South Florida trade shattered records in 2012

It was a golden year for international trade through the Miami Customs District in 2012, as South Florida’s airports and seaports handled a record $124.73 billion worth of trade and cracked into the nation’s Top 10 customs districts for the first time.

But the Miami district’s top exports and imports were also golden. Since 2009, gold from countries such as Colombia, Mexico, Guyana and Peru has been South Florida’s top import as skittish investors bought the precious metal, pushing its price to lofty heights. In 2012, gold also became the top export of the Miami district, which includes airports and seaports from Miami to Key West.

Last year the district imported a record $7.25 billion worth of gold — a 42 percent increase over the previous year, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data analyzed by WorldCity, a Coral Gables media company that focuses on U.S. connections to the global economy.

But almost as quickly as the gold arrives, it is shipped out, primarily to Switzerland and to other European countries in smaller amounts. Last year the Miami district exported a record $7.93 billion worth of gold.

The gold business is a “relatively recent phenomenon,’’ Ken Roberts, president of WorldCity, said at a Trade Connections event in Coral Gables Friday that analyzed the past year’s trade numbers.

Global economic uncertainty, he said, has driven people to the safety of gold and that has pushed up prices. Not only are central banks buying gold; so are many jittery investors.

Miami became the nation’s leading importer of gold in 2009 but imports only totaled $2.14 billion then. Over the past 10 years, the Miami district’s gold imports have increased by 2,420 percent and gold exports are up a whopping 13,433 percent. That corresponds with a huge run-up in the price of gold over the past decade — gold prices increased from around $300 an ounce in mid-February 2002 to $1,730 an ounce in mid-February 2012.

But the volume of gold trade through Miami also has increased.

Roberts noted that overall, Miami district exports increased to a record $73.3 billion, up nearly 6 percent from the previous year, and imports totaled a record $51.4 billion — a 17 percent increase.

Most interesting, said Roberts, is that the Miami District made its move into the ranks of the nation’s Top 10 Customs districts, by value of trade, at a time when the U.S. economy has been sluggish. But 30 percent of Miami’s trade is with South American, Central America and the Caribbean, and many of the Latin economies have been relatively resilient throughout the U.S. downturn.

Brazil remained the Miami district’s No. 1 trading partner in 2012 with $16.4 billion in total trade — a 6.4 percent increase.

“Brazil has had a tremendous decade and they’re a little smug about it,’’ said Scott Miller, a senior adviser at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies and former director of global trade policy at Procter & Gamble. “It’s a tough place to do business and they know it and don’t seem to want to do much about it.’’

Miami traders acknowledge that restrictions and high tariffs make the Brazilian market difficult, but Latin America’s largest economy is so big and diverse that it’s still very attractive. Brazil also is the top source of international visitors to Miami-Dade County.

Colombia, with $9.89 billion in trade with the Miami district, was the 2012 runner-up, and Switzerland, with $8.8 billion in trade with South Florida, was third.

But trade statistics only tell part of the story of international commerce.

Miller pointed out that increasingly, world trade involves the exchange of components rather than finished goods. If one takes out oil, he said, half the world’s trade is in components.

He pointed to Apple’s iPhone, which is made in China from U.S. and Japanese chips, a screen from Malaysia and other components from around the world. “So many things today are made in the world,’’ rather than manufactured start to finish in one location, said Miller. “What is really being done is that we make things together.’’

Every iPhone that is imported into the United States, he said, adds $178 to the U.S. trade deficit, but that doesn’t take into account all the jobs created by Apple’s inventions and design development, its sophisticated customer service system and its marketing apparatus.

“Stop looking at trade as a competition,’’ he said. “It’s a mutually beneficial exchange.’’

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Cooking classes at Miami Beach temple nourish the body and soul

Enjoying a meal without counting calories and doing diets has been a source of tension for most of Wendy Shanker’s life.

It was always that extra 10 to 20 pounds that consumed her.

Her wake up-call came after she spent $10,000 to stay a month in a spa and lost only two pounds.

“For my whole life food was an enemy, and it was a problem. Now I understand that food is nourishment for the body, but it’s also nourishment for the soul,” said Shanker, who has a 2-year-old daughter, Sunny, whom she hopes to guide in a different direction.

