Florida's children fighting our wars have the right to participate in democracy: isn't that the point of these wars-- to protect our democracy? The Treasure Coast Palm Kenric Ward writes: "Is the Florida Supreme Court anti-military? Does Florida's growth machine give a damn? A 4-3 ruling issued just before Christmas erected an impenetrable blockade for servicemen and women seeking to participate in their communities' electoral process. The court decision was a victory for Floridians for Smarter Growth, which is peddling a counter-initiative to subvert Florida Hometown Democracy." The Florida Chamber of Commerce has been waging a jihad against Florida Hometown Democracy, that would take changes to local comp plans-- like developer applications to move the Urban Development Boundary-- and subject them to popular vote. Ouch! Click on read more, for the full story of Florida's business machinery gone haywire. Strange story.
Kenric Ward: Florida court slaps democracy, troops
By Kenric Ward
Monday, January 5, 2009
Is the Florida Supreme Court anti-military? Does Florida's growth machine give a damn?
A 4-3 ruling issued just before Christmas erected an impenetrable blockade for servicemen and women seeking to participate in their communities' electoral process.
The court decision was a victory for Floridians for Smarter Growth, which is peddling a counter-initiative to subvert Florida Hometown Democracy. Mimicking FHD's populism, the Smarter Growth proposition purports to offer an alternate remedy to sprawl-weary Floridians.
It's actually a poison pill. The rival measure imposes a set of restrictive requirements that would effectively curb local growth referendums. Under the Smarter Growth rules, any citizens who want to challenge a local Comprehensive Plan change:
• Must personally visit the qualifying Supervisor of Elections Office or City Clerk's Office to sign a "Growth Management Initiative Petition."
• Must sign within a 60-day period.
These barriers may not be huge impediments to full-time residents, but they're a killer for active-duty military personnel serving away from home — as well as the disabled and homebound. And the rules are insidiously bureaucratic. Which, of course, is Smarter Growth's strategy. Prop up an appearance of grass-roots democracy, but embed the process with so many landmines that no referendums will ever occur.
The Supreme Court majority (including two recent appointments by Gov. Charlie Crist) averred it wasn't ruling on the merits of the Smarter Growth gambit. But by leaving its weasel-worded ballot language intact and giving it a shot at the 2010 statewide ballot, the justices aided and abetted the foes of Florida Hometown Democracy — the real statewide growth-management initiative.
While the Florida Chamber of Commerce and development-industry allies shop their counterfeit version, Hometown Democracy remains the best option for anyone who truly wants to check the abuses of local politicians and bolster citizens' rights. Indeed, FHD's opponents are so nervously controlling that they inserted a dubious clause, which says if both measures are passed by Florida voters, only their version would become law.
Justice Barbara Pariente, in one dissent, declared that the chamber's initiative "requires a series of onerous prerequisites before voter approval takes place."
Justice Fred Lewis, going further, branded the ballot language "a false promise" and "patently misleading."
Though Lewis didn't mention the slap at military personnel, he said the proposal "flies under false colors¥...¥rendering the purported 'right' (to redress via referenda) almost completely illusory."
"Under the amendment, individuals who seek a referendum may not set up a public kiosk at a local library, market or government building, as is the customary and traditional method of citizen involvement." (He also could have mentioned that no mail-in option is available either.)
Lewis added: "For there to be a referendum in Broward County on a growth-management plan, more than 103,000 registered voters (10 percent) would need to travel to the Broward County elections office during a period of two months to sign a petition. Even if the offices were open seven days a week, an average of at least 1,717 signatures would need to be obtained per day for the required number."
Lesley Blackner, president of Hometown Democracy, called the decision "a low point for the Florida Supreme Court. It's unprecedented and shows complete indifference to our troops."
Ryan Houck, spokesman for Floridians for Smarter Growth, continues to warn that Hometown Democracy would swamp the system with voter referendums on local Comprehensive Plan changes.
