Calder Sloan Law UPDATE

Earlier this year we reported on the heartbreaking accident of Calder Sloan and how Calder’s father, Chris Sloan, was utilizing the tragedy to attempt to create stricter regulations for pool lights in the state of Florida. (If you missed it you can read the full article here.)

Today we are sad to report that the bill that Chris Sloan was supporting did not pass. In all actuality, it wasn’t even heard on the floor of the House in our capitol. Many reasons were given as to the bill’s death but the general consensus was that adding unique regulations for electrical hazards in new pools would just be too costly. Now, even with though the bill died before it was even heard, it did not stop Chris Sloan and the team of people that had come to his aid.

At the end of April new language was attached to a bill dealing with building codes that will create the “Calder Sloan Swimming Pool Electrical-Safety Task Force”. The new task force will be in charge of recommending revisions to the current Florida building codes that already oversee the regulations in place for pools. In the end it wasn’t the “win” that Chris Sloan was looking for, but it is a start. Mr. Sloan has already made a name for himself as a tenacious advocate and he isn’t done yet. As he told Kathleen McGrory at the Miami Herald “I won’t be able to live with myself if we don’t at least accomplish something here,” (You can read the Full Story here).

I’m glad that at least a step was taken in the right direction in the end. It does sadden me though, that long before Chris Sloan’s bill was even heard in our capitol, that groups like the “pool lobby” had enough power and money to silence the voice of a father just trying to make a change for the good of the public. Being concerned about how our tax payer’s dollars are spent is absolutely correct and the new regulations proposed may have well been far too expensive to implement in its current form, but isn’t a democracy supposed to allow the public’s voices to be heard?