Concerned Friends of Fernandina |
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Hometown Democracy Petition page: More info, link to: Florida Hometown Democracy and Floridians for a Sustainable Population
The saga of Florida Hometown Democracy is the story of a 5-year-long, grassroots effort to get a citizen’s initiative to amend the Florida Constitution on the ballot. Much of what FHD has endured has been led by corporate and political interests who are determined to retain the status quo of their positions of power and influence. These are the same people who are opposed to the notion that people have the right to vote on matters that affect their communities and their quality of life. Why should we be concerned? Well, if things were left to take their own course, the "professional planners" throughout the state would have everyone thinking that Florida can "sustainably" handle another 18 million people by 2050. Observing the strains on infrastructure, roads, water supplies, and environmental impacts, it is obvious that many local communities are having a hard time handling the current levels of development, and something must be done now. The Florida Hometown Democracy initiative would allow voters to approve or reject certain land use changes in their communities by voting on them in voter referendums. This allows and encourages citizen participation; otherwise it seems that Comprehensive Plan changes can be decided upon and passed out like candy by local politicians. Impact fees are either virtually nonexistent or inadequate in nearly every local government. This translates to mean that comprehensive plan amendments from local municipalities often end up being a "growth tax" on citizens who have to foot the bill in the form of increased property taxes. When poorly planned development and commercial growth does not pay its own way demands are placed on local fire and police departments which require extra expenditures. There are also subsequent expenditures needed for new schools, roads, and other infrastructure necessities. The
citizen’s referendum process is a privilege that all US citizens enjoy- the
right to petition our government for the redress of grievances. It is guaranteed
by the First Amendment to the US Constitution and Article I of the Florida State
Constitution.
In 2007 using many of the above mentioned tools, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Associated Industries of Florida each cranked out an organization specifically designed to knock out the Hometown Democracy movement. The Chamber of Commerce organized a group called “Floridians for Smarter Growth.” With the deep pockets of the development industry to dip into, they managed to raise $2.99 million between May and December '07. They staged a rival petition that was designed to confuse the issues and train-wreck the counting process of FHD petitions. The Associated Industries of Florida created “Save Our Constitution." They then launched a first-ever-in Florida campaign to revoke FHD signatures. They spent as much as $41 per signer in their revocation efforts. The four biggest contributors to the SOC campaign, as reported at the end of Dec ‘07 to the Florida Division of Elections, were: Florida Association of Realtors ($50,000), Florida Transportation Builders ($50,000), Wal- Mart ($25,000), and Floridians for Conservative Values ($25,000). However some of the greatest difficulties experienced have been the differing standards used by the 67 county supervisors of elections to verify and validate petitioner’s signatures. Although State law defines the 5 areas required for petition validity, the reasons for rejection varied widely from locale to locale and seemed to reflect local discretion on how petitions should be reviewed To add insult to injury, three weeks before the February submission time-frame, Secretary of State Kurt Browning announced that his computer-based tallying system for the petitions had a ‘glitch’. Even though he admitted that he’d known of the problems since the previous spring, he took the system down just weeks before the February 1st deadline causing much confusion in the counting process. An outspoken Supervisor from Leon County , Ion Sanchez, was quoted in the Orlando Sentinel saying, that the changes made last year by the legislature created “all kinds of problems” for election supervisors, especially when signature groups could “game the system.” Sancho went on to say, “this really is inappropriate to use the election laws and procedures and change them for one side to get the political advantage.” However all has not been lost because of the recent filing of a federal lawsuit. The lawsuit holds the promise that Florida Hometown Democracy (FHD) will qualify for this year's election. Should the court, in essence, order FHD onto the ballot, it will validate what the over 830,000 people who have already signed the petition know—that the people must have the power to make major growth decisions directly, because the state and local governments have shown no ability to stand up to the pressures of developer's and the development industry. The Florida Hometown Democracy initiative has the support of major organizations such as the Florida Consumer Action Network, Florida Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club, the Humane Society of the United States, Florida Public Interest Research Group, Floridians for a Sustainable Population, Clean Water Action, Friends of the Everglades, Environment Florida, Save the Manatee Club, and numerous local Audubon Society chapters around the state, as well as a tremendous number of local, civic, community and coalition organizations. The development industry is worried. FHD could mean the end of their party where they are able to wield undue influence in local government; the unsustainable practices of developers has changed the quality of life and the environment in many Florida communities. Hence the development industry continues to pull out all the stops to keep FHD off the ballot.