Shanker, a free-lance writer, her daughter and her mother, Myrna, a property manager, recently attended Our Family Table, a series of cooking classes at Temple Beth Sholom in Miami Beach. The classes, conducted by The Open Tent, teach cooking techniques and bring Judaism into the lives of unaffiliated Jews. The next class is Friday.

“We are really all about trying to build community. We’re trying to create connections for this group of unaffiliated Jews,” said Vanessa Ressler, one of the original board members who started The Open Tent in 2008.

Rabbi Gary Glickstein of Temple Beth Sholom was one of the people behind The Open Tent, which is loosely affiliated with the temple.

“It was meant not as a way to bring people to the synagogue, but help them in their journey to become part of the Jewish community,’’ he said.

Open Tent uses the temple’s space to host its events, which include a six-week program for expectant parents, called Shalom Baby; an initiative, called The Tribe, to engage young adults with Judaism; and Shalom Tots, a monthly program for new parents and their children.

Our Family Table’s cooking classes evolved from Shalom Tots. The classes are hands-on with the toddlers, with adult supervision.

“An event like that one is really one of the first steps that we can take in [Sunny’s] early life to get her on the road to understanding that food is more than just calories,” said Shanker, 41. “It’s family, it’s sweetness, it’s nourishment and it’s being part of a community.”

Chef Joy Prevor leads the cooking lessons, coaching the parents and their children through the ingredients, seasoning, and the right pots and pans to use. The food is prepared kosher style, but the recipes are not strictly Jewish.

“We wanted to be very practical and help these families learn how to cook and how to feed their families in a way that’s healthy, and simultaneously reflect on what role food is playing in their family life,” said Prevor.

Prevor, 40, who holds a master’s degree in Jewish studies, organizes the classes toward Jewish traditions, bringing in Jewish text from The Talmud for discussion. She teaches cooking techniques rather than just recipes.

“Once they learn certain techniques they can make their own recipes at home and feed their families in a healthy way, but it also allows them to engage their children in the process of cooking,” Prevor said.

During the first class, the children assisted their parents, played with cooking toys and colored in images on a storyboard with the steps of making the meal.

The parents learned how to make a banana smoothie, Greek salad with a vinaigrette dressing and moussaka, the Greek lasagna-type dish. Prevor’s idea is to teach one recipe for babies, a second one for parents on the run and a third one to store for the week.

The last class will focus on Shabbat, a religious celebration that happens every Friday after sundown and signifies the start of the Sabbath. It’s when families gather around the table to say prayers, reflect about their lives, spend time with each other and eat.

“So we are taking the essence of this tradition and providing people a very accessible way to incorporate it into their lifestyle,” said Rebecca Dinar, director of the Open Tent. “And from our perspective, it’s really about making Judaism relevant.”

Shanker enjoyed watching her daughter separate the parsley leaves and playing with other children. “I thought it was good for Sunny, as little as she is, to start feeling that there’s our family, but there’s also a bigger community that she is part of.”

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Dan Bucatinsky Scandal Interview

The characters on ABC's Scandal are constantly juggling multiple life or death decisions and putting out raging fires without ever breaking a sweat. That work ethic is not lost on Dan Bucatinsky, who plays the reporter turned stay-at-home dad James Novak.

In addition to working on Scandal, Bucatinsky is a consulting producer on Grey's Anatomy, an executive producer of Web Therapy (he also co-stars) and Who Do You Think You Are, a newly published author and an equally new dad.

Needless to say, his time is just as precious as Olivia Pope's and Bucatinsky recently carved some out to chat with ETonline about tonight's shocking Scandal and what it was like to stage network TV's first all-male nude screaming matching.

ETonline: Twitter lit up last week during James and Cyrus' naked argument. What went through your mind as you read that script for the first time?

