November 28, 2007
Hometown Democracy is a story of how Florida politics works
Posted by voiceoffreedom under Bush Admin, Civil and Human Rights, Consumer Advocates, Consumer Product Safety, Corporate Entities, Courts or Justice, Disease, Economics, Education, Elections, Government, Media, Politics, Science, federal agencyOnly five weeks till the end of the year! We are excited and scared–we’re close but not yet at our destination. The only number that counts is 611,000 verified petitions. Please, please send your holiday love to Florida in the way of petitions and donations. There are lots of festivities ahead in the coming season to use as an occasion for collecting petitions from friends and family. Let’s give this State the biggest gift ever: putting this historic reform on the ballot! Use the pdf petition to sign and send!
Best,
Lesley
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/community/news/lakenona/orl-maxwell2507nov25,0,2991976.column
OrlandoSentinel.com
Proposal to limit growth scares some pols
Scott Maxwell
TAKING NAMES
November 25, 2007
By now, you’ve probably heard something about “Hometown Democracy.” But you may not know quite what it is.
In the simplest sense, Hometown Democracy is a ballot proposal — something you may get to vote on next year. It would take the power to approve many major developments away from elected officials and place it directly in the hands of the people. You and your neighbors would get to decide whether Super Wal-Mart moves in or a neighboring subdivision can be built.
But in a grander sense, Hometown Democracy is a story of how Florida politics works — how politicians refuse to deal with problems until we make them.
Here’s how this story is unfolding:
For years, growth in Florida has been a relatively simple affair. If you wanted to build something, all you had to do is convince a majority of the members of a county commission or city council.
Such a thing has never been tough in Florida , where you never have to wait until the day after Thanksgiving to get a good deal on an elected official. A few campaign donations here. A steak dinner here. Bingo! You’ve got yourself the permits to build whatever you want, regardless of what neighbors think.
Obviously, this system hasn’t worked as well for us average Joes as it does for the development execs. The same growth that means boosted profits for special interests can mean crowded schools, clogged roads, water woes and pollution for everyone else.
Residents have tried to fight back. They’ve voiced complaints — and sometimes even elected politicians who promised that they, too, wanted to slow things down.
But then, even with those “smart growth” pols in office, residents must endure a school such as Timber Creek High in east Orange County , where 4,300 students spend each day in a campus meant for 2,700. Or they find themselves stuck on roads such as University Boulevard or Alafaya Trail, that were once a straight shot, but, now lined with development, are anything but.
And they start to realize that some of these politicians make the National Enquirer seem reliable.
So residents finally take matters into their own hands by amending the constitution. They did the same thing with a class-size amendment when the politicians refused to get serious about education.
This is what scares the politicians. Because now you’ve threatened to interrupt their gravy train, expose them as part of the problem and infringe upon their power.
This is the part of our story where the politicians suddenly become your new best friends. Suddenly they empathize and understand. Suddenly, they want a solution too . . . just not this solution.
We saw such an argument a few weeks ago when Tom Pelham, secretary of the state’s community affairs department, wrote a piece for the Sentinel that called Hometown Democracy “an extreme solution to a real problem.”
Pelham said there are “more measured and practical solutions than the meat ax wielded by Hometown Democracy.”
He then suggested several reasonable-sounding ones, including legislative action that would reduce the number of loopholes and exceptions that allow development to spread too fast and so wide.
Pelham’s suggestions sound like they make sense. But if Pelham and other state officials are so keen on controlling growth and have such sensible-sounding solutions, why haven’t they done so before now?
Because they didn’t have to.
Because, until now, no one called their bluff.
After Pelham’s piece ran, I asked him about his timing — and suggested that, if he wanted to convince voters he was serious about all this, he would get his slow-growth legislation passed before residents vote on the matter.
Pelham responded that he would try to do just that and push to limit growth “regardless of the outcome of the Hometown Democracy campaign.”
Good for him.
I’ll believe it when I see it. But if the Legislature does finally put more reasonable checks on growth, maybe that will be a better solution than Hometown Democracy.
But even if Hometown Democracy fails at the polls, it still may be a success.
Because it is forcing us to deal with a problem we would have otherwise continued to ignore.
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.
December 3, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Kenric Ward: Revoking democracy in the Sunshine State
By Kenric Ward
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Relying on tortured logic and a 1941 case from North Carolina, a Florida court last week upheld this state’s new petition “revocation” law. Call it another blow to democracy.
The law, passed by the 2007 Legislature and implemented by “emergency rules,” permits the signers of petitions to take back their signature. The state has gotten along for 162 years without this, but that was before the arrival of Florida Hometown Democracy — the citizens initiative giving Floridians the final say on major land-use decisions in their communities.
Hometown Democracy scares the stucco out the state’s growth industry, and legislators were prompt to respond to the challenge.
Though FHD is a constitutional amendment — requiring 611,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot — the Legislature, spurred on by industry lobbyists, took it upon itself to throw up another hurdle.
When lawmakers decided two years ago that future amendments must garner at least 60 percent voter approval to pass, that change had to be ratified by the electorate. Logic would suggest that a political mechanism like revocation would, itself, involve the voters’ say-so.
But the Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee fast-tracked this latest change to “ensure ballot integrity.” The court quoted a 66-year-old North Carolina decision that opined “second thoughts are apt to be sounder” and any rule that “permits a withdrawal at any time before final action upon the petition is much more likely to get at the real and mature judgment of the voters.”
If later is better, why uphold the new 150-day deadline for revoking a signature? What about just showing up on Election Day and voting “no”?
While the court reasons that “the defeat of an aspiration is not the destruction of a right,” it winks at political manipulation.
By green-lighting revocation, the court has created an even more unlevel playing field, where election offices are required to provide revocation petitions — but not the original petitions. Pending appeal, the court is also fostering a new cottage industry.
Since July, a political action committee called Save Our Constitution has mailed thousands of letters to Floridians urging them to withdraw their FHD signatures. The packets contain completed revocation forms and three pages of misleading statements. Among the biggest whoppers appearing under the letterhead of “The Honorable John Thrasher” (a former state House speaker and current development lobbyist):
“(FHD) will likely result in huge property tax increases,” “(FHD) would allow big developers and special interests to plunder and profit from destroying Florida’s scenic beauty” and, ironically, “Deceptive tactics were used to get people to sign this petition.”
The propaganda sheet, which substantiates none of its allegations, goes on to hypocritically decry FHD’s use of paid petition gatherers. In fact, Thrasher & Co. are spending far more per-capita, employing professional revocation services.
While Florida Hometown Democracy banks on smaller, individual donors — averaging about $400 apiece — the revocation machine is greased by corporate largess. Just eight contributors, including the Florida Association of Realtors and Florida Transportation Builders, gave $133,000.
FHD has gained traction with Floridians increasingly skeptical about their government’s ability to manage growth for the greater good. The Leon County court’s decision only deepens the growing cynicism.
Ken.Ward@scripps.com
Scripps Lighthouse