It has been said that, in politics, every accusation is a confession. If you don’t want someone to focus on your own wrongdoings, just make up an allegation about someone else.
Which brings us to Florida’s DOGE theater and crosswalk crackdown.
As you’ve probably seen, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his DOGE team are traveling the state, hurling accusations at one local government after another, accusing them of hiding records about how they’re spending tax dollars.
Yet at the same time, this same administration is refusing to release records about how many tax dollars they’re spending on their crusade against colorful crosswalks.
And it’s not just the spending totals they’re hiding. The state also hasn’t released records that would show whether all these middle-of-the-night, cover-up contracts were competitively bid, why certain crosswalks were targeted while others went untouched by state contractors and whether the state destroyed records about all this.
That’s an awful lot of secret-keeping for people who claim they’re committed to transparency.
Let’s be clear: The Orlando Sentinel will get this public information, even if we have to sue to get it. We’ve done so before and won with ease.
See, when you spend the public’s money, use the public’s resources or craft public policy, Florida law says you have to disclose every document that explains how all that was done. It’s not complicated. Yet the DeSantis administration has repeatedly hidden records or slow-walked their reveal.
Two years ago, the state had to pay $152,500 to cover the legal costs of Democratic lawmakers and open-government advocates who sued the DeSantis administration for access to COVID-19 data that was clearly public.
Two years before that, the Orlando Sentinel won a similar fight over public health data where the state coughed up $7,500 to cover our legal expenses.
DeSantis keeps losing these battles for the simple reason that he’s wrong, legally and morally. Above-board public officials don’t hide public information from the citizens they’re supposed to serve.
In the case of the crosswalks, the Orlando Sentinel began requesting public records 10 days ago after we learned that DeSantis’ Department of Transportation had dispatched a crew in the middle of the night to erase a colorful tribute to the 49 people slaughtered at the Pulse nightclub.
There was a lot about this dark-of-night operation that didn’t make sense in terms of safety or finances.
Not only had DeSantis’ own DOT previously approved of Orlando’s rainbow-colored crosswalk, it had actually encouraged local communities to install similarly colorful crosswalks, saying the designs were safer for pedestrians. Multiple studies said the same thing.
Maxwell: Orlando’s Pulse rainbow crosswalk erasure — lies, bigotry and danger
In 2021, DeSantis’ DOT specifically cited improved “school safety” when giving the city of Tampa an award for a creatively colorful crosswalk there.
Yet after DeSantis turned his attacks on all things LGBTQ to a tribute to victims of a mass murder, DeSantis calls those same crosswalks “safety hazards,” and the same DOT that used to literally bestow colorful crosswalks with safety accolades says they should be erased.
In 2021, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Department of Transportation gave the city of Tampa an award for adding words and colors to a school crosswalk, saying it improved “school safety” and “was truly inspiring.” (City of Tampa)
Well, we wanted to know how much this war on rainbows is costing taxpayers and why certain crosswalks were targeted first. So the Sentinel requested:
Copies of work orders related to Pulse crosswalk removal
Copies of emails or texts related to how the Pulse crosswalk was specifically targeted
Documents that reveal whether any of the crosswalk-erasure contracts were competitively bid. (No-bid contracts for political cronies have been a theme with this administration, everywhere from “Alligator Alcatraz” to the DeSantis-controlled Disney governmental district. And the state claims it spent more than $1,500 just to remove sidewalk chalk in one instance at the Pulse crosswalk.)
Maxwell: DeSantis spending orgy at Alligator Alcatraz benefits donors
I also asked for copies of any social media posts the DOT has recently deleted or removed from public view. I did so after seeing a report on Orlando’s Bungalower website that said DOT had previously touted “decorative elements” at another Orlando crosswalk in a July Facebook post that “now appears to have been deleted.”
We’ve so far received none of that information — most of which should have been easily accessible and readily turned over within 24 hours. Whether that’s because of intentional obfuscation or unintentional incompetence is irrelevant. The law must be followed.
Yet the silence in response to record requests about spending looks particularly hypocritical while DeSantis and his DOGE puppets are traveling the state, screaming about the importance of releasing such info.
The DOGE hysteria is obviously political theater. If CFO Blaise Ingolglia really wanted to track down public money, he’d start with the money misappropriated right under his nose in Tallahassee connected to the DeSantises’ now-infamous Hope Florida “charity.” Even GOP legislators have said they suspect crimes likely took place.
Maxwell: Scandals for Dummies. Breaking down the Hope Florida fiasco
Or Ingoglia and DeSantis would be grilling GOP-controlled local governments that are raising taxes (like Seminole County) more than Democratic cities and counties that have held the line.
It’s clear that Florida’s DOGE dysfunction is just an excuse to attack and attempt to deflect. And it will probably work with some people — the same kind of simpletons who are OK being told that colorful crosswalks are safer one day and more dangerous the next.
But none of those sideshow antics will distract us from getting the public records that tell the full story.
Because you deserve to know how your tax dollars are being spent. You deserve to know how decisions are being made. And you deserve to know if any records are being deleted.
Orlando’s artistic crosswalks boosted safety. Florida ordered them painted over
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/09/02/florida-doge-crosswalk-hidden-records/
