This page contains lots of information and news stories on various topics and issues of interest. To help you navigate this page easier, you can click on any of the topics listed below to link to that section on this page. You can easily return here to the top of the page by hitting the "Home" button on your keyboard.

• Florida Hometown Democracy Initiative
• General Information
• International News
• Local News
• National News
• Recycling

Live News Feeds - For a page of live headline updates on environmental news, issues and information, click here. This information is continuously updated by the respective organizations, and includes a link to more information on each story.

City of Palm Bay info

Palm Bay has transmitted their Comprehensive Plan amendment changes to the Florida Departmnet of Community Affairs (DCA). The DCA has issued their "Objections, Recommendation and Comments" opinion as of June 29, 2007. The following is one of the DCA comments -

"Staff identifies potential objections to some or all of the FLUM amendments based on the lack of appropriate date and analysis regarding the discouragement of urban sprawl and the lack of a needs analysis, lack of demonstrated compatibility, environmental suitability, transportation planning, and public facilities (potable water, sanitary sewer, and drainage)."

Suppporting information - provided by the Concerned Citizens of South Mainland(documents are in the Microsoft Word format)

Sample comment letter
Background information

The light green area bounded in red is the area of concern.

Brevard lets Palm Bay official remain on EEL board

VIERA � Dozens spoke out at Tuesday's Brevard County Commission meeting about whether a Palm Bay deputy city manager should be allowed to serve on a volunteer board that identifies environmentally sensitive land for preservation.

At issue were her qualifications to serve on the scientific-minded board. In the end, the commission decided not to take action and allow Sue Hann to remain on the seven-member board for the Environmentally Endangered Lands Program.

Last month the commission appointed Hann by a vote of 3-2 over nine professionals with degrees in biology, zoology and botany. The appointment raised concerns that Hann's appointment might set a precedent for next year, when six vacancies will be filled because to term limits.

Click here to read the full story.

Despite concerns, development still heads to the coast

As early as the 1980s, scientists warned that rising seas could submerge vast portions of Florida's coast.

How have local and state governments responded? Build, baby, build.

A new study of development trends along the Atlantic Coast shows Florida has opened more vulnerable areas to construction than any other state. Three-quarters of its low-lying Atlantic coastline has already been, or will be, developed.

Despite mounting evidence of sea level rise, other states plan to follow Florida's lead -- though to lesser degrees -- eventually pushing homes, condos and other buildings onto nearly two-thirds of coastal land less than a meter above the Atlantic. By 2100, many scientists predict a rise near or beyond a meter.

Unlike some climate studies, however, this one doesn't suggest kayaks will be needed to navigate Miami or Manhattan.

Instead, it divides the coast into rural or wild areas likely to be abandoned, and urbanized areas likely to be forced to employ ``increasingly ambitious'' and expensive engineering to preserve real estate from encroaching ocean. Think dikes, levees, pumps, stilts, more dredging to rebuild eroded beaches and mountains of fill to raise roads and structures.

Click here to read the full story.

Lawmakers' love affair with Big Oil

The mystery group trying to repeal Florida's ban on offshore oil drilling is winning converts the old-fashioned way, deploying a battalion of lobbyists and throwing campaign money at state legislators.

Florida Energy Associates, which is basically a front for Big Oil, has already donated about $125,000 to the two major political parties. Nobody turned down a dime, even though the firm won't reveal which oil and gas companies it represents.

That's what makes our legislators so special. They happily sell out without even knowing who's buying them.

Florida Energy Associates has hired about three dozen big-name lobbyists to peddle the idea that drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is perfectly safe, and that it will bring jobs, prosperity and a $2.25 billion annual boost to the state budget.

That dollar prediction is pure fiction, exceeding by sevenfold the maximum yearly drilling revenues from Alabama and Texas combined. But wildcatters are nothing if not optimists.

Click here to read the fuil story.

After Century of Growth, Tide Turns in Florida

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. � The smiling couple barreling ahead on the cover of Liberty magazine in 1926 knew exactly where to go. �Florida or Bust,� said the white paint on the car doors. �Four wheels, no brakes.�

So it has been for a century, as Florida welcomed thousands of newcomers every week, year after year, becoming the nation�s fourth-most-populous state with about 16 million people in 2000.

Imagine the shock, then, to discover that traffic is now heading the other way. That�s right, the Sunshine State is shrinking.

Choked by a record level of foreclosures and unemployment, along with a helping of disillusionment, the state�s population declined by 58,000 people from April 2008 to April 2009, according to the University of Florida�s Bureau of Economic and Business Research. Except for the years around World Wars I and II, it was the state�s first population loss since at least 1900.

...�It�s got to be a real psychological blow,� said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution who predicted that census data in December would confirm the findings. �I don�t know if you can take a whole state to a psychiatrist, but the whole Florida economy was based on migration flows.�

Click here to read the full story.

On the Mat, Florida Wonders Which Way Is Up

MIAMI � The men trickling into a golf course clubhouse outside Fort Myers, Fla., had come to pray and study Bible verses that would help them become rugged, confident, adventurous. But their faces, reflected in the room�s frosted mirrors, showed only worry. More than half said they had been laid off, nearly all from jobs tied to real estate.

�We need something different,� said Norman Baldie, 54, a real estate agent in Lehigh Acres. �This community is all bent out of shape.�

...Mr. Shelor and his neighbors say they want �industry� to save them, perhaps biotech or anything stable and disconnected from real estate. It is an emotional plea more than a proposal, echoing from Key West to Tallahassee.

Gov. Charlie Crist acknowledged the problem in an interview: �Imagine a state where the dominant part of the economy is automobiles as it is in Michigan. That puts them in a difficult spot, just as real estate does for Florida.�

Actually changing, as opposed to recognizing the problem, has been harder to do. Last month, Governor Crist, a Republican, signed a growth management bill that made it easier for builders to add new construction in more populated areas, without expanding roads or dealing with regional planning boards.

He did this � arguing that it would help the economy � even though 300,000 residential units in Florida sat empty at the time, and 630,000 new ones are in the pipeline; even though a growing body of research from academics like Christopher Leinberger at the University of Michigan suggests that communities with looser land use regulations suffer more severe booms and busts.

Mr. Hunter, the development lobbyist, praised the new law for directing growth away from rural areas, where the environmental costs are greater, but critics say its definition of �urban� is so broad that it creates a new incentive for suburban sprawl.

Gary Mormino, a historian at the University of South Florida since the �70s, said the state has yet to grasp its limits. �We�re going to have to think about new shifts in thinking,� he said, �new ways of urban living.�

Click here to read the full story.

Florida should lead in alternative energy, not take environmental risks off coasts

As the nation's energy policy focuses more on renewable resources and less on oil and gas, the Florida House would have the state move in the opposite direction.

On Monday, the Republican-controlled body approved a bill that would allow the governor and Cabinet to authorize drilling leases as close as three miles off the state's beaches.

The legislation, filed late in the legislative session, moved quickly through the House with little review or debate even though it could have major implications for the state's future.

Fortunately, the proposal seems to have far less support in the Senate. Even Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, said this week, "I'm not receptive to it. That is a really significantly important issue and one that I think would, frankly at our end, would take some serious review."

If the drilling proposal should get through the Senate, Gov. Charlie Crist should veto it. It represents the worst of narrow interests superseding what is best for the people of the state.

Click here to read the full editorial.

Indian River County gets 'green' designation

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY � Indian River County is now one of only four counties in Florida designated green by the Florida Green Building Coalition.

