In Florida, Republicans get cancer too … by gimleteye

Republican: Pinellas County Commissioner John Morroni Has Brain Cancer

In Florida, Republicans get cancer too, but even though 58 percent of voters approved a measure to allow medical marijuana -- particularly useful in alleviating pain and suffering for cancer treatments -- humane treatment will not be legally available in the Sunshine State.

3.3 million voters or 58% of Floridians approved the constitutional amendment on Tuesday. But Florida uniquely requires a 60 percent supermajority of voters to change the law by referendum. How did this happen?

In the early 2000's under Gov. Jeb Bush, the GOP legislature and its patrons, Big Sugar, the Florida Homebuilders, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Florida, began demonizing a citizens ballot initiative rising to the forefront: Florida Hometown Democracy.

Activists had started collecting signatures for a ballot referendum that promised hope to alleviate the costs of rampant suburban sprawl. Although Florida Hometown Democracy took an additional election cycle to make the state wide ballot, special interests wanted to head off the civic activists at the pass.

Florida's lobbyist class representing deep-pocketed campaign contributors mounted a countermeasure. They did it with 58 percent of the vote in 2006 when 2.6 million voters approved putting brakes on ballot initiatives by requiring not a simple majority to pass a ballot item, but a supermajority: from fifty to sixty percent.

All Florida Hometown Democracy wanted to do was to provide citizens the opportunity to vote for or against changes to community and municipal master development plans, required by state law to protect quality of life and the environment. Wealthy GOP funders viewed this as an existential threat.

That's why on Tuesday, the will of 3.3 million voters … a higher percentage than voted to legalize marijuana for adults in Oregon -- failed in Florida. Ironically, both the medical marijuana amendment and the 2006 requirement of a supermajority passed by fifty eight percent of the popular vote in Florida. Only the marijuana amendment failed.

On Tuesday, another pro-people amendment -- to conserve Florida's vanishing wilderness -- garnered 75 percent of the popular vote in Florida mainly because the Florida Chamber of Commerce and special interests sat on the sidelines. Why?

A lot of this money -- more than $9 billion -- will find its way into the pockets of special interests and land speculators over the next decade. But if you or your loved ones are puking your guts out from cancer treatments, thanks to those same special interests, there will be no legal marijuana in Florida to alleviate the pain.

How many Florida voters understand how this happened? In Florida, understanding from history is the highest bar of all.

Another Reason To Un-Seat Bruno Barreiro. By Geniusofdespair

This Charter Review Task Force is an abomination! Joe Arriola? Jeffrey Bercow?? Terry Murphy???

District 12 is Pepe Diaz, what a putz to put Joe Arriola on after the fire fee fiasco and the property he bought with Winton and Mayor Diaz. District 5 is Barreiro, a nasty choice in my view, what is he trying to tell us? How could he pick a land use lobbyist who seems to always be on the wrong side of UDB issues. Only Natacha Seijas did worse with her pick of Miguel DeGrandy in 2007. Barbara Jordan put on Murphy, Seijas' former Chief of Staff, he is at least better than the other two. Maybe not, Arriola might be the best of the three. What am I saying?

What do you say readers? Do you like the 9 elected officials?  The people's charter, what a joke. This post has earned the barf meter tag, thanks for reminding me reader.

Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce Sinks To New Low ... by gimleteye

The Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce (that once failed to supervise its own book keepers who ran off with the bank account) simply cannot get it right. By whatever conception the "free market" best provides for the public good, the Chamber defies that logic. Now the Chamber shoots Miami in the foot by "endorsing" casinos despite considerable dissent among business leaders. Those who oppose casinos in Miami have facts on their side. It's a shame, but just another notch in the Chamber's super-wide, fat belt including, most recently, Chamber opposition to Florida Hometown Democracy. Casinos are a scavenger economic activity. There are enough scavengers to make a meal of Florida without introducing a new power base for corruption.

Destroy Florida, an explosive new C-4 ... by gimleteye

C4 is a type of plastic explosive. It is also the IRS designation of certain political action committees that are now springing to life since the Bush Supreme Court gave "personhood" to corporations, unleashing an avalanche of special interest, corporate money against the public. "Destroy Florida" goes by another name, "Free Market Florida". It is the new political action committee launched by the same idiots who brought down Florida Hometown Democracy.

The Florida Independent reports, "Free Market Florida prepares to do battle with environmentalists". Their nominal target is the US EPA and the federal agencies intent to protect Florida's water from pollution unleashed by Big Sugar and unscrupulous county commissioners like Natacha Seijas, who allowed growth to run rampant as kudzu.

The real target is Florida Senator Bill Nelson. "The new group’s address is listed as 610 South Blvd., Tampa, the home of dozens of political committees that operate in Florida and nationwide. A letter on Free Market Florida’s home page from Florida Chamber of Commerce CEO Mark Wilson says the group will help the business community take on “aggressive anti-free market groups”.

Wilson and his buddies, like Florida jackass-in-chief Barney Bishop of Associated Industries, are trying to pressure Senator Nelson to stand up with them, in their effort to kill off the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Emboldened by last November's results, they are intent on destroying what is left of government's capacity to help people. Everything to them that does not have a dollar sign attached is a "job killer". But look at the job they did on Florida during the housing boom: flooding the state with rampant overdevelopment. They called it, then, "what the market wants" and it was a bad dream built on the foundations of fraud.

Well these fraudsters are back, at it. With the Supreme Court in their pockets, independent political committees outspent progressives 10-1 in November 2010. In 2012, you are not going to believe how much money they will throw at the destruction of the public interest. The cynics like those behind Free Market Florida might as well be using the real C4 explosives: they are blowing up this nation's future, wrapped in an American flag and ugly, unrecognizable versions of Christianity. Does Senator Bill Nelson have the guts to stand up to the destroyers, neatly coiffed, suited, and wing-tipped? We'll see, soon enough. (click, 'read more', for the Florida Independent article)

Free Market Florida prepares to do battle with environmentalists

By Travis Pillow | 03.01.11 | 2:08 pm
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A new group claiming that California-style regulation and litigation are crippling Florida’s economy has launched to “take the fight to” environmental groups and other “special interests.”
Officially announced today, Free Market Florida describes itself as “a project of Citizens for Lower Taxes and a Stronger Economy, Inc., a 501(c)(4) organization.”
A political committee, also called Citizens for Lower Taxes and a Stronger Economy, last year ran the campaign against Amendment 4 — aka “Hometown Democracy” — and disbanded in January. A 501(c)(4) is a nonprofit organization that is allowed to lobby and run campaign ads without disclosing its donors. The new group’s address is listed as 610 South Blvd., Tampa, the home of dozens of political committees that operate in Florida and nationwide.
A letter on Free Market Florida’s home page from Florida Chamber of Commerce CEO Mark Wilson says the group will help the business community take on “aggressive anti-free market groups”:

Those who oppose economic development and job creation will say or do anything and, until now, Florida’s business community has had to “gear up” for the multiple battles special interests wage. Now, with FreeMarketFlorida.org, the business community has a permanent effort, complimentary to that of the Florida Chamber and others, which will meet the opposition whenever and wherever they choose to engage. #
Now is the time to take the fight to them.

