We're revisiting our conversation with developer Syd Kitson — the man behind the Babcock Ranch community — to reflect on the path he and his team have been on to make the dream of a Babcock Ranch community into a reality. Kitson was just named the 2023 TIME “Dreamer of the Year.” When developer Syd Kitson purchased the 91,000-acre Babcock Ranch in northeast Lee & southeast Charlotte counties in 2005 he said he was going to create a sustainable community and preserve most of the land. While many people were skeptical at the time, Kitson has gone on to build pretty much exactly what he said he would.

Amy Keith started working for Common Cause Florida about a year and a half ago as Florida Program Director, leading the organization’s voting rights, redistricting, and accountability work, including its federal congressional redistricting case that’s still working its way through the system. As of December 1 she serves as the organization’s Executive Director.In that federal congressional redistricting case (Common Cause Florida v. Byrd) Common Cause Florida, Fair Districts Now, the Florida State Conference of the NAACP, and individual voters from across Florida argue that the Florida Legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis engaged in intentional racial discrimination in violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution when they crafted the state’s current congressional map. She joins us to talk about that case, and the other issues Common Cause Florida is focusing on right now.

This summer brought higher than normal temperatures both on land and in the oceans. According to NASA, July was the hottest month on record, more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the historic average for the month, and warmer than any other month in the 143-year record. And those temperatures, at least in part, contributed to this hurricane season tying with 1933 for the 4th most named storms on record. There were 20 named storms, with seven becoming hurricanes, three of which were major hurricanes — including Hurricane Idalia which made landfall in the Big Bend Region on August 30 as a Category 3 storm, bringing significant wind damage and storm surge of 7 to 12 feet to Keaton Beach and surrounding areas. We wrap up the 2023 season, and learn about a project in Cedar Key that's testing what are called 'living shorelines'.

John Lack has had a front row seat to the development of some household names in media during his four-decade-long career in media. He was Chief Operating Officer of Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment from 1979 to 1984 where he was mandated to develop cable channels for specialized audiences. That led to the Movie Channel, Nickelodeon, and MTV. After moving to Fort Myers about a year ago, Lack decided he wanted to teach and is now doing just at FGCU where he’s an adjunct professor in the Department of Communication and Philosophy, teaching a course called Media Perspective.

For small-scale farmers in underdeveloped countries around the world, who often have no access to capital or most of the technologies and amenities we take for granted, the idea of being more sustainable isn’t something to strive for but a true necessity. Located in North Fort Myers on a 57-acre campus, the nonprofit ECHO has been working to disseminate information to help these farmers since 1981. They grow different varieties of plants, and test different growing techniques, in order to provide proven techniques and even seeds to small-scale farmers. They distribute more than 300 varieties of ECHO seeds. This information is sent out through their massive, global network of farmers and agriculturalists in more than 190 countries. We get an update on the work they do with their CEO, Dr. Abram Bicksler.

In March of this year, Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB1 into law — expanding the voucher program and significantly increasing taxpayer funding for private schools. The new law eliminates the current financial eligibility restrictions and allows any student who is a resident of Florida and eligible to enroll in K-12 public schools to participate. The new universal voucher program is estimated to cost $4 billion in the first year of implementation alone, according to a cost analysis by Florida Policy Institute and the Education Law Center. We get some context on the new law, and the history of how vouchers work in Florida, with Dr. Norín Dollard, Senior Policy Analyst and KIDS COUNT Director at the Florida Policy Institute; and Damaris Allen, Executive director of Coral Gables-based Families for Strong Public Schools.

According to a recent report from PEN America — it’s a century-old nonprofit that works to protect free expression through literature — Florida overtook Texas during the last school year for the number one spot when it comes to the number of books banned in public schools. There’s been a 33% spike in book bans nationally, and Florida now accounts for more than 40% of all documented bans. In response to these trends, PEN America just named its first-ever Florida Director, Katie Blankenship. She’ll be overseeing advocacy in defense of free expression across the state. Her office is being funded by a group of bestselling writers who have come together to fight censorship in Florida.We meet Ms. Blankenship, and learn about the work being done by what’s called The Purple Group to push back against issues like book bans. It’s a nonpartisan group of Lee County residents who believe high quality public schools that welcome all students and their families are the bedrock of our multicultural, multi-ethnic democracy.

Back in the mid-1960s Bill Strickland was a directionless public school student in Pittsburgh who didn’t really see a path for success for him or his fellow lower class, minority student friends. Then, one day he walked past a classroom and saw a teacher sitting at a pottery wheel — and that moment, and how he responded to it, changed his life. And since then has changed the lives of countless young people not only in Pittsburgh, but around the country and beyond. Manchester Bidwell Corporation (MBC) takes seemingly disparate elements — adult career training, youth arts education, jazz presentation and botanical sales (they grow orchids) — and combines them into a program with a proven record of positively changing the lives of underserved populations. Bill has helped start an additional 13 centers, including five in Pennsylvania, 6 in other US states, 1 in Puerto Rico, and 1 in Israel.

Kirsten Hines started out as a wildlife biologist, but pretty early on found herself drawn to telling stories with images and words about the natural world, rather than collecting data about it. Her photographs and writings have since appeared in numerous exhibitions and publications, including eight books — the latest of which is “Wild Florida: An Animal Odyssey.” It’s like a conversational field guide that explores ecological concepts like the “why” behind Florida’s animal diversity, and its blending of critters from the tropics with those from North America.

There’s a brand new exhibition on display on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University called “They Were Children: Rescue as Resistance.” It brings the story of the Oeuvre de Secours Aux Enfants’ (OSE) — amazing group of everyday people who worked at great risk to themselves to rescue Jewish children in Nazi-occupied France during World War Two.