Apple, Samsung allowed to add products in U.S. patent lawsuit

(Reuters) – A U.S. judge allowed Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to pursue claims the iPhone5 infringes its patents on Thursday, while also allowing Apple Inc to add claims that the Samsung Galaxy Note, Galaxy S III and the Jelly Bean operating system violate its patents.

The ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal in San Jose, California, was the latest development in a continuing legal war by Apple against manufacturers like Samsung whose products use Google Inc’s Android software.

Representatives for both Apple and Samsung declined comment.

The case is one of two patent infringement lawsuits pending in the U.S. District Court in San Jose by Apple against Samsung. An earlier lawsuit by Apple that related to different patents resulted in a $ 1.05 billion jury verdict against Samsung on August 24.

Apple filed the second lawsuit in February, alleging that various Samsung smartphone and tablet products including the Galaxy Nexus infringed eight of its patents.

Samsung denied infringement and filed a cross-complaint alleging that Apple’s iPhone and iPad infringed eight of its patents.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh issued a preliminary injunction against pretrial sales of the Nexus in June. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned the sales ban on October 11.

Following the debut of the iPhone on September 21, Samsung sought to add it as an Apple product that infringed its patents. Apple moved likewise to add the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, Samsung Galaxy S III and the Jelly Bean operating system in connection with the Galaxy Nexus.

In his ruling Thursday, Grewal said Samsung acted with “reasonable diligence” in asking the court to allow it to add the iPhone 5 to the case.

Apple did not oppose adding the iPhone5. Nevertheless, Grewal warned Apple to “think twice before opposing similar amendments reflecting other newly released products — e.g. the iPad 4 and iPad mini — that Samsung may propose in the near future.”

The case is Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., et al., U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, 12-cv-00630.

(Reporting By Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Richard Pullin)

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Buzzmakers: Lindsay Lohan Comes Clean & Janeane Marries

What had ET readers buzzing this week?

1. Janeane Garofalo: I Didn't Know I was Married!

Sometimes what happens in Vegas actually does stay in Vegas -- at least for two decades. Funny girl Janeane Garofalo is claiming she's been married for 20 years, and didn't even know it!

The Reality Bites actress told the New York Post that she and Big Bang Theory producer Rob Cohen decided to wed at a Las Vegas drive-thru chapel but never thought it would stick. "Rob and I got married, for real, which we had to have a notary dissolve not 30 minutes before we got here tonight," Garofalo said at the New York Comedy Festival reunion for The Ben Stiller Show. "We were married for 20 years until this evening."

Garofalo, 48, further explained, "We got married drunk in Vegas. ... We dated for a year, and we got married at a drive-through chapel in a cab. [We thought], 'You have to go down to the courthouse and sign papers and stuff.' So, who knew? We were married, and apparently now that [Rob] is getting married for real, his lawyer dug up something." Cohen, 63, joked, "I'm gonna get all of that Reality Bites money!"

2. Miley Cyrus: My Dad Knows Nothing

In speaking with ET's Christina McLarty, Miley Cyrus cleared up rumors that she and fiance Liam Hemsworth were planning multiple weddings, started by her dad.

According to Miley, she hasn't even set one wedding date, let alone the three ceremonies that Billy Ray told Us Weekly were going to take place.

"My dad knows nothing," Miley says, pointblank. "I think he's getting cabin fever from [Superstorm Sandy]. He got stuck in his hotel and now he's making up crazy things." Billy Ray has been in NYC, performing in a Broadway production of Chicago.

The 19-year-old singer/actress goes on to admit that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

"He does what I do: When he's sitting in a press thing, he's like, 'Let's make this fun. Let's make some stuff up,'" Miley says.

Even with this recent flub, Miley does thank her parents for doing a good job of raising her, saying, "My parents have never been super strict, and people could think that's bad or good, but people that judge me or say that I'm, like, crazy -- they don't know half the stuff their kids are doing."

3. Stephanie Bongiovi Drug Charges Dropped

Stephanie Bongiovi, Jon Bon Jovi's 19-year-old daughter, will not be charged after reportedly overdosing on heroin in her dorm at Hamilton College in New York.

According to a statement from the Kirkland Town Police Department, a female [presumably Bongiovi] was found unresponsive by an ambulance crew sent to the college early Wednesday, after a report that a female had apparently overdosed in the school's largest dorm.