Apparently that involves fighting EPA water quality regulations — known as numeric nutrient criteria, which the agency created for Florida after a lawsuit brought by environmental groups — and challenging the Department of Community Affairs, which the group describes as “Soviet-style” central planners whose activities should be left to local governments. #
Gov. Rick Scott and committees in both houses of the state legislature are already working on plans to scale back the department’s functions.

The Florida Jackass: its head is the Chamber, its hind quarters, Union Bosses ... by gimeleteye

Ryan Houck, the baby-faced spokesman for polluters aiming to decapitate environmental protection in Florida, is spokesman for a slick campaign reminding like-minded jackasses that unions sided with business to defeat last November's ballot referendum, Florida Hometown Democracy. Never mind that a wee-wee percentage of Floridians believe that environmental and land use rules are too strict. Unions abandoned environmentalists once, Houck crows, and now it is time to abandon them again by throttling EPA's efforts to hold billionaire polluters accountable to nutrient standards in Florida waters. I say, give Houck and the Chamber jackasses feedbags filled with oats and methyl mercury.

As for Florida's union members, this would be a time of soul-searching about leadership and how poorly working class Floridians have been served. In Wisconsin, environmentalists are battling with unions to stave off the money influence of the billionaire polluters. But here in Florida, it is a long stretch to find union leaders who ever reached out to environmentalists. Houck and his billionaire buddies crow about the victory of business and labor in defeating environmentalists over Amendment 4; the state-wide ballot initiative that was hacked to death by the Chamber and its big money funders.

Never mind that last fall Houck campaigned against Florida Hometown Democracy, claiming not even environmental groups supported it. The point: anyone can re-write history when others are too timid, weak, or indifferent to speak out. The same way that union bosses played members for fools, by refusing to support Florida Hometown Democracy, they are doing again; Exhibit A, the recall election against Hialeah county commissioner Natacha Seijas.

Seijas has been a nightmare for Florida environmentalists for 18 years. During that entire time she cultivated the support of union bosses. Union members, on the other hand, never questioned who and what Seijas stands for: the painted darling of land speculators and the Growth Machine that drove the Florida economy into the ground. It's not just Miami-Dade environmentalists who suffered, through the continuing meddling of Seijas and her staff in regulatory issues and infrastructure in Miami Dade. Today, Seijas is already arguing for a lock and hold on years of planning -- mandated by the state-- to fix all the billions of stuff she allowed to be left behind during her overly long career. That's because under Governor Rick Scott and the interests who hire Houck, Florida is in a race to the bottom to eviscerate environmental protections. Seijas is confidant of unions' votes in the recall election slated for March 15. SEIU contributed at least $20,000 to defend her, already. (If I were a union member and voter in Hialeah, I'd steer as clear of Seijas as Libyan soldiers are, of Khaddafi.)

Union members should do the math: who is stuck in cars in endless traffic, wasting family time and spending nearly $4.00 a gallon to commute to jobs from distant suburbs? Union members live in those distant suburbs. Who is paying the price for land speculators who support Seijas, Houck et al in order to shift the costs of growth to ordinary taxpayers? Who voted for growth and rock mining to wreck the wellfield protection zone, imposing hundreds of millions of costs on ratepayers? Who was taken to the woodshed by a Republican governor-- Jeb!-- for refusing to protect Florida's drinking water aquifers? You think union members might care to know what Seijas and Houck represents? They might, if their leaders brought it to their attention.

Now the unions support Seijas and they are being thanked in advance for supporting the Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries jackasses who think it is great they won the race to the bottom and now are twisting arms of the Florida Congressional delegation to oppose the EPA and prevent accountability for Florida's polluted waterways. It is fascinating to listen to Houck talk about union members joining with business to destroy the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Really, what it is, is nauseating.

A Message from Florida Hometown Democracy. By Geniusofdespair

Amendment 4 might have gone done in flames but we haven't heard the last word from the Florida Hometown Democracy Campaign:

The handwringing begins. Florida’s newspapers are crying in their beer that the Department of Community Affairs is likely to be dismantled next year by the incoming Rick Scott gang. After vilifying Amendment 4 and parroting the over-builders’ (the source of a very large chunk of their advertising revenue) lies, the newspapers now cry there will be no “watchdog” over bad growth. Well, according to the Orlando Sentinel, DCA approves 90% of the plan changes that show up on its desk. What kind of “growth watchdog” is that when we all know that Florida already has enough growth on the books for over 100 million people?

The truth and fact remains that the real power resides at the local level, where a developer-applicant typically needs only 3 out of 5 votes or 4 out of 7 to change the growth map. The newspapers don’t seem to understand that DCA doesn’t have the power now to simply stop a bad plan change in its tracks. If a plan change violates some aspect of the Growth Management Act, DCA must go to court, just like the rest of us. Drive around Florida and it’s clear that growth hasn’t been well managed over the last 25 years.

Amendment 4 recognized that the real power lies at the local level with city & county commissions, and that too often they can’t be trusted to do the right thing. Even though demand went bust, the politicians keep granting more plan changes. So much for “planning”!

The over-builders spent $20 million to defeat the Amendment 4 reform. Money may not be everything, but in our case money meant everything.

Happy New Year!

An anxious America turns to the party that built its viewing platform ... by gimleteye

In The New York Times, Tom Friedman reports from India, "After asking for an explanation of the Tea Party’s politics, Gupta remarked: “Where is the American dream? Where is the optimism?” To help answer those questions, watch the CBS 60 Minutes Segment, here (Can't do anything about the Viagra ads.) on the people of Newton, Iowa. The landscape of Newton reflects a nation that went from mom-and-pop stores and businesses serving industry, to franchises of corporations serving other corporations, using economies of scale to obliterate cultural differences. Newton, Iowa is not so different from anywhere else, after all is said and done: scared, in debt, and shell-shocked how fast 40 years of prosperity came to an end.

The GOP demolition crew that brought America the politics of the "Ownership Society" is back in power. That would be Karl Rove and other Republican leaders who flattered Alan Greenspan into lowering interest rates while they fired up boiler room operations selling mortgages to anyone who could fog a mirror. They were rewarded for speed in execution of those mortgage pools and titles and deeds; fees for engineers, lobbyists, and campaign contributions rolled into toxic goop.

So here is the problem, India, that you might envision through the Bhopol disaster. The goop that materialized so quickly, doesn't go away for a long, long time.

The TARP program that the Tea Party detests, was a Hail Mary pass by the Bush administration. The hair-on-fire crowd doesn't remember that. When the banks tried to unload their toxic mess, they found that it wasn't nearly as easy to do as it was to sign and transfer title to millions of Americans made gullible by the chain of corporate fraud. Consumers and taxpayers and voters, who were willing accomplices then, don't want to be held accountable now. Today contract law is acting like sand in the engine to resolve the foreclosure mess. The only good news, comparing Newton, Iowa to the people of Bhopal, is that the poison isn't in their bodies.

To frame this subject matter comes an excellent report, in the excellent series, Fresh Air. Terry Gross interviews NY Times Gretchen Morgenson on the foreclosure mess. These two women are heroes for Clarity. I urge all EOM readers to spread the word: listen by clicking here.

