Florida, November 2nd General Election Amend #4 explained...
Recent polling shows what we already know: that a majority of
Floridians – including many Democrats, Republicans, and
Independents – are fed up with what passes for growth management
in Florida.
Our opposition – led by the same builders, speculators and
elected...
officials that have brought us “government of the developer, by
the developer, and for the developer” – is now entering panic
mode.
We’re already seeing a lot of distortions and misinformation
from our opponents and in the press. For the sake of
clarification and despite any claims to the contrary, Amendment
4 wouldn't require voter approval of all land use decisions.
Amendment 4 wouldn’t affect every new hotel and grocery store,
but it would require voters to approve changes to the
community’s overall master plan – the local comprehensive land
use plan. For example, voters would be asked to decide if the
use of a parcel of land should be changed from farming to
housing.
If a developer chooses to build in the areas already set aside
for development in your local comprehensive land use plan, no
change – and no vote – is required. When a developer insists on
building outside your plan’s development area, your local
commissioners will review and vote on that local comprehensive
land use plan change just like they do now. But under Amendment
4, you will then get the opportunity to veto or approve your
commission’s decision on the next regularly scheduled Election
Day. It’s that simple.
If your local commission adopts, for instance, three local
comprehensive land use plan changes in a year, then you’ll vote
on three. If they adopt one, you’ll vote on one.
On average, Florida commissions vote to approve three or four
local comprehensive land use plan ordinances per year. Under
Amendment 4, voters won’t weigh in on the more
frequently-decided individual development approvals, re-zonings
or variances. And it would not require special elections as our
opponents falsely claim.
The crux of the matter is that there is already enough land
approved for development in Florida’s local comprehensive plans
to accommodate 80 to 100 million residents – about five times
more people than we have living here now.
And even that isn’t enough for some land speculators and
politicians. In just two years (2007 to 2009), commissioners
around Florida voted to change local plans to allow a staggering
amount of overdevelopment -- 520,000 more houses, 1.2 million
more people, and 1.3 BILLION more square feet of commercial and
office space (Department of Community Affairs figures). The
Tampa Tribune notes that the 1.3 Billion figure is equal to
13,000 new Wal-Marts.
Developers have plenty of land set aside for building right now
and into the future. Amendment 4 would only require a vote if a
developer insists on building outside the already-approved
areas.
The next seven months promises to be a David vs. Goliath
struggle. Our opponents have already raised about $4 million and
are threatening to spend whatever it takes to defeat Amendment 4
at the polls. They are mortally terrified that citizens might
actually have a say in comprehensive plan changes designed to
accommodate their pave-over-Florida-at-all-costs mentality.
That’s why we need your help to spread the word about Amendment
4, and help us sort out fact from fiction so that voters make an
informed decision at the polls.
Please take a few moments today and join us on our various
social networking sites, and – perhaps more importantly – invite
your friends to do the same:
The Amelia Island Association's (AIA) March 10th
meeting will focus on the Hometown Democracy Amendment. This
proposed amendment to the state's constitution will
fundamentally change the way land use decisions are made in
Florida. Its
language is already being debated across the state between
developers and builders' associations, on one side, and an
array of environmental and citizens' groups on the
other. The amendment will be on the November 2, 2010 ballot.
Political observers have characterized Hometown Democracy as
the most important state issue for 2010. Hear a non-partisan
discussion of the amendment at the March 10th
meeting to be held at the community room of
the Fernandina Beach Police Department, on Lime Street at
7:00 pm. It is free and open to the public.
15 Aug 09
Reclaim your communities
The Tampa Tribune
By LESLEY
BLACKNER
The folks who
paved over paradise with over-construction and crashed our
economy are in full spin mode now that Florida Hometown
Democracy is on the November 2010 ballot as Amendment 4.
This amendment to the Florida Constitution mandates that changes
to local growth plans (comprehensive plans) approved by your
city or county commission must then go to voters for final
approval or rejection.
Millions of taxpayer dollars are spent crafting these plans in
order to provide for orderly, affordable growth and ensure that
your community isn't swallowed by a tidal wave of out-of-control
construction.
But it hasn't worked out that way in much of Florida. Too many
city and county commissions are too willing to rubberstamp
developer-backed plan changes. After all, the business of land
use is politics. And in Florida, developers make it their
business to control the politics through generous campaign
donations.
Moreover, many politicians are in the sprawl business
themselves. The developer/politician nexus helps explain
Florida's construction frenzy and the subsequent meltdown.
Amendment 4 gives the people a vote on growth. It will reform
the developer/politician dynamic. Not surprisingly, it drives
the developer machine crazy.
A campaign designed to spread disinformation is already boiling.
Opponents yell about St. Pete Beach to show Hometown Democracy
just causes lawsuits. Fact check: The lawsuits are flying
because the Hometown Democracy process was not followed.
Under Hometown Democracy, there will be a referendum only after
the growth plan change is reviewed and voted on by the city
commission. In St. Pete Beach, developers held the referendum
before the proposed plan change went through review and public
hearings. That violates state law.
Our desperate opponents - the "say-anything campaign" - say
you'll have to vote on hundreds and thousands of little things.
Fact check: Hometown Democracy referenda will track commission
votes. So if your commission approves five ordinances approving
growth plan changes, there will be five referenda.
If our politicians respect our plans, which have lots of growth
built in already, we won't need to vote very often.
Our opponents say we live in a representative democracy and just
have to elect better officials. My response: Been there, tried
that. By the time they hand out the comp plan changes, it's too
late; the damage is done.
Look at your officials. Too many haven't done a good job
representing people. Our officials do a good job representing
the sprawl machine. They are directly responsible for much of
Florida's economic/sprawl disaster. Do you really want to
continue with a broken, corrupt status quo?
The U.S. Supreme Court says voters can take back the power when
their elected representatives have screwed up. You already get
to vote on charter issues, bond and tax questions, etc. Now it's
time we step up and reclaim our communities.
The first thing I suggest you do when you read a letter, column
or blog in opposition to Amendment 4 is to Google the name of
the author. Chances are, the author makes his living off sprawl
or works in government (which is often the same thing.) The
"say-anything campaign" is desperate to preserve a rotten status
quo. Immunize yourself now.
Lesley Blackner, an attorney, is president of Florida Hometown
Democracy, the Amendment 4 sponsor.
23
June 09 State certifies Hometown
Democracy for 2010 ballot – We’re Amendment # 4
WE’VE MADE IT!!
On Monday, June 22, 2009,
the Florida Division of Elections certified
Florida Hometown Democracy's proposed constitutional
amendment for the November 2010 ballot as
Amendment 4! This certification follows the
Florida Supreme Court’s recent emergency order striking
down the petition revocation scheme created by the
Florida Legislature.
Florida Hometown Democracy
submitted 711,168 valid petitions throughout the state
to qualify for the ballot.
Lesley Blackner, president
of Florida Hometown Democracy, stated: “Our goal now is
to spread the word that this important reform is
definitely on the ballot. Amendment 4
will give Floridians who are tired of government of the
developer, by the developer and for the developer an
avenue to change the
status quo. We will be urging Floridians to
“Vote
yes 4 FLORIDA - give yourself a vote on growth.”
Blackner
also wants to thank the many, many Floridians who have
gotten this important reform to this threshold. “We all
collected petitions, donated money, talked to our
friends and family to make this happen. Now we have to make sure
Hometown Democracy gets to where it needs to be: in the Florida
Constitution.”
Blackner
reminded Floridians to beware of the deceitful proposed
amendment hiding under the name “Floridians for Smarter
Growth.” "This ridiculous proposal pretends to give a
vote on growth but
the devil is in the details:
voters get a referendum on a comprehensive plan change
only
if 10% of
the voters go in
personto the supervisor of elections office to sign
a petition
within 60 days of passage. It
discriminates against many, many Floridians, including
the home-bound and military deployed abroad, who are excluded by design
from participating in any such petition
process," she added.
ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Florida
Department of State
Division of
Elections
Signatures:
**Verified Totals are UNOFFICIAL until the Initiative
receives certification and a ballot number.
Constitutional : Complies with the
single-subject requirement of article XI, Sec 3
of the FL Const, and the ballot title & summary
comply with sec. 101.161(1).
SC
Ruling Date:
09/14/2006
Made Ballot:
06/22/2009
Ballot Number:
4
Election Year:
2010
Vote YES 4 Hometown
Democracy!
HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT
OF FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE
to control growth!
No viruses found in this incoming message
Scanned by iolo AntiVirus
1.5.7.1
http://www.iolo.com
18 June 09 Florida
Supreme Court Rules FOR Hometown Democracy! ....Clears
the Florida Hometown Democracy Initiative for the November
2010 Statewide Ballot
On Wednesday, June 17,
2009, the Florida Supreme Court cleared the way for the
immediate certification of Florida Hometown Democracy's
proposed constitutional amendment for the November 2010
ballot. The Court’s emergency order affirmed a lower
court ruling that the petition revocation
scheme created by the legislature is unconstitutional.
Wednesday’s ruling comes
in the wake of Florida Hometown Democracy’s announcement
that it has met the constitutional requirements for
statewide ballot access, by submitting 711,168 valid
petitions throughout the state.
Lesley Blackner, president
of Florida Hometown Democracy, stated: “We are excited
that Florida voters
will finally have the opportunity to have a vote on
growth.” She further said: “The Hometown
Democracy Amendment will simply
give voters a say on how
their community is planned and only applies to changes
to local comprehensive land use plans. These long-term
plans mean nothing when they are subject to piecemeal,
willy-nilly changes. The Hometown Democracy
Amendment will give voters a citizen veto
over elected officials who just can’t say no to
speculative developer proposals."
Now Hometown
Democracy’s many supporters can now turn their attention
to making sure that this amendment becomes part of the
Florida Constitution. Blackner also reminded Floridians
to beware of the
deceitful proposed amendment hiding under the name
“Floridians for Smarter Growth.” "This ridiculous
proposal pretends to give a vote on growth
but the devil is in
the details:
voters get a referendum on a comprehensive plan change
only
if 10%
of the voters go in
personto the supervisor of elections
within 60 days of adoption to sign a
petition. Many, many Floridians, including the
home-bound and military deployed abroad, will be
excluded by designfrom participating in any such
citizen-petition process," she added.
Jun 17, 8:52
PM EDT
Fla.
justices strike signature revocation law
By BILL KACZOR
Associated Press Writer
TALLAHASSEE,
Fla. (AP) -- The Florida Supreme Court on
Wednesday struck down a law that let voters
revoke their signatures from petition drives
to put constitutional amendments on
statewide ballots.
In Florida,
the signatures have four-year shelf lives,
giving voters time to reconsider their
support for ballot proposals.
The 4-2 ruling
was a victory for Florida Hometown
Democracy, which challenged the law. The
group is sponsoring a ballot proposal that
would require voter approval of changes to
local comprehensive plans.
"I'm so
relieved," said Palm Beach lawyer Lesley
Blackner, co-founder of Hometown Democracy.
"It's really been a saga to qualify this
initiative for the ballot. ... Every year
the Legislature has tried to destroy the
initiative process."
Business and
development interests that oppose to
Hometown Democracy sought the signature
revocation law. They say Hometown
Democracy's proposal would hamper growth and
depress the state's already sagging economy.
After the law
was passed, Associated Industries of Florida
backed an organization that helped get about
13,000 Hometown Democracy signers to take
back their signatures.
"We think that
Floridians should have the ability to change
their mind when they are not told the truth
to begin with," said Associated Industries
President and CEO Barney Bishop. He said
petition collectors made unsubstantiated
claims of Hometown Democracy's benefits.
Bishop said
his organization may ask the Legislature for
a constitutional amendment permitting
signature revocations and overriding the
Supreme Court ruling. He also said opponents
may try to use the courts to stop the
measure.
"Tell 'em to
be prepared," Bishop said. "What's good for
the goose is good for the gander. This ain't
over."
The justices
did not immediately explain their ruling,
writing that they'd issue a full opinion at
a later date. The high court's two most
reliable conservatives, Justices Charles
Canady and Ricky Polston, dissented. The
court's newest member, Justice James Perry,
did not participate.
Hometown
Democracy sought an expedited decision to
avoid losing signatures if the case wasn't
decided soon. Signatures have a shelf life
of four years and that means some of the
first ones, including Blackner's, will begin
expiring if the amendment isn't certified
for the 2010 ballot by Monday.
The revocation
law also included a provision saying
initiatives cannot be certified until Feb. 1
of an election year to make sure signers
have an opportunity take back their
signatures.
Tallahassee
lawyer Ross Burnaman, Hometown Democracy's
other co-founder, said he believes that
provision no longer applies and the
amendment should be immediately certified.
If the state's lawyers disagree, Hometown
Democracy may take that issue to court, too,
Burnaman said.
The Department
of State's unofficial count shows the
amendment with 711,168 signatures with
676,811 needed for ballot certification.
Hometown Democracy also has collected
sufficient signatures in each of at least 13
of Florida's 24 congressional districts.
HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT OF FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE to control growth!
http://www.FloridaHometownDemocracy.com
PO Box 636, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32170-0636.
Pd.pol.adv.byFloridaHometownDemocracy,Inc,PAC
__________________**_____________________
09 June 09
The Florida Hometown Democracy
Amendment petition campaign has finally reached the “magic
number”
to qualify to be on the 2010
ballot! (see 'BUT'
below)
Signatures:
**Verified Totals are UNOFFICIAL until the
Initiative receives certification and a ballot
number.
Required for review by Attorney General:
67,683
Required to have initiative on the ballot:
676,811
**
Number currently valid:
705,176
**
Number currently revoked:
13,280
**
Total number valid:
691,896
Hometown Democracy is
a true
grassroots movement …hundreds of thousands of
Floridians have propelled this amendment to this
point by sending in donations and petitions over the
past 5 years. We have received an especially
wonderful outpouring of support over these last few
months during our final push to put Hometown
Democracy over the top.
We wish to give a very
special
thank you to Dr. Steven Rosen, one of
Hometown Democracy’s true guardian angels, for his
ongoing generous support. Throughout his life, Dr.
Rosen has witnessed the paving over of paradise made
possible by a corrupt political system - bought and
paid for by the developer oligarchy. He has devoted
his life to protecting our fellow helpless creatures
from the endless onslaught of the bulldozer.
Dr. Rosen recognizes that the Hometown Democracy
Amendment is Florida’s only hope of bringing
accountability to a truly sick political system that
has destroyed Florida’s irreplaceable wild places
and wildlife, wrecked the economy, and ruined
Floridians’ quality of life …and still wants total
control to keep maniacally trashing our beloved
state.
But don’t break out
the champagne just yet, as we don’t expect Governor
Crist’s Division of Elections to just say, “OK,
you’re on the 2010 ballot.”
Every session the Legislature has done its damndest
to destroy the citizen initiative
process—the
ONLY METHOD for THE PEOPLE to achieve REAL REFORM in
Florida.
In particular, in 2007
the Florida Legislature (a/k/a the developer
oligarchy) profoundly changed the rules for citizen
initiatives, creating a process for revoking petitions
which allowed specific targeting of Hometown
Democracy with incredible lies to keep it off the
ballot. Hometown Democracy has challenged the
lawfulness of the revocation process and our case
remains pending before the Florida Supreme Court,
and won’t be “officially” qualified for the ballot
until after the Court rules.
The goal of Hometown
Democracy is to change the current regime of
“government of the developer, by the developer and
for the developer” by giving veto power over growth
plan changes to local voters. Governor Crist’s
signing of Senate Bill 360 demonstrates our point –
it was proof positive that he will not bite the hand
that feeds him. In the last hours of the session,
SB 360 appeared from out of the blue with all sorts
of developer goodies in it, and got hastily
approved. Nobody but developers wanted that
bill…but the developers got what they wanted. In
Florida they usually do.. And if they don’t get it
the first time, they keep coming back and demanding
and changing the rules until they do get what they
want.
