Amendment 4 featured in Letters to the Editor PB Post today

Although Eileen Tucker’s letter to the editor today was inaccurate in the facts or understanding of Amendment 4 and that is probably why she does not embrace it overall, she did capture the essence of the problem that we residents have been dealing with for several decades—city councils that vote against residents’ interests and just plain put aside their common sense. Are you listening Mayor Levy?

Amendment 4 only has to do with land-use changes—not variances to local Ordinances.

We are featuring Carl Terwilliger of Lake Worth who said "Put the public in charge of their communities." He does understand Amendment 4 and why we all should vote YES.

Amendment 4 would take power from deepest pockets

Amendment 4, Florida Hometown Democracy, would give you the right to vote on changes to our city and county comprehensive plans. In my community alone, there are almost 100 acres that developers had rezoned from one unit per acre to two units per acre. After spending more than $40 million, the company went out of business and left the properties to fill up with invasive plants. The homes were left to rot and became hangouts for drug dealers.

By changing Palm Beach County's comprehensive plan to allow twice as many homes to be built, the amount of money wasted was increased. Our county commissioners ignored the community's request to leave the plan in place. Changes to the comprehensive plan are supposed to benefit society and not developers.

Florida Hometown Democracy would not have stopped the building spree. But it would have slowed the pace and contained the areas developed. Just look at County, where developers want to push the urban boundary out into the western agricultural areas.

Put the public in charge of their communities, not the special interests with the deepest pockets that have corrupted so many of our county commissioners. With this amendment, developers would go through the same approval procedure as before, yet would also have to prove to us, at their expense, that their project will benefit the community. You can be sure that there would be only a few items to vote on because it will be easier and cheaper to just follow the comprehensive plan.

CARL TERWILLIGER
Lake Worth