In October 2007, the commissioners authorized county officials to apply for the designation from the Tallahassee-based organization, which rewards cities and counties throughout the state for outstanding environmental stewardship.

Martin County and St. Lucie counties have also applied for the certification but have yet to complete the complex process. Orange and Sarasota counties are already certified at the gold level and Pinellas county has the silver level designation.

At first review, Indian River reached a 35.8 percent silver rating but later submitted additional information that upped its score to 43 percent, enough for the gold designation.

Indian River County Commissioner Peter O'Bryan said the county commission moved forward on the application, despite the $4,500 certification fee. The fee was eventually covered by a private donation to the Indian River Green Team....

Click here to read the full story.

For more information on Indian River COunty's "Green Government Initiative", please visit www.ircgov.com/green.

Florida Governor Crist Receives �Golden Meter� Award

Solar Advocates, Industry Honor Sunshine State's Net Metering Progress

March 31, 2009 - Tallahassee, Fla. � At a ceremony held in Tallahassee today, Florida Governor Charlie Crist received the 2009 Golden Meter Award for his leadership in creating policies that foster a strong solar energy market. The Award was presented by The Network for New Energy Choices, The Solar Alliance, The Vote Solar Initiative, The Interstate Renewable Energy Council and The Florida Solar Energy Industries Association.

�I am honored to accept this Golden Meter Award for supporting Florida�s growing solar energy market,� said Governor Crist. �Our residents and businesses have an immense opportunity to benefit from clean, reliable, in-state energy from the sun. I will continue working to unleash the solar opportunity in the Sunshine State.�

Net metering allows homeowners and small business owners who install solar or wind renewable energy systems to connect to the grid and receive credit for the electricity they produce. It is one of the most effective tools that states can implement to promote small scale solar installations. Under the leadership of Governor Crist, in 2008 Florida implemented a world-class net metering program that expanded the size of eligible systems from 10-kilowatts (kW) to 2-megawatts (MW). The new net metering rules will play a critical part in accelerating solar market growth and green job opportunities in the Sunshine State.

Click here to read the full press release.

Billions of gallons wasted daily

Regular readers of my column know that I work hard to promote water conservation across the country.

Being a master plumber for most of my life has made me extra-sensitive about the topic of water conservation, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to share some of my information with you.

We plumbers make our living supplying customers with fresh, clean drinking water and safely returning wastewater back to the environment. Sometimes it seems that this service is largely taken for granted.

Long ago, when I was young and just starting out in my family's plumbing business, a local supply house had an old poster of a plumber in a suit and tie working on a drain line and the caption read: "The plumber: Protector of America's health."

Click here to read the full story.

We're dying from plague of vacant buildings, homes

This is like watching an emphysema patient try to cure himself by smoking more.

Florida is dying from a spreading plague of vacant homes, vacant stores and vacant offices. And up in Tallahassee, the solution offered by legislators is more vacant homes, more vacant stores and more vacant offices.

Their cure for the economy is another whopping dose of everything that got us into this mess.

I don't know whether they're corrupt, stupid or simply so embedded in the Culture of Concrete they can't think outside that tiny box.

The pressure to pave permeates the Florida Capitol like skunk stink.

Click here to read the full story.

Central Florida's plan for growth remains in focus

Amid the housing boom, our region of Florida concocted a far-reaching vision.

It showed Palm Bay quadrupling to 400,000 people, as well as vast green spaces set aside from here to Orlando and new transportation corridors linking major urban centers.

Farms would be saved. Schools, shopping and health care would be within walking distance. Developers would stop clear-cutting.

Then things went south for Central Florida.

Myregion.org's "How Shall We Grow?" initiative from two years ago might today be rephrased as "Will We Grow?"

Despite the economic downturn, civic leaders who participated said they plan to stick to the key concepts outlined in the Myregion vision, which they see as very much alive.

Click here to read the full story and a "Vision for Central Florida" map.

Dredging of St. Sebastian River entering final stage

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY � Fresh from a morning of fishing, Ben Baron pulls his pontoon boat into the San Sebastian Marina after a trip down the recently dredged St. Sebastian River.

Five years ago, the Grant resident said fishermen had to keep a close watch on their travels down the once muck-filled waterway, or their boats might get stuck.

�When it was low like this you had to be very, very careful,� said Baron.

Now, as a four-year project to dredge the river enters its final stage next month, Baron said that except for a couple of areas, boaters don�t have to worry about the river�s depth.

And, dredging the river should improve water clarity and promote sea grass growth in the Indian River Lagoon, officials said.

Click here to read the full story.

Hurricane Center developing Web tool to predict risk to homes

ST. PETERSBURG � When hurricanes hit, it's often the water that kills.

So the National Hurricane Center is making it easier for people to learn if a hurricane is likely to cause seawater to surge into their homes. They soon will be able to find out at the Web site www.hurricanes.gov.

"If you have a Category 3 coming in, you can figure out, 'Am I at risk?' " said the center's director, Bill Read, who is in St. Petersburg to (sic) for a federal hurricane conference.

For example, if your house is at 10 feet above sea level, you'd probably want to evacuate from an incoming storm that threatens to raise seas 15 feet above sea level. On the other hand, if your house sits at 20 feet above sea level, you might decide to stay put during that storm, depending on local recommendations.

Click here to read the full story.

An Unsung Florida Getaway

Vero Beach has empty sand, manatees and Gloria Estefan's new resort

Singer Gloria Estefan made her first foray into Florida hotels in 1992, when she bought the landmark Cardozo on sizzling South Beach's Ocean Drive. She's opened her latest resort on an Ocean Drive as well -- in an unlikely outpost about 150 miles north: sleepy Vero Beach, with little sizzle but plenty of old-style Florida charm.

Far from the bustle of overbuilt South Florida, Vero Beach lies on a stretch of Atlantic turf aptly dubbed the Treasure Coast, in a transitional climate zone where oak trees and pine forests thrive alongside the palms and colorful tropical flora of balmier points south. Indian River Lagoon divides the city into sections on the mainland and a barrier island. It all makes for spectacular fishing, kayaking, bird-watching and boating, as well as miles of white sand beaches where you can walk for a long time and encounter no one.

...By far the best way to spend time in Vero is in and around the water, plying your way through the islands and bird refuges of the lagoon, which is part of the Intracoastal Waterway and is described by the oceanographic institute at Florida Atlantic University as the most biologically diverse estuary in North America. You can rent canoes, kayaks or paddle boards to stand on. But it's worth spending a little extra to go out solo or in a group with a knowledgeable guide like Kayaks Etc.'s Kristen Beck, a naturalist with a degree in marine science.

Click here to read the full article.

Reaping the fruit planted by greed

It wasn't surprising that President Barack Obama came to Florida to push his economic stimulus package, because no place in the United States has fallen so hard, so fast.

And when the mega-recession finally ends, Florida will be one of the last places in the country to turn itself around. That's because other states have actual industry, while our employment base depends fatally on double-digit population growth and, to a lesser extent, tourism.

Everything was going gang-busters when a thousand people a day were moving here, but now the stampede is over, and the jig's up. Without fresh meat for the housing market, Florida basically hasn't got an economy.

Developers have controlled state and county governments for so long that no Plan B exists. Lost and clueless, lawmakers desperately hack away at public budgets while clinging to the hope that boom times will return.

For good reason, Florida has become the poster child for America's fiscal disintegration. We stand at the top of the leaderboard in rising unemployment, foreclosures and, of course, mortgage fraud.

Where else could a man step out of prison and straight into a job peddling adjustable-rate home loans to buyers with virtually no credit?

Click here to read the full story.