We need your continuing help to put Florida Hometown
Democracy into the Florida Constitution in November
2010!
Tell everyone you know about this important reform.
Send donations. It’s the only reform on the horizon
with the power to stop the bulldozers from
destroying everything. That’s why the developer
oligarchy hates it so much and will do just about
anything to defeat us.
BUT:
Democracy! What’s that? A historic pipe dream
or future’s reality? In the State of Florida
the answer is fast becoming obvious. ja
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- A
petition drive that would
give voters a say in the
development of their
communities may lose even if
sponsors win a favorable
Florida Supreme Court ruling
- if the justices don't act
soon.
To prevent that from happening,
Florida Hometown Democracy asked
the high court Monday to
expedite a decision on a new law
that lets signers take back
their signatures. The case has
been before the justices for
more than a year.
Unofficially, the group has
enough signatures to put its
proposed state constitutional
amendment on the 2010 ballot if
the justices agree with an
appellate court and strike down
the revocation law.
The Legislature passed the law
in 2007 at the urging of
business and development
interests. They argue that
Hometown Democracy, which would
require voter approval of
changes to local comprehensive
plans, would block growth and
further stifle Florida's already
sagging economy.
The problem for Hometown
Democracy is the Florida
Constitution gives initiative
signatures a four-year shelf
life. The group began its
petition drive four years ago
June 22.
That means Hometown Democracy
will begin losing signatures if
the Supreme Court delays a
decision beyond that date.
"In effect, this court's failure
to expeditiously decide this
case has the unintended
consequence of diminishing a
fundamental constitutional
right," Hometown Democracy
lawyer Ross Burnaman wrote in
the group's motion to expedite.
The state plans to file a
response Tuesday.
The Division of Elections'
unofficial count gives Hometown
Democracy 705,176 statewide
signatures after subtracting
13,280 revocations collected by
opponents. That's more than
enough to meet the requirement
for 676,811 signatures statewide
- equal to 8 percent of the
votes cast in the last
presidential election.
Initiatives, though, also must
meet the 8 percent requirement
in at least half, or 13, of
Florida's 25 congressional
districts. Hometown Democracy
will be one district short if
the Supreme Court lets the
revocation law stand.
If it is stuck down and revoked
signatures are counted, the
amendment would meet that
criteria in one more district -
the 7th - and it could be
certified for the ballot.
The math, though, changes if the
court rules after June 22.
Hometown Democracy then would
have to collect new signatures
to replace those that expire due
to the four-year limit.
One of the first signatures that
may be erased is that of
Hometown Democracy president
Lesley Blackner, a Palm Beach
lawyer.
"To add insult to injury, I
cannot legally sign the Florida
Hometown Democracy petition
again even if it has become
invalid solely by the passage of
time," Blackner wrote in a sworn
statement. The same goes for
other signatures that expire.
If the Supreme Court should
uphold the revocation law,
things would get even worse for
Hometown Democracy.
Instead of certifying the
amendment as soon as it meets
the signature threshold, the
challenged law would delay
possible certification until
Feb. 1, 2010.
Besides losing the signatures
currently revoked, opponents
would have until then to seek
additional revocations and more
signatures would expire under
the four-year time limit.
Burnaman said he was unsure how
many would be lost under that
scenario.
HELP SAVE WHAT'S
LEFT OF FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE
to control
growth!
Charlie Crist and
his Republican cohorts just depressed the future
value of your house.
They did this by gutting the state's
growth-management law.
We tend to equate rampant paving with crowded
schools, traffic jams and environmental
destruction.
But this time around, the impact extends to home
prices.
It
is a simple matter of supply and demand. Prices
are crashing because there is too much of the
former and too little of the latter.
Florida has more than 300,000 empty houses, many
abandoned eyesores that drag down neighborhoods.
Despite this huge glut, developers are asking
the state Department of Community Affairs for
permission to build more than 600,000 new homes
and almost 500 million square feet of regional
malls, office buildings and other commercial
development.
Everybody is lining up for the next boom.
The new legislation only will increase these
numbers as it opens up more rural land to
development.
We are creating a market in which demand won't
catch up to supply for years to come.
We are going back to the old economic model of
making Florida cheaper by sprawling ever
outward.
Ideally, we would limit new housing, thereby
increasing the value of existing homes when
growth resumes.
Flooding the market with a steady stream of new
homes thwarts this healing process.
"We are telling the market that supply is going
to be large," says David Denslow, a widely
respected
University of Florida economist. "Who is
going to buy a house for $200,000 if he thinks
that same house five years from now will sell
for $150,000?"
Making matters worse, the new legislation
reduces development costs.
It exempts many large developments from
intensive review by state planners. It also
exempts many developers from having to pay for
road improvements required to handle the traffic
they create. That eventually shifts the burden
to taxpayers.
We will be subsidizing them so they can sell
their homes more cheaply, undercutting the value
of our homes.
I have never seen the politicians stick it to
the populace quite like this.
It is why Crist signed the legislation in
private, after normal business hours, then
rushed off the next day to champion health care
for kids in a massive diversion campaign.
The justification is that new development will
boost the economy.
It will do no such thing.
There will be no onslaught of
construction jobs because there
is no demand for more homes and
more commercial space.
Growth-management laws aren't
crippling Florida's economy.
There is an endless supply of
lots out there, already approved
for new homes. There are 7,000
empty lots in the rural burb of
Groveland alone.
A lack of growth is what's
crippling Florida's economy.
This legislation solves nothing.
Nor was that the intent.
The intent was to allow
landowners to lock in their
right to pave, and to pave
cheaply. It will jack up their
land values. It will allow
developers to throw up their
sprawl whenever people do start
trickling back into the state.
This is nothing more than a
sweetheart deal for the people
who write big campaign checks.
And
Charlie Crist has a big
campaign coming up for
U.S. Senate.
The law is so irresponsible that
it was opposed not only by every
environmental group but also by
the Florida League of Cities,
the Florida Association of
Counties and the American
Planning Association.
The only way to stop this
madness, to protect this state
and your home value, is the
Florida Hometown Democracy
amendment. Hopefully, it will be
on the 2010 ballot.
Critics have called its
restrictions on new growth
extreme. But what the
politicians are doing to this
state is even more extreme.
"We haven't supported it," says
Charles Pattison, president of
1,000 Friends of Florida. "But
it is getting to the point where
the Legislature isn't leaving
anyone any alternatives."
In the defining moment of his
career Monday, Gov. Charlie Crist sold the state
of Florida right down the river.
He did it in a gutless fashion,
too, waiting until the close of business to send
out a brief announcement that he was signing
Senate Bill 360.
Look. If you're going to destroy
your state to get elected to the U.S. Senate, be
proud of it. Do it at a news conference.
Surround yourself with bulldozers and smiling
developers. Order a cake.
But apparently he couldn't quite
fit this one in with all those other
bill-signing ceremonies he's been racking up:
The battle for Florida is
finished now. It's over.
From here, it's just a matter of
how soon the banks are willing to lend money to
developers. Sure, the economy is bad now, but
this is a long-term game. The prize was the
rest of the century.
So if you live in a "dense urban
area" in Florida — which this law brilliantly
defines as more than ONE PERSON PER ACRE …
If you live in any of Florida's
biggest counties, including Hillsborough and
Pinellas, or in one of more than 200 Florida
cities …
If you live anywhere that your
local government labels as a "community
redevelopment area" …
Or even if you have the
misfortune of living where somebody wants to
build a "job creation project" …
Then tough noogies for you.
The main thing is roads.
Developers no longer have to make sure that our
roads can handle the growth they are bringing.
Also, your local city and county
have much more power to say yes to growth. This
bill weakens state review.
So this will be Crist's legacy
in the history books: He is the Governor Who
Repealed Growth Management.
Does he care? I don't think so.
I think this was a deliberate, cynical
calculation.
Crist makes the money guys
happy. It makes them less likely to support his
Republican rival, Marco Rubio. It protects him
from the right.
Then he'll run against some
Democrat or other in the fall of 2010, who may
or may not bring this up, to general public
indifference.
He'll get away with it.
• • •
Remember: The governor would not
have had Senate Bill 360 to sign had it not been
passed by an equally feckless Legislature.
Here, for the first of what will
be many repetitions:
Area senators voting yes:
Charles Dean, R-Inverness; Mike Fasano, R-New
Port Richey; Dennis Jones, R-Treasure Island.
Area senators voting no: Victor
Crist, R-Tampa; Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland;
Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa; Charlie Justice, D-St.
Petersburg; Ronda Storms, R-Brandon.
Area House members voting yes:
Kevin Ambler, R-Lutz; Tom Anderson, R-Dunedin;
Rachel Burgin, R-Tampa; Faye Culp, R-Tampa; Jim
Frishe, R-Belleair Bluffs; Bill Galvano,
R-Bradenton; Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City; Ed
Homan, R-Tampa; Ed Hooper, R-Clearwater; John
Legg, R-Port Richey; Seth McKeel, R-Lakeland;
Peter Nehr, R-Tarpon Springs; Ron Reagan,
R-Sarasota; Robert Schenck, R-Spring Hill; Ron
Schultz, R-Homosassa; Will Weatherford, R-Wesley
Chapel.
Area House members voting no:
Bill Heller, D-St. Petersburg; Rick Kriseman,
D-St. Petersburg; Janet Long, D-St. Petersburg;
Betty Reed, D-Tampa; Darryl Rouson, D-St.
Petersburg; Michael Scionti, D-Tampa.
_________________**_________________________
21 May 09
All politics are local
That’s
why we need Florida Hometown Democracy empowering local
voters with control over the future of their
communities.
Need
proof? The Governor has Senate Bill 360 on his desk to
sign, and has announced that he would sign it. It’s a
prize give-away to developers, the same people who have
paved over paradise and destroyed the economy.
The House
Majority Office issued a statement about SB 360 claiming
it:
“Strikes
a balance between state and local control of growth
management by retaining state regulatory oversight of
planning and development, while
recognizing the role
and responsibility of local elected officials to make
land use decisions in the best interests of their local
community..”
SB 360
will further weaken the oversight and review powers of
the State “growth watch-dog”, the DCA – Department of
Community Affairs, and weaken local infrastructure
concurrency requirements. That’s bad, but
the truth is that
“growth management” has mostly existed only on paper for
over a decade. The DCA is only as tough as its
politically appointed leadership.
Do you
really think the past decade of “growth management” was
a success?
Importantly, when DCA does decide to “say no” that
doesn’t mean that a bad development proposal
automatically dies. If DCA rejects a comprehensive
plan change as ‘not in compliance”, DCA must still
sue the local government to have the proposal killed.
If DCA finds a proposed development plan “not in
compliance” but doesn’t sue, the local government can
simply ignore DCA’s finding and allow the development to
proceed. Further, on the rare occasion when DCA has
sued, if enough political pressure is brought to bear,
it has been known to settle the case after some minor,
“mediated” tweaking. Or it falls to politically
appointed administrative judges to decide if the
growth change complies with state law.
To his
credit, DCA chief Pelham (former developer attorney) has
apparently seen the light and is trying to hold the line
and diligently enforce the growth management laws as
they were intended. His gumption to occasionally “just
say no” to some really bad, major projects around the
state has infuriated the Legislature/developers. In
turn, they have further attacked and weakened the Growth
Management laws that DCA administers, and slashed their
operating budget.
But regardless of what DCA does, the real power remains
with “local elected officials.”Bad growth plan
changes that harm the public interest should die at the
local level. But, as everybody knows, local
elected officials are too often “joined at the hip” with
the development community, which deeply funds their
political campaigns. Too many confuse the “best
interests of their local community” (as the House
statement put it) with “best to keep the developers
happy.”
That’s
why we need Florida Hometown Democracy. The Hometown
Democracy process is designed to empower voters to
function as an important local check and balance to
irresponsible or unresponsive local officials.
Surprised
that this developer give-away came out of this
session? Don’t be. The Legislative leadership is
nearly completely comprised of die-hard developers.
Here’s a
list of Senate Bill 360’s sponsors and their admitted
occupations:
Senator
Bennett: Developer
Senator
Pruitt: Realtor
Senator
King: Real Estate
Senator
Lynn: Business consultant
Senator
Richter: Banker
Senate
President Atwater is a Banker.. Senate Majority Leader
De La Portilla is a political consultant.
On the
House side, Speaker Cretul is a realtor.
House Whip
Carlos Lopez-Cantera is a realtor.
House
Majority Leader Adam Hasner is a “business
consultant/attorney.”
When you
scratch a Florida politician, 2 out of 3 times there’s a
developer underneath. By now it should be
obvious that Florida is a de-facto developer oligarchy.
This fancy
word means:
“a form of government in which all power is vested in a
few persons or in a dominant class or clique; i.e.,
government by the few.”
So it’s
true when we say that in Florida we have government
of the developer, by the developer, and for the
developer.
Without
Hometown Democracy, Floridians will continue to be at
the mercy of the political whims of local politicians,
developer-legislators, the person sitting in the
Governor’s office and at DCA. As long as the developer
oligarchy can control the politics and change the rules
to favor their interests, the state will continue to
suffer from crazed over-development that has wrecked
just about everything.
That’s
why we need Florida Hometown Democracy.
That’s why
Ron Littlepage of the Jacksonville Times Union is now
supporting Florida Hometown Democracy. (See below.)
Please
email Governor Crist at Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com
and call at 850-488-4441 to veto SB 360. Be sure to
also tell him you support Florida Hometown Democracy.
I haven’t been a fan of Florida Hometown Democracy, but
that's changing. Here's why:
Let's start with what the Legislature just did to
basically gut growth management laws that at least
attempt to have infrastructure keep up with development.
Legislators approved a bill that, in many areas, will
do away with concurrency requirements that force
developers to help pay for infrastructure impacted by
their development.
They also knee-capped Development of Regional Impact
reviews that examine how large developments affect
surrounding areas.
Legislators handed yet another gift to developers when
they made it easier to destroy wetlands and to go after
water resources needed for development.
Under that legislation, the state's five water
management district boards would no longer have to sign
off on consumptive use permits for water and wetlands
destruction permits.
That authority would rest solely with the executive
director of each district and could be done out of the
sunshine and without public input.
In other words, legislators have pretty much given free
rein to developers to continue building; quality of life
and the state's natural resources be damned, even though
there are currently 300,000 homes in Florida sitting
empty.
Hopefully, Gov. Charlie Crist will veto both of these
bad pieces of legislation.
But it's not just the betrayal by the Legislature
that's making Florida Hometown Democracy more
attractive.
Efforts by the Jacksonville Aviation Authority to
extend a runway at Craig field despite overwhelming
opposition is growing tiresome.
The aborted attempt by the Jacksonville Port Authority
to cram a cruise ship terminal down the throats of
Mayport residents is another example why land use
changes to our comprehensive plan should be more
difficult.
That's what Florida Hometown Democracy would do.
The proposed constitutional amendment likely will be on
the ballot in November 2010. If voters approve it, land
use changes would have to be approved by that
jurisdiction's voters.
That scares the heck out of developers who are used to
getting their way with elected officials who depend on
their campaign contributions.
Approval of the amendment would put the decision back
in the hands of the citizens whose lives will be
affected..
Normally, I favor our representative form of
government, but direct democracy on land use changes may
be the only way to promote smart growth in Florida.
One other thing is pushing me toward favoring Florida
Hometown Democracy - the shameful tactics of the
opponents, funded by the deep pockets of the Florida
Chamber of Commerce and home builders.