Although Bongiovi and 21-year-old Ian Grant were charged with drug possession, the charges have now been dropped.

Citing section 220.78 titled "Witness or victim of drug or alcohol overdose" of New York State Penal Law -- which states that a person who seeks health care for someone who is experiencing a drug or alcohol overdose or other life threatening medical emergency, as well as the individual who has overdosed or who was experiencing such life threatening medical emergency, can't be prosecuted for the possession of heroin weighing less than 8 ounces or possession of any amount of marijuana -- police said that neither Bongiovi or Grant can be charged.

There has been no statement from Jon Bon Jovi at this time.

4. Dina Lohan Addresses Cocaine Accusation

Did Lindsay Lohan lie about her mother having an alleged cocaine problem? Dina Lohan sets the record straight for ET's Christina McLarty.

"Absolutely lied. We were having an argument, it escalated," explains Dina of their October altercation which was recorded by her father, Michael Lohan. "She just wanted to hurt me at that moment. You know, mothers [and] daughters, we fight."

Dina tells Christina that it pained her to see that private family moment "go public and viral." As for accusations that she uses cocaine, Dina replies, "I hate cocaine. I don't do cocaine."

After Lindsay proclaimed that she was not being truthful about her accusations against her mother about cocaine use, Dina says, "I'm so proud of her for telling the truth because it destroyed me. I mean, I cried for weeks. It just hurt me so bad and she knew how horrible that was, and she came clean and told the truth that she lied. I'm very proud of her for that, which is very difficult to have to do."

Dina adds, "There's so much more to the story than the public sees, and it takes its toll on my children and myself, and we're just trying to move forward." Watch ET for more with our exclusive Dina Lohan interview.

5. Big Bang Cast Leads Call Me Maybe Flash Mob

Fans of The Big Bang Theory might logically assume that the cast of the hit CBS comedy has as many laughs on-screen as off. But now there is concrete proof as Kaley Cuoco just revealed in this clip of cast and crew members surprising showrunners with a flash mob of Carly Rae Jepsen's viral hit Call Me Maybe!

Kaley explains on The Big Bang Theory's Facebook page that the idea was hers and that she recruited her sister Bri to choreograph the impromptu number, which occurred during a taping on October 23 in front of a live audience.

The clip shows how the prank was carried out with secrecy and precision, with the cast re-assembling on the set immediately after the flash mob to resume taping and to hear star Jim Parsons sum up the event with one of his character Sheldon Cooper's favorite words, "Bazinga!"

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Skies get friendlier with this travel app

If your Thanksgiving plans involve flying into or out of an unfamiliar airport, get clued in to the location and quality of food and shopping options, and necessary services, in your terminal with GateGuru.

The free mobile app provides locations, ratings and reviews for restaurants, shops and services at domestic and international airports. GateGuru uses your location to determine the airport you’re visiting. (You can also search for specific airports, if you’re planning ahead.) You can then select the appropriate terminal or concourse. Once you’ve told GateGuru where you are, it will guide you to nearby food, shopping and service options.

The app provides real-time ratings, reviews and photos from your fellow travelers, and you can contribute your own. You can search for specific restaurants, stores and services, and quickly and easily locate the highest-rated places. You can also search for amenities like coffee or an ATM. If you find places that you like, you can easily retrieve tagged information on them on later trips.

GateGuru also tells you what food and shopping options exist before and after you go through security, so you know whether to eat something and grab a magazine before you go through the TSA screening — or endure a boring, hunger-filled trip.

The app also features security wait times and easy-to-read airport maps and will let you send tweets and Facebook updates. GateGuru also has its own social-network aspect, if you’re interested in another one, allowing you to earn points as you use the app and improve your ranking to work your way up to “Captain” of your airport.

GateGuru is free for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, as well as for Android-based mobile devices.

hlewis@nypost.com

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Miami’s book fair ‘Evening With…’ series ends on easy note

A bit of fiction and a bit of philosophy, both seasoned with a touch of the historical, rounded out the final night of Miami Book Fair International’s “Evenings With…” programs Friday.

Emma Donoghue read from her Astray, new book of short stories inspired by old newspaper accounts, and historian Alan Ryan talked about his weighty new two-volume work On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present (told you it was weighty).