Individual
citizens continue to show their support for FHD not only through continuously
signing petitions, but also contributing individually to the campaign. However
many more organizations and individuals are needed now to join in this effort.
julie ferreira _____________**________________
Hometown Democracy will win--and soon! _____________**____________
Our official
petition tally has hit 594,563 towards our goal of 611,009!The
Florida Chamber of Commerce petition is at 443,511. Mind you, the Chamber
spent $3,255,000 dollars to get there. Most of it came from the National
and Florida Association of Homebuilders and big landowners (developers in
waiting). They paid for 650,000 petitions, and all dumped them all at once
on the Supervisors of Elections around the state in January, just before the
deadline. Since the Chamber train-wrecked the process, they haven’t
submitted even one more petition. Job done.
The
Florida Attorney General has sent the Chamber Trojan-horse petition on to be
reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court. Hometown Democracy filed its
opposing brief Friday. We’re confident the court will put the Chamber
petition where it belongs…in the garbage.
Also, the State is appealing the revocation slap-down to the Florida Supreme
Court. Got to keep hope alive for the developer crew! That will make six
appearances by Hometown Democracy before Florida ’s highest court. All this
just to secure each of us the right to vote on the local decisions that make
or break the future of our community.
Given the way government fights against your right to vote, you might
wonder, is this the America the rest of the world dreams about? Fact
is, even here Democracy can’t defend itself. It’s up to you and me.
Please get behind our final push for petitions to get to the 611,000
goal….we only need another 15,000 petitions or so….PLEASE send money and
petitions to help get us there!.
Best wishes,
Lesley
OrlandoSentinel.comCOMMENTARYSo you want to halt sprawl? Fat chance!
Orlando Sentinel.com
Mike Thomas
COMMENTARY
May
15, 2008
It
doesn't matter that Florida has a huge glut of abandoned homes thrown up in
the hinterlands, dragging down the economy.
Our political leaders want more. Not only are they refusing to control sprawl, but they also are making sure you don't either. It's the biggest disconnect I've ever seen between public desire and political action. Consider Florida Hometown Democracy, an amendment proposed by a small band of environmentalists that would require voters to sign off on changes to local growth plans. Supporters are gathering signatures to put it on the 2010 ballot. The very notion has terrified the state's business/political cartel, which treats growth plans like disposable diapers. So the business lobby has joined the Legislature and Gov. Charlie Crist to pull every dirty trick possible to keep it off the ballot. One tactic was legislation passed last year. It allowed amendment opponents to try to persuade those who signed the Hometown Democracy petition to revoke their signatures. This started a disinformation campaign in which the business lobby warned that "this bad amendment will open the door for big developers to ruin Florida 's natural and scenic beauty, but you can help stop the special interests." It may be the most stunning lie ever told in Florida -- the audacity of desperation. The person behind it was John Thrasher, a former speaker of the House, now a hired-gun lobbyist for the state's biggest developers. It's one sleazy, incestuous stew up there in Tallahassee . Do you really think they're going to let you muck up their good thing by letting you vote on growth? Last month a state appeals court threw out the signature revocation law. The Crist administration plans to appeal. All the so-called responsible environmentalists and growth-management gurus sit on the sideline because they say Hometown Democracy is just too radical. As if sending bulldozers ever farther out into the rural abyss of a state already overbuilt is more responsible. Meanwhile, legislators once again squashed growth-management reforms this year. Rep. Dean Cannon of Winter Park , the future House speaker, actually tried to weaken citizen input. Maybe he's after John Thrasher's job. Said Department of Community Affairs Secretary Tom Pelham: "I expect that the sponsors of Hometown Democracy are very happy with the way things turned out. All of this will add fuel to their cause, I'm sure." It is past time. Back in 2004, more than 70 percent of Volusia voters supported a referendum to limit rampant growth. Home builders got it tossed with a legal challenge. This year, nearly 80 percent of Sarasota voters passed a referendum requiring a unanimous vote by the County Commission to increase zoning densities outside the urban-service boundary. Earlier they passed a measure requiring a supermajority County Commission vote to increase density in the comprehensive growth plan. "There is much more debate now," says Bill Earl, an activist behind the measures. "Smart developers are going to neighborhood associations and to environmental groups to ask what they can do to make projects acceptable." Backroom deals are out in Sarasota . Guess who loses power? It is why the politicians, lobbyists and developers are so desperate to keep this movement from growing. Mike Thomas can be reached at 407-420-5525 or mthomas@orlandosentinel.com.
