2010 will be here before you know it--Well, everyone’s talking about 2010 so I just might as well get on the band wagon too. On New Year’s Day, an editorial was written entitled Time to Think about 2010. The Editor talked about the myth that “growth will pay for itself and provide a prosperous lifestyle” for everyone who buys into it. Because of the economy, that myth collapsed. I am happy to see that the PBPost understands this but it still has no clue on Florida Hometown Democracy.
This propaganda, promoted by developers, the Chamber of Commerce, Associated Builders, St. Joe Paper, etc., has been a big lie and nothing more than a money machine for all those groups that supported the growth at all costs mentality. They didn’t care about us. They didn’t care about our State. Politicians have fallen for the con; they were bought and paid for as they got big campaign donations from these groups to keep them in power and to ensure that zoning changes and building plans were pushed through.
Staff, consultants, lawyers, mortgage brokers, bankers, Realtors and lobbyists make a living by keeping the myth alive, some of whom are the very same people who brought DOWN our economy. These very people are the ones Florida Hometown Democracy has been fighting for years as FHD has known it was all just a Ponzi scheme, as described by the PB Post, devised by them to line their pockets and to pave over our State while the citizens were left holding the bag.
They have been encroaching on our Everglades, building airport runways that go nowhere, bridges that go nowhere, condos that sit vacant except for the occasional migrant or homeless person who breaks in for a roof over his head. You read today about all those condos at City Place still empty. This is all about the untold millions to beef up their bank accounts and nothing gets in their way to achieve that goal--changing zoning where it suits them and literally looking to build on every square inch of available land in the State of Florida. Roads, utilities, schools, wetlands, taxes, you name it, have been impacted by this run-away growth we have experienced in the past. All of this has cost residents a fortune and diminished our quality of life. We have some developers now that want impact fees waived in order to build affordable housing. Like we don't have enough already.
Here, locally, our politicians easily gave up our valuable and pristine beach property to a developer on an agreement that is challenged in court because it did not protect the citizens of Lake Worth per our Charter. The developers and the politicians wanted to build a shopping mall at our beach, against the will of the people and remove our upper level parking. There is still a blogger who thinks that is cool. He, to this day, is writing about having no parking at our beach (something that we have had since inception and something everyone wants) and is the very same one who has been in favor of the Gateway projects, money ill spent and money we can not afford to spend in order to attract development.
Instead of living within a budget, the City devised ways to collect more taxes, raising recreational fees, shifting a stormwater charge to the County, something that used to be in included in our millage. They up-zoned even a single family neighborhood to do it. This was a developer backed Commission supported by a developer backed P&Z Board. They bought into the myth at the expense of those very citizens who pay the bills and who they are sworn to protect.
We have a chance to ensure that this mentality is halted by voting in Florida Hometown Democracy in 2010. We know it is just a matter of time when the economy will turn and the developers will be back to try and take it all away from us once again, paving over our entire State to fulfill their dream of money; just show them the money. We have the perfect chance to slow it all down.
What Florida Hometown Democracy will do is to require popular vote of changes to local growth plans, required by the State of Florida, through its Growth Management Act. This Amendment will do more to curb the costs of suburban sprawl than any measure in Florida history and it will take 60% of the voters to do it.
Let’s protect our State and our community and pass Florida Hometown Democracy in 2010.