“I feel like I should say, ‘Hello, Miami!’ ” joked Donoghue when she took the stage. Earlier, the Canadian author expressed wonder at the fact she was swimming in the Biltmore poolon a November afternoon before her appearance. “I don’t usually stay in places like that,” she said, laughing.

But Donoghue, author of the novel Room, is no stranger to new experiences: She’s a two-time emigrant from Dublin, once from Ireland to England, then on to Ontario.

“The Irish are obsessed with immigration,” she told the audience. Even when the economy’s good there, she said, the Irish look to other countries. “It’s still a small island,” she joked. “A lot of us have felt the need to fly that particular coop.”

Fitting then, that Astray features characters on the verge of moving on or struggling in their new surroundings. Donoghue read the amusing story The Widow’s Cruse and fielded questions about Room, a harrowing novel about a little boy being raised in a tiny shed by his kidnapped mother. Disturbing to be sure. But in case you wonder, Donoghue has no pressing childhood traumas of her own to inspire her to such a dark premise.

“I grew up in Dublin in a bookish household,” she said. “I was allowed to read all the time. . . There’s something to be said for a happy childhood that leaves you feeling confident.”

Ryan, who was in conversation with Robert Weil, editor-in-chief of W.W. Norton’s Liveright & Co., talked about his comprehensive study of political philosophy. Or, as his daughter (a biology professor) describes his profession: “He does dead philosophers.”

Ryan did mention a few of those worthy gentleman — Plato, St. Augustine and John Stuart Mill, for example — but still managed to elicit a laugh when discussing Americans’ adoration of a Constitution they’ve never read and continually confuse with the Declaration of Independence.

“The Constitution is revered, and it is at least worth knowing,” he said.

The fair continues this weekend with a full schedule of authors Saturday and Sunday.

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News Summary: UK court overturns Facebook demotion

PUNISHED: Britain‘s High Court ruled Friday that a man had been unfairly stripped of a management position and demoted for saying in a Facebook post that he was opposed to gay marriage.

COURT RULING: The court said the Trafford Housing Trust breached Adrian Smith‘s contract and a judge added that Smith had not done anything wrong. Smith had written on Facebook that gay weddings in churches would be “an equality too far.”

EVOLVING LAW: In Britain, same-sex couples can form civil partnerships that carry the same legal rights marriages do. The government plans to introduce legislation allowing civil marriages as well.

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Reactions: sad, sarcastic & sublime

“We gave it a shot.” — a Hostess Teamsters union member in Hodgkins, Ill., who tried to convince bakers to cross the picket line, told The Post.

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“You have second thoughts about not crossing the picket line. I didn’t want to harm anybody,” Susan Brady, a 23-year-old Philadelphia, Pa., bakery worker, told The Post.

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“First Mitt, now the Twinkie. Farewell, spongy, bland, artificial remnants of another era.” — Guy Nicolucci via Twitter

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“Who cares anymore? They are nothing but an equity company in the business of money, not operations.” — a Hostess worker who asked to remain unnamed told the Post.

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“We bail out the automakers but NOT THE TWINKIES?!?!?” — Damon Lindelof via Twitter

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“I’m not answering questions on Twinkies! No, no, no, no, no. It’s bad enough you got me to say the word Twinkie behind this microphone!” — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie when asked by a reporter about the Hostess liquidation

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“I’m not kidding. If Hostess goes under I will mourn. And wear a black arm band. In the shape of a Chocodile. Then, I will try to eat it.” — actor Rob Lowe via Twitter.

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“It’s over. This is it.” — Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn said in an interview with “Today.”

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“Sometimes in life we face a cause where none will ever win. / What ‘ere the outcome, both sides lose, no victor stands within.” — A.W. Hiatt, a Hostess route salesman in Louisville, wrote in a poem.

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Jolly holiday shopping season already underway

Lilian Stoppa and Renata Rosa stepped out of Target in Midtown Miami with a cart piled high with holiday gifts.

Landing in Miami on Thursday morning for a five-day shopping spree, they already had spent $800 by mid-afternoon on presents for family members: toys for Rosa’s daughter, beauty items for Stoppa’s mother, plus lots of other stuff.

“This is just the start,” giggled Stoppa, 30, who works with Rosa, also 30, at a Sao Paulo telecom company. Their next stops: Sawgrass Mills, Aventura Mall and Bal Harbour Shops, if their money holds out. “We came to Miami to shop because it’s very much cheaper than in Brazil.”