Copyright © 2008,
Orlando Sentinel
HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT OF FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE to control growth!
PO Box
636, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32170-0636.
Pd.pol.adv.byFloridaHometownDemocracy,Inc,PAC
_____________**_______________
Happily, the legislative session is over. Our esteemed lawmakers did not
pass one iota of a “Citizens Planning Bill of Rights” pushed by Department
of Community Affairs chief Tom Pelham. Not that his proposed “Rights”
really would have changed the imbalance of power between residents and
developer/local government machines. Instead, the legislature was too busy
mulling over new laws to mandate toilet paper in public bathrooms and ban
“truck nuts.” (Don’t ask—gratefully both bills failed!)
After a decade of developers gone wild the State is broke, people don’t have
medical care and schools are cut to the bone, but the Tallahassee posse
still found the big bucks to unnecessarily relocate the Panama City airport
just to spur development around St. Joe’s empire of land holdings…...so we
will have the airport to nowhere. (Not for long St. Joe hopes!)…even though
local voters/residents had rejected the move in a straw ballot. (NB:
Pelham was the attorney for the St .Joe airport pushers before he went to
DCA…..small world?) If Hometown Democracy was on the books, this
monstrosity of developer welfare would go the way of “truck nuts”.
In other
news, our petition count now stands at 592,561.
We have been prodding the supervisors of elections to report in their count
certifications to Tallahassee. Is that too much to ask?
Our
research into the January petition meltdown is now complete and we have
learned that many petitions from some of our strongest individual supporters
were not counted. Even petitions signed by folks who gave us
thousands of dollars were not counted. Was your Hometown
Democracy petition counted? Call your supervisor of election and find
out…they have lists, and let us know if it wasn’t!
Best wishes,
Lesley
OrlandoSentinel.comCOMMENTARYSprawl is just one more nail in economic coffin
Mike Thomas
May 1, 2008
Urban sprawl can ruin the environment and our quality of life.
But could it also undermine our economy? There is growing sentiment among urban planners that cities are surrounding themselves with the slums of tomorrow. These are the outlying developments, many thrown up with reckless abandon during the housing bubble to feed speculator demand. In 2005, Florida cities and counties gave out a record 208,000 permits for detached homes, mostly out in the burbs of Central Florida and coastal cities. These far-flung projects have been hit hardest by the plunge in housing values. Dropping prices can kick off a spiral of foreclosures, rentals and abandonment. A recent eye-opening piece in The Atlantic Monthly titled "The Next Slum?" picked examples of new subdivisions around Charlotte, N.C., Sacramento, Calif., and Florida's Lee County -- some with $500,000 homes -- falling into crime-ridden decay. As this happens, such developments bring in less tax revenue but require more services in the form of police patrols and code inspection. Making matters worse, some demographic researchers think the current housing downturn simply exacerbates a long-term trend. As people age, they go from being homebuyers to home sellers. This means that with the impending retirement of the baby boomers, we are entering an era of more sellers in proportion to buyers. And the sellers will be selling suburban homes designed to raise children, while a growing percentage of buyers won't have children. Arthur Nelson, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, predicts a glut of 22 million "large-lot" detached homes by 2025, with large lot defined as one-sixth of an acre and up. Put another way: If we didn't build another house in the suburbs, we still would have too many of them 17 years from now. The home-vacancy rate in Central Florida is a staggering 7.4 percent, by far the highest in the nation. "For Sale " signs are multiplying on the urban fringes, along with unkempt yards. "There are more empty houses the farther out you go," says Jack Connor of Alliance Appraisal & Consulting Services. "I was down in Kissimmee , at a development on Lake Toho , and it is a ghost town." Empty downtown condos have become a housing-bubble poster child. But the glut in the outlying burbs is the real time bomb. Sprawl supporters say these areas provide affordability. But the Charlotte Observer recently reported that starter-home subdivisions there are most prone to problems. Virginia Tech's Nelson notes we have mitigating factors in Florida . Growth has stalled, but history says it will resume, making us better able in the long term to soak up excess housing inventory. And given our narrow peninsula, the suburbs here are denser and not as far-flung as they are around Sacramento , Atlanta and Charlotte . But getting to long-term stability will require short-term survival. We need aggressive police and code enforcement in at-risk subdivisions. If they tip into a state of decay, they may never recover, and new growth will pass them by. We also need a hiatus on developing outside urban service areas. It's past time to stop moving out and start filling in. But Florida politicians never say no to developers. Not even the possibility of a looming crisis will change that. Mike Thomas can be reached at 407-420-5525 or mthomas@orlandosentinel.com.