They are behind a group with the deceitful name of
Floridians for Smarter Growth.
The constitutional amendment they are promoting, when
you read between the lines, would make it all but
impossible for citizens to vote on land use changes.
Supporters of Florida Hometown Democracy call that
amendment a Trojan horse. I would call it something
else, but this is a family newspaper.
More often than not, if you
scratch a Florida politician, there’s a developer underneath. As we
recently learned in south Florida, be sure to scratch the spouse
too! Even though Florida’s developer-dominated economy of
over-development has imploded, the Florida Legislature appears
hell-bent on rolling back what little growth management controls
remain, all in the desperate hope of cranking up the only economy
they know - construction.
Reality apparently does
not reside in Tallahassee. There are too many houses
and condos sitting empty, and too much construction already
approved,but the urge to build and cram in new density never subsides.
Their goal is to pave over every inch of Florida.
Developers want to
ensure that all power to control a local comprehensive growth plan
resides with the local politicians. That way the growth machine
only has to worry about controlling a majority of votes on the
commission and presto - comp plan change! That’s exactly why we
need Hometown Democracy--to break the grip of developer domination
at the local level. Clearly, there are no grown-ups running the
show. It’s time to give the car keys to the voters.
In this legislative
session of unremitting BAD news for sane people, there is a glimmer
of sanity. House Bill 591 and Senate Bill 0216 would stop local
governments from running campaigns. The law would “
ban counties, cities and school districts from using public funds to
support or oppose ballot issues. Nor would they be allowed to donate
tax money to groups that support or oppose ballot issues.”
It would stop the
abuse of your tax money to propagandize on election issues,
like voter initiatives and charter amendments. As
Mark Lane’s column in the News
Journal makes clear, “City
governments around Florida have gotten more aggressive fighting
things like building-height caps, efforts to put planning decisions
to a vote and other matters. It’s a good bet we’ll see local
governments mobilizing against the Hometown Democracy Amendment next
year.”
Email
your legislator to say that you support HB 591 and Senate Bill
0216. Local governments should not be allowed to spend your tax
money on campaigning against citizens’ issues in elections. Tell
them to make it the law.
To find your Florida
State Senator, visit
http://www.flsenate.gov/Welcome/index.cfm and scroll down until
you see "Find Your Senator" on the left side of the page. You'll be
prompted to enter your Zip +4 code.
And thanks to columnist Mike Thomas
for another dose of sanity:
We're dying from plague of vacant
buildings, homes
Mike Thomas
COMMENTARY
OrlandoSentinelMarch 17, 2009
This
is like watching an emphysema patient try to cure himself by smoking
more.
Florida is dying from a spreading plague of vacant homes, vacant
stores and vacant offices. And up in Tallahassee, the solution
offered by legislators is more vacant homes, more vacant stores and
more vacant offices.
Their cure for the economy is another whopping dose of everything
that got us into this mess.
I don't know whether they're corrupt, stupid or simply so embedded
in the Culture of Concrete they can't think outside that tiny box.
The pressure to pave permeates the Florida Capitol like skunk stink.
I once supported the Hometown Democracy referendum — which would
allow citizens to vote on changes in growth plans — to protect the
environment.
Now I support it to protect the economy.
Florida has 300,000 empty homes and condos, enough to put a roof
over the head of everybody in
Orange County.
This resulted from developers throwing them up nonstop, feeding a
speculative market that had careened out of control.
The number of empty homes only will rise. Florida set another
foreclosure record in February — more than 46,000 houses are now
going through the process.
This spills over into the rest of the economy. It is why you see all
those closed storefronts. Strip malls are vacant. Across the street
from the Sentinel in downtown Orlando, an entire row of new retail space is
empty. Office-vacancy rates nearby are shooting up.
Florida faces a massive and growing glut of empty space of all
kinds.
And yet our state leaders say we need more concrete shells. They say
the Department of Community Affairs has to go because it's just too
burdensome on developers. They say growth laws are too restrictive,
an amusing claim if you've ever driven around the region on the
beltway. Development feeds an army of lobbyists, law firms, home
builders, speculators, lenders, brokers, real-estate agents and so
on. Florida is a state that grows for a living. And now that it
isn't growing, the special interests in Tallahassee aren't making a
living. Desperation is the result.
Making this all the more egregious is that for the first time in the
history of counting people in Florida, we did not grow last year.
Florida has stagnated — an idea once as unthinkable as snowstorms in
Miami. And according to the state demographers who track the data,
we are going to stay stagnant for at least three more years.
So, pray tell, where are the people to live in the new homes, shop
in the new stores, work in the new offices? We will need years of
growth just to fill what we have.
And so every new building adds to the glut. Every home they build
lowers the value of your house.
But give us more.
At the current sales pace, it would take 18months to sell all the
homes on the market in the Orlando area.
But give us more.
Compared with January 2008, the median home sale price in January of
this year fell 59 percent in Fort Myers, 39 percent in Fort
Lauderdale, 39 percent in Miami, 41 percent in Sarasota, 33 percent
in Metro Orlando and 33 percent in Tampa Bay.
But give us more.
Code-enforcement departments across Florida are swamped with
complaints about overgrown yards, green pools, vagrants and vandals.
Empty homes are dragging down neighborhoods and becoming crime
magnets, destroying lifetime investments.
But give us more.
The same people who would give you more will say — with a straight
face — that Hometown Democracy will destroy the state's economy by
limiting growth. They say you aren't capable of managing growth, so
leave it to the professionals. Leave it to them.
Well, we can see where that has gotten us. Do you really think that
people who are put in political office by the hand of growth are
going to bite it?
Mike
Thomas, OrlandoSentinel
HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT OF FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE to control
growth!
27 Dec 08 FL Chamber of Commerce muddies the
water again......
On December 18th,
in a 4 to 3 ruling, the Florida Supreme Court narrowly approved
a proposed constitutional amendment for placement on the 2010
ballot that
discriminates against the First Amendment rights of Florida
active duty military and National Guard who are deployed out of
state. The amendment also discriminates against disabled,
housebound Florida
voters. If approved by 60% of the electorate, the
provision will become part of the Florida Constitution.
The proposed
constitutional amendment is sponsored by Floridians for Smarter
Growth, a political action committee backed by the Florida
Chamber of Commerce. The admitted aim of the Chamber-backed
petition is to derail and defeat the Florida Hometown Democracy
Amendment which will automatically allow votes on changes to
local growth plans.
The Chamber-backed
amendment only allows a citizen vote on changes to a local
growth plan after completion of an onerous process requiring
10% of voters to physically go to the local supervisor of
elections’ office and sign a petition within 60 days. In
effect, the process is designed to, and will make it next to
impossible to actually achieve the right to vote on growth plan
changes approved by local city and county commissions.
Stunningly, the
Chamber-backed amendment effectively bans the participation of
many thousands of active duty military and National Guard
deployed out of state.
For example, Florida voters deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan will
be barred from participation because they cannot physically get
to the supervisor of election’s office back home. Florida
voters serving at sea in the Navy will likewise be excluded. An
army soldier and his wife stationed in Korea will be left
voiceless. A wounded soldier convalescing at Walter Reed
Hospital in Washington , DC will be excluded.
Similarly, unknown
numbers of housebound and hospitalized Florida voters will be
banned by the Chamber’s bizarre process.
Florida Supreme
Court Justice Lewis wrote a powerful dissent that identifies
some of the extraordinary difficulties many Floridians will face
just trying to sign a petition, but the entire Florida
Supreme Court completely overlooked the absolute bar the
Chamber-backed amendment establishes for thousands of deployed
military, National Guard and disabled Florida voters.
Further, the opinion ignores the federal Uniformed and Overseas
Citizens Absentee Voting Act, which protects the voting rights
of our overseas military. The devastating irony of the
Chamber-backed amendment should not be lost on anyone: our
deployed men and women in uniform are denied participation in
the very democracy they serve to protect and defend.
Florida Hometown
Democracy will file a motion for rehearing to ask the Court to
reconsider the real world consequences of this unprecedented and
disastrous decision.
The backers of
Hometown Democracy hope Floridians will unite in outrage over
the Chamber-backed amendment and the Court’s ruling. They urge
supporters to call and email Ryan Houck, Executive Director of
Smarter Growth and Mark Wilson, CEO of the Florida Chamber of
Commerce, to let them know that their petition shows utter
contempt for our military, National Guard and the disabled, and
to tell them to admit their error, apologize to our troops and
withdraw this dishonorable petition.
Supporters are
encouraged to call and email Governor Crist and let him know
that his two recent Florida Supreme Court appointees signed on
to the unacceptable majority ruling.
FLORIDA
HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY (FHD) REACHES THRESHOLDS FOR
CERTIFICATION TO STATE BALLOT IN 2010; CITIZEN
GROUPS DEMAND STATE DIVISION OF ELECTIONS COMPLY
IMMEDIATELY WITH STATE LAW
"Yesterday Florida Hometown Democracy (FHD)
passed the thresholds necessary to be qualified
for the 2010 state ballot. We congratulate
Florida Hometown Democracy for achieving this
amazing feat." said John Hedrick, who has been
the Sierra Florida point person on FHD.
"FHD needed to achieve 611,009 verified
signatures statewide and also achieve 8% of
registered voters voting in the last
presidential
election in at least 13 of
25 congressional
districts in the state.
Today at least 611,753 verified signatures are
on file out of a total of 850,000+ submitted by
FHD to the various Supervisors of Elections
around the state over time, and the required 13
districts have qualified." said Joyce Tarnow,
President of
Floridians for a Sustainable
Population.
Tarnow
added her congratulations and said that "FHD
will bring much needed sanity to growth that has
been out of control in the recent past and will
spring totally to life again once the economy
recovers in the near future. With FHD in place,
it will keep the developers from cratering the
economy again through their reckless
overbuilding."
"This has been an effort of more than 5 years
in the making, and I want to thank all those who
have helped us in so many ways to achieve this
important goal. Before we can totally turn our
attention to the future election campaign, we
call upon the Division of Elections to abide by
state law and immediately certify FHD for the
2010 ballot without further delay or the need
for additional litigation," said Hedrick and
Tarnow.
"Everyone should now understand that the
people of Florida have achieved the right to
have an “up or down vote” on FHD. No more
attempts at delay or subterfuge can be
tolerated. The reason there has been such fierce
opposition to placing FHD on the ballot is, I’m
sure, that development-industry polls indicate
FHD will indeed achieve the 60% threshold
necessary to become a
constitutional amendment."
said Tarnow.
"This has been a tremendous effort, of which
Florida Sierra has been glad to have been the
largest environmental organization backing it,
with many of its 30,000 members being involved
in some way or another and having invested
approximately $200,000 between the state and its
local groups to have this come to fruition. We
trust that our efforts, and those of others in
the future, will continue to grow as we turn our
attention to the task of passing FHD in 2010."
said Hedrick.
"The citizens of
Florida can
celebrate today's accomplishment for democracy:
now that the FHD Amendment has become a ballot
choice in 2010, the public can regain control of
growth and development for the betterment of all
Floridians," Hedrick concluded.
The FHD Amendment (titled on the ballot as
"REFERENDA REQUIRED FOR ADOPTION AND AMENDMENT
OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT COMPREHENSIVE LAND USE
PLANS")will,
if and when passed by the electorate, require
that every city and county government that
wants to propose a changes to their local,
publicly approved Comprehensive Land Use Plan
first submit any proposed
Plan changes
to the voters in that community as the final
step. This way the voters will decide whether
this change is beneficial for their community.
The FHD Amendment will cause fewer comprehensive
plan amendments to be proposed and will require
land owners to live within the development
rights they were already granted under the
existing comprehensive plan. In this way the
FHD Amendment preserves and protects property
rights, as well as the quality of life, for all
the community’s landowners."
______________**___________
> 06 Aug 08 Update
> Subject: Judge hears Fla. planning amendment
case---Florida Hometown Democracy
>
> By CURT ANDERSON
> AP Legal Affairs Writer
>
> WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Supporters of a proposed Florida
> constitutional amendment requiring voters to approve changes in local
> growth management plans told a federal judge Wednesday that a host of
> discrepancies and problems improperly blocked the measure from the
> November ballot.
>
> Among problems described in testimony before U.S. District Judge
> Kenneth A. Marra were mistakes in double-counting invalid voter
> petitions, widely disparate standards used by the state's 67 election
> supervisors and suspiciously high rejection patterns in some counties.
>
> "It was just a myriad of problems," said Barbara Herrin, a former New
> Smyrna Beach banker who closely tracked the petitions for the Florida
> Hometown Democracy Inc. group. "Some were human, and some were system
> problems."
>
> Herrin said also between 7,000 and 10,000 signed voter petitions the
> group submitted were not accounted for at several county election
> supervisor offices.
>
> Florida Hometown Democracy failed to collect enough valid signatures
> by the state's Feb. 1 deadline to get its proposed constitutional
> amendment on the November ballot. State officials said the group was
> well short of the 611,009 needed at the time.
>
> The count on the state's web site Wednesday was still short at
> 599,921, but that's after subtracting 13,247 revoked signatures -
> enough to put the initiative over the threshold. A state appellate
> court in April said those signatures should be counted because a law
> that allowed people to take back them back was unconstitutional. That
> ruling, though, is on appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.
>
> The amendment would require voter approval of changes in growth
> management plans that determine how and where cities and counties
> expand. It has been fiercely opposed by business interests, who say it
> would undermine economic growth, while backers say it would place
> much-needed brakes on sprawl.
>
> Florida Hometown Democracy wants Marra to order the measure placed on
> this year's ballot and to strike down the Feb. 1 signature deadline,
> which was enshrined in the Florida Constitution in 2004 by the state's
> voters. The group contends the new deadline violates the U.S.
> Constitution in a number of ways, including free speech and voting
> rights guarantees.
>
> Attorneys for Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning, named as
> defendant in the case, argued that there is no federal right to amend
> the Florida Constitution and that it's up to the state to determine
> its own rules for proposed amendments.
>
> They also challenged Herrin's conclusions about problems with the
> voter petitions, noting that many rejections were correctly for such
> things as a felony conviction or because a voter had moved to another
> county.
>
> "You're not a lawyer, are you?" asked state attorney Stephen Emmanuel.
>
> "No, I'm not," Herrin replied.
>
> The state's lone witness, Division of Elections assistant director
> Sarah Jane Bradshaw, said the agency has no legal authority over the
> county elections supervisors and can only issue guidelines and
> suggestions about handling voter petition drives. Bradshaw said she
> issued a letter calling attention to some of the concerns raised
> earlier this year by Florida Hometown Democracy.
>
> "The supervisors of elections act pretty much independently," Bradshaw
> testified.
>
> State elections officials also do not separately check the accuracy of
> voter petitions, relying instead on the county supervisors to do that,
> she said.
>
> Marra did not indicate when he would issue a decision, though time is
> running short for Florida Hometown Democracy to get on this year's
> general election ballot. But if they fail this time, Herrin said the
> group would aim for the 2010 election
_____________**________________
Many of you are aware of the efforts that CFOF, the local Sierra Club, and
others expended to get Hometown Democracy on the state ballot in 2008. Below is
the latest update. Below that you'll find a letter that I wrote a month or so
back--- but I'm not sure if it ever was sent out. It re-iterates the history of
what's been going on. Thanks for your interest in maintaining the beauty of our
community....julie ferreira
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.
Unfortunately, the ongoing saga of FHD has been an all-out assault on our First
Amendment rights as citizens to reign in unresponsive government. Starting
in 2004, there have been an untold number of roadblocks thrown up to prevent FHD
from gaining ballot access.