Houck bemoans "10,599 land-use changes each year for the past four years," yet that number graphically illustrates the promiscuous rate at which developers drive and manipulate the political process. Far from addressing that problem, the Smarter Growth scheme threatens to wipe out existing referendum guarantees in local government charters while muzzling growth critics.
As both measures take aim at the 2010 ballot, voters will have a stark choice. No matter how warm and fuzzy Smarter Growth's disingenuous ballot summary may sound, no matter how many millions of dollars of slick advertising the development industry buys, make no mistake: One proposition is about disenfranchising voters; the other empowers citizens, including those who fight to keep our country and our democracy safe.
ken.ward@scripps.com
DUELING PROPOSITIONS
Florida Supreme Court Justice Fred Lewis accused Floridians for Smarter Growth of "hiding the ball" with a vague ballot summary. Here is the Smarter Growth's 54-word version, followed by Lewis' proposed amplification (which, though still under the state-mandated 75-word limit, failed to win court approval):
APPROVED VERSION
Florida Growth Management Initiative Giving Citizens the Right to Decide Local Growth Management Plan Changes.
Allows Floridians to call for voter approval of changes to local growth management plans through a citizen petition. Voter approval of growth management plan changes will be required if 10 percent of the voters in the city or county sign a petition calling for such a referendum. Defines terms and establishes petition requirements.
REVISED (REJECTED) VERSION
Florida Growth Management Initiative Creating Limited Opportunity to Vote on Local Growth Management Plan Changes.
Allows Floridians a limited opportunity to vote on changes to local growth management plans through a citizen petition. Voter approval of growth management plan changes will be required if 10 percent of the voters in the city or county sign within 60 days at the local election office a petition calling for such a referendum. Defines terms and establishes petition requirements. Preempts all other land-use proposals.
HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY
Referenda Required for Adoption and Amendment of Local Government Comprehensive Land Use Plans.
Establishes that before a local government may adopt a new comprehensive land use plan, or amend a comprehensive land use plan, the proposed plan or amendment shall be subject to vote of the electors of the local government by referendum, following preparation by the local planning agency, consideration by the governing body and notice. Provides definitions.
NEXT UP...
On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court will hear an appeal of the state's petition revocation law, which permits signers to revoke their signatures. Agreeing with attorneys representing Hometown Democracy, the 1st District Court of Appeal ruled last year that the 2007 law was unconstitutional.
© 2009 Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers
5 comments:
What a riot! So the opponents are anti-military because they don't want every member of the military from Florida deluged in thousands of pages of technical data each year?
Hey, al Qaeda: want to find Florida troops? Follow the trail of discarded ballots and voter ed materials - you won't be able to miss it!
Somebody fancies themselves a political consultant. Anti-military... hahahahaha
What a lame spin.
Come on Marc; are you anti-military too?
You mean, Michael?
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/opnOPN670103080.htm
January 03, 2009
'Smarter Growth' a ballot trick
In the current economic climate, few people are making money chopping up open space for rows and rows of homes.
But when Florida's economy rebounds, the bulldozers will be revved and ready to go.
In the meantime, the state's still-powerful development industry has declared war on any attempts to set up roadblocks to growth.
The chief target in their sights: Florida Hometown Democracy, which has proposed a constitutional amendment that, if approved, would require voter approval for any amendments to local comprehensive growth-management plans.
The Hometown Democracy proposal has problems. It would raise barriers to runaway, irresponsible development, but also could make it difficult for local officials to respond quickly to businesses that want to relocate to Florida and bring good jobs.
Voters don't have the background to make the kinds of complicated land-use decisions that Hometown Democracy would force on them. But there's little doubt that its backers are acting with good intentions.
By contrast, the other side is fighting dirty. Last year, pro-growth forces paid John Thrasher, former speaker of the Florida House, to sign a bullying letter aimed at coercing voters to withdraw their signatures to put the Hometown Democracy initiative on the ballot.