In Florida, we could see the economic disaster rolling up like a thunderous hurricane. Citizens and activists, watching the way the Growth Machine tore up the Florida landscape with insta-gro suburbs and degraded wetlands and dying Everglades, knew that it was all unsustainable. They were powerless to stop it.

As a post-script: on Tuesday Florida Hometown Democracy, a proposed constitutional amendment to give voters the final say on whether or not to continue allowing speculators to tear up the landscape, was crushed by builders, realtors, the Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industry. The measure needed 60 percent to pass. Its opponents inflicted this supermajority requirement in 2006, dooming any future grass roots initiative unless it comes with $!0 million in the bank to wage a war on television. Its organizers, exhausted by seven years of battle to make the state-wide ballot, ran out of gas. FHD only garnered 33 percent of the statewide vote, but here is an interesting fact. The measure passed in Monroe County and the Florida Keys-- where growth management is the perennial issue-- by more than 50 percent.

There was no special campaign by Florida Hometown Democracy in the Keys. But if you know the Keys, then you know that growth management controversies pitting citizen activists like those that started Florida Hometown Democracy against irresponsible development are more ubiquitous than mile markers. Voters in the Keys knew the power of Florida Hometown Democracy. Too bad, the general electorate was dazed and confused. Exactly the point of the torrent of corporate money in the mid-term elections that delivered an anxious America to the party that built its viewing platform.

Yes, we can panic! by gimleteye

There is a lot to write about, but this morning I'll be brief. Depression. I'm not talking about how I feel. So relieved this election cycle is over. If the election results show anything, it is that the economy is worse than the mainstream media has been selling; worse by far. A point frequently made on this blog where we don't worry about offending advertisers. People will act when they feel threatened, and if 12.4 percent reflects the official rate of unemployment in Florida, the unofficial number of Floridians who feel cornered by the Great Recession is closer to 60 percent.

The best indication is the race for Attorney General. Dan Gelber, the Democrat, wasn't defeated by Pam Bondi. (Gelber only won 41 percent of the vote). He was defeated by a tidal wave of anxiety. More, later. Congratulations to Republicans. The GOP didn't do so well governing when it held majorities in Congress (think "Ownership Society"). Now the GOP has no excuse: get us out of this mess. Enough of the good news.

The most important election win in Florida in 2010 was Amendments 5 and 6: Fair Districts, passed by 62 and 63 percent respectively if the numbers hold. GOP funders and top strategists like Jeb Bush really, really disliked Fair Districts, but what they hated was Amendment 4, Florida Hometown Democracy.

Florida Hometown Democracy. That was the real terror. If the amendment had passed, the unbreakable bond would have been busted: local public officials, zoning changes they rubber-stamp, and big campaign contributors whose main business is land speculation. This tag team wrecked the Florida economy by attacking and eviscerating regulations protecting taxpayers from fraud. Fraud on mortgages, fraud on the environment, fraud on our quality of life. Last night they won again.

The opponents of Florida Hometown Democracy control state politics. Out of fear of Florida Hometown Democracy, they promoted and won the 60 percent threshold for citizen referenda to change the Florida Constitution. They didn't need 50 percent to win, last night.

Safe to say that Amendment 4 opponents, including the Florida realtors, the Chamber of Commerce, builders and Associated Industries and Big Ag, spent more than $15 million to defeat Florida Hometown Democracy. That meant they had a lot less to spend against Amendments 5 and 6.

Focus groups showed Florida Hometown Democracy would have passed, if voters understood the measure. It took a ton of money to lie and confuse voters; approximately four times as much as the anti-forces invested against Fair Districts. In the case of your hometown, the money for campaign organization and communication and TV ads was all on the other side, and shame on the mainstream media for not saying so. In the end, the grass roots activists who dedicated seven years of their lives-- seven!-- to moving FHD over huge obstacles and barriers ran out of ching. Lesley Blackner and Ross Burnaman, co-founders of the citizens' movement, are Florida heroes for bringing this issue for the last, final time to voters. It's all sprawl now.

Fair Districts and its team, especially Miami attorney Ellen Freiden, ran a brilliant, focused $9.5 million campaign. That is what it takes. In an election marked by anxiety, Floridians, from both sides of the great divide, sifted through the evidence and will now have Fair Districts barring spurious lawsuits. So by all means cogitate on the tea leaves from yesterday's results, but don't forget a tip of the hat to Florida Hometown Democracy and its gritty, determined volunteers who were relentless and never gave up.

"Yes!" is the right vote on Amendment 4 ... by gimleteye

EOM readers may feel a little dazed by the attention on this blog to Amendment 4, the ballot referendum brought by Florida Hometown Democracy. In readers' lifetimes, this will be the ONLY chance a measure critical of Florida's growth pattern will ever appear on a state-wide ballot. Let me say it again: this is IT. You will have one shot on November 2nd. That's all. The sheer grit and determination by a band of volunteers and citizen activists to push and pull this Constitutional amendment through the set of traps and obstacles and hazards set by the Chamber of Commerce and Florida legislature will never be equalled in our lifetime. I say this, after a lifetime of working the civic side of the ledger on protecting our quality of life and environment and public health. There is no back bench. No line-up of young people chomping at the bit to dig in and get their hands callused and dirty with civic engagement. I watched the older generation of community activists pass. I've tried to recruit, in Miami, the younger generation to the cause of activism. So at the risk of repetition: I'll say it again. Amendment 4 is it. It is the last time you will have a chance to vote on endless traffic congestion, overcrowded schools, and blighted communities as a result of bad land use planning by local officials. With only a few days left, why kick back now. One of the best editorial writers in the state, Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel, wrote a great piece in today's paper that deserves a special mention here. It supports our position in support of Amendment 4 on Nov. 2nd. Vote YES. Click 'read more'
What's that smell? Better power up the Malarkey Meter

Scott Maxwell
TAKING NAMES
11:34 PM EDT, October 26, 2010
Orlando Sentinel

"I've heard from so many readers bewitched, bothered and bewildered by nasty campaign accusations that I decided to dust off the Malarkey Meter and start putting these claims to the truth test.

Here's the problem: The fibs and fabrications are so numerous that I couldn't fit them all in one column. So we'll run a half-dozen through the meter today. We'll have many more Friday.

But we're going to start with an expanded section featuring what may be the most distortion-filled campaign I've seen in the past decade — the pro-development attacks on Amendment 4.

The chamber of commerce crowd has been distorting things about this one for more than three years — and just recently got caught telling one of the worst whoppers this campaign season.

They started back in 2007 when they tried to con residents into thinking the amendment would hand decisions about local growth to "special interests." (That's not true unless you're a special interest. The proposal simply lets citizens vote on developments and growth matters in their own communities.)

It continued last year when they claimed the amendment was designed to "stop growth." (Planning officials later confirmed that a city like Orlando, for instance, already has enough future growth approved to nearly double in size, regardless what happens with Amendment 4.)

But the pinnacle of prevarication for the anti-Amendment 4 folks appeared in this very newspaper 10 days ago. It was a full-page ad that claimed Amendment 4 "will force counties and cities across Florida to raise taxes and fees," citing the widely respected PolitiFact.com as its source for that claim.