Climate change threatens Florida's drinking water supply

If climatologists are right, Florida's future could be a thirsty one: Climate change, blamed for eating away at Florida's coastline, is also quietly encroaching on the state's drinking water.

Much of the damage to Florida's water supply will take place out of sight, in the underground aquifers that provide most of the state's drinking water. As rising seas nibble at the state's coastline, saltwater intrusion will also creep steadily inland.

"We used to assume that we could use the past records to predict the future," said Mark Stewart, a professor at the University of South Florida. "Now, we just don't know."

To cope with uncertain freshwater supplies, the state has turned to expensive reservoirs and energy-intensive desalination plants, and plans to build even more. Florida could turn to schemes that seem unthinkable today, like pumping wastewater into aquifers that supply our drinking water.

...Florida's climate has already begun to change. Sea levels have started to rise. Saltwater fish are swimming farther upstream, while saltwater mangroves invade freshwater marshes. Rainfall has become less predictable. Rivers and reservoirs are at near-historic lows.

Click here to read the full story.

by Jim Petrone, Hometown News, October 24, 2008

Lagoon worth $3.7B to Sunshine State

New study looks at the value estuary brings to region

The one-year, $112,000 effort examined benefits of the 156-mile-long estuary that spans Volusia, Brevard, Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin counties.

Officials hope to use the new figures for the estuary to leverage future government money for more projects to restore its habitats -- and preserve it as economic driver.

"I think the Indian River Lagoon is a tremendous draw," said Ron Pritchard of Merritt Island, a former Brevard County commissioner and a key advocate on boating issues. "It's one of the reasons I moved here."

Specifically, the study said activities dependent on the lagoon generated $630 million in income to local residents in the five counties, $112 million in state and local tax revenues, and 15,000 full- and part-time jobs.

The total economic value in Brevard topped $1.2 billion, including about $100 million in income to residents and 3,112 full- and part-time jobs.

An acre of seagrass -- the main money machine when it comes to supporting fish, crabs and other lagoon life -- is worth about $4,600 per year in the recreational and commercial fishing it supports, the study says.

Click here to read the full story.

New wave of Baby Boomers ready to descend on Florida

The Sunshine State is about to boom with Boomers.

Between 2010 and 2030, Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are expected to descend on Florida in even larger numbers and will increase their standing as the state's largest age group. The reason: They are nearing retirement age, the state's housing prices have become more affordable and Florida's tropical climate remains a draw.

Click here to read the full story.

Dredging hits halfway point in Sebastian

SEBASTIAN � Some positive signs already may be sprouting forth halfway into a $20 million project to remove large layers of muck from the St. Sebastian River bottom.

"It's like the river is not starving all the time for oxygen," said Capt. Doug Gronley, who operates fishing charters and works with Capt. Kathleen Benjamin on the Mangrove Mama tour boat out of the San Sebastian Marina.

Benjamin said she is also seeing more seagrass beds in the area, although she attributes that primarily to a separate dredging and channel-marking project done by the Sebastian Inlet District. Benjamin and others say that project has given boaters a clear path so they are no longer running over seagrass beds when traveling back and forth to the inlet.

Many river observers say it is too early to notice a real impact from the dredging, although all seem to agree it will be beneficial in the long run.

As the sediment is removed and measures are taken to slow the influx of more into the river, the hope is that the river will become clearer allowing for the production of more seagrass.

"Ultimately, we hope it will result in more fish and wildlife in the river," said Tim Glover, president of the Friends of the St. Sebastian River.

Gronley said the fishing has been excellent recently in the river, although Capt. Tom Bauer said it can be "off and on."

Bauer said it is hard to see a big difference when it comes to the fish, which he said are mainly year-round residents of the river.

Click here to read the full story.

State targets Indian River Lagoon for clean-up

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY - State environmental officials have targeted the Indian River Lagoon for the final year of a five-year restoration program.

Under the federal Clean Water Act, each state in the nation must identify ailing rivers, lakes and estuaries for clean-up. Pollution limits, called total maximum daily loads, are then developed for each damaged waterway.

A total maximum daily load is the maximum amount of a specific pollutant a body of water can absorb and still meet its designated uses, such as fishing, swimming, shellfish harvesting or as a source of drinking water.

Click here to read the full story. Scroll down this web page to the story entitled above.

Florida Identifies 272 Impaired Waterbodies for Cleanup

TALLAHASSEE, Florida, December 21, 2007 (ENS) - The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, DEP, has identified five groups of waterbodies that are impaired and in need of water monitoring, cleanup and restoration.

In the latest round of evaluating impairments in the surface waters of Florida, DEP Deputy Secretary Mimi Drew signed a final order on December 12 targeting 272 impaired waters for cleanup in the Everglades, Indian River Lagoon, Perdido, Springs Coast and Upper East Coast Basins.

Under the federal Clean Water Act, each state must identify impaired rivers, lakes and estuaries for cleanup.

Pollution limits, called total maximum daily loads, TMDLs, are then developed for each impaired waterway. A TMDL is the maximum amount of a specific pollutant a waterbody can absorb and still meet its designated uses, such as fishing, swimming, shellfish harvesting or as a source of drinking water.

Click here to read the full story.

Fort Pierce scientific team brings water quality monitoring to the public

Environmental data are like air: they are everywhere around us but usually invisible. More environmental data are collected every day than has ever been collected before, but only in the case of weather related observations is it routinely put into a readily accessible form available to and readily tailored to the public's daily activities.

If Dr. Edie Widder, president and senior scientist at the Ocean Research and Conservation Association in Fort Pierce, and her colleagues can implement the program they envision, the public will have access to continuously collected coastal water quality data.

The researchers' goal is to build and deploy a constellation of inexpensive and reliable sensors that will relay data to an automated display system on line. The front end seen by the public will be, perhaps, a local map with color coded transparent overlays illustrating water quality conditions over a geographic area such as the Indian River Lagoon in a single county.

Click here to read the full story.

Editorial: Orlando gulps, Florida swoons

Cities� big water grab on the St. Johns River exposes problems throughout Sunshine State

The South Florida Water Management District announced new, water-saving initiatives last week. It�s hard to argue against them. Water is a precious resource and conservation is a good thing.

But Florida�s water problem goes much, much deeper than these marginal measures will ever reach. Real or anticipated shortages are not due to folks who let the faucet run while brushing their teeth. It�s not even because Mother Nature has delivered a drought to the Southeast.

The problem is that Florida�s unsustainable growth has tapped out more surface supplies and is steadily draining the ages-old Floridan Aquifer.

While SFWMD dispatches the sprinkler cops, water managers ignore the 800-pound gorilla at the northern end of their region. There, Orlando and its neighboring cities want to take 250 million gallons a day from the St. Johns River.

Orlando & Co. are desperate. Regional basins are drying up and officials know their 500 million gallons-a-day fix from the Floridan Aquifer won�t last. Water quality is dropping as salt intrusion threatens to increase.

Click here to read the full editorial.

Climate change may cost Florida $345 billion a year: study

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - If nothing is done to combat global warming, two of Florida's nuclear power plants, three of its prisons and 1,362 hotels, motels and inns will be under water by 2100, a study released on Wednesday said.

In all, Florida could stand to lose $345 billion a year in projected economic activity by 2100 if nothing is done to reduce emissions that are viewed as the main human contribution to rising global temperatures, according to the Tufts University study.

That equals about 5 percent of what economists project the state's gross domestic product will be by the end of the century.

"The status quo, the climate that we have right now, is not an available option unless we act immediately," said Frank Ackerman, a professor at Tufts' Global Development and Environmental Institute and co-author of the study.