The following
were devised by the Florida legislature:
They
proposed and then subsequently the voters passed an amendment that increased
the threshold needed for constitutional amendments to pass from 50%+1 of
voters to 60%.
They got
a constitutional amendment passed that shortens by a half year a campaign’s
time-frame for submitting petitions for the state ballot.
They
restricted access for gathering petition signatures in public areas such as
shopping centers by equating ownership of malls and shopping centers with
“private property” ownership.
They
gave Supervisors of Elections only 30 days from receipt of a signed petition
to accept or reject it.
In 2007,
the legislature passed an unprecedented law that gives petition signers the
right to revoke their signatures from petitions. They the made the
revocation retroactive by 150 days.
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.
These are
things that you can do- visit the FHD website @ http://www.floridahometowndemocracy.com/
for more updates and information. You can also download petitions from the
website and help collect more signatures; and if at all possible- please send a
contribution to help defray the legal costs to Florida Hometown Democracy, P.O.
Box 636, New Smryna Beach, Florida 32170-0636. When FHD is put on the ballot by
the federal court we all need to get ready to participate in a big way. The
stakes are incredibly high and there will undoubtably be a mis-information
campaign mounted by the development industry as the 2008 election nears.
julie ferreira
_____________**________________
23 June 08
Update
Hometown Democracy will win--and soon!
The recent filing of a federal lawsuit holds the promise of Florida Hometown
Democracy (FHD) qualifying for this year's election. Should the court, in
essence, order FHD onto the ballot, it will validate what the over 820,000
people who have already signed our petitions 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 development industry.
Witness what occurred this last legislative session just ended. Not only did
the legislators not strengthen growth management along the lines pursued by Tom
Pelham, head of the Department of Community Affairs, but they actually tried to
further weaken the rules that guide our state's growth. Luckily, many citizens
stood up in a loud voice and said, "no more," and these anti-growth management
bills died.
The FHD initiative has the support of major organizations such as Florida
Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, the Humane Society of the United States,
Environment Florida, Florida Public Interest Research Group, Florida Consumer
Action Network, Floridians for a Sustainable Population, Clean Water Action,
Friends of the Everglades, Save the Manatee Club, numerous local Audubon Society
chapters around the state, as well as a tremendous number of local, civic,
community and coalition organizations.
Individual citizens also have shown their support for FHD not only through
continuously signing petitions, but also contributing individually to the
campaign--the
Florida Division of Elections website lists 2,426 separate contributions
from one-time or multiple-donation individuals. And I will predict many more
organizations and individuals will join in this effort now that FHD is clearly
the only viable method available to citizens to rein in runaway growth and start
meaningful reform of growth management.
Why should we be concerned? Well, if things were left to take their own
course, the "professional planners" would have you think the state can
"sustainably" handle another 18 million people by 2060. However, strains on
infrastructure, water supplies and the environment show we can't handle what
we've got now! And you don't have viable comprehensive plans--the land use
constitutions that are developed by means of a citizen participation process--
if they can be amended at the drop of a hat, and amendments given out like candy
by local politicians. With FHD in place, amendments will be a lot fewer, and
better serve the public interest, as they are supposed to do.
Currently, these comprehensive plan amendments end up being a "growth tax" on
citizens at large, who have to foot the bill, in the form of increased property
taxes, for the new roads, schools and other needs required by the increased
population and commercial growth. Impact fees are either nonexistent or
inadequate in nearly every local government. Citizens also have a right to
control if, how and when their community develops, not just the development
industry, and also the right to protect their quality of life.
Who doesn't want the citizens to control their destiny? Try these on for
size: the National Association of Homebuilders, by far the largest contributor
to the opposition at $1.11 million. Other large contributors to FHD opposition
efforts are: Florida Homebuilders Association, Florida Association of Realtors,
National Restaurant Association, local Homebuilders Associations, U.S. Sugar,
Lykes Brothers, A. Duda and Sons, Ben Hill Griffin, Inc., Associated Industries
of
Florida, Associated Builders and Contractors, AT & T, Florida
Transportation Builders Association, Holding Company of the Villages and
Wal-Mart .
They'd like business as usual to go on unimpeded notwithstanding how the public
might feel about their plans. And they sure wouldn't want their plans to get
voted down by those pesky citizens, such as what happened to that proposed St.
Joe Company airport (er, I mean, the Bay County/Panama City international
airport). Unfortunately, the Bay County citizens weren't permitted a binding
referendum, so the straw ballot vote was ignored, and the airport project
proceeds, to the tune of $331 million, with $90 million from state
transportation funds.
We're got the development industry pretty worried. FHD could mean the end of
their party, so they are pulling out all the stops to keep it off the ballot.
In fact, those who have helped crater our economy because of their overbuilding,
have also caused the initiative process for everyone to become almost
non-existent. Just look at this list of changes brought on just to slow down or
stop FHD: a 60% vote now to pass a constitutional amendment; deadline for
petition submittals moved to February 1; now you can't go onto a business
property like a mall, without permission, to gather signatures; you must be 100
feet away from the door of a polling place to gather them. It's taken FHD
filing suit to stop some of the worst anti-petitoning measures, such as
signature recission.
FHD will not stop growth. Believe it or not, the public can say yes on
occasion, as shown by votes taken in local governments that already either have
some local form of FHD or have voted on growth issues. It's just that the
public is going to have to be convinced that something indeed is in their best
interest, not just to be beguiled by developer consultants' songs and dances,
or, heaven forbid, campaign contributions given to them.
A salutory side benefit of FHD could be that the electoral process will be
somewhat less corrupted than before, given that the citizens, and not the
elected officials, will be making the final major growth decisions for the
community. Developers will have less reason to lard campaign coffers to keep
decision-makers friendly.
Florida Hometown Democracy is an idea whose time has come, and was never needed
more than now.
John Hedrick has been the point person for the Florida Sierra Club on FHD and
one of the leaders of the campaign to pass the Florida Hometown Democracy
amendment. You can reach him at
johnhedrick13@
yahoo.com
_____________**____________
21May 08
Update
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.com
COMMENTARY
So 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.
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.com
COMMENTARY
Sprawl 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.
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:
Required for review by Attorney General:
61,113
Required to have initiative on the ballot:
611,009
**
Number currently valid:
585,935
**
Number currently revoked:
13,182
**
Total number valid:
572,753
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
By BRENT
KALLESTAD
State
appeals court rules in favor of citizens group
TALLAHASSEE, 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.
__________________**________________
15 Mar
08
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
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!
02 Feb 08 Gay marriage ban makes ballot, Hometown Democracy
fails
By Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE — A citizen initiative to ban gay marriage will be on the
November ballot, the only one of more than 50 active petition drives
that qualified Friday at the deadline for signature verification.
Hometown Democracy, which would have required voter approval of local
growth plan changes, was the only other proposal that appeared to have
a chance before the 5 p.m. deadline, but it missed the mark.
Officials, though, ran out of time before they could process all
signatures due to a deluge of petitions submitted in the past month
and the diversion of county election workers to preparing for and
carrying out Tuesday's presidential primary election.
It couldn't immediately be determined if there were enough unprocessed
signatures to have placed Hometown Democracy on the ballot.
Each proposed state constitutional amendment required 611,009
signatures. That's 8 percent of Florida voters who cast ballots in the
last presidential election. The 8 percent criteria also had to be met
in at least 13 of Florida's 25 congressional districts.
The same-sex marriage ban was certified with 649,346 signatures —
38,337 more than the minimum. Hometown Democracy, which was opposed by
developers, businesses and many local officials, failed by 65,182
signatures.
Hometown Democracy's backers said they will continue their drive and
seek certification for the 2010 ballot possibly within the next couple
months. Petitions are good for four years.
Secretary of State Kurt Browning rejected a request by the Florida
Chapter of the Sierra Club, which supports Hometown Democracy, to
delay ballot certification until all signatures submitted before
Friday's deadline are checked and counted if they are valid.
"The Florida Constitution requires ballot placement to occur on Feb.
1, and the Division of Elections has a rule that requires the state to
base placement on the total number of signatures received by the state
before 5 p.m.," said Browning spokesman Sterling Ivey.
In a request to Browning and Gov. Charlie Crist, Sierra officials said
a delay would be justified because of the primary, which moved up this
year from March, as well as problems in the state's electronic
counting system and the verification process in some counties.
Opponents of Hometown Democracy, including developers and other
business interests, jumped the gun and declared the proposal, which
would require voter approval of changes in local growth plans, was
dead, at least for this year.
Sponsors of the single-gender marriage ban announced in December they
had obtained enough verified signatures. State officials then lowered
the count due to a glitch in the Division of Elections' electronic
reporting system, which had double counted some signatures.
Browning shut down the system and stopped posting daily updates on
division's Web site. The last official posting on Jan. 14 showed the
gay marriage amendment was 21,989 signatures short. Hometown Democracy
needed 109,479 more signatures.
The next closest proposal as of Jan. 14 had less than half of the
necessary signatures.
After finding out it was short, Florida4Marriage.org submitted 92,000
more signatures, said the group's leader, Orlando lawyer John
Stemberger.
Hometown Democracy submitted nearly 800,000 signatures, said the
group's leader, Palm Beach lawyer Lesley Blackner.
Some of Hometown Democracy's opponents proposed an alternate growth
management initiative, but Floridians for Smarter Growth acknowledged
before the deadline that it didn't have enough signatures. Its
petitions, though, contributed to the glut that kept Hometown
Democracy off the ballot.
Michael Caputo of Floridians for Smarter Growth said its backers,
including the Florida Chamber of Commerce, have not yet decided
whether to seek certification for the 2010 ballot.
Caputo acknowledged the campaign he's managing was designed to keep
Hometown Democracy off the ballot this year so opponents would have
more time to organize for 2010.
Blackner said the law gives county supervisors of election too much
discretion and some have given signature verification a low priority.
She also blamed the Legislature's decision to move Florida's
presidential primary from March to January.
Another anti-Hometown Democracy group called Save Our Constitution
tried to get voters to revoke their signatures under a recently passed
law.
It has submitted more than 10,000 revocations, said co-chairman Barney
Bishop, chief executive of Associated Industries of Florida.
Mary Cooney, public service director for elections in Broward County,
acknowledged the election has played a role, but she said temporary
workers were hired to help with the verification. Staffers were
unable, though, to keep up with the number of petitions coming in and
some missed the deadline, she said.
(c) Naples News
________________**_______________
18 Dec 07 Your help is needed
to make the signature goal
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!
08 Oct
07 Your help is needed to make the signature goal
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
Hometown Democracy facing slimy scare tactics
Posted on Sun, Sep. 30, 2007
BY
CARL HIAASEN
Land-use initiative facing sneaky
tactics.
You can be sure
you're on the right side of an issue if John Thrasher is on the
other.
The former Florida House speaker and big-shot lawyer-lobbyist has
sent out a mass-mailing to scare voters into removing their
signatures from a statewide petition in favor of the "Florida
Hometown Democracy" amendment.
The Hometown Democracy initiative would let citizens vote to approve
or reject major changes to the comprehensive land-use plans in their
counties or cities. For the first time, Floridians would have some
direct control over how their communities grow.
Thrasher's deceptive and slimy letter is proof of the panic that has
set in among those who've made a fortune raping the state and are
afraid of losing their sweet ride.
The lobbyist ominously warns that, if the Hometown Democracy
amendment passes, "special interests" will triumph and "Big
Developers" will wreck Florida 's "scenic beauty."
Like it's not happening now?
Special interests already manipulate many county and city
commissions - not to mention the Legislature - while Florida 's
green space continues to disappear under bulldozers at the rate of
hundreds of acres per day.
What Thrasher neglects to reveal in his fright mailing is that big
developers and landholders are the ones most frantically opposed to
the Hometown Democracy movement, and that he himself represents some
of the biggest, including the St. Joe Co. that is selling off the
Panhandle.
He says allowing the voters to decide whether they want a new
megamall or condo tower down the street could stifle growth and
cause taxes to go up - another cynical fiction designed to frighten
middle-class workers and the elderly.
What really causes taxes to soar is
the need for increased services due to overdevelopment and
overcrowding. Bad planning means that the public ends up paying
dearly and repeatedly for more roads, fire stations, police patrols,
water-treatment plants and schools.
Lots of folks in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties will
tell you that runaway growth has done nothing but push up their tax
bills and diminish the quality of their family's lives.
All over the state, Floridians are disgusted by the failure of their
elected officials to do restrained, responsible planning. That's why
the Hometown Democracy petition has momentum.
While it might not be the perfect answer to derailing the engine of
manic greed that's ruining so many lovely places, many residents are
so heartsick and frustrated that they would welcome a dramatic
change.
According to the Web site
www.floridahometowndemocracy.com, petition supporters have
collected about 331,000 verified signatures of the 611,009 needed to
place the amendment on the November 2008 ballot.
Thousands more signatures are awaiting validation. The deadline for
signing is Feb. 1, only four months away, which has lent urgency to
the opposition's propaganda blitz.
Nothing is so horrifying to some
developers and corporate interests as the prospect of having to deal
directly with citizens when trying to get a building project passed.
It's much easier to woo politicians, whose loyalties often can be
purchased with a hefty campaign contribution or outright bribes.
That's the way things have always worked in
Florida , which explains the plague of ugly sprawl.
Predictably, opponents grandiosely calling themselves Floridians for
Smarter Growth have cooked up a rival constitutional amendment that
would require 10 percent of voters in a city or county to sign a
petition, before any land-use referendum takes place.
The petitions could be signed only at the office of a municipal
clerk or elections supervisor, an inconvenience that virtually
guarantees a fatally low turnout.
Obviously, the forces behind Floridians for Smarter Growth aren't
interested in participatory democracy. They want the public to shut
up and let the politicians do their thing.
According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the group raised
$841,000 between April and August. Major donors included the
National Association of Home Builders, the Florida Chamber of
Commerce and U.S. Sugar.
It's a motley roster of special interests whose motives are anything
but pure.
The Hometown Democracy movement undoubtedly was the prime target
when pro-development legislators passed a law allowing voters to
revoke their signatures from amendment petitions.
That opened the door for John Thrasher's specious letter pretending
to denounce the very developers for whom he's shilling. In urging
citizens to abandon the Hometown Democracy campaign, he blames
"slick lawyers" for tricking them into putting their names on the
petition.
Thrasher himself is one of the slickest lawyers in Tallahassee , and
it is he who has stooped to shameless trickery.
His scare letter comes with a postage-paid envelope. Mail it back
with the two-word reply of your choice.
Carl Hiaasen writes for The Miami Herald.
HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT OF FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE
to
control growth!
09 Aug 07
This 'new' dispute
is as old as democracy
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."
Holy cow! All that, just from
letting voters control growth in their own community.
Floridians for Smarter Growth
has a proposed counter-petition. It, too, claims to give citizens the
"right" to control growth but sets up roadblocks to keep them out.
Oh, and this rival amendment also
says that if both it and Hometown Democracy pass, then Hometown
Democracy won't count. Sneaky!
So if somebody asks you to sign
a petition to "control growth," make sure you know which one you're
signing.
This isn't black and white. I know
lots of smart people who think Hometown Democracy is a bad idea.
After all, in the end the
Athenians turned into a fickle mob. They chose demagogues and fools as
their leaders. They were whipped by Sparta, which was governed by kings
and a kind of gussied-up County Commission.
So by all means, if you think that
decisions about growth are best made by "professionals" and local
elected officials, then you should oppose Hometown Democracy.
After all, they've done such a
good job so far
HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT OFFLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE
to
control growth!