Tourists like Stoppa and Rosa are exactly the reason retail experts predict Florida’s holiday shopping season will see its highest increase since the recession.

Across South Florida, stores are getting a head start on the holidays in hopes of cashing in. Sales are already underway everywhere from Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, to Macy’s, Toys“R”Us and Anthropologie.

The Florida Retail Federation forecasts that Florida will see a 5.2 percent jump in holiday spending from $55 billion in 2011 to $58 billion this year, marking the highest percentage growth predicted since the economic slump began. Pre-recession, retail sales peaked at $54.3 billion in 2006.

“All of the indicators point to what we believe will be a very robust holiday shopping season,” said Florida Retail Federation President and Chief Executive Rick McAllister.

That also translates into more than 42,000 new retail jobs, he said.

Buoyed in large part by tourists and snowbirds, Florida is expected to outpace the nation in spending for the holiday season, as it did before the recession.

This year, the National Retail Federation is predicting holiday spending nationwide to rise 4.1 percent. On average, consumers are expected to spend about $750 each.

Economists point to strong consumer confidence as a major factor contributing to a stronger shopping season.

“By and large the consumer is very confident right now, and that usually leads to spending,” McAllister said.

Other indicators also point to a healthy season. ICSC, a trade association for the shopping center industry, this week released its ICSC-Goldman Sachs 2012 Holiday Spending Intentions Survey, which found that 19 percent of consumers plan to spend more, and 5 percent substantially more, on holiday gifts this year versus last year. It was the highest percentage of consumers reporting they intend to increase spending over the previous holiday season since ICSC began asking the question in 2004.

Retailers like West Elm are ready, beckoning gift givers. Stores are decked out with sparkly, eye-catching displays of items like candlesticks, ornaments and crystal paperweights.

“We’ve had lots of people shopping early, for several weeks,” said Ana Meza, an assistant manager at West Elm in Midtown Miami.

Without question, the holiday season is critical for retailers, a period when they typically generate 20 percent to 40 percent of the full year’s revenue.

This year brings an added bonus. With Thanksgiving falling early, the shopping season is stretched to 32 days, giving retailers more valuable time to rack up sales.

Shoppers like Jose Hernandez aren’t waiting for the last minute. Hernandez, who works as a civilian supervisor at the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Gulfport, Miss., and spends every other three months home in Miami, started his holiday shopping this week. He figures he spent $2,000 at Carter’s, GUESS, Marshalls and Target in Midtown, and plans to spend a total of $5,000 — up 40 percent from last year — before Christmas Day.

“The economy is going up,” said Hernandez, 44.

Yet experts say that many holiday revelers will avoid the stores all together, opting instead for online purchases.

Retail experts expect e-commerce to continue to post a dramatic increase this holiday season, up 15 percent. Though it still represents only about 5 percent of all shopping, online buying is the fastest-growing segment of the retail industry, McAllister said.

Many online sites are offering percentage discounts starting this weekend. Disney Store will offer a selection of “Magical Friday” deals on sale beginning Monday, at DisneyStore.com. Kohl’s is letting customers shop more than 500 “Early Bird specials” on Kohls.com starting Wednesday.

While apparel is expected to be the top category for purchases, gift cards are again projected to outsell any single article of merchandise. The National Retail Federation’s 2012 holiday consumer spending survey showed that 81.1 percent of shoppers will purchase at least one gift card, spending an average of $156.86 on them.

“Gift cards are the best invention ever,” said Jennifer Mayer, 44, a drug representative who has three daughters and lives in Miami Beach. “It’s not for everyone, but it’s great for those you don’t intimately know.”

This year, Mayer plans to buy gift cards at places like Starbucks, H&M, Forever 21 and Barnes & Noble.

“They’re great for bosses. They’re great for teenagers,” she said. “They’re a lifesaver.”

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Former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz pens book about reinventing the city

Former Miami mayors don’t usually write books anyone would want to publish, much less read.

Then there’s Manny Diaz. Whether you admire him like many in Miami and across the country do, or excoriate him as some at home did, Diaz was hardly shy about embracing big plans and notions. And few would disagree that the city was a far different place when he exited City Hall in 2009 after two terms in office.