"Doing something may seem expensive, but doing nothing will be more expensive."

Click here to read the full story.

For sale: One state, everything must go

Wipe out 2,000 acres of wetlands in the Florida Panhandle to build an airport?

Sure. We have to do it.

Otherwise, developers might miss a spot of the state. And we can't have that.

Here's what was striking about last week's approval of a $330-million airport northwest of Panama City:

It felt like the year was around 1965, and a bunch of guys in horned-rimmed glasses were bragging about how they were going to Put Florida on the Map.

Florida's governor, Charlie Crist, hailed the airport's approval because, he said, it will "attract new businesses and jobs to grow and diversify the local economy."

(Then Crist went out and appointed a couple more gator rasslers to the Florida Fish, Wildlife and Manatee-Eatin' Commission.)

Realtors predicted the airport would be just the thing for jump-starting the Panhandle's real estate market.

"Once they start turning dirt," one declared, "we'll see things really rapidly escalate."

Click here to read the full editorial.

Underwater reef building boom a boon

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY � When Sebastian Capt. John Conlon heads out for a day of offshore fishing, he'll make at least one stop over a group of reefs in 70 feet of water 12 miles northeast of the Sebastian Inlet.

Artificial reef structures created there during the past 20 years by Indian River County, the Sebastian Inlet Sport Fishing Association and the state have provided important fishing spots that yield live bait, kingfish, amberjacks, cobia, grouper and snapper.

This summer, Treasure Coast artificial reef programs operated by county engineering departments have seen a period of unprecedented activity. Eight artificial reefs have been built in area waters since June 1. In St. Lucie County alone, six have been placed since January.

The reef building boom is as important for shelter-seeking fish as it is for the recreational anglers, divers and commercial fishermen who rely on those fish for their livelihoods.

Click here to read the full story and access more information and video clips.

Area looks at growth

Central Florida officals ponder sprawl trend

Take a drive across Brevard County and Central Florida. Do you like what you see?

That was the crux of a regional planning meeting Friday for a seven-county area of Central Florida, including Brevard.

The event was aimed at getting leaders in 86 represented communities to support the idea of changing the current trend of suburban sprawl development -- the theme of a campaign titled "How Shall We Grow?"

The meeting was impressive in that it drew about 600 officials and other community representatives from across the region, indicating a desire to move away from the continued development of strip shopping malls and cookie-cutter housing subdivisions, organizers said.

"We've got to be more creative about how we get things done in this region," said Shelley Lauten, director of myregion.org, a campaign that originated at the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Click here to read the full story.

Is Everyone Seeing Green?

The word �green� no longer just describes a color but has come to represent an energy efficient way of life. Apparently the times are a changin� � more and more people are making their homes green and now the first green-certified Habitat for Humanity (HFH) home in the state is in Indian River County. Indian River County HFH built the house, sponsored by WCI � a leading builder of communities in Florida, with green certification as a requirement. It was a success according to Jennifer Languell, vice president of the Florida Green Building Coalition (FGBC), which officially certified the house under the FGBC Green Home program. Now Indian River County HFH is considering which green features they will adopt as standard practice. Languell, speaking to TC Palm News said, �This just shows that affordable housing can be green. That�s a contrast from the usual impression that pro-environment modifications are reserved for high-end housing.�

Click here to read the full story.

Officials play the market, and Treasure Coast pays

"Let the market work." This capitalistic creed works most of the time.

But when Adam Smith's hidden hand motions in the wrong direction, people get slapped.

Take the Treasure Coast housing market. Flush with cash, investors and speculators sent our real-estate prices soaring in the first half of this decade. Then, almost as quickly, the bottom dropped out.

Market watchers are still looking for the basement, but prices keep tumbling.

"Buyers will come back only when they see blood in the streets," predicts Alan Hunter, an analyst for MetroStudy, which tracks the Florida housing market.

Click here to read the full editorial.

State makes impact in step to protect gopher tortoise

When developers' bulldozers move in, Florida wildlife usually moves on, finding other places to live.

An exception � with a potentially big impact beginning today � is the state-protected gopher tortoise. When threatened, they retreat into their underground burrows.

And from now on, the state is no longer accepting new applications for permits for burying tortoises during construction. The change affects everything from large housing developments to single home lots, said Greg Holder, a regional director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

However some tortoises can continue to be buried under previously approved state permits.

Conservation groups pushed for ending a state policy that gave land owners an option: moving tortoises � at a cost of about $2,000 each � or burying them, in exchange for paying the state money for buying conservation lands. Through the years, developers have contributed $33 million the state used in buying 9,700 acres, at 11 sites in Florida, for protecting gopher tortoises.

Now all tortoises have to be moved, state officials say.

Click here to read the full story.

Couple find it's easy building 'green'

Envirohome energy efficient

Black mold inspired a green passion in Mark Baker and his wife, Nonnie Chrystal.

Their vision began with a microburst from Hurricane Frances that tore off the roof from Baker's mother's Indialantic home.

The storm provided fertile ground for mold -- and an opportunity for Baker and Chrystal.

Baker had the know-how. Chrystal, the idea.

They're building Florida's Showcase Envirohome on the footprint of the original 1967 house Baker's mother bought in 1970 for about $27,750.

By January, the couple -- and Baker's mother, Betty Baker Farley, 74 -- plan to move into what they hope will be among the most energy efficient homes in Florida, America, maybe even the world.

Click here to read the full story.

Homeowners use water-wise plants

Xeriscaping can reduce need to irrigate yards

Landscape adaptation. Xeriscaping primarily focuses on selecting plants that easily thrive in the conditions in which they are planted. The concept is appealing to environmentalists, as well as gardeners, who can save lots of money and time by not struggling to keep plants alive that are not suited to the area.

How to get started

Hank Largin, spokesman for the St. Johns River Water Management District, suggests the following steps to get started in xeriscaping your home:

1. Obtain a soil analysis from a source such as the county extension services office. The analysis will tell you which plants are best suited for your backyard.
2. Choose proper plants.
3. Use turf wisely. Grass is the biggest water-guzzler.
4. Irrigate efficiently. Hydrozone, or place plants that need the same amount of water close together.
5. Use mulches to hold moisture in the soil. 6. Perform proper maintenance.

While her neighbors fret over watering their yards, Vicki Williams sits back and enjoys the view from her West Melbourne home.

About a decade ago, Williams began swapping her landscape plantings from water-guzzling to water-wise.

"I replaced my tropicals with some hardy native plants," Williams said. "They're doing very well, as predicted. I don't have to mess with them, even to this day."

Click here to read the full story.

It's really smart growth

Development plan would not harm environment

Recently FLORIDA TODAY published an editorial headlined "Say no to density" regarding the comprehensive plan amendment related to approximately 1,600 acres of land on the south side of Micco Road, east of Interstate 95.

As the city manager of Palm Bay, I think it is important to discuss the facts of this proposal versus the emotion-based myths that have been propagated.

Click here to read the full guest editorial.

Editorial: Annexing problems

"We'd be insane not to accept the annexations, and any other city would do the same," Cheryl Hampton told the Press Journal with regard to a proposal to quintuple the size of Fellsmere by adding 18,000 acres.

The City Council member is wrong: Not every city would do the same. Take Sebastian � the No. 1 reason why the Fellsmere council tonight should reject the annexations. Voters there realized that compact cities are more economical to serve. Rejecting future annexation, they chose quality over quantity.

Click here to read the full editorial.

Editorial: Fellsmere leads county in wrong direction

Fellsmere City Manager Jason Nunemaker says he "wouldn't have a problem" with Sebastian expanding north to Roseland Road, south to County Road 510 and west to 101st Avenue.

