried
Chat GPT / Sofia Barnett, journalist