When was Gov. DeSantis last in Bradenton? Here’s why he made three visits in 2021

Gov. Ron DeSantis visited Bradenton on Tuesday to announce a new plan that would remove sales tax from certain common household items if the Legislature passes it in 2023.

The visit comes seven weeks before the general election on Nov. 8, when DeSantis will face Democratic candidate and former governor Charlie Crist.

Voters in Manatee County, a Republican stronghold, have shown strong support for DeSantis in the past. In 2018, DeSantis beat gubernatorial opponent Andrew Gillum in Manatee County by over 15% in the general election, compared to a split of only .4% statewide. Manatee has about 42,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats.

When else has the governor come the Bradenton area, and why? Here’s a look at his most recent visits.

Monoclonal antibodies

In August 2021, DeSantis held a news conference at Manatee Memorial Hospital to announce the opening of a monoclonal antibody site to administer the treatment, which was shown to dramatically reduce severe COVID-19 infections during the delta variant surge.

DeSantis and his staff heavily pitched the monoclonal antibody treatment as an alternative to vaccines. When the federal government paused shipments of Regeneron and Lilly monoclonal antibody treatments in December because lab tests showed them to be ineffective against the new omicron variant, DeSantis’ administration demanded more shipments; the decision was reversed, and the state continued to receive and administer the treatment.

As of Sept. 20, Florida ranks 12th in COVID-19 deaths per 100,00 people since the pandemic began, according to The New York Times COVID-19 tracker. It ranks 21st for fully-vaccinated individuals, with about 68% of the state’s population fully vaccinated.

Piney Point emergency

In April of 2021, DeSantis visited Manatee County twice in the wake of an emergency at Piney Point, the former phosphate plant located near the edge of lower Tampa Bay. A leak in the site’s largest holding pond, which at the time contained about 480 million gallons of contaminated water, threatened to cause a breach and deluge the surrounding area — including homes, businesses and the Manatee County Jail.

At the time, officials estimated a 20 foot wave of water could burst from the site. A potential breach also threatened to destabilize gypsum stacks containing radioactive material. A state of emergency was declared, and an evacuation order included more than 300 homes.

On April 4, DeSantis spoke at a news conference and took a flyover tour of the Piney Point site, as did his political opponent Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried; it was roughly two months before Fried announced her unsuccessful campaign for Florida governor.

DeSantis was back on April 13, where he and other state leaders promised a plan for the permanent closure of the Piney Point site. That plan has been implemented but is still underway.

“The court-appointed receiver and its contractor, Forgen, LLC, have begun closure work at the at the OGS-South compartment,” the Florida Department of Environmental Protection said in a Sept. 16 update on the Piney Point closure. “Contractors are grading and shaping the area so that it will no longer accumulate rainwater and eliminate the need for future rainwater releases to Port Manatee.

DEP will continue performing its stringent regulatory oversight of the facility to ensure this is the last chapter in the long history of Piney Point. DEP is committed to working with the receiver to ensure that progress toward closure is done as expeditiously as possible.”

Vaccine distribution in Lakewood Ranch

In February of 2021, DeSantis visited Lakewood Ranch for the opening of a COVID-19 vaccination site. Vaccines were anxiously awaited and just beginning to arrive in the state.

However, the allotment of vaccines exclusively to residents of two of Manatee County’s wealthiest ZIP codes stirred major controversy. The incident, which came to be known as “vaccinegate,” prompted an ethics and criminal investigation into the actions of Manatee County Commissioner Vanessa Baugh, who organized the vaccination event in a process that lacked public input.

The event came after county leaders promised residents that a random lottery process would be used to select vaccine recipients.

At the Feb. 17, 2021 news conference, DeSantis threatened to send future vaccination sites elsewhere if people continued to complain about the unfairness of the Lakewood Ranch site.

“It wasn’t a choice about ZIP codes,” DeSantis said. “It was a choice about where’s a high concentration of seniors where you can have communities provide the ability for them to go on. It wasn’t choosing one ZIP code over another. We go where the seniors are and try to knock it out.”

“If Manatee County doesn’t like us doing this, then we are totally fine putting this in counties that want it. We’re totally happy to do that,” DeSantis also said.

Text messages later revealed that the organizers of the vaccine event, Baugh and developer Rex Jensen, intended to use it to boost DeSantis’ political image.

A criminal probe by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office found no evidence of wrongdoing by Baugh.

An investigation by the Florida Commission on Ethics is ongoing, with a hearing set for Nov. 1-3.

This story was originally published September 20, 2022 at 5:20 PM.