So it should come as no surprise that Diaz has written a book for a national audience, recapping his greatest hits as mayor. Recall police reform and Irish-cop Chief John Timoney, Midtown Miami, the downtown condo boom, the “mega-plan’’ and the innovative Miami 21 zoning plan. It’s been published by the über-serious University of Pennsylvania Press. No vanity press project, this.

But Miami Transformed: Rebuilding America One Neighborhood, One City at a Time, is no policy wonk-fest, either. A breezy read at just over 200 pages — index and foreword by New York mayor and Diaz buddy Michael Bloomberg included — the book is meant as a concise case-study of how a poor, crime-ridden and economically stagnant medium-sized city can be swiftly transformed into a flourishing, swaggering metropolis with a hurtling skyline and its own Tom Wolfe novel.

“I wanted to keep the book short and easy to read,’’ said Diaz, who will appear at the Freedom Tower for the Miami Book Fair International on Friday evening. “You can lose someone with a 750-page book really fast. So it’s sort of conversational, talking about how we got to where we are.’’

If features, of course, an ambitious Cuban-refugee protagonist who arrived as a 6-year-old child, grew up happy in Little Havana despite poverty, studied hard and became a successful lawyer and behind-the-scenes political fundraiser and operative. Then he was thrust into the spotlight by the curious case of another young Cuban refuge-seeker: the rafter-child Elián González, whose Miami relatives Diaz famously represented.

Diaz was in the family home in Little Havana, working on last-minute negotiations, when the Border Patrol broke down the door at gunpoint to take Elián, and says he still feels betrayed by then-U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, a former Miami-Dade state attorney who ordered the raid.

There is little inside baseball and only a few reveals: For instance, Diaz earned $1.10 an hour working as a janitor at Belen Jesuit Prep, where he was a student, under a federal jobs program.

All this and more is quickly recounted before Diaz, who wrote the book with longtime collaborator Ignacio Ortiz-Petit, gets into the heart of the matter: The eight years he served as mayor, which coincided with a dramatic real-estate boom and helped usher Miami into the rank of world cities with a changed downtown, regenerated neighborhoods, a growing, young population and the kind of buzz even the best promotional hype can’t buy.

The overriding goal of his administration, Diaz writes, was to bring the middle-class back to Miami from the suburbs by improving substandard city services, fostering both private development and affordable housing, and rebuilding crumbling streets. He also focused on creating alluring amenities, including parks, museums, and arts and cultural institutions, which he says are proven economic generators.

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Blue Christmas

There’s not going to be a lot of ho-ho-ho at Walmart this holiday season.

The country’s No. 1 retailer yesterday issued a disappointing forecast for the holiday quarter and said a bribery probe that has ensnared the discounter in Mexico has widened to Brazil, China and India.

At the same time, disgruntled workers said they will stage strikes and protests at 1,000 stores nationwide in the days leading up to the crucial post-Thanksgiving weekend. The triple whammy sent shares of the Bentonville, Ark., retailer down 3.6 percent.

“Macroeconomic conditions continue to pressure our customers,” said Charles Holley, Walmart’s chief financial officer, as the big discounter warned it expects fourth-quarter profits below Wall Street’s view.

Hounded by persistently high unemployment, the lower-income customers of the retail giant have been buying fewer name-brand household products and groceries, and trading down to chicken from beef to save pennies, execs said.

Sales at stores open at least a year, or same-store sales, a closely watched retail metric, rose just 1.5 percent in the three months ended Oct. 31, slowing from growth of more than 2 percent in the first half and missing analysts’ forecasts.

Walmart shares fell to $68.72 on the news, their biggest one-day drop in more than six months.

In response to the lean times, Walmart has been cutting prices and has announced an aggressive plan to open stores at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving to dangle doorbuster deals on toys, electronics and clothing.

In an unprecedented move, Walmart said it will guarantee deals on TVs, Blu-ray players and Apple’s iPad 2 for all customers lining up outside its stores on Thanksgiving evening.

“There’s no way they’re not going to draw a large amount of share doing that,” says Brad Wilson, president of Brad’s Deals, an online coupon site.

But Walmart’s Thanksgiving sales events are also riling some employees, who complain that turkey dinners cut short will be the latest example of unpalatable work schedules, with shifts that increasingly are unpredictable and skimpy on hours.