Dan Bucatinsky: You know, we were actually given that script literally seconds before the table read, so we were all going through that episode without knowing anything that happened. Shonda [Rhimes, creator] wrote that scene and she's really proud of it -- she didn't cut a word of it through all the drafts that episode went through. She has told many that it's the favorite scene she's written in her career. I feel so honored to have been a part of that, but I was scares sh*tless to film it. So not only was it horrifying slash exciting slash ... horrifying to find out we'd have to be arguing naked, but I can't believe how close my character came to death! I really thought I was going to take a bullet in that episode.

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ETonline: Do you think Cyrus could have ever forgiven himself if he actually went through with it?

Bucatinsky: I don't know. I think people have come to really love that couple. I think we're among the few "normal" stable marriages on TV. Cyrus and James actually have a marriage based on love. Yes, they'd go to extreme lengths to fulfill their ambitions -- and we already know what Cyrus is capable of. I love that this show is constantly questioning and pushing the boundaries about how a person can be ethically challenged while fighting for what they believe in. It's caused a lot of interesting debate. How do you wrap your brain around all these characters being felons?

ETonline: On that tip, when do you think James decided to perjure himself?

Bucatinsky: That was actually a big debate on set. When James walks in the building, is he walking in there to testify or does he plan on lying? In the script there was an additional line that got cut where I'm talking to the grand jury about being a dad and he makes eye contact with one woman -- it's like this parent-to-parent connection. To me, in that moment; the overwhelming drive to protect his family, to protect his daughter, to not send his husband to jail was what motivated the lie.

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ETonline: Scandal has proven time and again that the sins of the past come back to bite the sinners. Should we worry that this lie might resurface?

Bucatinsky: Well, I mean, he gave David Rosen that memory card that proves the voting machines were rigged. There's a lot of evidence. Whether James can be linked to it or that David can prove he lied -- who knows. But it was a huge risk.

ETonline: Tonight's episode jumps ahead 10 months. What do you think the show gains from doing that?

Bucatinsky: In TV, when you have an uberarc where you're telling a continuing story, as we did with the rigged voting machines that involved Hollis and Verna and Cyrus and Olivia and Fitz and myself, you can only ramp it up for so long before the audience says, "Come on!" It has to end at some point and last week's episode, which would have been the season finale if we didn't get the back 9, represents the end of that uberarc. The footprint of the show changed a bit in the last five episodes. The scandal of the week went away and it became much more about the uberarc. I think this little reset button allows the audience to find what's center again as we get introduced to the new uberarc for the next set of episodes.

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ETonline: Where do we find James and Cyrus?

Bucatinsky: It's in keeping with the James and Cyrus you saw at the end of [last week's episode] where they're side-by-side at Verna's funeral. For all intents and purposes, we are intact as a couple. I don't know where James' ambitions go now and how long it takes for the itch of work to come back -- we're only filming episode 16!

ETonline: Oh wow, so the show is only two episodes ahead of us. With that said, what are you excited for the Gladiators to see in the coming weeks?

Bucatinsky: I'm excited for everyone to get invested in the new surprises -- as explosive as the voting machine scandal became, I believe that the new time bomb is going to whip the fans into an even bigger hashtag frenzy.

Scandal airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on ABC.

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Devout Catholic SI mom sues city for not allowing daughter to attend class over religious exemption

A devout Catholic mom on Staten Island is suing the city, saying her daughter was barred from attending class because the Board of Education wouldn't recognize her religious exemption from receiving required medical vaccinations.

Dina Check, of West Brighton, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city accusing it of prohibiting her 5-year-old from attending PS 35 on Tuesday -- because of the family's belief that forced immunization violates important tenets of their faith.

"To inject invasive and unnatural substances into this divine creation is showing a lack of faith in God and His way," Check says in the lawsuit."Life is a gift from God, and the body is a marvelous work of divine creation to be reverenced as a temple of God."

The controversy was caused in part by a paperwork snafu - because her daughter already had been granted an exemption from vaccination on religious grounds by state health officials when she attended a YMCA preschool, Check says in the suit, filed in Brooklyn federal court this week.

To make matters worse, Check says she made repeated complaints to city school officials about the issue - only to see them fall on deaf ears, the suit says.

Despite her impassioned pleas asking officials to correct the paperwork error and list her daughter as being exempt from medical treatment on religious grounds, she received nothing more than a litany of e-mails from the Education Department denying her requests, the lawsuit claims.