Copyright © 2008,
Orlando Sentinel
HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT OF FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE to control growth!
PO Box
636, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32170-0636.
Pd.pol.adv.byFloridaHometownDemocracy,Inc,PAC
___________**___________
We won our case against the State at the 1st District Court of Appeal – they
unanimously ruled that the ridiculous anti-FHD revocation statute is
unconstitutional! The Florida Legislature is currently rushing to pass even
more spurious anti-petitioning roadblocks which we believe to be also
patently unconstitutional.
Here’s where the State says we are today in our petition count:
The numbers have moved since the “deadline” because a lot of petitions
submitted before February 1st were not counted. Now they
have been, although some supervisors of elections still haven’t posted them
up. Yes, we asked them to do so several times.
Plus, there are about 67 different ways to count petitions in Florida , all
depending on which county you live in!
We plan to do something about that in the next week or so. So send
petitions and donations. Our battleground before now was in the
streets….petitioning….now the battlefield moves on to the courts…. things
should be getting interesting soon!
Best,
Lesley
Article published Apr 23, 2008
State appeals court rules in favor of citizens groupTALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP)
People cannot take back their support
once they sign petitions to get citizen initiatives on a ballot, an appeals
court ruled Wednesday in a case over whether voters should have a say in
changing infrastructure and development plans.
The 1st District Court of Appeal said a law that let people take back their signatures is unconstitutional, so it overturned a trial court's ruling. The Legislature passed the law at the request of business organizations. They then used it to revoke thousands of signatures obtained by proponents of Hometown Democracy, an initiative that would require voter approval of changes in plans laying out where new roads, homes, businesses and other development can be built. Hometown Democracy then sued. The appeals court's seven-page ruling said revoking signatures burdens the initiative process with requirements not found in the Florida Constitution. Instead, the constitution gives citizens the right to propose amendments without legislative assistance. "The court got it right," said Ross Burnaman, co-founder of the Hometown Democracy political action committee. Barney Bishop III, president and CEO of Associated Industries of Florida, was a leader in the signature revocation effort. He said it allowed people to change their minds "because they perhaps weren't told the real truth at the time to begin with." Burnaman, of Tallahassee , and fellow lawyer Lesley Blackner, of Palm Beach , started the initiative as a response to public officials they believed were too willing to give developers everything they want while ignoring citizen protests. But in an all-out effort to defeat the proposal, builders, developers and other business leaders wrote and called petition signers to suggest they had made a mistake. Hometown Democracy narrowly missed the 2008 ballot after Secretary of State Kurt Browning rejected a request to delay ballot certification until all signatures submitted before the Feb. 1 deadline were verified. The law is one of several steps the Legislature has taken in recent years with encouragement from business leaders to make it more difficult to pass initiatives. They contend initiatives such as Hometown Democracy could slow growth and the harm the state's economy. (LB: Yeah, the same crew that crashed the economy with overbuilding.) Burnaman and Bishop agreed the issue may wind up being resolved by the Florida Supreme Court. "We're not out of the game yet," Bishop said.
