May 15, 2001
Source: Representative Tom Feeney,  Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives 

TALLAHASSEE – Today, House Speaker Tom Feeney, along with two of his top House Redistricting lieutenants, Representatives Johnnie Byrd and Mario Diaz-Balart, unveiled a schedule of twenty Redistricting Public Hearings to be conducted statewide.

"Once a decade, the legislature is charged with redesigning Florida’s Congressional, state House and state Senate seats in order to serve Florida’s citizens in the most effective way possible. This year, our state has gained two Congressional seats, ensuring that Floridians receive their fair share of federal funding and creating more opportunities for leadership roles within the Florida delegation," said Speaker Tom Feeney.

The first scheduled hearing is Thursday, July 12th in Tallahassee, FL and the final hearing will be held on Tuesday, October 16th in Panama City, FL. Each of the members from the Redistricting Committee have been invited to be in attendance of the twenty scheduled hearings, as well as local delegation members.

"The Florida House would like to encourage the public’s participation and input in this very important legislative process. In order to make redistricting as transparent to public scrutiny and input as possible we have scheduled twenty public hearings, designed a web site as an informative tool for the public, and broadcast select hearings on Florida’s Public Television stations," stated Speaker Tom Feeney.

The web address of the Florida Legislative Redistricting web page is: www.floridaredistricting.org

This site will be available Wednesday, May 16th at 12:00 noon, and a link will be available from the Florida Legislative website www.leg.state.fl.us .