Florida Citizens’ Board Member With Ties to Sansom Resigns

A key figure in allegations that former House Speaker Ray Sansom misused his previous office as the chamber’s budget chairman has resigned from the board that oversees a state-created insurance company.

Confirmation of Jay Odom’s resignation came as a grand jury reconvened in Tallahassee to resume its investigation of whether any laws were violated when Sansom, R-Destin, took an unadvertised $110,000 job with Northwest Florida State College after funneling about $35 million in special appropriations to the Panhandle school over two years.

The funds included $6 million for a Destin Airport building similar to a hurricane-proof hangar that Odom, a Sansom friend and political supporter, once sought to construct with taxpayer money.

Ethics complaints against Sansom also have been filed with the House and state Ethics Commission.

Odom, 52, a Destin developer who also owns a corporate jet business, resigned from the Citizens Property Insurance Corp. board on Feb. 19, according to letters obtained from the Florida Senate. Former Senate President Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, appointed him to the board.

Odom gave no reason for stepping down in a brief note to current Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach. In a separate letter to Citizens President and CEO Scott Wallace, Odom wrote that he was leaving “due to the ever growing time constraints of my family and my two young boys and my deep desire to stay active and focused on their lives.”

The resignation is unrelated to the grand jury investigation or the ethics complaints filed against Sansom, said Martin Owen, a spokesman for Odom at Crystal Beach Development in Destin.

“He resigned because it’s a good time to do so,” Owen said.

Owen said Odom, like Sansom, denies any wrongdoing took place, but he declined to comment any further.

The state created Citizens as an insurer of last resort when private companies started refusing to write policies on homes and other properties in coastal areas due to the risk of hurricanes. It now is Florida’s largest property insurer with more than 1 million policies.

Sansom, 46, has since resigned his job as a fundraiser for Northwest Florida State and he’s also stepping down as speaker. Sansom has handed over his duties and authority to Speaker Pro Tempore Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, who will formally be elected speaker when the Republican-controlled Legislature convenes in regular session March 3.

Public records show the college’s airport building is nearly identical to the structure Odom had sought. College officials, though, say it’s not the same. They plan to use the building to train emergency response students and offer it to local officials for use during storms.