Gutted by the Florida Legislature: Growth Management ... by gimleteye

This is what "a major overhaul of the state’s growth management laws" looks like. And barring a last minute miracle, the extremists in the Florida GOP will get what they want: the opportunity to use the economic crisis to make it easier for speculators to kill off what remains of Florida natural heritage and quality of life. Yesterday GOP radicals attached the growth management destruction bill to the budget, even though the Senate has not heard the measure. The radical extremists in the Republican majority feared that public pressure would water it down and so they attacked.

The bill will make citizen plan amendment challenges more difficult, remove the option for smaller local governments to have full state review of plan amendments, significantly increase thresholds for DRIs, and exempt mining and industrial development from DRI reviews. In other words, the victory obtained by citizens in Miami-Dade to stop a Lowe's Home Improvement store from being built at the edge of the Everglades (County Commissioner Pepe Diaz and Joe Martinez and former VNS Natacha Seijas pushed it through, consuming the county attorney's office) will now be thrown out the window. The political payoffs will reward US Century Bank (rated ZERO by Bauer Financial Rating) board members Ramon Rasco, Rodney Barreto, and speculators like Ed Easton and Sergio Pino who benefit from the gutting to make their illiquid investments attractive to the next speculator in line.

Please contact key legislators as soon as possible, even this weekend if possible, as some will be at their offices then:

Please contact the Budget Conference Chairs:

Sen. J.D. Alexander, 850-487-5044, alexander.jd.web@flsenate

Rep. Denise Grimsley, (850) 488-3457, denise.grimsley@myfloridahouse.gov

As readers of our blog know, neither G.O.D. nor I have time to mince words. We are simply writing what we know, based on many years of volunteerism without any expectation of benefit. That Lowe's battle at the Urban Development Boundary consumed precious community resources, involving public interest attorneys like Richard Grosso and the Everglades Law Center working for a fraction of the money poured by a major corporation into the effort to reverse public policy based on sound planning principles. Rick Scott will go down as Florida's worst governor in history, if only for the destruction caused by the legislature under his watch and approval in only his first year in office. Scott knows nothing of Florida's political history related to development, quality of life and environment. And that is what a barely legal fortune has bought us.

Nathaniel Reed was there at the start, in the 1970's when a broad bipartisan consensus among Florida elected leaders held forth that wrecking Florida to serve private profit needed rules.

An OPED by Mr. Reed from this week's St. Pete Times is printed, below. It is worth noting that Linda Bell, the county commissioner representing South Dade is determined to wreck DERM (Department of Environmental Resource Management) on behalf of political interests who long ago tangled with environmentalists and Reed: millionaire farmers like James Humble whose consortium held up the government acquisition of The Frog Pond in Southwest Dade for years, until he and his investor associates could extract the last dime from the federal government. Humble is one of the interests who apparently believe that in return for propelling Bell into the county commission seat occupied earlier by the commission's only reliable environmental vote, that Bell should be the spear tip for their radical agenda: eliminate DERM. Their revival of the 8.5 Square Mile Area, in geographic proximity to The Frog Pond, is just the latest provocation in a 30 Year War against the environment in South Florida, and one that is emblematic of the incessant demand by speculators to dominate government.

You see: they are not even waiting for the carcass of growth management to cool before gutting it at the local level, where the GOP trusts government authority the most. They hate federal government. They are dismantling state regulations. They want power vested at the lowest common unit of authority where it costs least to deform democracy. We've seen this movie before, but read on:

Don't let Florida revert to abuses of past:

By Nathaniel Pryor Reed, special to the Times

The governor and Legislature seem bent on destroying our state's landmark process to manage growth and development.

It is with an incredible sense of dismay that I watch what is unfolding in Florida this legislative session. The governor and Legislature seem bent on destroying our state's landmark process to manage growth and development, essential considering that Florida soon will pass New York as the third-largest state in the nation.

In recent conversations with three former distinguished governors, I found all appalled by the disastrous course the state leadership is setting for us. The looming agenda is unapologetically probusiness and antiregulation. Florida's new leadership is in complete denial that this state's natural areas are both the foundation and economic engine that drive our beautiful state. (click, 'read more')

To avoid the problems of overcrowded schools, congested roadways and environmental damage that occurred unchecked after World War II, Florida must maintain a workable system to direct growth into suitable places and away from those lands too sensitive for development. This was, and remains, the mission I shared with several other prominent Floridians when in 1986 we founded 1,000 Friends of Florida, the second organization of its kind in the nation. Over the past quarter-century, 1,000 Friends has worked with leaders from both sides of the aisle to shape one of the most successful growth management systems in the nation.

Current efforts will do nothing less than open Florida back up to the ravages of unchecked development experienced in our state in the 1960s and 1970s. The resulting damage to the Everglades, drinking water supplies and public infrastructure is still being felt to this day. Floridians simply cannot afford to make these mistakes again.

Citizens throughout this state must continue to fight the false premise that Florida can build its way out of the recession by reducing or even eliminating a state oversight role in local development decisions. Such an approach will do untold damage to our environment and create costly future burdens for our children and grandchildren.

My travels throughout the United States and the world convince me that Florida was moving in the right direction to right past wrongs and prevent their recurrence. Sadly, the only kind of legacy we will be leaving to the generations following us is one of missed opportunities that no one can proudly claim.

This is a call to all of those who treasure Florida. The worst thing any of us can do is to go quietly into the night. Our great state is worth fighting for. Stand up and speak out against the outrageous proposals now steamrolling through the Legislature. We implore you to join the fight before it is too late.

Nathaniel Pryor Reed served as assistant secretary of the interior under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and is chairman emeritus of 1,000 Friends of Florida.