The BAD NEWS
first. Our enemies tacked a horrible anti-petition provision onto the
paper trail bill and the Florida Legislature swallowed the bait and
voted to approve
“5/4/07: HB537 and
SB900 - PAPER TRAIL LEGISLATION AND ANTI CITIZEN INITIATIVE BILLS MERGED AS
TWO BILLS PASS THE LEGISLATURE, SENT TO GOVERNOR.”
.
What does this mean for FHD and all other current and future citizen
initiatives to amend the Florida Constitution?
1.As of August 1st,
we will have only 30 days from the moment a petition is signed to submit the
petition to the Supervisor of Elections for validation. We had been
operating in a “pay as you go” mode -holding our petitions until we received
contributions to pay for the validation fees.
2.Our opponents will then
have 120 days from the date a petition is verified by the SOE to hunt down
and contact voters who signed a petition and try to convince them to sign a
document rescinding his or her petition! No word yet on how the
Supervisors of Election are going to handle the holding/timing issue, as
they are obliged to certify to the State Division of Elections the number of
valid signatures they receive.
SB900 could well be found to be un-constitutional, as the state constitution
fully addresses the petitioning process, and we can only hope there will be
organizations out there who will band together to challenge its legality.
You
have to wonder about the enemies of democracy out there…busy every day
dreaming up new ways to throw up roadblocks to petitioning, every year
eroding the people’s constitutional right to petition. The 30 day
submission will be a housekeeping nightmare…the rescinding provision gives
our opponents the right to harrass voters who signed the petition to get
them to rescind. Believe me, our opponents will say and do anything to
destroy Florida Hometown Democracy.
Will Charlie Crist veto this bill? We just don’t know. Everybody
wants the paper trail to ensure accountability and fairness in elections!
Contact Charlie, who purports to be “the people’s governor” and tell him how
unhappy you are about this poison pill. There are approximately 3000
of you FHD’ers out there on our email lists….if you will contact him 3
times: 1 -send an email, 2-mail a brief note, and 3-fax him a copy of the
note, ...and then ask everyone you know to do the same, our mighty voice
will be heard!
Phone: 850-488-7146
Fax: 850-487-0801
Mailing Address:
Office of the Governor
PL-05 The Capitol
Tallahassee , FL 32399-0001
Many thanks
to animal rights champion Steve Rosen for his continuing generous support
for Florida Hometown Democracy. Steve is adamant about protecting gopher
tortoise habitat and he understands that the Florida Hometown Democracy
Amendment is the key tool to do just that – protecting animal and wildlife
habitat.
and
IN THE NEWS:
……….new Palm Beach County Commissioner Jess Santamaria has gone on the
record in favor of extending referenda to rezonings and annexations:
Let
referendum settle land changes that affect many
May 07, 2007
By
JESS R. SANTAMARIA
Palm Beach EDITORIAL
Property
owners have rights to use their property as zoned. If a property is zoned
agricultural, the property owner has the right to use it for any and all
agricultural purposes. They paid the fair price for that land, and
therefore, they have every right to use it for its intended agricultural
purposes. Agricultural land owners do not have the right to use their land
for high-density residential and commercial purposes.
Citizens in a community have rights, too. They have the right to demand that
their existing "quality of life" not be damaged by a new development on
adjacent or nearby land for purposes not originally intended. Citizens have
the right to demand the continuance of the peace and tranquility they paid
for. However, if the majority of the residents desire a major change in
their immediate environment, this can be easily and fairly resolved by a
referendum, allowing all the citizens to vote on the proposed change. In a
democracy, differences are easily resolved by a fair and honest vote of all
the parties affected, and the vote of the majority is to be followed by all.
It is time to change our municipal and county charters, wherein all major
zoning and annexation changes that have major impacts on the lives of
thousands of people be resolved by a simple referendum, wherein "we the
people" decide our own destiny.
Editor's note:
Jess R. Santamaria is a Palm Beach County commissioner.
HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT OF FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE
to
control growth!
Please help turn
back some awful legislation making its way to the Florida Senate! Call your
state senator, now!Dangerous
restrictions against our right to petition our government are headed for a
vote Friday (tomorrow) in the Senate!
Calls and emails are
urgently needed to Senate members TODAY!
OPPOSE SB 900 in the
Senate NOW!
SB 900 has been altered by
the House! This bill now contains provisions that will:
·Create a cottage industry that will allow big money
groups to convince voters to take back or "revoke" their signature on a
petition. We maintain that voters can simply Vote No on an issue if they
change their mind.
Senate Bill 900 would create a whole new
class of civic intimidation.
·Require
organizations, volunteers and grassroots campaigns to turn in petitions
within 30 days. Signatures from groups who meet monthly and turn in
signatures after this deadline will not be validated.
·Allow owners to decide who can collect petition
signatures outside of strip malls and stores.
What this means, practically speaking, is
that lobbyists and political interests will now be able to pressure
corporations with stores throughout Florida and snuff out civic
participation with one well-placed phone call to corporate headquarters.
·Prohibits
organizations from paying petition gatherers indirectly or directly by the
signature, taking away valuable quality control measures!
It,like
Amendment 3, on last year’s ballot,
It is meant to box-out Florida
Hometown Democracy,
which faces a terrible struggle to gain access to a state-wide referendum
through signature collection by the end of this year.
EVERYONE
PLEASE CONTACT YOUR SENATOR !!
Message: “I urge
the Senator to oppose SB 900. This bill has been drastically altered to the
point where it will effectively ban citizen initiatives in Florida. It is
our right as citizens to address our government and this bill will make it
impossible for the voters to do so. Please protect Florida's future and the
rights of the voters. Oppose SB 900!”
22 Apr
07 A chance to unplug the
development machine
FOCUS ON
FLORIDA
BY LESLEY BLACKNER SPECIAL TO THE OCAlA
STAR-BANNER
Got water? That seems to be the
question in many parts of Florida as we reach yet another Earth Day.
It's hard to believe this state is running low on clean, drinkable H2O.
After all, once upon a time, Florida was dotted with uncounted bubbling
springs, crisscrossed with giant rivers, lakes and impenetrable swamps.
And Florida sits atop the Floridan aquifer, once one of the planet's
greatest sources of clean water.
But these days the water
management districts are screaming for restrictions and Floridians are
praying for rain.
Insane as it seems, don't expect the disappearance of drinking water to
slow construction. It's business as usual for the development machine,
keeping Florida's city and county commissioners busy rubber-stamping the
next bumper crop of condos and subdivisions.
For example, the South Florida Water Management District and the state
have told Miami-Dade County there is no additional clean water to supply
new construction, but that hasn't stopped the approval of thousands of
high-rise condos and more suburbia into what used to be the Everglades.
Indeed, having devoured its own water supply, south Florida is looking
to take north Florida's water.
It's the same old story, too, for overcrowded schools, gridlocked roads,
the morphing of the last old orange grove into 5,000 homes. You might
think reason would prevail and our elected officials would say "Enough!"
But too few of them seem capable of doing just that. Why? It's crazy to
loot our water supply and pave over the last square inch of Mother
Nature. Crazy like a fox.
Florida's land use system exemplifies what scholar Jared Diamond calls
"rational bad behavior."
In his latest book "Collapse" professor Diamond explains that when the
interests of the decision-making elite clash with the interests of the
general citizens, the elite "are likely to do things that profit
themselves, regardless of whether those actions hurt everybody else."
A self-absorbed elite insulated from the consequences of its actions is
highly destructive to the well-being of society. The elites wreck
society and keep on doing it because, as Professor Diamond says, "they
are typically concentrated (few in number) and highly motivated by the
prospect of reaping big, certain, and immediate profits, while the
losses are spread over large numbers of individuals."
Bingo.
Professor Diamond is explaining Florida's development machine, the
marriage of city and county commissions to the development industry.
Here in Florida we have a powerful development elite who control
land-use politics and, accordingly, benefit at the expense of the
losers: the citizenry, not to mention whole ecosystems.
There's so much money at stake, and all they need is a few votes on the
commission to make the next bundle. They will not stop, even when
there's no water in the tap.
Who makes the biggest contributions to local county and city commission
elections? Developers. Who spends the most time down at city hall
haggling for a land-use change? Developers. Who hires the most
lobbyists? The development machine. What issue takes up most of local
government's time, energy and money? Development. Who benefits the most
from the favors of local government? The development machine.
Who pays the price? You: the voter, the taxpayer, the citizen - you are
the one stuck with the tax bill for endless growth, worn down by a
deteriorating quality of life.
In Florida, the sad reality is that government exists to serve the
development machine, not the citizenry. That's why it's proper to say
that in Florida we have government of the developer, by the developer
and for the developer.
Never mind that under Florida law a land use change should not be
granted unless the larger public interest is improved, or at a minimum,
not harmed by the proposed change. The "public interest" has been
redefined to mean keeping the development machine humming full throttle.
They call it "economic development" and "growing the tax base." Never
mind that in 1999, a researcher added up all the development authorized
by land-use plans in Florida and found that housing for 101 million plus
people had already been factored into the plans.
Since then, local governments have continued to doll out tens of
thousands of plan amendments increasing density even more. Never mind
that growth doesn't pay its way and the bill is paid by citizens. Never
mind that parts of Florida are out of water.
It's depressing, but finally there's something you can do to reform this
sick system. It's simple, it's honest and it's purely American: Let the
people vote.
If the people want more density in their community, let them approve it.
Let's bring some accountability back to the process: do your part to put
the Florida Hometown Democracy amendment on the 2008 ballot.
What is Florida Hometown Democracy? A state constitutional amendment
mandating that all comprehensive plan amendments approved by a city or
county commission must be submitted to the electorate for final approval
or rejection.
We must collect 611,000 petitions from Florida voters by the end of this
year to make the 2008 ballot. Download the petition at
www.floridahometowndemocracy.com
or call us at (866) 779-5513 for petitions.
Tell everyone you know about this historic reform. Do something positive
for the Earth, for Florida's future, for yourself: support the Florida
Hometown Democracy petition.
Lesley Blackner, an
attorney from Palm Beach, is president of Florida Hometown Democracy
Inc.
HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT OF FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE
to
control growth!
12 Mar 07
Your First amendment rights to be trampled by developers
Wake up and smell the coffee. The Florida Legislature is set to try to
destroy our most basic Constitutional right: the right of petition,
guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. You
can be sure that this is a direct attack on Florida Hometown Democracy.
The status quo power that is "government of the developer, by the developer
and for the developer" can't beat us on the issue, so they are trying to
destroy our ability to get our reform before the Florida electorate.
These proposed restrictions on your First Amendment Right to Petition are
likely unconstitutional, but we don't have a year or two or three to
litigate this. We must nip it in the bud NOW.
Read the following stories and then contact your legislator. Tell your
legislator you won’t stand for this attack on your most basic right as an
American. Then call Governor Christ. Tell him you are appalled by this
vicious attack on your most basic civil liberty. Tell him he must VETO any
legislation that harms the right to petition. He claims to be a governor of
the people. Let's hold his feet to the fire and help him see the light.
Miami Herald
-- March 9, 2007
by Beth Reinhard and Gary Fineout
At a time when it's harder than ever for citizens to change the Florida
Constitution, stricter rules for getting proposed amendments on the ballot
cleared House and Senate committees Thursday.
The bills
would place time limits on turning in signatures, and allow people who have
signed petitions to remove their names.
Opponents of
the measure told the Senate Committee on Ethics and Elections that the
proposal would hamper efforts by grassroots organizations on shoestring
budgets. An amendment backed by big business last year requires future
proposed amendments to garner 60 percent of the vote, not just a majority.
''We see
this contributing to a larger trend, a door that is creaking shut on the
initiative process,'' said Brad Ashwell, an advocate with Florida Public
Interest Research Group.
Corporate
interests spent at least $58 million and as much as $100 million to lobby
the Florida Legislature in the past year.
''The effort
to restrict the initiative effort is coming from the biggest special
interests in the state,'' said Ben Wilcox, executive director of Common
Cause Florida.
Nonsense,
said the bill's sponsor, Republican Sen. Bill Posey of Rockledge. He said
the measure would prevent aggressive petition gatherers from taking
advantage of voters.
''Every
constitutional amendment that passes takes rights away from someone or takes
money away from someone,'' he said.
The Senate
committee passed the bill 6-3. The House Economic Expansion and
Infrastructure Council approved a similar measure 11-2.
Another
measure making it harder to run petitions passed the House Ethics and
Elections committee. The bill, pushed by Publix Supermarkets and other
business groups, would allow stores to kick signature gatherers off their
property. It comes on the heels of a Tallahassee court decision that said
the grocery chain can bar advocates of petitions to legalize marijuana.
GOP SENATOR GETS APPROVAL TO MAKE PETITIONING FOR BALLOT INITIATIVES TOUGHER
Tallahassee Democrat
-- March 8, 2007
by Bill Cotterell
A Space
Coast legislator won party-line approval Thursday for a package to tighten
restrictions on gathering petitions for issues going on the Florida ballot.
Several
civic organizations - including the League of Women Voters, People for the
American Way and Common Cause of Florida - warned that the plan by Sen. Bill
Posey, R-Rockledge, would put the public-initiative process out of reach of
truly grassroots organizations.
But business
interests, including the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated
Industries of Florida, said Posey's bill would help root out fraud, forgery
and misrepresentation in the petition method of amending the constitution.
Posey's bill
(SB 900) would require professional canvassers to wear identifying badges so
that voters would know whether a petition was pushed by civic-minded
volunteers or professional political consultants. All petitions would be
stamped with the names and addresses of the persons gathering them, whether
they are unpaid volunteers or employees getting paid by the signature.
And voters
would be able to revoke their signatures if they learn more about an issue
and regret helping to place it on the ballot. Posey said that is important
because people sometimes fall for a nice-sounding title on an initiative but
later find out they signed for something else entirely.
Posey's
interest goes back decades.
In the
1970s, he said, canvassers seeking a public referendum falsely told his
mother that he was on their side. He declined to identify the issue or the
organization pushing it but said ''they were just trying to get in my face''
by claiming that his mother endorsed their petition.
''My mother
- who, unlike me, is a very unassuming and kind-hearted person - had no way
to remove her name from that petition,'' said Posey.
Common Cause
lobbyist Ben Wilcox and attorney Mark Herron, a prominent elections law
practitioner in the Capitol, warned that the signature revocation provision
would start a whole new ''cottage industry'' of canvassing companies that
torpedo petition campaigns.
Several
consultants specialize in rounding up the 611,009 petition cards needed to
put a constitutional amendment on Florida's ballot. Herron and Wilcox said
allowing revocation would create a new line of work for them, tracking
people down and getting them to take back their signatures.
Only rich
and powerful industries - not true grassroots civic organizations - could
afford that, they said.
''This is a
solution in search of a problem,'' said Wilcox. ''The real beneficiary of
this bill would be the petition-gathering companies themselves.''
But Posey
said that in one Santa Rosa County case, petition gatherers were charged
with 40 violations of canvassing laws. In another case, he said, a county
elections supervisor was surprised to find his own name - which he hadn't
signed - on a petition for a referendum.
All three
Democrats on the Ethics & Elections Committee, Sens. Gwen Margolis of North
Miami Beach, Charlie Justice of St. Petersburg and Nan Rich of Sunrise,
voted against Posey's plan. The proposal now goes to the Judiciary Committee
for debate.
We need
help collecting signatures on the Hometown Democracy petition. We are planning
to canvass a different location in Nassau County every Saturday until the end of
the year. If you could donate just one Saturday this year we could get it
done. We will be doing it each Saturday and would
really appreciate the company. If you are interested please call Joan
Altman 277-2274
11
Feb 07
Future Corridors would be the state's biggest road
project ever.