That's mighty big of him, considering that his little city is steaming full-speed ahead on its own 18,000-acre annexation, with approval expected as early as next month. Thousands more acres are on the drawing board.

If these are the fruits of "interlocal agreements," county residents will surely rue the day that urban-boundary referendums and charter government died.

Instead of a countywide conversation, the chatter among cities sounds increasingly territorial and provincial. Rather than looking at the whole, municipal officials appear more focused on extending their spheres of influence before someone else does.

Click here to read the full editorial.

Overcrowding? Nature will fix that

In the absence of a sane growth-management policy, nature is becoming the great equalizer in Florida.

A 17-month drought has made a puddle of Lake Okeechobee and has parched the Biscayne Aquifer. Parts of the Everglades are drying up, while advancing seawater endangers the well fields that serve hundreds of thousands of residents in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Water managers warn that, unless consumption is drastically reduced, the taps could run dry -- or, at the least, start spitting salt -- in several coastal communities. Forget about watering your lawn; you won't be able to water your kids.

The emergency is so dire that even a busy hurricane season may not make it go away. Florida, one of the wettest states in the country, is running dry.

Drought cycles here are nothing new, but this is the first one to occur with 18 million people encamped on the peninsula. They might cut back on sprinkling their geraniums, but they won't stop taking showers or washing their laundry.

Not many politicians are brave enough to cite overpopulation as a cause of the current crisis, though it is. There are too many people using too much water, but it's easier to blame the weather.

Click here to read the full opinion article.

Our quality of life: Is bigger really better?

What happens when you let an economist define your "quality of life"? You buy into a pyramid scheme of land speculation, environmental degradation and an even higher cost of living.

Palm City-based consultant Bill Fruth would disagree, of course. He calls his prescription for jobs, population, wages and economic development � which he peddled in Vero Beach last week � the key to building a healthy community.

But this "growth" tonic in nothing new, and its side effects are well known to Floridians: more houses, more sprawl, more traffic, more crowding, more crime, more government and more low-paying jobs.

Fortunately, some economists have gotten wise to the growth game that's played under the guise of "economic development."

Click here to read the full editorial.

Activist says Indian River County gave road contractor wrong plans

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY � Tim Glover, president of the Friends of the St. Sebastian River, isn't blaming the county's road contractors for clearing the wrong property in October on County Road 512, burying at least one gopher tortoise, breaking the cap off an artesian well and letting the water carry silt into the St. Sebastian River.

Rather, he said Tuesday, crews with J.W. Cheatham Co., of West Palm Beach, got the wrong set of plans from the county.

"As far as I know, the contractor is fine," Glover said. "The problem seems to be the county provided the wrong information. ... This is a real can of worms."

Click here to read the full story.

Palm Bay feels its way through growing pains

Increased values, habitat loss follow annexations

PALM BAY - Imagine Melbourne being annexed into Palm Bay.

In just two years, Palm Bay has voluntarily annexed unincorporated land the size of its neighbor to the north.

Motivated by a desire to shape its own future, the city has annexed -- or is in the process of annexing -- 24,210 acres, or nearly 38 square miles, bringing it to more than 100 square miles.

The undeveloped land is a boon to the city, officials believe, bringing construction work and impact and city fees, adding to the tax base, and generating the impetus for providing needed drainage, sewer and water lines to the outskirts of the city.

Click here to read the full story.

Just too many people

"Balancing Land Use and Preservation," an otherwise informative recent panel discussion in Vero Beach, failed to answer one crucial question: "If growth drives our environmental challenges, aren't all the 'solutions' merely tinkering around the margins if they don't squarely address the population issue?"

The presenters, who, collectively, have authored dozens of books on planning and the environment, offered many informative and entertaining anecdotes about Florida.

Bill Belleville noted the 100,000 exceptions made to "growth management plans" around the state.

Jeff Klinkenberg reported that 84,000 acres of wetlands have been lost since 1990. That's the equivalent of eight Jonathan Dickinson State Parks.

Click here to read the full editorial.

The electric ride

Why six local men love their battery-powered cars

There are some things you just expect to run on batteries: an iPod. Flashlights. Toys that make noise. But cars? Well . . .

Putt putt putt putt putt.

That's the first thought, right? Gutless wonders with all the oomph of a vacuum cleaner, OK for senior citizens in golf carts tooling around Delray Beach, maybe, or Ed Begley Jr. driving 10 self-righteous miles at a time.

With a national ethos of "my car, myself," and a collective expectation of being able to jump in the car and drive 80 mph for 300 miles, electric cars just haven't caught on. They might even be dead. The documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? came to movie theaters last month.

And yet they're out there. That Lamborghini zooming down I-95? Could be electric. The Toyota RAV 4 parked at Publix? Possibly has 18 batteries.

As for the people who drive them: Zealots? Maybe. Speed freaks? Visionaries? Tinkerers who just like messing around with cars? Yes, yes and yes.

Driving an electric car is to take one step beyond just loving a car, and identifying with it. It is a statement of sorts. And the statements are as varied as the drivers.

Charles Whalen, Delray Beach

Two fully electric Toyota RAV4's

While some electric cars are more novel than anything, others look no different from their gas counterparts. And that, Whalen says, is the point.

by Jim Petrone, Hometown News, April 7, 2006

25 years of study: Growth 'winning out' over lagoon

After a quarter-century of studying the Indian River Lagoon's water quality, animal health and habitat, area scientists are meeting this week to discuss the trends in their findings.

Overall, it isn't positive.

While sewer plants have stopped discharging directly into the lagoon and public awareness of the issues is greater than ever, rapid development and population growth in the past 25 years have affected dolphins, turtles, fish and their salty habitat to such an extent that the damage may be irreversible, they said.

Access to story removed by the Press Journal.

Vanishing Wetlands

"Florida has more wetlands than any other state but Alaska. They stop floods, clean up water pollution, and replenish drinking supplies. Yet despite government promises, they are disappearing."

This is a Special Report series of articles by the St. Pete Times that also includes multimedia graphics and photo galleries with some wonderful images. Click here to view their Web page with links to all the stories.

Our Coastal Watershed

What's (sic) is a Coastal Watershed?

"A watershed is a geographic area in which all sources of water including the rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands as well as ground water, drain into a common surface water body. Because all watersheds are defined bu natural hydrology and ultimately drain to coastal waters, they are a good focal point for managing coastal resources. In Sebastian the watershed drains into the Indian River Lagoon, a distinctive estuary that extends from Volusia county to our south. This estuary provides a unique habitat for a diverse group of organisms. It is the breeding and feeding grounds for a variety of aquatic and terrestrial animals."

What are some of the Impacts on our Coastal Watershed?

"Loose soil from construction sites, farms, and other areas where dirt is exposed can wash off into the streams and rivers when it rains and flow to our estuary. The result is muddy waters which leave deposits in the Lagoon that smother the organisms living on the bottom, decrease the amount of sunlight reaching the sea grass beds, and clog fish gills. Some types of pollutants can bind to the sediment and flow with it to the coastal waters."

"Excess nutrients and pesticides can also wash off the land when it rains and end up in the coastal waters. Sources of excess nutrients include lawn and garden fertilizers and pesticides, pet and farm animal waste, decaying plant material, and failing septic tanks. The loss of wetlands in many watersheds has reduced the ability of nature to process these nutrients before they enter rivers, streams, and ultimately estuaries."