Associated
Press
Writer Bill Kaczor contributed to this report.
__________________**________________
Florida Hometown Democracy is here to stay First, I want to thank everyone who was involved in getting FHD where it is today. Because if you—our petition gatherers, signers, and contributors—hadn't worked so hard, it never would have gotten this far. Over 814,000 signatures were submitted to the Supervisors of Elections throughout Florida. However, our ballot initiative that sought to give citizens the right to control the growth of their own communities, and hopefully bring some sanity to growth in our entire state, is being claimed to have fallen 65,182 signatures short of the 611,009 needed to make the ballot. This is partly due to a massive campaign by the development-business industry, with its huge financial resources, to crush this effort using massive mailouts to get signers to rescind their petitions. They also created a secondary sham growth-control measure, “Floridians for Smarter Growth,” that flooded the Supervisor of Elections offices with petitions at the last minute, making it hard for our own petitions to get verified in time. We are not folding our tents or giving up this effort, which is essential for growth control, the protection of our natural resources and water supplies. Our first job is to get all the petitions that were submitted counted. We asked the state to extend the time limit for verification, and were promptly denied. The state must hold the local supervisors to the election rules. Irregularities need to be addressed. For example, Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections rejected valid petitions, and Broward and Bay County’s Supervisors of Elections acknowledge they did not count all the petitions. We are also reviewing all our options for both this year and election 2010, if necessary. Petitions are good for up to four years. We will make the citizens’ petitions count, and we will be on the ballot. Previous polls indicate that if FHD gets on the ballot, it will pass. If these are accurate, eventually FHD will be in the Florida Constitution. Thanks again, everyone, for your past and anticipated future efforts in this important initiative. Please contact us if you need any information or want to help: John Hedrick, phone 850-339-5462; e-mail: johnhedrick13@yahoo.com Lesley Blackner, phone 866-779-5513; e-mail: lblackner@aol.com ___________________**________________
The State of
Florida Division of Elections alleges that the Florida Hometown Democracy
Amendment has not qualified for the 2008 ballot. We have submitted over
814,000 total petitions as of January 31, and have determined that many
thousands of them were not reviewed in a timely fashion and are not included
in the State’s totals. We are confident that once all petitions that we
have submitted are reviewed and counted, we will indeed qualify. We will
continue to do everything in our power to ensure that all valid petitions
are counted.
We thank the
thousands of Floridians who have signed our petition, and extend special
thanks to those supporters who collected petitions and donated their time
and money to this important effort.
Our petition
drive has faced vicious developer opposition, including the running of a
deceptive counter-petition, sponsored by the Florida Chamber of Commerce
(which came nowhere close to qualifying), and an unprecedented, misleading
revocation effort by a developer-backed PAC, “Save Our Constitution”. We
are challenging their revocation statute in court and await the court’s
ruling.
On December 31,
2007 a directive from the State Division of Elections was sent to the county
Supervisors stating that they were not legally obligated to count all
petitions submitted after that date. Then, in early January, our opponents
dumped many hundreds of thousands of petitions on the local Supervisors of
Elections to clog up the petition review process. This stunt, along with
the re-scheduled Presidential Preference Primary election, ensured that all
Florida Hometown Democracy petitions would not be reviewed and counted
through our deadline of January 31, 2008.
Florida Hometown
Democracy realizes that extracting our beloved state from the train wreck of
over-development requires endurance.
We are confident
that, despite the many diversions, deceptions and obstructions we have
encountered, Florida Hometown Democracy will ultimately be on the ballot and
in the Florida Constitution.
As Yogi Berra
said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
Thank you for your support,
Lesley Blackner
HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT OF FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE to control growth!
PO Box
636, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32170-0636.
Pd.pol.adv.byFloridaHometownDemocracy,Inc,PAC
________________**_______________
Hello to FHD supporters!
I’m wishing you all Florida Hometown Democracy
for the holidays and in the coming New Year!