Some of the correspondence Check sent to education officials quotes various passages of Scripture, Canon law proclamations from the Vatican, and contains earnest pleas asking the authorities to respect the family's religious beliefs.

In the lawsuit, Check also notes that her family physician had given a formal opinion that because the child suffers from immune deficiencies and gastrointestinal problems, immunization posed a medical risk for the girl.

But city school officials rejected that argument, too, ruling that the child's condition was insufficient to warrant exemption from vaccination based on medical grounds, the suit claims.

The suit charges that city school administrators violated laws that exempt children with deeply-held religious beliefs from receiving vaccines.

Check has asked a federal judge to intervene and force the city schools to exempt her daughter from future medical treatment. She also asks for unspecified damages.

mmaddux@nypost.com

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American Airlines, US Airways announce merger

After a nearly yearlong courtship, the union became official Thursday: American Airlines and US Airways have formally announced plans to merge.

An early morning announcement by the airlines confirmed reports widely circulated after boards of both companies approved the merger late Wednesday.

The move brings stability to one of Miami-Dade County’s largest private employers more than a year after the airline and its parent company filed for bankruptcy protection, leaving the fate of thousands of employees — and the largest carrier at Miami International Airport — in question.

According to the Thursday announcement, the deal was approved unanimously by the boards of both companies, creating the world’s biggest airline with implied market value of nearly $11 billion, based on the Wednesday closing price of US Airways stock. The airline will have close to 100,000 employees, 1,500 aircraft, $38.7 billion in combined revenue.

The deal must be approved by American’s bankruptcy judge and antitrust regulators, but no major hurdles are expected. The process is expected to take about six months, according to a letter sent to employees Thursday by American CEO Tom Horton.

Travelers won’t notice immediate changes. The new airline will be called American Airlines. It likely will be months before the frequent-flier programs are merged, and possibly years before the two airlines are fully combined. The new airline will be a member of the oneWorld airlines frequent flier alliance.

And for Miami travelers, it’s unlikely that much will change at any point. American and regional carrier American Eagle handled 68 percent of traffic at the airport last year, while US Airways accounted for just 2 percent. American boasts 328 flights to 114 destinations from Miami.

“We don’t expect any substantial changes at MIA if the merger occurs because our traffic is largely driven by the strength of the Miami market and not the airlines serving it,” said airport spokesman Greg Chin.

American has said for more than a year that its long-term plan calls for increasing departures at key hubs, including Miami, by 20 percent. That pledge has already started to materialize; in recent months, the airline has added new service to Asuncion, Paraguay and Roatán, Honduras.

During its bankruptcy restructuring, about 400 American employees lost jobs, leaving American and its regional carrier, American Eagle, with 9,894 employees in Miami-Dade County and 43 in Fort Lauderdale. US Airways has few employees in the area.

“It really isn’t going to affect Miami in a very major way anytime soon,” said Michael Boyd, an aviation consultant in Evergreen, Colo. “Only because US Airways isn’t a big player in South Florida.”

At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, American and US Airways combined would still only be the fifth-largest airline after Southwest, Spirit, JetBlue and Delta, a spokesman said. The two airlines have little overlap in routes from Fort Lauderdale.

Despite the lack of major changes, Boyd said the merger would be a good development for Miami.

“It should be positive for the employees and it should be positive for the communities that the airlines serve,” he said.

Robert Herbst, an independent airline analyst and consultant, said US Airways will add a “significant amount” of destinations in the Northeast, including Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

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Mystery shrouds failure of Internet video link between Pakistani hotel, Miami terrorism trial

The mystery of who pulled the plug on the Internet connection linking witnesses testifying in Pakistan to a Miami terrorism trial remained unsolved Wednesday, stalling the high-profile proceeding until next Tuesday as the defense scrambles for an alternate solution.

A defense attorney for Miami imam Hafiz Khan, standing trial on charges of financially supporting the Pakistani Taliban, told a federal judge by phone that the Pakistan government’s foreign and interior ministries did not even know that the live video feed was cut off to Miami Tuesday morning.

