Golf Courses in State Parks, or, more from the Florida Republic of Idiots: The Wade Hopping Effect ... by gimleteye

The GOP led state legislature in Florida is set to fire off a pipe bomb against regulations that, over forty years, were established to protect the state's waters and and important natural resources from the impacts of rampant sprawl. Florida's legislators are drunk with their own power, having witnessed the decline of the media and the ability of elected officials to literally get away with anything during campaigns. Whatever Rick Scott achieves in his four year term, his single most lasting influence will be to have been elected without granting one interview to a newspaper editorial board. A candidate for office can get away with anything, in Florida politics, is the message to public officials whose idea of history is what can fit on Glenn Beck's Fox News blackboard.

Still, tradition in the legislature counts. And one of the long-time traditions in Tallahassee-- established by the late lobbyist for Big Sugar and land speculators, Wade Hopping-- is now on display. It goes along the following lines: when you have a lot of really nasty stuff to pass, the best way to get it through is by setting a fire in a place to draw away attention; a diversion in other words where you never intend to really fight. You put up a bill that is so crazy, so off-the-wall, that it gets all the do-good'ers in a froth, whips up all the old ladies who want to protect owls or manatees. Then while the do-good'ers are all off on their dithering tangents, writing newspaper letters to the editor and organizing telephone trees and marches, you (legislators) do the real dirty work: using fine pens, strike thru amendments, and vague language to re-jigger laws so that it doesn't look like anything too bad is happening, when any lawyer worth his or her salt knows, the Devil really does go to Bible Study Class on Sunday.

This year, state senator John Thrasher-- a lead tenor in the Jeb! Bush School of Hogwarts-- has the privilege of igniting popular outrage for a bill that isn't going anywhere, but will soak up lots of civic energy while truly awful stuff goes on behind the scenes. The Thrasher / Wade Hopping effort is a new bill that would allow Jack Nicklaus designed golf courses to be built inside state parks.

You can already hear tens of thousands of Floridians rising in anger. "Florida state legislators are sniffing glue, snorting Oxy, they are high on the life of the Tea Party. Why not just put Off Road Vehicle Parks on the golf courses, on top of the state parks too? Yes. And medicinal marijuana dispensaries, they should go at every fourth hole. That will give the legislature something to do next year: move them to every third hole. And the year after, every second hole. Here's another idea for state parks and golf courses. If you beat your handicap by three strokes, you get a free condo or townhouse by Lennar or Century, funded by the taxpayer. That way, next year the legislature can lower the limit to two, and one, and so forth. I can't wait to hear the debate on lifting the limit for free homes based on golfing handicaps in state parks. And pretty soon, we'll have casinos where you can exchange your mortgage for gambling chips. It all makes perfect sense to the Republicans. Does Jack Nicklaus also design asylums?"

Well, it felt good to write that but I don't believe anything will come of the Thrasher golf course idiocy. I think it is a Wade Hopping moment, to send the chatterers down another rabbit hole while a world of hurt is inflicted on the state. Here's what the lead editorial of the Orlando Sentinel had to say: "Golf courses in state parks? Worst. Idea. Ever. Golf courses have a place in Florida but not in state parks. Allow us to label the absurd notion of turning state parks into golf courses as the Worst. Idea. Ever. At least, so far this session. Who knows what else this state Legislature is capable of, seeing as how this notion isn't getting laughed out of the Capitol? But this is no joke."

What is truly no joke is what is happening to the Republican game plan to re-write the laws and agency missions governing environmental protection and growth management in Florida. That's the place where the Devil is dancing, around a crowd of GOP house and state senators who go to church on Sundays. They are aiming at nothing less than giving Florida's heritage away to the same land speculators, agricultural interests, and lobbyists who lubricated the economic disaster of rampant overdevelopment. Golf courses in state parks is a trivial pursuit compared to what the legislature is doing to the Everglades, our rivers and bays and streams and wetlands. Growth management in Florida is about to go the way of the dinosaur. Any brakes that may have inhibited the land speculators are about to be removed. The Florida Department of Community Affairs will be no more. I know plenty-- and I am amongst them-- who believe that DCA did a terrible job of protecting the public commons. But the answer is not to eliminate: it is to make government do the work that the law intends. So long to all that. The state is being sold to the lowest bidders. Thanks to the November 2010 election results and the US Supreme Court's decision to give corporations the ability to write unlimited campaign checks, Florida is will be the new Alabama. But call Senator Thrasher anyway. Let him know what he supports is truly awful. But put it in these words: that Satan is making noises from his office and that what he and the GOP are doing to Florida is something that turns Christian values upside down. (click 'read more', for the rest of the Orlando Sentinel editorial)



Orlando Sentinel:
"Sen. John Thrasher of St. Augustine (who is quickly making us regret endorsing him last year) and Rep. Pat Rooney of West Palm
Beach have dropped bombshells that would let private developers build five golf courses on state parks throughout Florida. Plus hotels. Because what says natural Florida like 18 holes and room service?

And that's just for starters. The Thrasher-Rooney bills - each pitched as the Jack Nicklaus Golf Trail - have planet-size loopholes that would let Florida's Division of Recreation and Parks approve even more courses once the first five are up and running. Imagine, if you can, an 18-hole course within a 9-iron of the Wekiva River. Or Wakulla Springs as a water hazard. Or a hotel on Crystal River.

Under these bills, golf courses might get built on state parks like Silver River, Rock Springs Run, Paynes Prairie or Anclote Key. Altogether, some 40 state parks could get clubbed. Mr. Rooney's bill wastes no time. It mandates that one of the courses will
be built at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Martin County, home to the wildlife-rich Loxahatchee River, and soon, if Mr. Rooney gets his way, duffers riding golf carts.

And those are just parks that meet the 3,000-acre threshold. The House and Senate bills cleverly stipulate that golf courses should be on parks of that size if possible. Dozens of smaller state parks could be at risk, including Blue Spring, Ichetucknee Springs, Little Manatee River and Tomoka. This is what passes for environmental protection these days in Tallahassee?

Refusing to fund state land purchases and then handing over what we have to the highest bidder? Replacing natural habitat with sod that needs water and pesticides?

Never mind that Florida already is choking on golf courses (more than any other state). Or that some of those courses, including some in Central Florida, are in financial trouble. Or that the sport's popularity has been on the decline. These bills would exert even more financial pressure on Florida's existing golf courses by letting the government pick development winners and letting
them build on some of the choicest locations in the state. Speaking of picking winners, the House and Senate bills specifically mandate that all of the courses be designed by golfing legend Jack Nicklaus. What a sweet deal for Mr. Nicklaus, a South Florida resident who met in January with Gov. Rick Scott. Mr. Scott said he wanted Mr. Nicklaus to "give me his ideas on economic development in the state."

We now have a better picture of what those ideas included, like handing the Golden Bear a no-bid, exclusive opportunity for his company to design golf courses on public property. To ensure that state biologists don't make trouble, the bills call for a
regulatory process "free from unnecessarily burdensome requirements." And local governments are told to butt out, too.

These bills perfectly illustrate Florida's steady march away from an environmental movement that is responsible for saving beaches, forests, rivers, and what's left of the Everglades. Florida's legislators, those with even a shred of respect left for their
state's natural places, must stop this madness.

If you think golf courses don't belong in Florida's state parks, contact: House sponsor Pat Rooney at 850-488-0322 pat.rooney@myfloridahouse.gov Senate sponsor John Thrasher at 850-487-5030 or
thrasher.john.web@flsenate.gov"