The Florida Roundup | WLRN

This week on The Florida Roundup ... By next month, hotel taxes from Airbnb guests will be collected and paid in two South Florida counties. Both the Miami-Dade and Broward County commissions approved separate agreements this week with the home-sharing site over the counties' taxes and hotel rooms. While the new contracts end the debate over collecting millions of dollars in bed taxes for the counties, it does not elevate the friction between local governments and their regulations over Airbnb.

This week on The Florida Roundup ... The Everglades Foundation recently released a report that valued the annual economic from recreational and commercial fishing in Florida Bay at nearly a half a billion per year. The bay increases the value to the property of nearby homes. Dry conditions on the mainland and a lack of freshwater flowing into the bay has led to a seagrass die-off . Read more: The Seagrass Of Florida Bay Is Under Siege--And Not For The First Time This comes as the Florida

This week on The Florida Roundup. .. Miami-Dade County has inked a deal with Airbnb for the home-sharing company to collect and pay hotel taxes. Yet, the city of Miami and Miami Beach continue to pushback against the service and its hosts . Read more: Cities of Miami and Miami Beach Crack down on Airbnb Vacation Rentals Tourism reporter for The Miami Herald Chabeli Herrera tells us more about the ongoing fight between Airbnb and Miami-Dade municipalities. We also ask our listeners whether they

This week on The Florida Roundup ... Coral Gables is moving to become the first city in Florida to ban plastic shopping bags. It did the same with Styrofoam only to be challenged by the state legislature and taken to court . Should the "City Beautiful" ban plastic bags? Lance Dixon with The Miami Herald and editorial page editor of The Sun-Sentinel Rosemary O'Hara discuss whether other cities may follow suit. Listen here: A battle border is brewing between Broward and Miami-Dade over plans for a

This week on The Florida Roundup ... The Broward County Public School District School Board passed a formal resolution that aims to protect students from executive immigration actions. Miami-Dade and Palm Beach County public schools have similar policies, but Broward is the first to adopt an official resolution. How have schools in South Florida responded to changes in immigration policy and how high is the threat of deportation for undocumented students? We spoke with Broward School Board

This week on The Florida Roundup... Miami-Dade County's new policy to help the Federal government detain undocumented immigrants faced its first legal challenge. The practice was adopted in late January by Mayor Carlos Gimenez following President Donald Trump's executive order threatening "sanctuary cities" with funding cuts. Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Milton Hirsch ruled the county's actions to detain immigrants at the request of the federal government was unconstitutional. We discuss the

This week on The Florida Roundup ... With less than two weeks to go before the start of Florida's Legislative session, we look at some of the most hotly-debated issues in Tallahassee, from whether to eliminate Florida's "gun-free" zones to how to address the state's growing opioid crisis . We speak with Tampa Bay Times ' Tallahassee bureau chief Steve Bousquet, senior writer at The News Service of Florida Dara Kam and investigative reporter for The Palm Beach Post Pat Beall. Listen here: Also,

This week on The Florida Roundup ... Miami is the second worst city in the Country, next to San Francisco, when it comes to finding affordable hosing. So if you're looking to buy a home in Miami-Dade, where do you go? The Miami Herald has a new tool to help people find homes to fit their price-range. We speak with the reporter behind the special report Nick Nehamaas. Listen here: Scientists have been studying the degradation of Florida's Everglades for decades. One study has tracked the