A federal prosecutor said his office contacted an FBI legal attache in Islamabad, and the official checked in with several Pakistani government agencies and the staff at the hotel where the testimony was taken earlier this week. No one had a clue about the mysterious shutdown -- whether it was a technical glitch or the secret work of the Pakistan government.

Prosecutor John Shipley accused defense attorney Khurrum Wahid of trying to orchestrate the live testimony at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad “under the radar screen” of the Pakistan government -- an accusation strongly denied by Wahid.

U.S. District Judge Robert Scola, clearly exasperated by the high-tech failure 8,000 miles away, gave Wahid an ultimatum that must be met by Friday. Wahid could take the testimony of 10 remaining witnesses in a third country, such as a United Arab Emirate, as long as he could obtain travel visas for them and resume the depositions by next Tuesday. If not, the judge said, Wahid must abandon his alternate plan and return home over the holiday weekend to resume his defense in Miami.

“One way or the other, that’s the last accommodation I’m making,” Scola told Wahid by phone Wednesday morning.

A moment later, the judge told the 12 jurors: “We still don’t have any transmission from Pakistan. We are trying to make alternate arrangements.”

Perhaps the most befuddled in the bunch: Khan, 77, who is standing trial on charges of sending thousands of dollars to the Taliban terrorist organization, sworn enemies of the U.S. and Pakistan governments. Khan was the leader of the Flagler Mosque, 7350 NW Third St.

Despite safety concerns, the judge had allowed Khan’s defense attorney to travel to Pakistan to take live testimony from 11 witnesses so the defendant could receive a fair trial. Prosecutors opposed allowing the testimony, and refused to make the trip.

Everything seemed to be going well until about 11:20 a.m., or 9:20 p.m. Tuesday in Islamabad. The flat-screen televisions and video monitors in front of the judge, lawyers and jurors in Miami suddenly lost the signal and flashed “disconnected.”

Wahid explained to the judge by phone Tuesday that there was “absolutely no problem” until a prosecutor in Miami mentioned the name of the Serena Hotel, where the testimony was being taken, during cross-examination. He noted the hotel staff said “there were some intelligence operatives in the business center here, and they were taking pictures of us and our witnesses.”

Added Wahid: “I’ve been told by the hotel staff that it’s from outside the building and that ... the IP [Internet] address has been blacklisted by the Interior Ministry, I’m sorry, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.”

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Susanna Thompson Arrow Interview

From Betty Draper to Victoria Grayson, the TV-loving world eats up a mean mommy. But to hear Susanna Thompson talk about Moira Queen, her Arrow matriarch has more in common with Walter White, Nancy Botwin and other antiheroes who were forced to walk down a dangerous path by forces outside their control.

In addition to getting an entirely new perspective on her character, Thompson opened up about the resolution of last week's cubicle cliffhanger and reveals that an upcoming episode will take larger steps towards illuminating The Queen's pre-island life.

ETonline: When you saw that last week's script ended with Moira getting ambushed by Arrow, what went through your mind?

Susanna Thompson: I was excited. I mean, I was freaking out for Moira, but excited as an actor.

ETonline: Teasers for tonight have revealed that Moira gets in on the action tonight a bit -- obviously we've always known she was a strong, capable woman, but how fun was it to get your hands on a gun?

Thompson: See, I love that you say she's a strong capable woman -- I believe that too. But we all debated whether she should look strong and capable with that gun or like she was not quite sure what to do with it. The fact remains, there was a gun in her office, so me, as an actor, I have to connect the dots to that gun. Why was it there? How did she know where to find it?

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ETonline: It's just another example of Moira's ambiguity -- do you enjoy reveling in that?

Thompson: I do, I really do, but there are times I've had to reach out to the producers to ask for a little help in figuring out which way she's going [laughs]. But what I'm always trying to do is find the honesty in every situation and connect the dots. From the pilot to where we are now, I sort of have an idea of where they're aiming her to go -- but it can always change.

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ETonline: I'm sure every character feels that way since it seems like everyone wears a different face depending on who they're talking to.