Here's the problem: PolitiFact never said such a thing. In fact, it later labeled that very claim as a "Pants on Fire" lie. And it's a bad scene when your supposed sources are calling you a liar.

Listen. I'll be the first to acknowledge there are legitimate questions and concerns about Amendment 4. But the anti-4 forces have rarely even flirted with legitimacy in their attacks."

Rick Scott, pack your bags: DCA isn't killing jobs, the Growth Machine is ... by gimleteye

Florida has three industries: tourism, agriculture, and construction/development. These industries are bound together by land speculation, avoidance of environmental regulations, and gaming buyers. The hucksterism has expanded radically in the past decade, to include the idea that the environment is protected by existing regulations and a (bloated, inefficient) bureaucracy. What is undeniably true is that environmental agencies are so brow-beaten by the Growth Machine ideologues, that a significant percentage of agency time and energy is spent either fending off attacks or strategizing how to avoid them. Florida is the manifest example of government designed to fail, by pressuring from outside and when then doesn't work, from within: using ideologues in high positions to undercut mission and legislators to cut budgets and staffing where agencies interfere with campaign contributors' business lines.

Florida is floating in a sea of man-made pollution; our waters are toxic precisely because we can't get the toxics out of our politics. Poisoning regulations meant to protect our air and water and weakening environmental laws has been an essential part of promoting Florida's economy for so long that most people are simply incapable of separating out the charlatans and cynics who say either "it's all good" or "jobs come first".

One example: most Floridians believe the Everglades have been "saved". A chief culprit-- but not the only one-- is excess phosphorous that is mainly the result of runoff from sugar fields and cities built in low-lying flood plains. In 2005, the US E.P.A. published data indicating that 49 percent of 2063 square miles of Everglades were contaminated by phosphorous, measured at 1270 locations. This compares to 34 percent measured in 1995-1996. Today, efforts by the EPA to impose enforceable limits on phosphorous pollution in the Everglades are opposed by the state, which has taxing authority through the legislature but is afraid to use it to clean the environment. And that is just the Everglades. Movement by the EPA to impose enforceable limits on phosphorous pollution in all Florida waters has triggered a political backlash wrapping up Democrats and Republicans, despite the evidence of human health threats, threats to tourism, and the economy from poisoned waters.

No politician wants to run on a platform, how bad things are. But this election cycle, what the public has been treated to is a non-stop, in-your-face, how bad the unemployment is with no-- and I mean, NO-- further development of the theme that state policies and the Florida legislature substantially contributed to the economic calamity. This idea that our economic woes are a form of immaculate conception fits neatly with creationism and its boosters. Some days I wonder if there is so much mercury in Florida's environment that it has made its voters plain stupider than the rest of the nation.

Now here comes Rick Scott claiming that the Florida Department of Community Affairs, nicknamed DCA, is "killing jobs". In doing so Scott is picking up the code and secret handshake between Florida builders, the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and Associated Industries: all development is good. All development in farmland is better than good because at the end of the day, it is more profitable building tract housing and condos than raising vegetables or sugarcane.

There is a further bit of idiocy that goes along with Rick Scott's uninformed view of DCA: that is, that local government can do a better job of managing growth than the state. What a crock of horse manure. The entire reason for Amendment 4, Florida Hometown Democracy, is on account of the deformation of government by big contributors to political campaigns from construction and development sectors of the economy, to local elected officials. Just how bad it is, exhibit A: Miami-Dade's own unreformable majority including Joe Martinez, Pepe Diaz, Dorrin Rolle, Bruno Barreiro, Barbara Jordan, Audrey Edmonson, and last but scarcely least, the Queen of Mean, Natacha Seijas (VNS). This is the level of government Rick Scott wants to further empower? If you like our county commission, by all means vote for Rick Scott. He's your man.

Rick Scott is either lying or he knows so little how Florida really works that he should pack his bags and emigrate to the Cayman Islands or Bahamas or some other tax haven to clip coupons of junk debt issued by corporations he knows better than Florida's environmental and growth management laws. The GOP Legislature had the Florida Department of Community Affairs in its cross-hatch long before the building boom. They have sought to bust up the do-good'ers and get government off the backs of their developer cronies so they can build in more wetlands, on more estuaries, and in more sugar fields-- driving up the price of speculatively purchased property.

The victims don't just include the environment. The victims of this nonsense are ordinary people and clueless voters. I fault Democrats running for high office who simply lacked the courage, the initiative or the conviction to say that the party made mistakes and that those mistakes in Florida have been tied, substantially, to the growth at any cost programs of government that turned Florida into a pinata for influential campaign donors who depended on zoning for the next mega-mall, for the next insta-grow suburb, and for the next square mile turned into a taxpayer funded anonymous place to fill the needs of Wall Street mortgage pools. Of course, if the Democrats in Florida did that; they would have no campaign contributor base either. But as usual here, Democrats are mostly GOP-lite.

Still, what the Florida GOP is serving up this election cycle is the worst hash of candidates and "programs" that I have seen in Florida in more than two decades of observations. Rick Scott made hundreds of millions of dollars exploiting government health care programs. His business model and lobbying first advocated for the very government reimbursement limits that he, then, found ways to undercut and thereby profit. The corporation he founded paid the largest civil fine for Medicare fraud in US history. Does that tell you, anything? Hello? Rick Scott wants to "save the Everglades", too. Anyone, home?

There is approximately one week for the clucking chickens among the electorate to get their heads screwed on straight. Whether that can happen or not, is very much undecided at this unhappy point in time.

Independent voters: if you don't like the job Brownie did, vote yes! for Amendments 4, 5, and 6... by gimleteye

Jeb Bush opposes Fair Districts. Shocking. Jeb, who helped deliver the White House for W. in 2000, is against something that is fair? Jeb also opposes Amendment 4, Florida Hometown Democracy. This ballot measure to change the Florida Constitition is the only chance Florida voters will have in their lifetime to change the corrupt relationship between builders and developers and local elected officials who rubber stamp changes to community development plans. If Jeb is against, your vote should be 'yes'.

Unless independent voters put their thinking caps on straight, the bad old days are poised to return with a vengeance on November 2nd. Here's the latest example: Florida's bad news Secretary of State Kurt Browning resigned public office to lead the GOP bankrolled anti-Fair Districts group. "Browning was well known as an advocate of electronic touch-screen voting machines, and Pasco was one of 15 Florida counties using the machines. Those machines became steeped in controversy in 2006 because of 18,000 undervotes in a Sarasota congressional election."

But Florida Hometown Democracy has a sharper recollection of Bad Penny Browning who once ran state elections and now opposes fair districts. In 2006, the Chamber and related industry groups watched the arguments for Florida Hometown Democracy build momentum. The 60 percent supermajority was added to the Florida Constitution by these interests, who only needed fifty percent to pass it, just to keep fairness at bay. click, read more:

Throughout 2007, Florida Hometown Democracy plowed ahead. Its organizers had gathered enough petitions and expected the proposed amendment to the Florida constitution-- taking rubber stamp authority from local county and city commissioners for changes to master development plans required by the state-- would be on the 2008 ballot. The challenge in state court by the Chamber of Commerze had been set aside. All that had to happen, was for the signatures to be certified by local supervisors of elections.