It’s been a busy week. First, my email address
was hijacked and a "colorful" email was sent to just about every elected
official in Florida. Good thing I have a sense of humor! Then, the
State Division of Elections website started doing funny things, like
subtracting numbers of valid petitions. Shall I say Florida is still
the state that can’t count straight? We do have a paper trail and will
get this straightened out, but it’s distressing to deal with. Also, our
appeal on the outrageous revocation statute has been accepted and
fast-tracked by the First District Court of Appeals and we will know by
January 31st if it will be overturned.
Finally, we have collected and turned in OVER
600,000 total petitions. Our validity rate is running around 75%-80%
meaning we still have a way to
go to NET 611,000 valid
signatures. Most rejects are because many signers are still not
registered to vote. And our numbers unfortunately are NOT accurately
reflected on the state website due to their "technical difficulties".
We have not built up a “cushion” to protect us from the revocation
sabotage, so PLEASE keep sending MONEY and PETITIONS.
We will be accepting petitions through January 20th,
but really Santa’s helpers need to send PETITIONS and DONATIONS
now.
We've heard that the Dark Side opposition is amassing
their petitions to submit all at once in order to flood the Supervisors
so they won't be able to get our petitions counted by the January
deadline.
We will make it if you go out and send us 10 or 15
petitions and a donation of at least $25-100.
Read on below if you need further testimony from a
professional planner of why Florida Hometown Democracy is essential to
saving Florida’s future.
Best,
Lesley
______________**______________
From: The
Tallahassee Democrat
Article published
Dec 17, 2007
Sign and gain freedom from a squandered future By Daniel Parker MY VIEW
A
once-small group of Floridians frustrated with their local elected officials
over land-use decisions now numbers more than 300,000 citizens who have
signed a petition supporting the Florida Hometown Democracy amendment.
The
amendment is focused on reducing the number of local comprehensive plan
changes by giving voters an opportunity to veto them. In letters to papers
in Florida , the James Madison Institute, Florida Chambers of Commerce, and
others have called the initiative "draconian," "impractical," "extreme" and
"severe." If that argument doesn't work, then land-use decisions are called
"too complex" for the general public to understand.
There is
some merit in these responses, but not enough to dismiss the concept of
Hometown Democracy outright.
Florida
communities and environmental resources have suffered from permissive
development policies heavily subsidized on the back end by taxpayer. We now
have aquifer contamination and polluted springs, from Wakulla to Wekiva. The
St. Johns River Water Management District is telling Jacksonville that its
drinking water resource could pass its sustainable level after six years.
The Southwest Water Management District, which includes 16 counties, has
spent $200 million to help restore 3,000 acres of wetlands, forests and
waterways.
We're
spending $160 million right here in Tallahassee to offset water
contamination from previous and planned development.
Florida's
sprawling development now has us consuming 400 acres of farmland a day and
more energy than New York .
We're in a
multi-billion shortfall with our transportation infrastructure, and one of
the answers is to privatize more road building. Coastal developments can't
get insured, so the rest of us are insuring them.
Central
Florida is expected to experience explosive growth, and a continuation of
the land-use decisions there will overrun areas that shouldn't even be
developed.
Sarasota
County, in the midst of its Sustainable Sarasota initiative, has proposed to
rein in growth by requiring super-majority commission votes on some large or
intensive developments. The Marion County school superintendent says that,
for schools there to catch up to the need for more facilities, the county
would have to stop growing for the next three years.
We're
talking an extreme and severe use of taxpayer money.
As a local
planning commissioner, I dread a process that is bent toward approving
development at a rate that is expensive for existing residents and
communities. Instead of having to prove a certificate of need, a development
can merely meet the letter of the law. This obligates a community to take on
developments of questionable economic, social, and sustainable value. The
"spirit" of the law is lost.
If the
effort to balance concerns such as economic development and environmental
quality, and public needs with private interests, were truly working, we
surely would not be spending our public tax dollars on cleaning up springs,
adding portables to schools, and fighting over who pays for crossing guards.
The reality
is that growth management in Florida is causing more communities to lose
what makes them unique and to become more homogenized, more sprawled out and
more costly. Any public gain is quickly swallowed by new public costs to
support new residents.