Desperate to trim costs, Walmart isn’t staffing stores with enough workers to help customers — a key reason for sluggish sales, said John Marshall, an analyst at the United Food and Commercial Workers.

A worker group called OUR Walmart said yesterday that employee protests and strikes began on the West Coast this week, and will spread to cities including Chicago, Dallas and Miami in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.

Separately, Walmart said it was looking into potential violations related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in Brazil, China and India. The company continues to work with government officials in the US and Mexico on that probe.

james.covert@nypost.com

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Watchdog groups question tourism agency’s CEO pick

TALLAHASSEE --
The day after the CEO of the state’s top tourism agency announced he was stepping down, board members quickly handpicked his replacement.

There was only one problem. Picking Visit Florida’s chief marketing officer Will Seccombe to head the agency without doing a national search could upset the agency’s main funders — state legislators and Gov. Rick Scott.

Visit Florida’ solution: give a recruiting firm a no-bid, $45,000, two-month contract to conduct a nationwide CEO search. The firm, Minnesota-based Searchwide, just happened to be the same one that brought in Seccombe five years earlier.

Now, a state watchdog group is slamming the agency's recruiting process, saying it suggests either favoritism, government waste, or both.

The developments highlight the awkward relationship between Visit Florida's board and elected state officials who control so much of the agency's budget. While the board appears set to hire Seccombe, its handling of the transition process could lead to more scrutiny from the very lawmakers who control the agency's purse strings

“Visit Florida claims to be an equal opportunity employer, but it appears they have rigged their hiring process to unfairly benefit the acting president,” said Dan Krassner, executive director for Integrity Florida, which advocates for tougher ethics laws, and is now questioning whether the swift recruiting process is completely open and fair.

Searchwide, which signed the contract on Oct. 5, did not respond to requests for comments. The agency is expected to complete its nationwide search by early December.

Experts in the field of executive talent recruitment say that such a short period is abnormal for a national CEO search.

“That’s a really aggressive timetable,” said Theresa Rohr, senior associate at Stanton Chase International, a global executive search firm with offices in San Francisco. “For a CEO, very aggressive.”

While Searchwide is a top name in the hospitality industry, Visit Florida has used it only once before: to recruit Seccombe in 2007.

Visit Florida’s former CEO, Chris Thompson, who left in October to head up a national tourism agency, defended the decision to give the contract to Searchwide. While Seccombe may have an advantage as an “incumbent,” all candidates will be considered, he said.

He pointed out that Searchwide also had been retained by Visit Orlando for an executive search this year.

“It is absolutely in no way, shape or form going through the motions,” Thompson said. “It is a legitimate search.”

But Visit Orlando offers a useful comparison. The Central Florida tourism agency hired Searchwide to do a national search for a CEO back in May. A spokesman said the organization doesn’t expect the process to be completed until January. Several other companies that have contracted with Searchwide have given the company more than six months to complete a national search.

When Thompson announced he was leaving, some board members, in an emergency meeting, quickly decided to promote Seccombe to the $225,000-a-year CEO position.

Doing so would allow the state-funded agency to have a permanent CEO in place before Scott and the Legislature began making crucial decisions about how much taxpayer money the organization should get next year.

“I don’t think we need to put the time, money and effort into a nationwide search,” said John Perez, a hotel executive who sits on Visit Florida’s board. “I think we have a very competent replacement for Chris, in Will, already in place.”

But some board members were concerned about the perception of appointing a new CEO without consulting the Legislature or conducting an official search — something they believed Scott, Florida’s businessman-turned-governor, would expect.

Visit Florida relies on the Florida Legislature for a large chunk of its operating revenue. The public-private organization bolsters its budget with free advertising from private partners, but its cash revenue is overwhelmingly taxpayer-funded. That means the Legislature and governor hold sway over the future finances of the organization.

Visit Florida has been a darling of Scott and the Legislature in recent years. As most state agencies weathered drastic budget cuts in the last two years, Visit Florida saw its taxpayer funding more than double to $54 million.

At least one Visit Florida board member said the Legislature feels it should have a say in how the agency conducts because of lawmakers’ generosity.

“I think if we’ve all learned anything from our past, it is that there is a certain entitlement from the Legislature because there’s so much funding that they now allow us to have,” said Carol Dover, president of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association.

The organization should “dot all our I’s and cross all our T’s” before appointing Seccombe as CEO, she warned.

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