Who do you trust? Politicians or your neighbors to decide how your community should look?

WHY NOT GIVE YOURSELF A VOTE ON GROWTH?

Gary Borse 352/591-0128
Marion County


Why anyone in their right mind would vote against an amendment that would give them the right to vote on local land use issues is beyond unbelievable. People are literally dying to get the right to vote in other countries.

Who could be so controlling and influential in this country that they could talk someone out of their right to vote on land use?

If you don’t want a vote, then you don’t care and are willing to let your County Commissioners decide what is best for you. Right now if they say another interchange is good for you because their friends own land on both sides of the interstate, then they can build an interchange, high density residential units and lots more shopping for you. The roads, fire stations, sewer, water and schools for their projects are going to cost you. This includes the management and maintenance of these infrastructures into perpetuity at taxpayers’ expense, with annual increases that you cannot dispute. The developers make big bucks while you pick up the tab. The great Ponzi scheme is revealed.

The County Commissioners do not want you to have a vote. The Chamber of Commerce does not want you to have a vote. The Realtors’ Associations do not want you to have a vote, and of course the developer does not want you to have a vote on land use amendments, changes that increase your taxes, depress your home value and gives you gridlock.

They are all against your right to vote because they want to have total control over your quality of life without you having a say in what happens to your neighborhood. This is ludicrous and scandalous. We, the people, deserve a vote. We are the ones who are paying high real estate taxes for all this questionable infrastructure their projects require.

In some counties like Marion, many changes to the old comprehensive land use plan were made quickly and secretly, just short of this election because the County Commissioners are scared citizens might overrule their vote. From new I-75 interchanges, neighborhood overpasses, major shopping centers, high density residential development, mining preservation rezoning, and even two new municipal wells to pump water across the county to other areas they are developing. Over and over they have gone against the will of the people they are supposed to serve. ( I thought we were almost out of water.)

Hundreds of residents of the areas affected voiced their objections in writing, and verbally at several of these County Commission meetings. They were ignored and all of the written environmental, fiscal concerns and objections were “lost” by the County Commissioners when the project was submitted to the Department of Community Affairs in Tallahassee. This appears to be “Standard Operating Procedure“ deeply entrenched in the State of Florida. Too often some of our local officials, past and present, work for the developers like Del Webb, and Pulte, as well as others, or have partnerships and real estate investments that are tied tightly to the development machine. Who do you trust to keep your community safe from bad land use changes? Your elected officials or your neighbors?

I urge you to read about Amendment 4 at floridahometowndemocracy.com, and see what is happening to Florida and why we are on the top of the heap in the housing and mortgage meltdown crisis, and then I ask you, “Do you want a vote?”

Gary Borse 352/591-0128
Cattle Farmer, Fairfield, FL