The three-page letter was a masterful exercise of near-deception, accusing Hometown Democracy of being a tool of big development (the I'm-rubber-you're-glue stratagem) while threatening higher tax and utility bills.
But there was worse in the works.
In an apparent attempt to confuse voters, pro-development forces ginned up an alternative -- and deliberately misleading -- constitutional amendment to the Hometown Democracy proposal, dubbed "Smarter Growth." It purports to allow voter intervention in growth decisions -- but only if 10 percent of voters in a local jurisdiction sign petitions asking for a vote.
And those petitions would have to be signed in the offices of city clerks or supervisors of elections, within a 60-day period.
It's a nearly impossible hurdle to clear -- making a mockery of the proposed amendment's title "right to decide local growth management."
Last week, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that pro-development's proposal wasn't quite dishonest enough to strike from the ballot.
Justice Charles Wells employed a circuitous logic in upholding the proposed amendment -- Smarter Growth is allowed to offer false promises of "rights," he wrote, because they aren't actually taking away existing rights.
Justices Barbara Pariente and R. Fred Lewis came nearer to the mark with scornful dissents that accurately depicted the Smarter Growth language as "wordsmithing" and dismissed the petition as "misleading and deceptive."
The decision was a loss for Floridians, who deserve not to be lied to. But voters still have the opportunity to cut through the bloviation at the ballot box. And that's what they should do.
__._,_.___
From Orlando Weekly:
.Not unlike arguing about money that you'll never have, a theoretical smack down between the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Florida Hometown Democracy continues to hit the political mat with rhetorical vengeance.
In this corner, Lesley Blackner's Hometown Democracy folks are bouncing off the ropes with their prospective state constitutional amendment – the same one that suspiciously failed to make the 2008 ballot because Florida is nothing if not owned by development interests – that would force a referendum on any changes in local comprehensive growth plans. Over in that corner, the chamber-sponsored "Vote on Nothing" amendment, backed by the group Floridians for Smarter Growth, is sticking its tongue out and dropping its spandex shorts with confusing language that purports to allow public votes on growth plan changes, but doesn't quite reveal that said vote would require 10 percent of the voters in any particular municipality to physically show up at the supervisor of elections office within 60 days of the first signature offered.
What does it all mean? Well, basically the chamber is trying to outfox the populist Hometown Democracy corps with semantics meant to confuse voters.
Following last week's state Supreme Court decision to allow Floridians for Smarter Growth to move forward with their initiative, Florida Hometown Democracy announced they would seek a rehearing (it was only approved by a narrow 4-3 margin), calling "Vote on Nothing" a "Trojan Horse."
Nobody knows how many signatures both groups will need to make the ballot – last year's election was huge and the requirements are based on turnout – but as it stands, Florida Hometown Democracy leads with 616,571, while Floridians for Smarter Growth currently boasts 443,511.
Doesn't really matter, though. You can't develop when everybody's broke.
Oh, wait! Yes you can! In related Florida Hometown Democracy news, Carnival Cruise Lines might not stand a chance of moving forward with its plan to slosh up against the historic Village of Mayport in Jacksonville had the amendment been approved for the November ballot.
Preservationists are pissed by the Jacksonville Port Authority's intentions to pollute Mayport's laidback atmosphere with commercial development.
Mayport, you may or may not know, is the site of the first Thanksgiving between the French Huguenots and the Timucua tribe, and is marked with a column left there by French captain Jean Ribault in 1562. Almost 500 years later it could become a place to get your hair braided while dancing on an oil slick!
Opponents contest the port authority's claims of new jobs and tourism that the cruise ships will bring, arguing that, hey, people spend their money on the foreign-flagged vessels not off of them, and the jobs will be for garbage men to pick up beer cans.
Jacksonville's city council will vote on the measure on Jan. 13. The people, grumble the preservationists, will not get a chance to have their say.
Same thing Obama, Al Gore and John Kerry did, get the military ballots tossed on technicalities.
Post a Comment