The Florida Chamber and real estate industry lobbyists-- who oppose federal bailouts unless they are on the receiving end -- had already mounted a poison pill ballot initiative called "Floridians for Smart Growth" and were paying signature collectors big bucks to harvest petitions from anyone who could hold a pen.

Up to that time, the qualifying date for the state-wide ballot was July 2008. But in 2007, to thwart Hometown Democracy, the Florida legislature changed the date. They pushed up the qualifying to early in the calendar early: February and not July. This, of course, put added pressure on Hometown Democracy (the only controversial amendment aiming for the 2008 election). It was the same year where the legislature also pushed the primary election to late January.

This is where Bad Penny Kurt Browning came in. On New Year's Eve 2007, late in the afternoon, Browning's office faxed a memo to the state's beleagured supervisor of elections. Browning said, in effect, to supervisors struggling to organize the January primary: you have to process petitions for ballot referenda on a first come, first serve basis. Immediately, the Florida Chamber initiative wheeled in more than 750,000 petitions they had collected for their "Smart Growth" amendment, despite the fact that a legal challenge against it was in process (thrown out subsequently by the Florida Supreme Court). By obstructing supervisor of elections from processing the earlier petitions submitted by Florida Hometown Democracy, Bad Penny Browning assured that Florida Hometown Democracy would not appear on the 2008 ballot in a presidential year.

Today Browning is getting paid big bucks to roll out the steam-rollers against Fair Districts. I'm sure Jeb has joked with him, "You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie." If you don't like the job Brownie did, vote "yes!" for 4, 5, and 6.

Supporters of Amendment 4: Nathaniel Reed ... by gimleteye

"My vote for Amendment 4 represents my discontent if not disgust with the return to an era of uncaring, anything goes development without caring for local input or the impact on our remaining undeveloped land." Nathaniel P. Reed

The dissonance has escaped no one's attention close to the campaign to pass Amendment 4: that the strongest individual voices from Florida's opinion pages like Howard Troxler, Ken Ward, and Carl Hiaasen support Amendment 4 in roughly the same ratio to opposition by newspaper editorial boards. The reason accounts for the scarce coverage of the underlying issues or the founders of Florida Hometown Democracy themselves. Newspapers once derived significant revenue from advertisements tied to the expansion of suburban sprawl; the chief target of the measure.

Amendment 4 opponents harp that environmental groups have not officially come out in favor of Amendment 4. That is not true: Sierra Club and many local groups that have waged the constant low-level battle against reckless zoning changes tied to master plans know better. I have been involved in many of these battles over land use from the civic side. I know from dismal experience that the tsunami of money from builders and developers is simply too overpowering for local elected officials; at least the unreformable majority. The current system is so badly broken that it must change. Now, so does Nathaniel Reed, one of Florida's environmental icons who has spent a lifetime following growth management issues closely. Yesterday, Nathaniel Reed-- the founder of 1000 Friends of Florida-- stated his support for Amendment 4.

Florida voters, voting 'yes' for Amendment 4, will not have another chance in their lifetimes to express their view at the ballot box of the rampant overdevelopment that wrecked so much of our natural heritage and substantially pushed the state economy into the worst crisis since the Depression. Click, read more, for Reed's statement. I have pondered the pros and cons of Amendment #4 for months. I have listened to expert land use planners and attorneys who warn that the amendment is not perfect and might have “unanticipated consequences”. I have listened to the proponents who are dissatisfied with the obvious consequences of the existing system. They have been repeatedly ignored by their elected officials who promised careful consideration of development plans and then allowed projects that are unsound and will cost the existing taxpayers a fortune.

As I have traveled the state I have seen the cost of bad development decisions by local government who have made Florida the foreclosure capital of the nation. I am struck by the continued efforts by the development community to convince county and city officials that they can restore Florida’s economy by doing more of what made it crash.

The suggestion that Amendment 4 will cost the taxpayer’s money is laughable when you look at the untold millions the current system has cost us. Overbuilding has left Florida’s economy in shambles. It is the major reason that property taxes have skyrocketed. It is the single biggest factor in uncounted environmental damage to Florida’s natural systems. Every study ever done shows that bad growth management costs citizens in money and quality of life.

I have been involved in the state’s once meaningful comprehensive planning program for 30 years, beginning with then Governor Bob Graham’s efforts to produce a new vision on how Florida could grow and prosper with due regard to livability and protection of unique areas that make our state uniquely beautiful.

During the intervening years the mad, insatiable desire of the development community has overwhelmed local concerns and produced a Florida that is uglier than it ever should have become. We have lost the promise of thoughtful development that create livable communities and substituted “pay for play” as the standard for development approval.

There are faults with Amendment #4, but with the evisceration of the Department of Community Affairs that once was the hallmark of sound decision making, I am at the stage where I believe that we need to take a chance. We need to send a message to our elected officials that communities have a right to control their destiny.

My vote for Amendment 4 represents my discontent if not disgust with the return to an era of uncaring, anything goes development without caring for local input or the impact on our remaining undeveloped land.

Nathaniel Reed

Amendment 4 on WBPT and in The Miami Herald: A Reflection ... by gimleteye

The program on Amendment 4 was taped on public broadcasting's "WBPT Issues" yesterday, Amendment 4 is the highly anticipated ballot referendum to change the Florida Constitution in the following way: the measure would break up the immoveable politics of land use, bonding developers and special interests to local elected officials through campaign contributions. It provides that changes to local master plans would be accomplished after a final vote; not by city or county commissioners, but by local voters. On the WPBT program I am one of the speakers in favor, alongside Lesley Blackner, co-founder of Florida Hometown Democracy. View it here.

Amendment 4 was also front page news in The Miami Herald yesterday. Here's my quote, as "... Alan Farago, a longtime Miami-Dade environmental activist who was among the early champions of the Hometown Democracy effort, describes growth management as "basically a carcass that has been fed over by special interests. Everyone who has warned me about the issues of unintended consequences [from Amendment 4] failed to acknowledge the set of unintended consequences to Florida's landscape is unacceptable now." Read the Herald story, here.

Last night, as I was drifting off I thought about a comment that one of the opponents of the measure, real estate consultant Jack McCabe, made on the WPBT program: how Florida's economy is dependent on development and construction and how it is necessary to keep expanding the tax base to avoid an economic collapse. This argument is the mother's milk of Florida's political and economic status quo.

I remember being shocked when I first heard the same argument nearly twenty five years ago. At the time, I had just moved to the Florida Keys. My children were young. I expected to be able to show them as they grew the profound beauty of the place I had experienced, first, in the 1970's. But by the late 1980's, all that was going, going, gone. I became involved in environmental issues and local politics as a result. Those politics revolved around land use decisions whose individual and cumulative impacts severely threatened unique natural resources that comprise the foundation of the Key's multi-billion dollar tourism economy. The majority of the Monroe County Commission proudly self-identified as "The Concrete Coalition". They were led on the county commission by a local version of Tom DeLay-- an insecticide salesman-- powerful local developers, land use lawyers and locals who were cashing in on real estate; and they all made exactly the same argument, with the same words, that Jack McCabe made yesterday: you have to expand to the tax base to be able to afford the costs of growth.