Thompson: You're absolutely right and we all really have this moral barometer that we're being guided by in our lives. And it's constantly changing depending on what we bump up against. We can declare what we will or won't do until we're living the actual circumstances that put us face-to-face with a side of ourselves we never knew was possible.

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ETonline: Do you feel like Moira actively entered this criminal life or was forced into it after her husband's death?

Thompson: I do believe that she was pushed into a corner and it causing her to walk down paths she wouldn't normally. But the fact is, the ability to do that was in her. She probably didn't know the extent to which Robert was involved in this elite wealthy group of people with Malcolm and I think in trying to find out what happened to her husband, she's become more savvy and more calculated. My biggest guidepost along the way has been that she will do anything to protect her children. So Moira's not only fighting for her life and her children's lives, but I believe she believes she's fighting for the lives of millions.

ETonline: Looking ahead, what are you excited for fans to see?

Thompson: I'm excited for them to see how much more committed Moira is to stopping Malcolm. I've also heard that you'll see who she was 5 years ago in a flashback episode. I think part of that will also involve bringing back Robert, so that'll be interesting since we will more about their relationship.

Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.

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NYC homes damaged by Sandy should be reassessed now: Queens councilman

A Queens councilman today called on Mayor Bloomberg and the Department of Finance to immediately reassess Big Apple homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy following Monday’s Post report that revealed thousands of affected property owners now face tax hikes.

“These homes have already been severely flooded – they shouldn’t be flooded with paperwork now,” said Councilman Peter Vallone, who is running for Queens Borough President.

“It is wrong for the city to force people that have already lost so much to go through an arduous appeals process just to receive a fair outcome. There must be records of the damage to specific homes at this point, and the city should reassess these properties immediately.”

Among the parts of Queens most heavily hit by Sandy were the Rockaways and Howard Beach.

Vallone also praised Council Speaker Christine Quinn for scheduling a joint-council-committee emergency oversight hearing Feb. 26 to investigate the shocking tax hikes to homeowners in hard-hit neighborhoods.

Although the city’s Web site says the assessments reflect property values as of January 5 – more than two months after Sandy struck -- the assessments were made prior to the storm because they are part of a capped, five-year state formula for setting assessment levels.

Many local real estate brokers say property values in Big Apple neighborhoods affected by Sandy -- such as Manhattan Beach and Coney Island in Brooklyn, the Rockaways and parts of Staten Island -- have fallen due to storm damage and because prospective buyers are now leery of living in high-risk hurricane evacuation zones.

Finance Department spokesperson Owen Stone said, “As the councilman knows, we are required by state law to release tentative assessments in January, and as we have said since the storm hit, we will physically inspect damaged homes to ensure their final assessments are correct when released in May."

Property owners who oppose the hikes have until March 15 to appeal to the city Tax Commission before rates are finalized in May.

Stone also said the deadline to apply for the Finance Department’s new Hurricane Sandy Property Tax Relief program has now been extended a month to March 15.

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Now owned by top executives, Cruise Planners on course toward continued growth

With a background in travel and present-day focus on raising her two small children, Lori Jahner set out to find work she enjoyed that would give her the flexibility she needed.

The 33-year-old from Aurora, Colo. decided on Cruise Planners — American Express Travel, a home-based travel agent network headquartered in Coral Springs.

“They have so much training to offer, ongoing education, and the branded name alone is so reputable and distinctive,” Jahner said. “Out of all the ones that I kind of looked into, this is the one that was standing out. More or less, it’s just the perfect opportunity so that I can do what I love, which is raising my kids but also selling travel.”

She has plenty of company. More than 850 franchise owners around the country are actively selling travel through Cruise Planners after paying startup costs that range from zero to $9,995. Those costs cover initial and continued training, marketing and advertising programs, a website, accounting and customer management software and support from the home office.

Fueled by everyone from stay-at-home moms to firefighters and retirees, the number of franchisees has grown by 14 percent annually for the last few years.

That has not gone unnoticed by cruise lines, who welcome more voices pitching their product.

“I think they are very important,” said Camille Olivere, Norwegian Cruise Line’s senior vice president of sales in North America. “They’re big supporters of ours and they’re bringing new people into the industry — and that is something that we desperately need.”