See what's coming into your county's future! FDOT's huge
toll road plan will open up millions of rural acres to sprawl....But
none of what's planned can be done without changing local comprehensive
plans! Here are the maps on the FDOT website:
http://www.dot.state.fl.us/planning/corridor/plan.htm
TAMPA
- If built in its entirety, it could be the biggest, most expensive
transportation project in
Florida
history. Called "Future Corridors," it includes nine separate proposed
routes that would zig-zag across more than 1,000 miles of the state's rural
landscape.
Supporters say the project, still in the planning stages, is a necessary and
practical measure to brace
Florida
for the next 50 years of growth. Critics call it a throwback to the 20th
century highway mentality, one that would pave over much of the state's
remaining countryside.
In
the coming months, Gov. Charlie Crist will decide its fate. The new
governor so far is publicly mum on Future Corridors, a project promoted by
his predecessor, Jeb Bush.
Before Bush left office last month, his chief transportation official called
Future Corridors a "significant milestone" the state should pursue. But the
planning manager for
Florida's
Turnpike Enterprise, Randy Fox, said he's not sure what Crist will do, or if
he even knows about Future Corridors. Fox said it's "absolutely a
possibility" that Crist might scrub the project altogether. For now, the
idea is in an embryonic phase.
Working with state, regional, and local officials, including landowners and
developers, the Department of Transportation has identified nine routes for
potential toll highways.
The
corridors include space for utilities and mass transit, such as freight and
passenger rail. Construction would not begin for at least another five
years, DOT officials say, as the viability of each route will be tested in
the next few months and years. Two routes spill into
Alabama.
A third juts into
Georgia.
West-central Florida
would be the most criss-crossed region in the state. Six corridors skirt or
cut across the region, including a proposed 150-mile corridor linking
Hernando to
Charlotte
County
and a 170-mile route from Hillsborough to
Duval
County.
Another route, a 152-mile corridor from Collier to
Polk
County,
is already drawing considerable attention.
Florida Trend magazine, an affiliate of the St. Petersburg Times, reported
last year how a nonprofit group called the Heartland Economic, Agricultural
and Rural Taskforce, or HEART, is lobbying the DOT to build the road. HEART
represents some of the major landowners in that region and helped map the
proposed corridor, even naming it the "Heartland
Parkway,"
the magazine reported. One of HEART's attorneys, Rick Dantzler, said the
Heartland Parkway
is a pragmatic way to prepare a rural region for a population surge.
"What we see is an opportunity to use the corridor to organize the growth
that's going to come, whether we want it or not," said Dantzler, a former
Democratic state senator from
Winter Haven.
In exchange for the road, landowners would agree to preserve large swaths
for natural habitat and develop smaller areas, he said.
"You'll get haphazard growth without the corridor," he said. "What we're
trying to do is prevent the Heartland from going the way of other parts of
Florida."
But critics say Future Corridors is not only a project pushed by those who
stand to benefit, but a poor substitute for sustainable growth management.
There's no question that the motivation behind this is to open up the
state's interior lands for development," said Charles Lee of Audubon of
Florida. "We're not asking the governor to kill the corridors initiative,
but we are asking him to put the dog back in the lead and let the tail
follow. Right now, roads and transportation are leading planning in this
state."
Future Corridors is slated to be financed by public-private partnerships,
otherwise known as P3s. With state and federal lawmakers loathe to raise gas
taxes - which paid for the interstate highway system - such partnerships are
becoming an increasingly popular financing alternative. Several states are
considering or have just completed P3 arrangements in which private
companies build, operate and maintain old or new roads. In exchange, these
companies, many of them foreign-owned, collect tolls at higher rates,
operate concessions and in some cases develop along the roads.
The
concept of Future Corridors has been endorsed by the Florida Transportation
Commission, whose nine members oversee the DOT and are appointed by the
governor. In September, after endorsing Future Corridors, the commission
strongly urged the DOT to consider paying for it with private financing.
Days before he left office on Jan. 2, Bush's DOT secretary, Denver Stutler,
filed a Future Corridors "action plan" that outlined how the project should
move forward. He recommended creating a statewide advisory group;
developing financial strategies for the project; including the project in
DOT's work program; and paying for the further detailed study of three
corridors, including the
Heartland Parkway
and the Hillsborough-to-Duval route.
"We
believe that planning future corridors is not just a transportation issue,"
Stutler wrote in a Dec. 29 letter to Bush. "It's really about our future
quality of life, the competitiveness of our economy, and the sustainability
of our environment." Until they hear otherwise, state officials are using
Stutler's action plan as a guide for planning Future Corridors, said John
Taylor, a DOT administrator in
Tallahassee.
Still,
Taylor
said he doesn't know what Crist thinks.
"I
have no knowledge of his position,"
Taylor
said. "I haven't read anything that states what Charlie Crist thinks about
this project." Vivian Myrtetus, a Crist spokeswoman, said Future Corridors
hasn't come up yet in policy meetings with the governor. But one of Crist's
key appointments is beginning to voice doubts. At a Jan. 20
Everglades
conference, Crist's secretary of the Department of Community Affairs, Thomas
Pelham, said the plan deserves another look. "I know there's a great deal
of concern about the corridors program," Pelham said. "I hope to have an
opportunity to revisit it. One of my first instructions to the staff was to
immediately begin looking into the corridors program and its implications."
As the new head of an agency that oversees the state's growth management,
Pelham said Future Corridors is the wrong approach.
"It's a further indication that the tables have been completely turned,"
Pelham said during the meeting. "Land-use planning should be driving growth
management; transportation should not be driving land-use planning." Pelham
couldn't be reached for additional comment.
Frank Jackalone, director of the Sierra Club's
Florida
office, called Pelham's comments the highlight of the conference. But he
said a better indication of where Crist stands on Future Corridors will be
who he chooses to replace Stutler. "Is Crist going to hire someone who
thinks like Tom Pelham or is he going to have an opposite approach at the
DOT, and then decide between the two?" Jackalone said. "This is the big
question."
Times staff writer Craig Pittman contributed to this report. Michael Van
Sickler can be reached at mvansickler@sptimes.com or 813 226-3402.
JOIN
with us....DONATE.....COLLECT PETITIONS! We have to
complete collection of 500,000 more petitions by the end of this year to get
FHD on the ballot, and the development industry has their BIG guns out to
stop us!
HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT OF FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE
to
control growth!
03 Oct
06 VOTE
NO on Prop 3
on November 7th!Click here to see
TV ad
In order to defeat the Florida Hometown Democracy
amendment, the Florida Legislature & its BCB's (Big Corporate
Buddies) are proposing an amendment to restrict Floridians'
right to amend the Florida Constitution!!
VOTE NO on
Prop 3 on November 7th!
The growth machine is terrified of Florida Hometown
Democracy because it understands that with the passage of FHD it's lock
on land use will be broken!..........read Howard Troxler's latest
analysis and the story from the Tampa Tribune enclosed.
Lesley Blackner
Forces line up to separate 'simple' from 'majority'
Times Metro Columnist,
Howard Troxler
Published September 26, 2006
Here are some of the folks
who think it should be harder for the people of Florida
to amend our state Constitution:
U.S. Sugar Corp.BlueCross BlueShield.Publix.Lykes Bros. Inc.
The St. Joe Co.TECO Energy,
the Florida Association of Realtors, A. Duda and Sons,
and the Florida Chamber of Commerce.
On top of those guys, lots
of other corporations and prominent individuals in
Florida's agribusiness, land development, construction
and retail sectors think the same way.
In all, Florida businesses
have kicked in the better part of $2-million to persuade
you, me and the rest of the voters of Florida to give up
some of our power.
They want to talk us into
passing Amendment 3 on the November ballot. It would
change the rules for future amendments - they would need
at least 60 percent of the vote to pass.
Simple majority rule would
no longer be good enough in Florida.
Maybe you are thinking:
"Goodness me! If U.S.
Sugar, BlueCross, St. Joe and the construction industry
all think this is in my best interest, then it must be a
fantastic idea."
If you are, then you are a
trusting soul, and bless your heart for it. But here's
hoping you will not mind if I politely disagree.
Here is the funniest part.
All these business folks,
who are using the name "Protect Our Constitution Inc.,"
say it should be harder for voters to amend the
Constitution - because "special interests" have taken
over the process.
Special interests!
You know. Like the special
interests who had the nerve to ask for a minimum wage in
Florida of $6.15 an hour instead of $5.15.
Or the special-interest
parents of Florida schoolchildren who demanded smaller
class sizes when Tallahassee refused.
Or the special-interest
Floridians who took a vote and decided, you know, we are
really sick of breathing other people's indoor cigarette
smoke.
Or,
lastly, those special-interest Floridians behind the
ongoing Hometown Democracy movement, who have the idea
that voters should be directly in charge of growth
decisions in their own communities.
Yep. It is really
disgusting that special interests such as working folks,
parents and nonsmokers are trying to ram their agendas
down the throats of folks like U.S. Sugar and St. Joe.
Listen:
Amendment 3 is about
exactly one thing. It is about taking power away from
the citizens of Florida, so that it will be harder for
the people to trump the Legislature, which is firmly in
the pocket of business groups.
At its core, Amendment 3
is based on the "stupid voter" theory.
Voters are too stupid to
govern themselves, this theory says. They can't be
trusted. The argument is actually quite seductive, since
everybody likes to fancy themselves as smarter than the
riffraff.
You know the two
amendments cited most often to support the "stupid
voter" theory? One was designed to keep commercial hog
farming from spreading in Florida, the "pregnant pig"
amendment. The other required the state to build a
high-speed rail system; the voters later repealed it.
Now, come on. Are those
two ideas really THAT crazy?
Keeping commercial hog
farming out of Florida? Building high-speed rail to
connect Florida's population centers?
And even if you disagree
with them (as I did, voting against both of them), do
you really think their passage means we now need to
repeal majority rule?
Is that really the way to
think? That if YOU don't like the outcome of an
election, then that justifies changing the fundamental
rules of our society?
Here is an irony. Under
our rules, Amendment 3 needs only a simple majority to
pass. A simple majority can vote to give away the rights
of all future majorities that don't measure up to the
magic 60 percent.
But if that's what the
majority chooses, then I will respect the decision and
defend the majority's right to govern itself - in other
words, behaving in a way exactly the opposite of this
so-called "Protect Our Constitution" bunch.
Developers
are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of a ballot
measure that would make it more difficult for citizens to amend the
Florida Constitution.
Amendment
3, which the Legislature placed on the Nov. 7 ballot, would change the
requirements for passing citizen initiatives from a simple majority vote
to a 60 percent plurality.
A wide
array of business groups is supporting the amendment, but the National
Homebuilders Association has given $300,000 - more than any other group
- to a political action committee campaigning for the measure. The
committee has raised $1.8 million.
Homebuilders and other development groups especially are interested in
using the amendment to defeat an upcoming initiative that could slow
growth across the state.
The
Florida Hometown Democracy amendment, which could be on the 2008 ballot,
would require a vote of the people anytime a county or city proposes
changing its comprehensive growth plan. Currently, comp plan amendments
may be passed by a simple majority of a county commission or city
council. Hillsborough County passes dozens of comp plan amendments every
year to accommodate development
Lance
deHaven-Smith, an author and political scientist at Florida State
University, said there has never been an amendment on the ballot that
has the potential to fundamentally change government's approach to
growth and development like Hometown Democracy.
"I think
Hometown Democracy looms very large in the minds of the business leaders
in the state and certainly the developers," deHaven-Smith said.
If
Amendment 3 passes, the Hometown Democracy amendment would need 60
percent of the vote for approval, rather than a simple majority. Of the
18 citizen initiatives passed since 1992, 10 passed with more than 60
percent of the vote.
Land-Use Revolt
The push
to limit initiatives coincides with a growing number of citizen revolts
across the state over land-use issues. Whether it's limiting building
heights and density in St. Pete Beach or containing sprawl in Sarasota
County, residents increasingly are trying to wrest land-use
decision-making from local officials.
"We're not
antigrowth, but we want sensible growth," said Bill Earl, a spokesman
for Sarasota Citizens for Sensible Growth. "We don't want to see the
county paved over, which is where it's headed."
The
Sarasota group is collecting signatures to get two charter amendments on
the ballot. One would require a supermajority vote of the five-member
county commission to increase density for a development. The other
amendment would require a referendum to move the county's urban service
boundary.
In St.
Pete Beach, residents opposed land-use changes that would have allowed
20-story buildings on the beach. The group collected enough signatures
to have a referendum on the changes, but the city sued to stop the
election. After losing in circuit court, the residents' attorney, Ken
Weiss, appealed to the 2nd District Court of Appeal and won. The judge
ruled that the residents "are entitled to express their views on how
their City Commission should handle land-use problems."
"I feel
really strongly that people should have some control over what their
city looks like, and it should be citizen-determined, not
developer-determined," Weiss said. "That's what Florida Hometown
Democracy will do. It will give people the right to approve a comp
plan."
Getting On
Ballot Isn't Certain
Hometown Democracy
is not a sure bet to make the ballot. It failed its first review by the
Florida Supreme Court in March 2005 because of "emotional rhetoric" in
the ballot summary. The court approved a rewritten amendment in June.
The
movement depends on volunteers, however, and has little money to hire
professional petition signature collectors. The group had collected
60,000 signatures before being rejected by the Supreme Court. The
reversal forced the group to start collecting signatures again.
Movement
co-founder Lesley Blackner, a Palm Beach lawyer, conceded getting the
necessary 611,000 signatures before February 2008 will be tough.
Yet the
scattered local battles over land-use decisions indicate the general
public may be in an antigrowth mood. Whether it's long commutes, crowded
schools or a deteriorating environment, many residents are looking for
answers and are sick of the status quo.
"City and
county commissions are not supposed to approve land-use changes unless
they determine that the change will improve a community, or at least not
harm it," Blackner said. "But unfortunately, the land-use power has been
hijacked by commissioners who believe keeping the growth machine happy
is their only job."
Edie
Ousley, spokeswoman for the Florida Home Builders Association, said the
group is concerned about Hometown Democracy. She said the amendment
would force voters to consider a long list of comp plan changes that
they might not understand. Voters could be swayed by organized campaigns
financed by special interest groups.
"In some
cases you will have higher socioeconomic residents who will vigorously
oppose certain uses, like a garbage site, that will have a deflationary
effect on their homes," Ousley said. "They will be able to pawn that off
on a lower socioeconomic area that lacks the ability to campaign against
it."
Lawyer's
Argument
Tampa
land-use lawyer Ron Weaver has urged the business community to vote for
Amendment 3 to stop the Hometown Democracy amendment. Weaver said there
are about 8,700 comp plan amendments statewide each year. Last year,
there were 1,200 in Palm Beach County alone.
"That's a
lot of plan amendments to be subjecting your citizenry to when they are
dealing with a lot of other issues on the ballot," Weaver said. "It
would seem like you would want to entrust that to your county staff,
which has the time and training."
Weaver
said the state's sizzling population growth has forced counties to
redraw comp plans. Escalating land and materials prices, along with the
pressure for affordable housing, have forced higher-density development.
Residential areas once planned for two or three houses per acre are
being rezoned for density twice that.
The
development community is worried about the Hometown Democracy amendment
because of the chaos it would cause at the ballot box, said Jim Krog, a
longtime business lobbyist in Tallahassee.
Florida's
growth-related problems - high taxes, rising housing costs and sprawl -
defy simple solutions such as Hometown Democracy, Krog said. Land-use
decisions that some residents oppose, such as increased densities or
expanding urban service areas, are driven by the need for affordable
housing and a desire to keep property tax valuations low, he said.