Amendment 4 grew out of the abounding frustration of citizens in Florida who saw what they valued in this place, trashed and overwhelmed by that illogic: inadequate schools, roadways, poorly planned infrastructure and sacrifices to quality of life that constantly creep in the wrong direction. And it is because of Amendment 4 that took years to arrive-- an election-- that its opponents waged and passed their own change to the Constitution; requiring that any further changes must pass in a general state-wide election by 60 percent or the referendum fails. No other state in the nation has such a high threshold.

Today in Florida, we live the consequences of what Amendment 4 seeks to address. The costs of growth have far exceeded the capacity of the tax base; that's why real estate taxes are increasing and the cost of government will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. The current system of growth management is not only broken at the local level, at the state capitol the Florida legislature is determined to erase the growth regulatory agency. Period. (Related note: check out what is happening to St. Joe Corporation.)

In the Keys when I was a quarter century younger, there was a young attorney for The Wilderness Society who stood at the podium and public hearings of the planning commission, who inspired me to dedicate much of my time as a community activist. His name is Ross Burnaman, and Ross is a co-founder of the Florida Hometown Democracy movement. In the early 1990's Ross moved to Tallahassee where he is now a sole practitioner of law. The point is that Florida Hometown Democracy did not spring up from nowhere: this movement was grounded in the manifest failures of growth management in South Florida. Right here. It grew up right here in the Chambers of the Miami-Dade County Commission and the City of Miami, where the pleas of citizens from the podium are routinely ignored by elected officials on cell phones with lobbyists or snoozing or joking with each other or showing their disrespect for ordinary people and ordinary taxpayers taking entire days to attend land use hearings where, for the most part, they are ignored.

So far as I am concerned, Florida Hometown Democracy is for George Kuntz of Key Colony Beach, who attended each and every land use hearing in the Keys for a decade and testified against land use changes, who fought and scrapped until his last days. Amendment 4 is for Grace Maniello of Big Pine Key, a minority voice on the Monroe County Planning Commission, who endured the taunts and ridicule and isolation in a place where platted lots had been used, for generations, as payola. Grace and Fred and Freddy: the whole family fought the good fight and they are gone, too. Amendment 4 is for friends who never gave up on the bonefish, the bay in front of Islamorada stretching to Flamingo, and the sweet virtues of place that can't be recovered once they are lost. Amendment 4 has similar backstories across the state of Florida. It is from people who love this state. It is an heroic effort by a group of dedicated volunteers around the state of Florida who have made sacrifices-- in the case of Lesley Blackner, who put in nearly $1 million of her own money-- to put this measure on the November ballot: the fact of Amendment 4 is for each and every citizen who tried to protect a river, or stream, or wetland or the character of a neighborhood and cohesion of a community. It is for every person who summoned the courage to speak in public in a forum where other more practiced, monied voices rose up to bitch them out. They have the money and the influence, and right now, two weeks before the election, they are getting ready to spend the $10 to $15 million they have raised to defeat Amendment 4.

While Lesley Blackner has been the visible, public champion of this movement; Ross Burnaman helped forge the measures passage through and over hurdles and roadblocks thrown up in its way, including the third political party in America: The US Chamber of Commerce. Twenty five years ago, when Florida Keys public officials were making the same weak arguments in favor of sacrificing quality of life and natural resources to expanded tax base, that could only happen by weakening environmental protection rules and regulations, Ross Burnaman was tough as nails. Today, special interests make the same arguments, and Ross Burnaman is still tough as nails.

I hope Amendment 4 passes. The public is in an uproar in the grinding economic collapse; the worst since the Depression. Hearing Amendment 4's opponents darkly warn of lost jobs and catastrophe if the measure passes is like watching people clinging to the hull of a capsized ship blaming the water. The scent of extremism is heavy in the air. Amendment 4 will pass, if voters on November 2nd read the ballot issue all the way through.

Hiaasen and Eye on Miami and Amendment 4 ... by gimleteye

In his editorial on Sunday, Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen chips in from the 17th fairway, an eagle. I don't begrudge Carl playing his regular golf far from the congestion and over-developed Miami-Dade. We're still here, scouring the weeds for lost golf balls. We're a different breed, the duffers who stayed behind; fighting zoning codes and raking through the hot coals of master plan changes for some piece of evidence that would hold up in court, to protect our quality of life, our schools, our traffic, our water quality and environment.

So many people chose otherwise: to leave Miami-Dade County because they were just plain fed up with fighting and local government held hostage by big campaign contributors and arrogance at County Hall. The landscape in South Dade and West Kendall bears the perfect stamp of what went wrong; the West Dade wellfield, the waters of Biscayne Bay, Krome Avenue. It is a long list but it is Sunday and there are other things I want to do, today.

The only question for Amendment 4, the ballot measure on November 2-- the sole chance in our lifetimes to change the corrupt relationship between local public officials and land use decisions-- is whether enough voters will take the time to actually read the ballot measure that would return the decision for changes to land use plans to local, popular vote. If enough voters read the ballot referendum, that is a question, and if enough voters are angry, and they are, then Amendment 4 will pass by the supermajority its opponents pushed through as a ballot referendum a few years ago, for the single purpose of defeating Amendment 4. This is no exaggueration: the Growth Machine and Engineering Cartel have been whipped to a frenzy by the chance that voters could actually change the locks on the barn door. The entire rationale for big developers funding local elected officials campaigns disappears, if now the final arbiter of their mega-plans is the public, and not Little Joe, Dorrin Rolle, Dim Bruno or VNS. The fear campaign against Florida Hometown Democracy is about to be unleashed. Read Carl Hiaasen, below. And thank you, Carl, for being a devoted reader of Eye On Miami.
Posted on Sat, Oct. 09, 2010
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/09/v-print/1865470/running-scared-over-amendment.html
Running scared over Amendment 4

By Carl Hiaasen
chiaasen@MiamiHerald.com

Major home builders are uncorking a bombastic media blitz to scare Floridians away from voting yes to Amendment 4.
The same people who helped ignite the housing crash and mortgage meltdown are absolutely terrified of giving citizens actual control over growth in their own communities.

The so-called Hometown Democracy Amendment would require local voters to approve any significant changes to a county or city ``comprehensive land-use plan,'' the map by which municipalities evolve.

If the measure passes -- and it needs the support of 60 percent of voters -- no massive housing subdivision or commercial development could be built without the project first appearing on a ballot.

It's not exactly a radical concept, but the opposing special interests will do just about anything to kill it.

They're scared because they know Floridians are fed up with lousy planning and overbuilding, and the high taxes that always result.

They're scared because they know Floridians are sick of watching elected officials cave in again and again to developers, making a farce of land-use regulations.

But mostly they're scared because, if passed, Amendment 4 has the potential to disrupt the influence-peddling and outright corruption that's made it so easy to subvert the will of the public.

As things stand now, development interests can thwart opposition to projects by simply buying off the politicians whose votes are needed to make it happen.

Typically that's achieved by hiring connected lobbyists, who then approach a receptive county commissioner or city council member. In many cases, the lobbyist has raised money for the officeholder's election campaign, so a favor is perceived to be owed.