"Toxic substances such as lead, oils, antifreeze, brake linings and greases deposited on the roads from cars, trucks and buses, can all run off the streets and land with the rainfall. Commercial and industrial sites can also contribute to the amount of toxic substances entering the coastal waters."

What can I do to help protect our watershed, you ask?

"You can do several things to help protect our beautiful Indian River Lagoon."

• "Start in your back yard through sensible lawn care, and resource conservation. Use pesticides and lawn fertilizers sparingly and correctly. Composite (sic) organic waster."
• "Practice good housekeeping by properly disposing of toxic substances like paint and paint thinners, automotive fluids and cleaning products. Take your toxic wastes to the Indian River County Recycling centers. Many of the local automotive stores collect and recycle automotive wastes."
• "When walking your dog remember to pick p the waste and dispose of it properly. Co not leave it on the ground where it will increase the public health risks by allowing harmful bacteria and nutrient (sic) to wash into the storm system. Flush it to your septic system."
• "Properly maintain your boat, use pump out facilities, and operate your boat in a responsible manner to avoid shoreline erosion."
• "Pick up litter when you see it and properly dispose of your own trash."
• "Take your car to a car wash where the water is cleaned and recycled or wash your car over your lawn where the nutrient rich soapy water is good fertilizer but can lead to algae blooms in canals stream and the Indian River Lagoon."

"It is our duty as responsible citizens to start at home and do everything possible to protect our great natural resources, especially the Indian River Lagoon, a special waterbody that provides us with all types of wildlife, recreation and enjoyment."

Sebastian's Stormwater Utility and you, working together to improve water quality and protect your property!

What's the Problem with Stormwater?

The first and most obvious issue is flooding. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, one inch of rain falling on one square mile of land equates to 17,378,560 gallons of water.

Our environmental concern is the pollution all of this water picks up as it rushes into storm drains and heads to the receiving water body. In Sebastian, the runoff water goes to the Sebastian River (sic) and the Indian River Lagoon where the pollutants are deposited. In fact, stormwater runoff is the number one pollution problem in the Indian River lagoon (sic) and in other waterways across the country. When it rains, the water carries with it dirt, discarded trash, nutrient rich fertilizers, grass clippings left on the curbside, pet waste, insecticides, motor oils, brake dust, tire fragments, and toxic chemicals, from the road. The good news is that corrective action can be taken. The City of Sebastian and Sebastian Stormwater Utility is taking strong action to fight the problems of stormwater pollution, measures that will also help alleviate potential flooding problems. There are also many things residents can do to fight the problem and keep our waterways clean and safe so we can enjoy sailing, motor boating, fishing, kayaking, jet skiing, swimming, and nature watching.

What can I do?

Sweep up leaves or grass clippings that accumulate on your driveway, sidewalk or in the street. If you are using a blower, blow them back into your yard, never into a storm drain or swale.

• Pick up pet waste and dispose of it by flushing it down the toilet or by burial.
• Redirect roof down spouts from paved areas to grassy areas.
• Wash your car on the lawn rather then on the driveway. The nutrient-rich soapy water is good fertilizer for the grass but can lead to algae blooms if it enters the Indian River Lagoon system.
• Plant native landscaping and reduce your amount of sodded areas. Native plants require less irrigation, maintenance, fertilizers and pesticides.
• Dispose of used motor oil, paint and other household hazardous waste at a designated collection center.
  
  (The IRC Collection Convenience Center for the disposal of hazardous materials is located at 7860 130th Street, Roseland and is open daily from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., except Tuesday and Wednesday. For additional information call Solid Waste Disposal District at 770-5112.)



• Never throw trash or cigarette butts out the window where they can enter the stormwater system.
• Don't overuse fertilizers. The nutrients released into the water can cause algae bloom.
• Never fertilize before rain is expected.
• Use pesticides sparingly and only on problem areas.

Click here to access the full report.

"In the Trenches"

Dexter Lehtinen is resourceful and willing to make enemies in his crusade to restore the Everglades. An Everglades-related lawsuit with �huge national ramifications� is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.

"In 1988, Dexter Lehtinen decided he had to save the Everglades and gave himself the power to do it. Ronald Reagan recently had named him U.S. Attorney in Miami, where the government�s top lawyer usually spends a lot of time prosecuting drug lords. Lehtinen took a more expansive view. He wanted to sue the state of Florida over the Everglades."

"'He was the guy who brought the lawsuit that started the whole movement toward Everglades restoration,' says Charles Lee, Florida Audubon Society lobbyist."

"A resourceful man unafraid to play his hand to the limit � and willing to make enemies � Lehtinen and his destiny have been entwined with the River of Grass since his birth in Homestead in 1946, the year before Harry S. Truman dedicated Everglades National Park."

Click here to read the full story. You will need to "register" to read the online copy of this story. Registration is free and Florida Trend will not send any unsolicited emails to you. You just need to create a user account to access their free online archives.

Study Reveals Mercury Contamination in Fish Nationwide

Scientists detected mercury contamination in every fish sampled in 291 streams across the country. About a quarter of these fish were found to contain mercury at levels exceeding the criterion for the protection of people who consume average amounts of fish. More than two-thirds of the fish exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency level of concern for fish-eating mammals. Some of the highest levels of mercury in fish were found in the tea- colored or "blackwater" streams in Florida, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana - areas associated with relatively undeveloped forested watersheds containing abundant wetlands compared to the rest of the country. High levels of mercury in fish also were found in relatively undeveloped watersheds in the Northeast and the Upper Midwest.

For more information, please visit the National Water-Quality Assessment Program website.

Also see U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Listing of Fish Advisories www.epa.gov/waterscience/fish/advisories/.

Natural Connections - Harness the healing power of time spent outdoors

Though it happened more than 40 years ago, Dan Shelton remembers it like it was yesterday. "My family had just moved to rural Illinois, and I was standing on a riverbank, looking at a field and some woods," he recalls. He was only 6 years old, and life at home was tumultuous. Yet Shelton says that while standing there, alone with the trees and grass, he had an emotionally healing experience. "I felt so peaceful," he says. "I remember deeply feeling that somehow I was meant to be there."

For Shelton, frequent contact with nature played a key role in his emotional and spiritual health until the late 1980s, when he moved to Chicago. "It was my first time living in the big city," he says. Without easy access to the natural world he loved, he slipped into depression. "I didn't experience any relief until I moved back to South Carolina nine months later."

Since then Shelton has made it his mission to help others get back to nature via workshops he conducts. Shelton is just one of many involved in the emerging field of ecotherapy�the practice of promoting mental and physical well-being by deepening one's relationship with the natural environment. Like Shelton, "many people have some of the deepest experiences they've ever had through the natural world," says Linda Buzzell-Saltzman, a psychotherapist and founder of the International Association for Ecotherapy. Yet today many folks are more disconnected from nature than ever. "People are realizing that something has gone profoundly wrong in the human/nature relationship," she says.

Click here to read the full story.

The Encyclopedia of Life, No Bookshelf Required

Imagine the Book of All Species: a single volume made up of one-page descriptions of every species known to science. On one page is the blue-footed booby. On another, the Douglas fir. Another, the oyster mushroom. If you owned the Book of All Species, you would need quite a bookshelf to hold it. Just to cover the 1.8 million known species, the book would have to be more than 300 feet long. And you�d have to be ready to expand the bookshelf strikingly, because scientists estimate there are 10 times more species waiting to be discovered.

It sounds surreal, and yet scientists are writing the Book of All Species. Or to be more precise, they are building a Web site called the Encyclopedia of Life (www.eol.org). On Thursday its authors, an international team of scientists, will introduce the first 30,000 pages, and within a decade, they predict, they will have the other 1.77 million.

