MARTHAS VINEYARD, Mass. — Nearly a month after we filed public records requests for any and all documents related to the controversial migrant flights from Florida to Martha’s Vineyard last month, the governor’s Office of Public Records and the Department Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) made dozens of public records.
The records, which still do not include detailed contracts, outline guidelines for the governor’s controversial migrant relocation program and include quotes from three companies that played for the concert over the summer.
According to the state’s requests for quotes, the state sought the services of a “transportation management company to implement and manage a program for the removal from the state of Florida of foreign nationals who are not in the United States lawfully.”
But that’s not what happened last month, when two flights picked up nearly 50 Venezuelan asylum seekers in Texas and then delivered them to Martha’s Vineyard on Florida’s dime.
Records show the flight made a brief stop in Crestview, Fla., en route to Martha’s Vineyard, but none of the passengers left the plane.
“We take what’s happening at the southern border very seriously,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said shortly after news of the flights quickly gained international attention.
DeSantis wasted no time taking out a loan for the flights and even revealed his plan to pay more to open America’s eyes to the border crisis.
“I have $12 million to use and we’re going to use it and you’re going to see more and more. I’m going to make sure we exhaust all of those funds,” said Gov. DeSantis, who continues to double the use of $12 million in state funds from interest earned on pandemic relief dollars for a new state migrant resettlement program.
Ray Ewing/AP
DeSantis said the program is his way of dealing with what he called Biden’s border crisis.
State records also now confirm that Destin-based aviation company Vertol Systems Inc provided charter flights from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.
About a week before the flights, Vertol CEO James Montgomery sent a memo to FDOT detailing his proposal to “continually provide these services … on an ongoing monthly basis.”
In the memo, Montgomery added that this “first project will involve facilitating the relocation of up to fifty people to Massachusetts or another northeastern state designated by FDOT.”
Vertol’s price for the first project is $615,000. Two days later, Florida paid Vertol that exact amount. The company received another $950,000, but it’s unclear for what because additional records have not yet been released.
“When you draft your own law and you can’t follow it for months, that’s a problem,” Florida Sen. Jason Pizzo of Miami said in response to the tapes.
Last month, Pizzo filed a lawsuit against Gov. DeSantis, asking a judge to bar the administration from using public money to resettle migrants who aren’t even in Florida.
Asked if these newly released government documents show the administration has overstepped its own rules, Pizzo said, “I think it’s pretty clear that somebody went back and read what the actual law was, after all the attention, and they’re going to have a hard time , trying to explain their way out of it,” he said.
As for Vertol Systems Inc, its website was shut down after the flights made national headlines. Its CEO, James Montgomery, did not return our calls or respond to our messages.
For now, Montgomery’s only public comments about the flights come from government records, which mostly discuss money and logistics but end with, “We welcome the opportunity to support your mission.”
On Monday, the Florida Center for Accountability filed a lawsuit in Leon County, alleging the governor’s office failed to comply with a request to release all records related to those flights. The governor’s office said it was the first production of the records.