And a threat implied, too: If you don't line up behind the project, don't expect any donations for your next campaign.

Occasionally, if the elected official is exceptionally greedy and dim-witted, a cash bribe or some other illicit benefit is arranged.

Public hearings are often a formality, a minor road bump. Plenty of earnest folks show up to question the impact of a proposed subdivision or shopping mall upon their neighborhoods and lives, and the politicians pretend to listen.

By that point, though, the deal is already sealed, the necessary majority of votes secured.

This cynical charade has been going on since the beginning of statehood. It's the reason so many Florida cities look like they were planned by chimpanzees on LSD.

It's also the reason we now have an estimated 300,000 homes and condos sitting vacant statewide, while leading the nation in foreclosures as well as mortgage fraud. The term ``growth management'' is a joke.

Amendment 4 isn't a perfect solution. Much will depend on how the language is interpreted -- for instance, determining how large a project must be before it goes to a vote.

Many thoughtful people, including some professional planners, fear the amendment would generate an endless spate of elections in fast-growing counties. They're also worried that deep-pocketed developers will be able to sway the outcomes with slick advertising campaigns.

Another issue is the wisdom of holding a countywide or citywide referendum on a building project that might affect only one neighborhood. At the very least, the amendment is bound to spawn lawsuits until the courts clarify its reach.

Despite such concerns, it's hard to imagine a system for managing growth that could possibly be more dishonest, or deaf to the public interest, than what we have now.

Nobody with half a brain believes that development pays for itself. Study after study shows that residents are the ones who pay big-time for sprawl, which is why taxes are so brutal in Florida's most densely populated counties.

So is the cost of living. Clogged highways, overcrowded schools and jails, water shortages -- we pay for all of it.

Opponents claim that Amendment 4 will actually raise taxes, one of many straight-faced lies that will saturate the airwaves between now and election day. This is well-financed desperation.

While the amendment's supporters have raised only about $2.4 million, the opposition had a war chest of $12 million by mid-summer.

The biggest donor is the Florida Association of Realtors -- what a shocker -- followed by some of the biggest home builders on Wall Street.

Here's the killer: Many of the companies bankrolling the ad campaign against Amendment 4 are recipients of a congressional bailout, in the form of humongous tax refunds earlier this year.

According to an industry magazine (Headline: ``Builders Cash in on Tax Refunds''), Lennar Homes has already taken $251 million in taxpayer-funded relief.

Yet somehow the firm scrounged up $367,000 to fight the Florida Hometown Democracy movement.

Pulte Homes accepted $800 million in federal bailout refunds while kicking in $567,000 to a political action committee opposed to Amendment 4.

So, when you see all those dire-sounding, fright-filled TV commercials, remember whose paying for them. You are.

These guys are using your money to keep your voice, and your vote, out of the neighborhood planning process. Think about that when you're standing in the voting booth on Nov 2.

Do the thing they dread the most: Read Amendment 4 and decide for yourself.

Amendment 4: The End of Life As We Know It...in Florida. By Geniusofdespair

THIS COLUMN FROM THE ST. PETE TIMES SAYS IT ALL:

If you vote for Amendment 4, you'll turn purple and get fat (and other exaggerations)

By Howard Troxler, Times Columnist
In Print: Sunday, October 3, 2010

If this crazy constitutional amendment passes, it will destroy Florida. Florida will go out of business. We will lose our jobs. Other states will beat us.

Yep, those were the dire warnings that we heard from Florida's business leaders …Back in 2004, when they tried to scare voters into rejecting a $1 increase in Florida's minimum wage.

This year, we're hearing the same kind of thing about Amendment 4 on the November ballot, the "Hometown Democracy" idea.

Amendment 4 simply says that local voters in Florida should have the final say over some growth decisions. But to hear Florida's business community tell it, such an idea would be the end of the world. The state might well sink into the ocean.

Phooey. Nuts. Hockey pucks.

If Hometown Democracy passes, here is what will not happen:

People will not quit building things in Florida. And we will not have to hold 8,000 local elections a year. Or a million. Or whatever it is they're claiming.

Remember that Amendment 4 requires an election only for changes to a city or county's "comprehensive plan," which is the basic map for how a community should look — industrial here, commercial there, and so forth.

So if Amendment 4 passes, the first thing that will happen is:

Many developers will tweak their proposals to avoid the need for plan amendments and elections. And this is exactly the idea. They can still build — consistent with the plan.

The way it works now, any time anybody wants to build something, they just go to the City Council or County Commission and get the plan changed.

The plan is not driving our growth — we're just changing our plan to fit the growth.

The second thing to consider if Amendment 4 passes is that:

Local governments will still screen proposed developments, and decide for themselves how many elections to hold. This is an often-overlooked aspect of Amendment 4. We are not turning every proposal into a willy-nilly election popularity contest. The experts will still review these things. The local government can still reject them. What we're adding is a voter veto over their final approval.

Third, if Amendment 4 passes:

Florida communities will prove perfectly capable of making these decisions in local elections.

In fact, I think we will adapt to the new system rather quickly, and that it will even work to developers' advantage at times.

Winning public passage will become a routine part of the process of winning approval for big projects — a relative drop in the bucket compared to the existing costs, and the already lengthy process, of winning regulatory approval.

In some cases, it even will be better for developers to make their case to an entire community, rather than fighting one particularly noisy or influential neighborhood.

Wouldn't all of us in, say, Hillsborough or Pinellas County be better off with Project X? Wouldn't our entire city of (insert name here) benefit from this new (mall, restaurant, theater)?

Listen.

If you're agin' it, you're agin' it.

If you think this is a bad idea and that your local County Commission or City Council should make these decisions, and that if we don't like what they do, then we just should not re-elect them, that is a perfectly fine opinion.

But if you are on the fence about Amendment 4, and are wondering whether all this doom and gloom and predictions of the end of the world are true — I think they are a bunch of hooey, and that the opponents so ridiculously overstate it that they hurt their own cause.

Vote "Yes" on Amendment 4 ... by gimleteye

I will be on WBPT Channel 2, soon, with Cliff Schulman, attorney for rock miners and developers and leader of the opposition, on Amendment 4. Does anyone have advice or specific points they would like me to raise? Do, tell.

The BEST VIDEO you won't want to miss! By Geniusofdespair

(don't see video hit here)

This video is a pisser!!

The Best Reason to Vote "For" Amendment 4: by gimleteye

This photo is from an outstanding Boston Globe photo essay on suburban sprawl in Florida. (It takes a 1500 mile view to capture the whole of Florida's blasted suburban landscape.) Sprawl is the growth model that plunged the Florida economy into the worst crisis since the Great Depression. The collateral damage included an anti-regulatory fever that plowed wetlands and farmland in its path, without a whiff of dissent from the Chambers of Commerce. It took a great machine to grind up Florida's quality of life. No surprise that this photo shows housing units like gears of a wheel. They represent the Growth Machine, and its meshed gears connecting land use lawyers, lobbyists, rock miners, engineers and planners, campaign contributors and elected officials, and bankers spreading fraudulent paper like confetti. Subdivisions like this one in Southwest Florida could only have been permitted through local zoning decisions that will now require a local vote when Amendment 4 passes. Busting the cartel-- the iron-clan relationship between campaign funders, local zoning officials-- usually city and county commissions in Florida-- and special interests hooked into the Wall Street derivative machine is what Amendment 4 represents. Make no mistake: the mainstream press is quiet on the issue, but Amendment 4 is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Floridians to vote on what happened to our state during the housing boom when common sense was thrown to the wind. Jobs, jobs, jobs? Just click on the photo and say the words, three times: this was called the Foundation of Florida's Future. Amendment 4 makes sure what wrecked Florida will not rise from the dead.