"We've
almost gotten ourselves into a Catch-22," Krog said. "Every time you
wrinkle it, you wrinkle it another way. There are no simple answers to
this."
Researchers Melanie Coon and Buddy Jaudon contributed to this report.
Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303 or msalinero
FINANCIAL
BACKERS
Top
contributors to Protect Our Constitution, a committee formed to support
passage of Amendment 3, which would require 60 percent plurality to pass
citizen initiatives:
•National
Home Builders Association: $300,000
•Foundation for Preserving Florida's Future (pro-business group):
$250,000.
•A. Duda
and Sons (agri-business): $100,000
•Alico
Inc. (agri-business): $100,000
•Blue
Cross and Blue Shield: $100,000
•Florida
Association of Realtors: $100,000
•Publix
Supermarkets: $100,000
•The
Bonita Bay Group (developers): $75,000
•U.S.
Sugar Corp.: $75,000
BALLOT LANGUAGE
No. 3
Constitutional amendment
Article
XI, Section 5
Ballot
Title:
Requiring
broader public support for constitutional amendments or revisions
Ballot
Summary:
Proposes
an amendment to Section 5 of Article XI of the State Constitution to
require that any proposed amendment to or revision of the State
Constitution, whether proposed by the Legislature, by initiative, or by
any other method, must be approved by at least 60 percent of the voters
of the state voting on the measure, rather than by a simple majority.
This proposed amendment would not change the current requirement that a
proposed constitutional amendment imposing a new state tax or fee be
approved by at least 2/3 of the voters of the state voting in the
election in which such an amendment is considered.
CONSTITUTIONAL
CHANGES
Some of
the state constitutional amendments passed through citizen initiative
with percentage of favorable vote:
1992:
Limited terms of elected offices, 76.7 percent
2002:
Statewide governing board for universities, 60.5 percent
2004:
Minimum wage, 71.2 percent
2004:
Repeal of
high-speed rail amendment, 63.7 percent
2004:
Patients'
right to know about adverse medical incidents, 81.1 percent
2004:
Public
protection from repeated medical malpractice, 71 percent.
___________**____________
Special interests behind 'yes' push
for Amendment 3
BY CARL HIAASEN
One of the most
audacious and cynical attacks on the rights of Florida voters will
appear as ''Amendment 3'' on the Nov. 7 ballot.
A coalition of powerful special interest groups wants to amend
the state Constitution to make it harder to -- of all things --
amend the state Constitution.
To thwart grass-roots movements that threaten their chokehold on
the Tallahassee power structure, the promoters of Amendment 3 want
the rules changed so that all future amendments will require 60
percent of the popular vote, instead of the current simple majority.
Those conspiring in this power grab are hiding behind a
lofty-sounding front called ''Protect Our Constitution,'' which more
truthfully ought to be named ``Protect Our Political Connections.''
Among the industry lobby groups and big-name companies that don't
trust Floridians to shape their own constitution: The National
Association of Home Builders, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, The Florida
Association of Realtors, U.S. Sugar, The St. Joe Co., Lykes Bros.
Inc., the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Publix (where shopping
might be a pleasure, but civic activism is apparently an annoyance).
Most corporate donors to the Amendment 3 campaign aren't
publicizing their involvement because they don't want Floridians to
get the right idea -- that it's a sucker punch disguised as reform.
The entire point of citizens' initiatives is to enable frustrated
voters to press an issue that their elected representatives have
chosen to ignore. In Florida, the only way to do that is to change
the Constitution.
A watershed example was the amendment banning the use of large
commercial gill nets, which had been wiping out vast schools of game
fish while indiscriminately killing other species, including
turtles.
Top state lawmakers, several of whom were taking campaign
contributions from the commercial fishing industry, refused for
years to do anything about the nets.
Conservation groups then joined with recreational anglers and
circulated hundreds of petitions to put the issue on a statewide
ballot. The measure passed overwhelmingly in 1994.
Scrolling the list of Amendment 3's donors, you can understand
why they're eager to shut the public out of the lawmaking business.
Ten years ago, Big Sugar spent millions to defeat a proposed
amendment that would have levied a penny-per-pound tax on sugar, the
revenue to be used for cleaning up the Everglades.
Publix and the Florida Chamber of Commerce were both stung by a
2004 amendment raising the minimum wage to $6.15 an hour --
something their toadies in the Legislature had loyally declined to
do.
The construction and real-estate industries are desperately
nervous about the growing push for a ''Hometown Democracy''
amendment that would give voters a direct voice in major growth
decisions in their communities.
If Amendment 3 passes, Florida would be the only state in the
nation requiring 60 percent voter approval for a citizen initiative.
That means a minority of 41 percent could defeat any proposed change
in the Constitution.
Supporters of that idea say that too many frivolous amendments
are getting on the ballot these days. Their favorite target of scorn
is the recent ban on cages for pregnant pigs, although it's not
clear how that has inconvenienced anybody but a few hog farmers.
More irksome to well-connected special interests are the
substantive amendments spawned by citizen groups -- the ban on
indoor smoking, the limit on class sizes, the hike in the minimum
wage, mandatory term limits for officeholders and the cap on tax
hikes on homestead property.
In every instance, the reason that public activists got involved
is because those elected to speak for the public wouldn't step to
the plate. Not all those amendments were perfectly crafted, but
neither are many of the laws passed by the Legislature.
Corporate players in Tallahassee know they can't seduce the
majority of voters as easily as they seduce politicians. There's a
certain scornful confidence, however, that 41 percent of the people
can be persuaded to vote against just about anything, if enough
money is spent on a slick media blitz.
That's how the folks behind Amendment 3 plan to sell the idea
that it's an overdue refinement of the Constitution, when in truth
it's a gift to big businesses and their lobbyists.
Voters do make mistakes -- look at some of the lightweights and
losers who get elected to office. Eventually, though, the people get
wise.
That's what happened to the 2000 amendment approving a high-speed
bullet train. The concept looked nifty on paper, but in reality it
was a recipe for a half-baked, budget-breaking boondoggle.
Thanks to vigorous campaigning by Gov. Jeb Bush, Floridians
eventually saw the light, and the train amendment was repealed
before the first inch of track was laid.
Opposition to Amendment 3 is bipartisan and diverse, from former
Sen. Bob Graham to ultraconservative religious leaders. They're
united in the view that any law that makes it more difficult for
citizens to be heard -- and easier for special interests to stack
the political deck -- is bad.
Amendment 3's supporters are hoping most people won't bother to
read the fine print on the ballot item, and will instead fall for
the well-financed hype.
The magic number to prove them wrong is 50.1 percent, at least
for now. If you honestly want to protect Florida's Constitution,
vote No on Amendment 3.
20
Aug 06 An appeals
court says St. Pete Beach voters should get the chance to weigh in on the
city's development.
Ruling revives votes on growth
By CRAIG PITTMAN,
St. Pete Times Staff Writer
St. Pete Beach voters should get the
chance to decide the direction of their community's growth, despite the
objections of city officials, an appeals court ruled Friday.
In one of a burgeoning number of
conflicts over growth across the state, a group called Citizens for
Responsible Growth has battled St. Pete Beach officials for more than a year
over land-use plan changes that would allow 20-story buildings and other
controversial development in the beachfront community.
The group, which opposes the plan
changes, had collected enough petitions for a referendum vote last March on
changing the City Charter. But the city sued to block the election. And a
developer who said the proposed referendum was costing him money by delaying
his project sued Citizens for Responsible Growth.
In December 2005, Pinellas-Pasco
Circuit Judge Walt Logan sided with the city, striking down three of the
four proposed referendums.
On Friday, though, the 2nd District
Court of Appeal said Logan was wrong and ordered that all four referendum
items be placed on the ballot.
"The citizens of St. Pete Beach are
entitled to express their views on how their City Commission should handle
land use problems," Judges E.J. Salcines, Charles T. Canady and Darryl C.
Casanueva stated in the 11-page unanimous ruling.
City officials were reluctant to
comment on whether they will now schedule a vote or appeal to the Florida
Supreme Court.
"We haven't even discussed that,"
said City Manager Mike Bonfield, who estimated that the city has spent "in
the neighborhood of $150,000" on attorneys' fees so far.
The ruling shows that "people can
take control," said Ken Weiss, lead attorney for Citizens for Responsible
Growth. "People can fight city hall and win."
It also encouraged
the leaders of the Florida Hometown Democracy movement. They are collecting
petition signatures to amend the state Constitution to require referendum
votes on any local government land-use plan changes. So far, they have
collected 100,000 of the 611,000 signatures they need.
"I think the appeals
court got it right: All political power is inherent in the people," said
Ross Burnaman, who is helping spearhead the Florida Hometown Democracy
drive.
Burnaman and Weiss pointed out that
similar battles have been cropping up across the state, in locales as
diverse as Ormond Beach and Yankeetown, as voters have tried to stop local
governments from allowing growth that conflicts with existing land-use
plans.
The St. Pete Beach ruling coincided
with a similar one in a case across the state. A Palm Beach Circuit judge
ruled Friday that a referendum on land-use changes sought by a Lake Worth
group called Save Our Neighborhood should go to the voters.
In St. Pete Beach, Citizens for
Responsible Growth has been battling plans that its president, former Mayor
Terry Gannon, said would turn the quiet beach community into a "concrete
canyon."
The group sought to change the
charter to require that voters would have to approve any plan changes, any
community development plan and any increase in the city's building height
limits.
It also sought a requirement that any
comprehensive plan or plan amendment affecting five or fewer parcels of land
would have to be approved by a unanimous vote of the City Commission.
Judge Logan ruled that only the
proposal to require unanimous commission votes on small land-use changes
could go on the ballot. Both sides appealed to the 2nd District.
Friday's ruling pointed out that
state law prohibits referendums only on land-use changes involving five
parcels or fewer. That means it's all right for a city's charter to require
voter approval on anything larger, the judges said.
Gannon predicted that city officials
will continue fighting against the referendum.
"I don't think they'll stop with the
Supreme Court," Gannon said. "I think they'll go all the way to Mars."
______________**_____________
13
Aug 06 If growth is so great, why is
Miami so poor?
You think the traffic
is bad now, and the schools are overwhelmed. What happens while the
next 5, 20, 50 million people move to Florida? Right now Florida's
population is about 18 million and growing by more than 1,000 people
each and every day, with no end in sight.
If you add up all the
comprehensive plans in our state, you will find that they project
housing for over 100 million people.
The truth, which
politicians avoid like the plague, is that Florida's population
growth is never supposed to end. State and local governments are in
the growth business. These growth junkies equate relentless,
unending construction with civic progress. They like to call it
"economic development."
When a voter says,
"But I like my community the way it is," he is shouted down by the
growth junkies: "This town needs this growth — if we don't grow
we'll die!"
When I hear this, I
think of Miami-Dade County. For a century, Miami has grown without
restraint, paving over the mangroves and the swamps. If simply
adding more people and more construction is good government and good
business, then why is Miami the poorest big city in the United
States, a fiscal nightmare, the poster child for everything the rest
of the state doesn't want to be?
What can you do, when
you don't want to see every road in your town six-laned and
portables mushrooming around the schools? What can you do to defend
yourself, your home and your community from the growth junkies'
bill: endless construction, a degraded quality of life, overwhelmed
municipal services and a higher cost of living?
Tragically, under
Florida's land use law, local government's main job is supposed to
be the protection of citizens' quality of life. The law is clear
that when a city or county commission votes on a proposed land use
change, the politicians are standing in the shoes of the electorate
and should not approve the proposed change unless they determine
that it will improve the community.
The problem is that
too many Florida politicians are growth junkies. They equate
relentless, unending construction with civic progress. They are more
concerned with catering to the next 10,000 new residents than
protecting and preserving their communities.
We, the Florida
voters, must take back control over the destiny of our state. We
must take decisions out of the hands of the growth junkies. We do
this by supporting the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment, a
proposed constitutional amendment that will put the people back in
charge of the places where they live by letting voters decide
whether to change their community's growth plan.
This makes sense
because voters care deeply about the place where they live. We
should have the final say over proposed changes in our hometowns
because, for better or worse, we get stuck with the consequences.
Last year, the Florida
Supreme Court ruled 7-0 that the amendment is fine, but then split
4-3 over one sentence in the ballot summary. As Yogi Berra said, "It
ain't over till it's over. So we are starting over, very confident
this time that we will prevail.
I urge you to learn
more about our effort at www.floridahometowndemocracy.com If you are a registered Florida voter, download the
petition, sign it and mail it in. Call us toll-free at 866-779-5513
if you don't have computer access and need petitions.
Florida's future
thanks you.
LESLEY BLACKNER
Blackner, an attorney in Palm Beach, is an organizer for the
Florida Hometown Democracy campaign.
___________**__________
25 Jun 06
Hometown Democracy means war is brewing
ST. PETE TIMES
By HOWARD
TROXLER, Times Columnist
If you could line up all the Florida
residents who ever fought a Wal-Mart or a new development on one side, and
every city council or county commission member who ever approved one on the
other side, you would have one heck of a war.
Well, that war looks like it's
coming.
This past Thursday, the Florida
Supreme Court approved a voter petition that goes by the nickname of
"Hometown Democracy."
Hometown Democracy is the ultimate
citizen revolt. It would take power away from Florida's city and county
elected officials, and give that power directly to local voters.
How? By requiring voter approval for
every change to a city or county's "comprehensive plan," which determines
what kinds of things get built where.
Each city and county in Florida has
one of these maps, usually called a "comp plan." They are the backbone of
each community's decisions about future land use.
Where should the industry go in our
town? Where should the stores go? Where should the homes, the parks, the
green spaces go?
Imagine such decisions placed
directly in the hands of voters, instead of city councils and county
commissions!
(Just to be clear: The amendment
would not require voter approval for rezonings or building permits. But any
zoning decision still has to obey the comprehensive plan.)
Assuming that Hometown Democracy gets
enough petition signatures, it will go on the statewide ballot, most likely
in 2008.
This proposed amendment to the state
Constitution is the result of a tide of resentment against local government
that has been building across our state.
We have seen it in fights over big
box stores and shopping centers. We see it today in Yankeetown in Levy
County, where development issues have divided the people and led to a state
investigation.
We see it in our own back yard in
Treasure Island and St. Pete Beach, where voters have risen up to try to
take decisionmaking away from City Hall. St. Petersburg right now is
deciding whether to amend its comp plan at the request of the Sembler Corp.
Now we are likely to see the fight
played out across the entire state. This kind of amendment, more
than pregnant pigs or choo-choo trains, is why the Legislature and Florida's
business community have fought for the past few years to crack down on voter
petitions.
But the Supreme Court's ruling was
unanimous, a slam-dunk. The court said that:
1) Hometown Democracy does not
violate the rule that all proposed amendments must stick to a "single
subject."
2) The ballot language of Hometown
Democracy is clear and not misleading.
The second part of the ruling was
especially important, because the court had thrown an earlier version of
Hometown Democracy off the ballot in 2005 on those grounds.
The amendment was opposed by the
Florida League of Cities, the Florida Association of Counties and the
Florida School Boards Association.
The court's ruling not only shot down
the cities, counties and school boards, but it also contained encouraging
language for future voter petitions.
The court said that once a problem in
the language of a petition has been fixed, opponents can't just keep raising
new arguments and new challenges.
"Allowing piecemeal attacks on a
proposed amendment," the court said, "would not only be fundamentally unfair
to the proponent of an amendment, it would be a misuse of the process for
approval of citizen initiatives."
What happens now? First, Hometown
Democracy's organizers have to get enough signatures. Only 69,000 signatures
have been officially verified and they need 611,000. But the backers say
they already have more signatures in hand, and experience shows - as the
critics of petitions themselves admit - that it is highly likely they can
succeed.
