{"id":39739,"date":"2023-12-03T12:47:48","date_gmt":"2023-12-03T17:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=39739"},"modified":"2023-12-03T12:47:55","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T17:47:55","slug":"amid-cries-about-uf-absenteeism-joseph-ladapo-buys-1-7m-home-in-pinellas-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/12\/03\/amid-cries-about-uf-absenteeism-joseph-ladapo-buys-1-7m-home-in-pinellas-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Amid cries about UF absenteeism, Joseph Ladapo buys $1.7M home \u2014 in Pinellas County"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jacob Ogles<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Property records show Florida’s top doc bought the modern mansion in June.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Florida Surgeon General\u00a0Joseph Ladapo\u00a0has already faced criticism for rarely showing up for his job at the University of Florida. Now he\u2019s bought a 5,000-square-foot home in Pinellas County more than 150 miles from campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ladapo and his wife, Brianna, purchased a home in South Pasadena, a small community in South Pinellas County, at the end of June for almost $1.7 million. The four-bedroom, four-bath modern home, built just this year, sits in a luxury neighborhood accessible by bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A listing on\u00a0Realtor.com<\/a>\u00a0promoted 360-degree views and a luxurious wet bar at a private pool. Photos show modern construction in a posh locale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe two large balconies provide an incredible setting to enjoy the stunning water views and unwind with outdoor relaxation and entertainment,\u201d the real estate listing reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mansion may raise eyebrows for the amenities enjoyed by a public servant earning two six-figure salaries on the Florida taxpayer dime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the location could prompt even more furor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Property records do not indicate that Ladapo has filed for a homestead exemption next year, leaving the prospect the three-story mansion could be used only as a second or vacation home. But it surely indicates Ladapo plans to spend more time in Pinellas County, when academic colleagues in Alachua County grumble about a scarcity of appearances there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis named Ladapo as Surgeon General in September 2021<\/a>, a job that earns him $250,000. But as part of bringing Ladapo to work in Florida, he was also hired at the University of Florida with a salary of $262,000 and put on a fast-track for tenure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

University officials recently told POLITICO<\/a> they had anticipated Ladapo would bring with him $600,000 in grant fund previously directed to his work at UCLA. The money never came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UF Faculty Senate set up an ad hoc committee and produced a report<\/a> questioning the many irregularities about Ladapo\u2019s hiring, including a lack of vetting of his credentials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn most cases, promotion and tenure decisions are made only with extensive records that include external review letters of scholarship, teaching evaluations, and other documentation to support the faculty\u2019s decision that the candidate has met the criteria of distinction sufficient to warrant tenure,\u201d the report states. \u201cIt is unclear whether appropriate documentation was provided to the unit faculty before they were asked to take a vote on Dr. Ladapo\u2019s tenure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, many faculty complain Ladapo rarely shows up on campus. Professors told POLITICO he only appeared on campus two times his first year on the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buying a home in Pinellas County, 157 miles from the Gainesville campus, doesn\u2019t signal any plans to make the commute more frequently. Indeed, the distance between his new home and the University of Florida is longer than the 149-mile trek from the campus to the Department of Health in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jacob Ogles Property records show Florida’s top doc bought the modern mansion in June. Florida Surgeon General\u00a0Joseph Ladapo\u00a0has already faced criticism for rarely showing up for his job at… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[6934],"class_list":["post-39739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-amid-cries-about-uf-absenteeism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39739"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39742,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39739\/revisions\/39742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}