While many of those pages may be sparse at first, the authors hope that the world�s scientific community will pool all of its knowledge on the pages. Unlike a page of paper, a page of the Encyclopedia of Life can hold as much information as scientists can upload. �It�s going to have everything known on it, and everything new is going to be added as we go along,� said Edward O. Wilson, the Harvard biologist who spearheaded the Encyclopedia of Life and now serves as its honorary chairman.

Click here to read the full story.

Buying Into the Green Movement

HERE�S one popular vision for saving the planet: Roll out from under the sumptuous hemp-fiber sheets on your bed in the morning and pull on a pair of $245 organic cotton Levi�s and an Armani biodegradable knit shirt.

Stroll from the bedroom in your eco-McMansion, with its photovoltaic solar panels, into the kitchen remodeled with reclaimed lumber. Enter the three-car garage lighted by energy-sipping fluorescent bulbs and slip behind the wheel of your $104,000 Lexus hybrid.

Drive to the airport, where you settle in for an 8,000-mile flight� careful to buy carbon offsets beforehand � and spend a week driving golf balls made from compacted fish food at an eco-resort in the Maldives.

That vision of an eco-sensitive life as a series of choices about what to buy appeals to millions of consumers and arguably defines the current environmental movement as equal parts concern for the earth and for making a stylish statement.

...It�s as though the millions of people whom environmentalists have successfully prodded to be concerned about climate change are experiencing a SnackWell�s moment: confronted with a box of fat-free devil�s food chocolate cookies, which seem deliciously guilt-free, they consume the entire box, avoiding any fats but loading up on calories.

Click here to read the full story.

The Power of Green

One day Iraq, our post-9/11 trauma and the divisiveness of the Bush years will all be behind us � and America will need, and want, to get its groove back. We will need to find a way to reknit America at home, reconnect America abroad and restore America to its natural place in the global order � as the beacon of progress, hope and inspiration. I have an idea how. It�s called �green.�

In the world of ideas, to name something is to own it. If you can name an issue, you can own the issue. One thing that always struck me about the term �green� was the degree to which, for so many years, it was defined by its opponents � by the people who wanted to disparage it. And they defined it as �liberal,� �tree-hugging,� �sissy,� �girlie-man,� �unpatriotic,� �vaguely French.�

Well, I want to rename �green.� I want to rename it geostrategic, geoeconomic, capitalistic and patriotic. I want to do that because I think that living, working, designing, manufacturing and projecting America in a green way can be the basis of a new unifying political movement for the 21st century. A redefined, broader and more muscular green ideology is not meant to trump the traditional Republican and Democratic agendas but rather to bridge them when it comes to addressing the three major issues facing every American today: jobs, temperature and terrorism.

How do our kids compete in a flatter world? How do they thrive in a warmer world? How do they survive in a more dangerous world? Those are, in a nutshell, the big questions facing America at the dawn of the 21st century. But these problems are so large in scale that they can only be effectively addressed by an America with 50 green states � not an America divided between red and blue states.

Because a new green ideology, properly defined, has the power to mobilize liberals and conservatives, evangelicals and atheists, big business and environmentalists around an agenda that can both pull us together and propel us forward. That�s why I say: We don�t just need the first black president. We need the first green president. We don�t just need the first woman president. We need the first environmental president. We don�t just need a president who has been toughened by years as a prisoner of war but a president who is tough enough to level with the American people about the profound economic, geopolitical and climate threats posed by our addiction to oil � and to offer a real plan to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

... Bush won�t lead a Green New Deal, but his successor must if America is going to maintain its leadership and living standard. Unfortunately, today�s presidential hopefuls are largely full of hot air on the climate-energy issue. Not one of them is proposing anything hard, like a carbon or gasoline tax, and if you think we can deal with these huge problems without asking the American people to do anything hard, you�re a fool or a fraud.

Being serious starts with reframing the whole issue � helping Americans understand, as the Carnegie Fellow David Rothkopf puts it, �that we�re not �post-Cold War� anymore � we�re pre-something totally new.� I�d say we�re in the �pre-climate war era.� Unless we create a more carbon-free world, we will not preserve the free world. Intensifying climate change, energy wars and petroauthoritarianism will curtail our life choices and our children�s opportunities every bit as much as Communism once did for half the planet.

Equally important, presidential candidates need to help Americans understand that green is not about cutting back. It�s about creating a new cornucopia of abundance for the next generation by inventing a whole new industry. It�s about getting our best brains out of hedge funds and into innovations that will not only give us the clean-power industrial assets to preserve our American dream but also give us the technologies that billions of others need to realize their own dreams without destroying the planet. It�s about making America safer by breaking our addiction to a fuel that is powering regimes deeply hostile to our values. And, finally, it�s about making America the global environmental leader, instead of laggard, which as Schwarzenegger argues would �create a very powerful side product.� Those who dislike America because of Iraq, he explained, would at least be able to say, �Well, I don�t like them for the war, but I do like them because they show such unbelievable leadership � not just with their blue jeans and hamburgers but with the environment. People will love us for that. That�s not existing right now.�

... Am I optimistic? I want to be. But I am also old-fashioned. I don�t believe the world will effectively address the climate-energy challenge without America, its president, its government, its industry, its markets and its people all leading the parade. Green has to become part of America�s DNA. We�re getting there. Green has hit Main Street � it�s now more than a hobby � but it�s still less than a new way of life.

Why? Because big transformations � women�s suffrage, for instance � usually happen when a lot of aggrieved people take to the streets, the politicians react and laws get changed. But the climate-energy debate is more muted and slow-moving. Why? Because the people who will be most harmed by the climate-energy crisis haven�t been born yet.

... An unusual situation like this calls for the ethic of stewardship. Stewardship is what parents do for their kids: think about the long term, so they can have a better future. It is much easier to get families to do that than whole societies, but that is our challenge. In many ways, our parents rose to such a challenge in World War II � when an entire generation mobilized to preserve our way of life. That is why they were called the Greatest Generation. Our kids will only call us the Greatest Generation if we rise to our challenge and become the Greenest Generation.

Click here to read the full story.

Crossing the Divide - Evangelists and Environmentalists Join Forces

All Things Considered, January 21, 2007 � A group of leading scientists and evangelicals have chosen to put aside their differences on how the world came to be and join forces to protect its future. They've formed a coalition and are lobbying Capitol Hill on environmental issues.

Richard Cizik is the vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals. He believes God made the world in matter of days. Eric Chivian is a biochemist from Harvard University who maintains that man evolved from matter over billions of years.

Chivian says that, before meeting each other, Cizik may have thought of him and other scientists as "latte-sipping, Prius-driving, endive-munching, New York Times-reading snobs. And we might have seen them as Hummer-driving, bible-thumping, fire-breathing�"

"�snake-handling fundamentalists," Cizik finishes.

Unlikely allies? Perhaps. But that's exactly what they've become in their mutual quest to fight global warming. The two men have launched what they're calling a dialog between leading figures in science and religion, specifically evangelical Christianity. They're not pushing any specific legislation, but they're trying to raise the public profile of environmental issues.

Click here to read the full story and a link to listen to the entire broadcast online.

And the Color of the Year Is ...

I know that you should never generalize about global warming from your own weather, but as a longtime resident of Washington, D.C., it's hard not to, considering that it's been so balmy this winter season I'm half expecting the cherry blossoms to come out for Christmas. In fact, my wife was rummaging through her closet the other day and emerged to tell me she needed a whole new wardrobe � "a global warming wardrobe," clothes that are summer weight but winter colors.