Cruise Planners agents sold $156 million in travel and related services last year, a 16 percent increase over 2011 and 48 percent jump over 2009.

Confident in continued growth, top Cruise Planners executives bought the company late last year from Palm Beach Capital, the private equity firm that had been majority owner since 2007.

CEO Michelle Fee, who has always held a stake in the company and now owns 50 percent, said she and fellow owners chief financial officer Tom Kruszewski and chief operating officer Vicky Garcia did not want to risk Cruise Planners being taken over by another investment group that might try to make changes.

“We wanted to make sure that whatever we keep doing is in the best interest of the company,” said Kruszewski, 60.

Before, Fee said, agents often asked whether the investment company would try to sell or change Cruise Planners. She said the purchase sends a good message.

“It shows them that we’re in this with you,” said Fee, 50, who co-founded the company with two partners 19 years ago. Those partners retired in 2007.

The company has invested about $2 million in technology upgrades and equipment in the last few years, including a mobile reservations system for agents that was introduced about a year and a half ago, and a consumer mobile app for iPhones and Androids that should launch later this month.

“We just have to be cutting edge,” Fee said. “Travel is technology; we have to be there with the big guys. Not only are we matching them, but we want to be better.”

Janet Fernandez, who started her Crise Planners franchise, Cruise Impressions, last July after working in different parts of the cruise industry since 1998, said she is already taking advantage of the latest tech innovations.

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Gov. Rick Scott needs Democrats to pass business tax cut

TALLAHASSEE For the first time in his brief and turbulent political career, Gov. Rick Scott needs a little help from Florida’s Democrats to turn one of his wishes into law.

Scott’s top legislative priority this year — a $141 million tax cut for manufacturers — comes with an asterisk: It has to garner ‘Yes’ votes from two-thirds of the Legislature to pass.

That means Democrats — whose gains in November breached the Republican supermajorities in Tallahassee — suddenly find themselves in an unfamiliar power position as they try to defeat Scott in 2014.

“I doubt that’ll be able to get a supermajority,” said Rep. Perry Thurston, a Plantation Democrat and minority leader in the Florida House. “It’s just another [business] incentive. We don’t know if it works.”

The bill seeks to eliminate sales taxes on all manufacturing equipment and machinery.

Scott has already put considerable political capital behind the tax cut, stating on numerous occasions that this was his top priority for 2013, along with a $1.2 billion boost in education funding.

“We need to build up manufacturing jobs in the great state of Florida,” he said in unveiling a $74.2 billion budget plan last month. Scott said the tax cut would create jobs and increase exports.

A failure on the measure would be politically embarrassing for Scott, who has staked his governorship on job creation and CEO-like efficacy.

It’s not clear if the entire Democratic caucus agrees with Thurston in opposing the tax break, which faces a higher vote threshold because it would hit local governments. Many Democrats have voted in favor of Scott’s tax cuts for businesses in the past. But as 2014 nears and Scott’s poll numbers sag, the party has begun to take a more aggressive stance against such cuts. Democrats recently slammed Scott for supporting “tax giveaways to special interest cronies.”

If Democrats decide to take a united stand against the manufacturing tax cut, it could be the first time the minority party leverages its strengthened numbers to torpedo a Scott-backed initiative. The party has been mostly marginalized for the last two years, as Scott and a Republican supermajority pushed through conservative legislation.

“Politics always come into play,” said Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel-Vasilinda, D-Tallahassee, acknowledging her party’s newfound power to buck Scott’s tax cut. “There’s the political piece as well. And yes, that political piece will be in play. As it should be.”

Rehwinkel-Vasilinda, the top Democrat on the Finance and Tax committee, said she has not decided how she will vote on the measure. She said the bill’s supporters would have to convince her that it would create jobs and not overburden local governments, who stand to lose tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue. Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, called the proposal “ridiculous” and “trickle-down, voodoo economics.”

Scott’s team said the governor fully expects to get bipartisan support for the measure.

“Gov. Scott is confident that those who support job creation will support this,” said Jackie Schutz, a spokesperson for the governor. “This is about job creation. It’s about bringing more manufacturers to Florida.”

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