Barring some other successful
challenge to the amendment, that will leave Florida's cities and counties
with one last option:
Prove to the voters that Hometown
Democracy is a bad idea.
That will be a fun debate. Local
officials will have to defend their track record and make the case as to why
they, and not the voters, are better suited to decide what gets built where.
And if Hometown Democracy passes?
Then those who want to build things in places in Florida where they weren't
originally intended will have to convince the entire community it's a good
idea. What a concept!
Florida's current land use
decision-making process at work!
We need to
"re-plumb" the land use decision-making process in Florida!
As the process currently exists,
it’s a bit like entering the land of Oz.. It’s intimidating to
John Q. Citizen who can’t fathom what is going on. First,
there’s the legal hocus pocus at the required public hearing,
invocation of procedures like “quasi-judicial” and “due
process.” You get your three minutes and then you’re shut up
and sat down!! Fancy lawyers and “consultants” are like
magicians: they pontificate (no time limit required!) in what
may as well be Greek and then, sure as the sun comes up in the
morning, they pull approvals out of the hat every time for their
developments…it’s a “done deal.”
CHANGING THE PROCESS:
A group of citizens in Edgewater recently formed
a political action committee,
Edgewater Citizen’s Alliance for Responsible Development, Inc.,
to promote a series of charter
amendments to ensure greater voter control on land use
decisions. For example,
ECARD is collecting signatures on a petition to amend the
City of Edgewater charter to change the vote required for a
rezoning or comp plan change to a super-majority (4-1)
from the current requirement of a simple majority (3-2),
(http://www.floridasos.com).
A similar charter amendment has been on the books in Cocoa Beach
for several years.
This simple change is
not a panacea, but it’s a really good start. It raises the bar
higher for approval of rezonings and comp plan amendments …and
that’s where it should be--because it should be hard to get a
rezoning or comp plan amendment approved in the first place…our
commissioners have simply forgotten that these proposals ought
not be approved unless they make a determination first that they
will be good for the community…..
If you are interested in working on a local charter amendment
to bring sanity back to land use in your community, contact us
at: info@responsiblegrowth.net
Meanwhile, let’s pull back the
curtain on Oz and see what’s really going on. Behind the veneer
of legality and pomposity it’s just politics as usual. For over
twenty years now, the growth machine has hijacked the land use
development process. We currently have government of the
developer, by the developer and for the developer… here
are the empowering principals that you need to understand.
FACTS:
Legal Principle #1:
LAND USE POWER IS DERIVED FROM THE VOTERS.
(I know, you are stunned. But it’s true.) When a city or county
commission is voting on a proposed land use change, the
commissioners are standing in the shoes of the electorate. The
law presumes that the commissioners are acting in
the public interest and will not approve a proposed land use
change unless the applicant can establish, at a bare minimum,
that the community will not be harmed by the change. That’s why
public notice and hearing are deemed essential under our law:
how can the commissioners know what the voters want unless they
have heard from us?
But you know what’s
happened: the public interest is simply defined
down to whatever works to keep the construction industry
humming along. To hell with everything else. To hell with
protecting the values and amenities that form the core function
of local government power in the first place: our quality of
life, our peace and quiet, roads that are not gridlocked,
schools that are crammed wall to wall, the preservation of
nature for future generations not yet born.
Legal Principle #2:
LAND USE DECISIONS ARE FUNDAMENTALLY POLITICAL DECISIONS.
THAT’S WHY THEY ARE SUBMITTED TO VOTE.
Legal Principle #3:
Political decisions are hard to overturn in court. Not
impossible, but difficult. The legal system presumes the vote
was made in the public interest and reflects the public
interest. Plus, the courts don’t like to get involved in
politics. Not for nothing a wise man once said: Litigation is
the playground of kings.
Voter
accountability
on land use decisions:
The only way to effect genuine,
long term reform and make land use votes reflect the broad
public interest is to change the rules of the game. How
do we do this? We change who makes the decision.
That’s the basis for Florida Hometown Democracy. This
constitutional amendment will enable the voters to vote on
proposed comprehensive land use plan amendments. Why shouldn’t
we vote? It’s our community and these decisions affect the
future of our community for decades, centuries to come. Go to
www.floridahometowndemocracy.com for all the details.
If you are a registered Florida
voter, please sign the newpetition(*) and help us get the FHD amendment on the ballot
statewide.
[*If you think you signed the old petition before, you still
need to sign this new one. The Florida Supreme Court made the
sponsors of FHD revise one sentence of the ballot summary. It’s
done and FHD is now back on track to try and make the statewide
ballot.]
What is a Comprehensive Plan and what is it
supposed to do?
In 1985
Florida adopted the “Local Government Comprehensive Planning and Land Development
Regulation Act,” popularly known as the Growth Management Act. This law was adopted
to save Florida from bad, uncontrolled development and the parade of problems that
inevitably follow it:
·overcrowded schools
·gridlocked roads
·overwhelmed municipal services like fire,
police, garbage, sewage, hospitals
·higher taxes, fees and utility costs
·paved over open space and wildlife habitat
·declining, polluted water supply
·widespread environmental degradation
·eroded quality of life for the average Floridian
The Growth
Management Act states that a proposed development that is not consistent with a
comprehensive plan should not be approved by a local government. For example, if a
proposed development will contribute to the overcrowding of a road or a school, or stress
a community’s water supply, or devour wildlife habitat or green space, the proposed
development is not consistent with the comprehensive plan and it should not be approved.
Why This Campaign?
Floridians
for Hometown Democracy knows that people care about the place where they live and trust
the people to make decisions that will protect their community’s future.
Florida’s Hometown Democracy Amendment seeks to take this faith in the people and
make the current land use system more democratic by giving the power over certain land use
changes (comprehensive plan amendments) to the voters. Because land use decisions
are just about the most important decisions that local governments make, the voters should
have the final word about decisions that can make or break their community’s future.
SIGN THE PETITION
& PLEASE Help US GET
MORE !
We have to gather 500,000
signatures of registered Florida voters onpetitions in order for
THE Florida Hometown Democracy
Amendment to be placed on the November 2006 ballot.
We are a grassroots campaign and can only get this done with your
help! Please sign one yourself, then print
out
(If you don't have Adobe Acrobat Reader, get one here.)
If you experience any problem downloading or printing the petition form,
please call or fax us at 386/424-0860, or email us at info@FloridaHometownDemocracy.com,
describing the problem. We will get some petitions to you.
Please
complete and return to:
Florida
Hometown Democracy, Inc.
P.O. Box 636
New Smyrna
Beach, FL 32170
Please make only clear, high-resolution copies.
To be valid, the petition must be printed to fit one page
only.
If you can't download, please call or email
us and we'll mail you some.
"Panhandle" is one of those
geographic terms, like "tundra" or "mud flats," that are not well suited
to selling real estate. It smacks of homelessness, or kitchen drudgery.
As a signifier of mystery and romance, it vastly underachieves.
But what about "the Great
Northwest"? As in: "RiverCamps on Crooked Creek, a New Ruralist
settlement in the Great Northwest." That's not just poetry - it's a
killer sales brochure. It sets the mind to basking in mountain sunshine,
in a world of buffalo and sagebrush and stonewashed denim. Those lots
would sell for sure.
You should know, though,
that this "Great Northwest" we speak of is in Florida. On the Panhandle.
Or rather, it is the Panhandle, the largest chunk of unsprawled-upon
real estate left in Florida, now that developers on the Atlantic and
Gulf Coasts are practically choking on their own subdivisions.
The St. Joe Company,
Florida's largest private landowner, wants to sell huge portions of its
800,000 acres on the Panhandle. The trouble is, much of the property is
inland, scrubby and hard to reach. Its woods and swamps are hot, sticky
and full of bugs.
That's where "the Great
Northwest" and "New Ruralism" come in, joining "rich Corinthian leather"
and "Chilean sea bass" on the evil-genius list of corporate coinages.
"New Ruralism" is a particularly wily invention. Unlike "New Urbanism,"
a philosophy that arose to oppose the cities' sprawl, "New Ruralism" was
invented to move product. Or, as the St. Joe Company put it in a news
release: " 'New Ruralism' Diversifies Product Line, Adds Value to Rural
Land Holdings."
The convergence of delusion
and desire in sun-kissed Florida is as old as Ponce de Leon. The Marx
Brothers joked about the Florida land boom as long ago as 1929, in "The
Cocoanuts." ("You can have any kind of a home you want," said Groucho,
as a shady auctioneer. "You can even get stucco. Oh, how you can get
stucco.") The worthless Florida lots hustled by desperate Chicago
salesmen every night on Broadway come with the most alluring names:
"Glengarry Highlands" and "Glen Ross Farms."
St. Joe, through its
meticulously designed and marketed faux-rural developments with names
like RiverCamps, SummerCamp and WaterColor, is taking such salesmanship
to a higher level. It isn't deceit, really. It's more the artful
harnessing of consumer appetites to invent a more appealing reality.
Groucho would have been
impressed. He did, after all, try to pull pretty much the same trick in
"The Cocoanuts":
"Why, it's the most
exclusive residential district in Florida," he said. "Nobody lives there
STATE APPROVES NEW
FLORIDA HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY PETITION.
On Tuesday June 21, 2005 the Florida Division of Elections
approved the NEW Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment
Petition form.
“This amendment will give Florida voters the power to
control local growth management.” says its co-author,
Lesley Blackner. The Florida Hometown Democracy amendment
will change the Florida Constitution to require that changes
to local government comprehensive plans (and adoption of new
plans) be subject to a referendum vote of local voters as
the final step in the local approval process. Currently,
such votes are only made by county and city commissioners.
The original Florida Hometown Democracy Petition was first
proposed two years ago, and over 50,000 verified petitions
were accepted by the state. However, on March 17, 2005, a
sharply-divided Florida Supreme Court narrowly ruled (4-3)
that the first sentence in the required “ballot summary” was
an “editorial comment”, (although it was a direct quote from
the Florida Constitution!), and struck the proposal.
Notably, all of the Justices found that, other than the
first sentence of the ballot summary, therest of the original
Petition met all legal requirements.
The NEW Petition is identical to the original Petition
except that it strikes the first sentence of the ballot
summary that was disapproved by the four Justices.
The Division of Elections’ approval means that supporters of
the Florida Hometown Democracy amendment must now begin anew
the process of collecting signed petitions.
61,113 verified NEW Petitions must be filed with the
Secretary of State to initiate the required Supreme Court
review of the new Petition. Given the Supreme Court’s prior
opinion and our deletion of the first sentence in the ballot
summary, it is highly probable that the Court will approve
the measure for the 2006 ballot.
Registered Florida voters who are interested in signing the
Florida Hometown Democracy Petition should:
1. Log on to: http://www.FloridaHometownDemocracy.com (We've
made changes to our website, please hit your "Refresh"
button to update your server!)
2. Download the NEW Petition (bears the date June 21,2005 on
bottom)
3. Complete and sign the NEW Petition
4. Mail the signed Petition to Florida Hometown Democracy,
Inc., PO Box 636, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32168.
“Florida Hometown Democracy will put Floridians back in
charge of the places where they live” said Lesley Blackner,
who is leading the effort to empower Floridians. She noted:
“We are a grassroots movement, and our efforts depend upon
the support, elbow grease and contributions of like-minded
citizens who value Florida’s natural resources, scenic
beauty and long-term quality of life.”
Lawmakers have voted for measures
designed to sharply restrict the power of Floridians to make
themselves heard through the initiative process.
"The public be damned!," as railroad
tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt infamously remarked, was the order of
the day on Tuesday in the Florida Legislature. Vanderbilt would have
been overjoyed by how Florida's big business lobbies were calling
the tune.
The House passed three constitutional amendments and an
outrageous bill collectively intended to stifle the public's right
of initiative. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved its version
of the bill (CS for SB 1996, HB 1471) despite ample misgivings over
its constitutionality.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Dan Webster, R-Winter Garden, marveled
at a hypocrisy: The Florida Chamber of Commerce lobbying for
restrictions on how certain businesses pay their employees. His
concern: a provision making it a crime to pay petition gatherers
"directly or indirectly" according to the number of signatures they
secure. Other senators cited a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision that
will likely be a precedent for overturning that. Still, Webster and
his committee approved it on a 5-3 party-line vote.
In Meyer vs. Grant, the court unanimously overturned a Colorado
law forbidding payment for signatures. Such a restriction, the court
said, "trenches upon an area in which the importance of First
Amendment protections is "at its zenith.' . . . The burden that
Colorado must overcome to justify this criminal law is well-nigh
insurmountable."
The court has yet to rule whether states can bar payment based on
the number of signatures, but three of five state laws saying so
have been struck down by federal district judges. The Florida
Legislature has not heard an iota of evidence that such a radical
restriction is necessary to prevent petition fraud.
Despite recent amendments, the bills go far beyond what's
reasonably necessary. The intent is not to police initiatives but to
suppress them. Under both versions, valid voter signatures could be
discarded by the thousands because of technical accounting errors by
solicitors. Even volunteers would be suspect.
The House-passed constitutional amendments would require 60
percent of the voters to ratify any subsequent constitutional
amendment, (HJR 1723); limit initiatives to a narrow range of
fundamental issues (HJR 1727); and require two-thirds approval by
everybody voting in an election to approve any amendment that would
levy or raise a tax or cause significant spending (HJR 1741). These
are all unjustified infringements on the inherent rights of the
people, although narrowing the issues ripe for amendments would be
acceptable if it also allowed the people to propose ordinary laws by
initiative. The last word on these will be that of the voters,
however, and we are confident that it will be a thunderous "No!"
But voters would be powerless to stop the effort to interfere
with gathering initiative signatures, SB 1996/HB 1471, which the
governor is eager to sign.
"This bill two weeks ago was a piece of garbage," said Sen.
Walter "Skip" Campbell, D-Fort Lauderdale. "Now, it just stinks."
He was wrong. It's still a piece of garbage.
A St. Petersburg Times Editorial
Published April 28, 2005
____________**____________
20 Mar 05 A
Message to Our Supporters:
By now you’ve heard the news: the Florida Supreme Court turned down
the
Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment. I urge you to read the decision
www.floridahometowndemocracy.com
Although the Court unanimously approved the FHD amendment itself, a slim
majority (4-3) found the first sentence of the ballot summary to be
“political
rhetoric”. Please read the decision for yourself. Ironically, we
quoted this sentence directly from the Florida Constitution!
Where do we go from here?
First things first. We want to thank you for your hard work and
support. Florida Hometown Democracy wouldn’t have made it to the Florida
Supreme Court without you.
Our attorney, Ross Burnaman, will file a motion for a rehearing on the
court’s ruling. What happens if we lose that? Well, we must start
over. However, given the Court’s ruling, we are confident that the
removal of the first sentence from the petition will guarantee the
Court’s approval of the petition in another review.
Importantly, you must know that the Florida Supreme Court has spoken: It
is perfectly legal for Floridians to have the final say on comprehensive
plan changes.
But now we need to hear from you. Are YOU willing to finance a huge effort?
With strong financial support we will make it to the 2006 ballot but the
money must come from you—our individual and corporate supporters. We
need 600,000 signatures and we must pay for signature collection from
now on. This has to happen soon, and at a couple of dollars per
signature, this will not come cheaply.
Our dream remains and it can become your reality---To put the people
back in charge of the places where they live.
Please reply to this email immediately with your monetary pledge. We
must have tangible support we can bank on in order to proceed with
Florida Hometown Democracy.
Go to www.floridahometowndemocracy.com and click on “Donate” to make your
pledge.
We will let you know within two weeks of FHD’s status.
Thank you for your continuing support.
**