It must be noted that this administrative function of the Department stands in stark contrast compared to Putnam’s other regulatory role where he must also inspect and regulate businesses in order to protect the public from food safety violations at grocery stores. We note that the last on-line activity that Putnam had to review was his rating of food safety standards following revelations that his friends and big donors at Publix failed several inspections.
Putnam’s actions here were abominable at best and bordering corrupt as he hid the results and then changed the standards so his friends at Publix didn’t have to withstand the scrutiny and public relations nightmare that may have followed. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of dollars flowed from Publix’s banks accounts to those of Putnam’s political committee accounts. Thankfully, as far as we know, the hackers here are not big donors to the Putnam campaign for Governor, so we expect the Commissioner can simply do his job this time.
For an elected regulator to hide the failure of a simple regulatory function to protect a friendly company is exactly why we cannot trust Adam Putnam with any bigger responsibilities than he now has. Given this new failure by Putnam’s leadership team, it makes us wonder if Adam Putnam is worthy of the dubious honor once bestowed upon Bill Nelson, who most assuredly deserved the cover of Florida Trend and the title “Empty Suit.”
