The Chamber of Commerce, which has long crusaded against the right of citizens to amend the Florida Constitution through petitioning, is now paying their professional collectors $3 per signature for their “Smart Growth” petition! The Chamber, with a huge war chest funded by St. Joe Corp, Big Sugar, Miami Corp and other major land developers, is rapidly buying their way onto the ballot!

Florida Hometown Democracy is funded only by our grassroots supporters and a few groups like our good friends at Florida Chapter Sierra, and doesn’t have the finances to do likewise.

If you want to save what’s left of Florida and see Hometown Democracy on the ballot, we need you to go all out with us and start sending in lots of petitions now! …for Florida ’s future!

Now that “fall” is here, there are many opportunities to collect petitions: before football games, art festivals, green markets, fairs, walk your neighborhood….next week at the polls all across Florida there will be thousands of Florida voters gathering at polling places - this is THE PRIME SPOT for gathering petitions yet this year! PLEASE, PLEASE take a clipboard and spend a few hours at your polling place next Tuesday, and each week thereafter till the end of the year collecting petitions for our (YOUR) campaign. We have only these precious remaining weeks to get this reform on the ballot. This chance to save what’s left of the Florida we love will not come around again.

It’s up to you. Start with your household and make sure everyone close to you who is a registered voter has signed. Please spend a couple of hours each week collecting petitions among your friends, at work, at your favorite gathering spots, church groups, county and city council meetings, send out in your homeowner’s association newsletter, stand in front of your local library, driver’s license office, grocery store, etc. We need about 125,000 verified petitions over the next 2 months to ensure that we get on the ballot. We are very close, but we need each and every Floridian to commit to an individual effort to make this happen. Getting Florida Hometown Democracy on the ballot must be an effort that each of you takes personal ownership of. If we don’t make it, you’ll know why. It is our heritage and our responsibility to go out and exercise our constitutional right to petition for redress of grievances. In this case we have a big grievance: the ongoing destruction of Florida .

HELP SAVE WHAT’S LEFT OF FLORIDA…
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE to control growth!

Help put HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY on the 2008 ballot

Please download and SIGN THE PETITION !

http://www.FloridaHometownDemocracy.com
PO Box 636, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32170-0636. 

Lesley Blackner

Kenric Ward: Double-dealing

Politicians, businessmen pooling resources in effort to shut down the Florida Hometown Democracy initiative

By TCPalm Staff

Monday, October 22, 2007

The Florida Chamber of Commerce apparently thinks the state’s cities and counties are doing a swell job of managing growth. And vice versa.

In its latest assault against Florida Hometown Democracy — the citizens initiative that would give voters a direct say on any comprehensive plan changes in their communities — the chamber’s campaign organ is drafting municipalities to fight for the status-quo.

Evidently, a multimillion-dollar war chest and legions of corporate backers aren’t nearly enough for the chamber’s political action committee. It wants to tap tax dollars, too.

By linking arms with the public sector, “Floridians for Smarter Growth” is further exposing the incestuous intercourse between business and politicians.

Answering the chamber’s call-up, the Indian River Shores Town Council dutifully mailed a letter to each of its 2,800 residences this month. In it, the council urged voters not to sign the Florida Hometown Democracy petition. Those who already signed are asked to revoke their support (via another chamber spin-off, “Save Our Constitution”). Watch for more crafty civic appeals as FHD moves ever closer to the 611,000 signatures needed to reach the 2008 ballot.

The chamber’s gambit may strike some as a blatant abuse of government resources and public trust, but the wall between business elites and elected officials was breached long ago. Aside from a few side skirmishes over impact fees (which are passed on to new homebuyers anyway), the Florida League of Cities and the chamber march pretty much in lockstep.

An extreme example of corporatism is Fellsmere, where Sun Ag and other large landholders drive that town’s annexation agenda. Port St. Lucie made itself synonymous with sprawl by working with developers.

But the screws are turning everywhere — even in “slow-growth” Martin County . Meantime, Indian River County ’s cities, including Indian River Shores , are angling to grow by claiming large swaths of unincorporated land.

This is not some new phenomenon triggered in response to Florida Hometown Democracy or attempts at charter government. The Sunshine State has been bulldozing open space for decades, at the rate of 20 acres a day.

“The very essence of a locality is its operation as a growth machine. The key motivation for members of politically mobilized local elites is their common interest in growth,” states New York University professor Harvey Molotch. He wrote those words back in 1976, under the title, “The City as a Growth Machine.”

Because land begets wealth, and wealth begets power, local governments become the de facto servants of landed interests. The cross-directorship that rules Florida ensures a close working relationship between developers and public officials statewide. Checks and balances? Government by the consent of the governed? These quaint notions went out with the horse and buggy.

What terrifies the growth-development complex is Florida Hometown Democracy’s threat to disrupt this cozy arrangement by giving residents a direct say in their communities’ future.

Noting the legalistic complexity of “comprehensive planning,” defenders of the current system say the public is ill-equipped to make intelligent decisions on such matters. FHD opponents assert it would be impractical to hold referendums on every tweak of the comp plan.

These claims — echoed by “professional planners,” land-use attorneys and oh-so-sage politicians — reek of utter disregard not only for taxpayers, but for the planning process itself. Aren’t these the same voters who elect the office holders? And if our elected officials are so committed to good, long-range planning, why are they constantly changing the rules?

The obvious answer is that “planning” has become a con game set up by developers, for developers. They have the gall to call it “managing growth.”

Molotch again: “The clearest indication of success at growth is a constantly rising urban-area population –— initial expansion of basic industries, followed by an expanded labor force, a rising scale of retail and wholesale commerce, more far-flung and increasingly intensive land development and higher population density.”

Any of this sound familiar? It should, as public-private partners keep crafting growth-inducing tools, such as “clustering,” “density transfers,” “planned developments” and “town-villages-countryside.”

Instead of benefiting from a rising tide that lifts all boats, taxpayers are swamped by higher taxes, more congestion, a degraded environment, a hugely overblown real-estate market and, maybe, a few more service-sector jobs. Want to attract or keep better paying jobs? Well, that will cost you extra.

Indian River County residents are discovering this with Piper. The public-private cartel that propels the growth machine dictates higher stakes by raiding public funds in a bid to make the Treasure Coast “competitive.” “It’s the way the game is played,” we’re told.

As business and politics blur, taxpayers may feel they’re getting played in a game of three-card monte. And they’d be right. The elites — both corporate and cracker — call the shots. The best John Q. Public can hope for is trickle-down economics.

Good luck!

HELP SAVE WHAT’S LEFT OF FLORIDA…
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE to control growth!

Help put HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY on the 2008 ballot

Please download and SIGN THE PETITION !

http://www.FloridaHometownDemocracy.com

PO Box 636, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32170-0636.