The collapsed Homestead Raceway ... by gimleteye

South Florida environmentalists-- at least a handful-- recall bitterly the scam that caused a major construction project outside the Urban Development Boundary in the mid-1990's: the Homestead Raceway. Today's news, that the Raceway has lost its major event is reported without any mention by the Miami Herald whatsoever, of the sordid deal's background. That's just plain Wrong. At Eyeonmiami we remember, everything.

Miami's development machine, long before the housing boom took flight, had targeted farmland and wetlands near Biscayne National Park for suburban sprawl. Lennar, for example, could stare straight from Lakes By The Bay across a vast expanse to Florida City. Here is what a devastating hurricane did in 1992: made any argument for economic growth, an imperative. Not too long ago, ALL that property was wetlands and, as farmland, served the purpose of filtering groundwater running to the last undeveloped coastline in Miami-Dade. It was ripe to be mined for limestone, to be torn up for nuclear power plants, and platted subdivisions.

Putting the race track in involved the "heist" of $40 million (if my memory serves me) of Miami-Dade money in order to serve the plan dreamt up by Ralph Sanchez and Willy Bermello. Let me say it, again. The Miami-Dade County Commission actually put $40 million into the Homestead Racetrack and that money disappeared into private property as debt got folded into private equity when the racetrack was sold to Wayne Huizinga, a former city manager, and subsequently to the French corporate interests. Feh, what's $40 million?

Even then it was a racetrack mostly hyped in the mode of "build it, and they will come", although sentient observers knew then, as now, there is no market in South Florida to watch noisy cars spin around a track at the edge of a national park. Now the organizers say, "We don't draw very well here." Oh really?

Doesn't anyone remember anything? A race way spokesman ends the Herald story, "We have been contacted by outside parties'' about a street course race in South Florida and "We would be intrigued with the possibility.'' Are you freaking kidding? THAT'S how the race nonsense started in the first place: the Ralph Sanchez street race at Bayfront Park. BECAUSE of that, Homestead Race Track got a foothold in the imagination of the unreformable majority of the Miami-Dade County Commission. Then the money disappeared. And kept disappearing. And disappearing so deeply, that not even the city's only daily newspaper remembers.

Read more:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/01/1853243_p2/last-lap-for-indy-racing-at-homestead.html#ixzz11CfR6fsp

The point, that the Herald still misses in its coverage, is that the race track was always meant as a wedge in the zoning processes in order to build even more: the Homestead Air Force Base fiasco comes to mind. It is all about suburban sprawl in South Florida; the growth model lying busted in the sinkhole of foreclosures.

I wish that once-- just once-- the Miami Herald would get the Homestead story, right. It is a story of arrogance, of small minds inflated with dreams of vast wealth, and of wasting irreplaceable natural resources. It is about inventing fig leafs to cover up base motives, spurring "I'll do with my property whatever the hell I damn well please", about wasting watersheds and future opportunities for economic growth and jobs.

So every day, for the next month, I will remind readers of this blog and those our readers will help us steer, here; with pictures of a fantastic photo essay by the Boston Globe that shows exactly why Amendment 4, Florida Hometown Democracy, deserves the support of 60 percent of Florida voters. When it passes, local voters will have a choice on changes to local plans. We would at least have a chance to make the argument to the public, that before allowing disasters like the Homestead Race Track to be built there should be a rational discussion about what comes next.

Why we need Amendment 4. Guest Blog By WeRwatching

Developer-connected groups, who blindly fear and oppose the democratic right of citizens to vote their voices on behalf of their community, instead threaten the public saying, “If Amendment 4 had been law in 2006, the residents of Carrabelle would have voted on 617 minor land use questions.”

That fraudulent statement is a lie! If Amendment 4 had been Florida law in 2006, then Carrabelle voters would have had the privilege to vote on ONLY 4 -- not 617 ! -- land-use changes to determine our community’s future in the year 2006. In fact, during my 3-year term, there would have been, in total, only eight land use changes proposed for public voting in our regular elections if Amendment 4 had been in place, NOT “HUNDREDS!”

- Mel Kelly, Proud Carrabelle Mayor, 2005-2007

Florida Hometown Democracy (Amendment 4) was put on the November ballot by citizen’s petition. It is in response to decades of mismanagement of Florida’s Growth Management Act. The Act, adopted in the mid-80s, was supposed to manage growth so that the state was not overdeveloped, sensitive lands and water supplies were protected, quality of life was preserved, and a person’s biggest lifetime investment, their home, was protected from being devalued by surrounding, incompatible development.

The “Growth Machine”, developers, real estate professionals, insurance companies, chambers of commerce, mortgage lenders, and county and state legislators finally drove the bus off the cliff. The result of unsustainable development was a crash in our economy, horrendous loss of jobs and homes, rising taxes and decreasing quality of life. More development will not solve the problem.

The anti-Amendment 4 crowd avoids any responsibility for this implosion while telling you Amendment 4 will worsen an economy they have already trashed. Every $1.00 in new property taxes costs approximately $1.40 to provide services; more development will not right the economy, it will increase taxes to subsidize new developments. Industries that could provide growth, such as agriculture and tourism of natural lands, are diminishing so relatively cheap farmland and waterfront properties can be developed with more unneeded houses. Nor will Amendment 4 stop development. There are enough vacant residential parcels already in the CDMP to increase Florida’s population 5-fold (not counting foreclosures). There is enough approved commercial land to build 13,000 WalMarts; 1.3 billion square feet.

Part of the Growth Management Act requires every county and city to have a Comprehensive Development Master Plan (CDMP): It is composed of many elements such as education, transportation, and land use. The land use portion is the subject of Amendment 4. Land use is NOT zoning or variances, it is a broader picture outlining where various land use categories should be located. For example, it separates industrial uses from residential uses. It is supposed to keep the gas station out of your front yard and the rock mine out of your back yard. It lumps together compatible uses. Approval should be based on need. That is where the “Growth Machine” has run off the rails. Money for campaigns now speaks louder than the people.

Amendment 4 gives voters the final say on CDMP changes. Only after an application is approved by local government and the Department of Community Affairs in Tallahassee (the administrators of local plans), will the people vote. It adds a step to the process, that step is your vote at the next general election; no special elections. Land use is not difficult. People understand a request to change farmland to industrial or residential to commercial, it’s not rocket science. Some people understand better than elected officials.

The people in control don’t want you to have a seat at the table. The anti-4 campaign is spending millions to keep you from having a say. If Amendment 4 passes, the next time you are speaking against a bad project to glassy-eyed politicians, remember you will have the final say. What could be wrong with that?