The new and
well-meaning secretary of the Department of Community Affairs, Tom Pelham,
has expressed his intent to improve the planning process. He can do it, but
not alone. In the background of our planning woes, efforts to weaken the
public sector have been successful. Legislation has been passed that stops
votes, cuts down on amendments, limits petitions and revokes signatures. The
ranks of public servants, including land-use planners, have been thinned,
outsourced and micromanaged at all levels.
This notion
of less government has been well at work in Florida . We must be reminded,
however, that whether it is based in good intentions or simply an
infatuation with cutting taxes, there are costs from a loss of oversight and
a cut in services.
There is no
constitutional right to pollute, or to build for private gain that leaves
public expenditures. There are two things you can accomplish by supporting
the petition for a Florida Hometown Democracy Act: You can preserve your
public involvement and right to petition, and you can send a message to
local and state officials that the status quo with land-use planning is not
good enough. Not by a long shot.
Sign the
petition. This should give Mr. Pelham the public backing to make substantive
legislative changes to Florida's comprehensive planning process before the
amendment comes up for a vote. You still can vote No on the November 2008
ballot.
·
Daniel Parker has a master's degree in urban planning and is a planning
commissioner for Tallahassee-Leon County . Contact him at
scribe13@comcast.net.
HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT OF FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE to control growth!
Help put HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY on the 2008 ballot
Please download and SIGN THE PETITION
!
PO Box 636,
New Smyrna Beach, FL 32170-0636.
_________________**_______________
Greetings FHD Supporters!
Only twelve more weeks till the end of the year… and our deadline
looms......Scary!
We have collected over 500,000 total petitions. To be on the safe side, we
still need at least another 200,000 validated petitions.
Believe it or not, we are getting emails and phone calls from voters who
fell for Thrasher’s letter - the revocation ploy. Even though we're
confident that we will prevail in our lawsuit against the nefarious
revocation scheme, that it will be found to be unconstitutional and will get
thrown out, we can't afford to be complacent or take any chances, and so we
must collect extra petitions to compensate for any revoked petitions.
Please sponsor a quick petition drive to help us get where we need to be
through your favorite group, neighborhood, friends, church---wherever and
with whomever you hang out. (Use the attached petition!) Send 50, 100. or
500 petitions. These last 3 months can make or break this campaign.
Think about this…..how bad will it be if for some awful reason we don't make
it to the ballot and you didn't do your share?
Please help make this happen. Send petitions and donations--both together
is best!
Lesley
Miami Herald
HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT OF FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE to control growth!
Help put HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY on the 2008 ballot
Please download and SIGN THE PETITION
!
PO Box 636,
New Smyrna Beach, FL 32170-0636.
______________**________________
By HOWARD TROXLER,
St. Pete Times Staff Writer
The coming fight for the soul of
Florida is the oldest political fight there is.
As we duke it out between now and
November 2008, we will call it by its current label, "Hometown
Democracy."
But it's really an argument that
began 2,500 years ago on a hillside in Athens.
Can citizens govern themselves
wisely? Or should somebody else make decisions for them?
Florida Hometown Democracy is a
group that wants to give voters control of major growth decisions in our
state. The group is petitioning to put a constitutional amendment on the
2008 ballot.
Countless times over the past 25
years, I have watched opponents show up at public hearings, angry,
energized, saying the same things to fight a proposed development.
Their City Council or County
Commission shrugs and says, "Where were you when we were drawing the
maps? Our maps tell us that we cannot say no."
So here is the genius of
Hometown Democracy: It says that voters get to draw the maps in the
first place.
To be precise, the group's
amendment would require local voter approval for any change in a
community's "comprehensive plan."
Plato would hate it. Aristotle
would fret. Socrates would ask irritating questions for 15 hours or
until somebody made him drink hemlock.
Me, I kinda like it.
I like it because (1) I am
flat-out sick of local government saying yes and (2) because the
opponents are frothing with ridiculous overstatement.
"This will lead," warns a
builder-funded group with the ironic name of Floridians for Smarter
Growth, "to far less planning, increased urban sprawl, much more
traffic, higher property taxes and anemic municipal services."
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