For this, and other reasons, had I been editing Time magazine I would not have opted for the "you" in YouTube as Person of the Year � although that was very clever. No, I'd have run an all-green Time cover under the headline, "Color of the Year." Because I think that the most important thing to happen this past year was that living and thinking "green" � that is, mobilizing for the environmental/energy challenge we now face � hit Main Street.

For so many years the term "green" could never scale. It was trapped in a corner by its opponents, who defined it as "liberal," "tree-hugging," "girly-man," "unpatriotic," "vaguely French."

No more. We reached a tipping point this year � where living, acting, designing, investing and manufacturing green came to be understood by a critical mass of citizens, entrepreneurs and officials as the most patriotic, capitalistic, geopolitical, healthy and competitive thing they could do. Hence my own motto: "Green is the new red, white and blue."

Click here to read the full editorial.

The Energy Fix

10 Steps To End America�s Fossil-Fuel Addiction

First, the good news: America is poised for an energy renaissance. We already have the technology to begin seriously shifting away from fossil fuels toward clean, renewable power that can give us all the energy we crave while weaning us off foreign oil.

You know the bad news. The U.S. consumes a quarter of the planet�s daily output of 84 million barrels of oil, up to a third of that imported from unstable corners of the world. Meanwhile, rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are causing permafrost to melt, ice shelves to collapse�and climatologists to warn that if emissions continue at their current rate, the next generation will be subject to unprecedented environmental devastation....

The major roadblocks to this new energy era are no longer technological; they are political and bureaucratic. If we can overcome them, the payoffs are huge: We�ll reduce trade deficits, enhance national security, and create millions of non-exportable jobs. We�ll ease an overwhelming array of environmental problems and make America far more competitive and self-sufficient in the process.

Click here to read the full story.

Climate Crisis

The Pro-Growth , Pro-Tech Fight to Stop Global Warming

The May issue of Wired magazine featured a series of articles on global warming, the efforts being made to counteract it and the opportunities that will be available to those who recognize and make the most of them.

This issue features such articles as "The Next Green Revolution" and "The Resurrection of Al Gore". Click here to access this issue.

Will We Run Dry?

In a country where limitless clean water is available at the turn of a tap, it's hard to believe that many parts of the world are at the losing end of a life-and-death struggle over water. Every year, drought and water-related diseases kill 5 million people around the globe, mainly children. Blessedly, that's not the case in the United States.

But policymakers and experts are warning that the U.S. also faces a water crisis. "If we wait another 10 years to get serious about meeting the demand for water, it will be too late," Rep. John Linder (R., Ga.) tells PARADE.

Click here to read the full story.

Nuclear Now - How Clean, Green Atomic Energy Can Stop Global Warming

"On a cool spring morning a quarter century ago, a place in Pennsylvania called Three Mile Island exploded into the headlines and stopped the US nuclear power industry in its tracks. What had been billed as the clean, cheap, limitless energy source for a shining future was suddenly too hot to handle."

"In the years since, we've searched for alternatives, pouring billions of dollars into windmills, solar panels, and biofuels. We've designed fantastically efficient lightbulbs, air conditioners, and refrigerators. We've built enough gas-fired generators to bankrupt California. But mainly, each year we hack 400 million more tons of coal out of Earth's crust than we did a quarter century before, light it on fire, and shoot the proceeds into the atmosphere."

To read the full story (and it is worth reading!), click here.

There was a recent program on this topic on the "Living on Earth" radio show. Here are descriptions of the several segments of the program:

"Today, a special report on the once and future source of power, the atom. Einstein's theory of relativity proved that great forces could be unleashed if large atoms were split. But, even greater energies could be freed if small atoms could be fused together. Bruce Gellerman reports on the scientists who are trying to do just that."

"Bruce Gellerman continues his investigation into the future of fusion with a look at the latest research in the field of cold fusion, the science of creating a nuclear reaction at room temperature. Most scientists call sustained cold fusion reactions impossible, but others say their experiments are producing energy."

"A new kind of nuclear power plant is being developed in South Africa. Scientists say pebble bed technology is clean and safe, and will revolutionize the energy industry, especially for developing nations. But critics are concerned about the cost of the pebble bed reactors and about the lack of disposal plans for the radioactive waste."

Click here to listen to the whole radio program.

Introduction to the Clean Water Act

The Clean Water Act celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in October 2002. The EPA has produced a "slide show" to help the public understand the Act and how it is used. To view the slide show go the EPA's "Watershed Academy Web".

New Reports Assess the Condition of U.S. Coral Reefs, Outline Strategy to Reduce Threats

NOAA announces the availability of two new reports on coral reef ecosystems produced in cooperation with the United States Coral Reef Task Force and other partners.

The new report�the first-ever national look at the condition of U.S. coral reefs�points to pressures posing increasing risks to reefs, particularly in certain "hot spots" located near population centers.

Restoring mangroves in Indonesia

"A hidden culprit in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was degraded shorelines. Now Indonesia�s moving to protect its coasts by restoring thousands of miles of mangrove swamps. Ari Daniel Shapiro has the story."

Below is and excerpt of the transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI�s THE WORLD. You may read the restt of the transcript or listen to the audio recording of the broadcast at the link below.

MARCO WERMAN: "I�m Marco Werman and this is The World. You see them growing in thickets and forests around tropical coasts. Their intertwined roots become visible when the tide is low. They�re called mangroves. They�re a crucial ecosystem and the trees protect the land from erosion but they are disappearing. Only in the past few years has there been a growing recognition of the importance of mangroves and renewed efforts to restore and preserve them. Reporter Ari Daniel Shapiro visited a mangrove restoration project in Indonesia."

Click here to access the full transcript and the link the audio reccording of this broadcast.

Oceans at Risk

There is no shortage of scientific studies documenting the degradation of the world�s oceans, the decline of marine ecosystems and the collapse of important fish species. Several have appeared in the last month. What is in short supply is a sustained effort by world governments and other institutions to do something about it.

Last month, a team of American, British and Canadian researchers concluded that not a single square foot of ocean had been left untouched by modern society, and that humans had fouled 41 percent of the seas with polluted runoff, overfishing and other abuses.

A narrower but no less scary study from Oregon State University found that a dead zone off the Oregon coast had spread south to California and north to Washington and devastated marine life in one of the world�s most productive fisheries. The culprit is believed to be global warming, which has changed the interaction between wind and sea in ways that rob the fish of oxygen.

Click here to read the full editorial.

Global warming unstoppable for centuries; scientists hoping for fast government action

PARIS: Global warming is so severe that it will "continue for centuries," leading to a far different planet in 100 years, warned a grim landmark report from the world's leading climate scientists and government officials. Yet, many of the experts are hopeful that nations will now take action to avoid the worst scenarios.

They tried to warn of dire risks without scaring people so much they would do nothing � inaction that would lead to the worst possible scenarios.

"It's not too late," said Australian scientist Nathaniel Bindoff, a co-author of the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report issued Friday. The worst can be prevented by acting quickly to curb greenhouse gas emissions, he said.

The worst could mean more than 1 million dead and hundreds of billions of dollars in costs by 2100, and adapting to a warmer world with more extreme weather such as droughts, hurricanes, and wildfires, study co-author Kevin Trenberth said in an interview.

Click here to read the full story.

Footprint of Nations: World's Ecological Footprint Exceeds Biocapacity by Nearly 40%

The Ecological Footprint is a measure of the amount of nature it takes to sustain a given population over the course of a year. According to the new 2005 Footprint of Nations report, humanity�s footprint is 57 acres per person while the Earth�s biological capacity is just 41 acres per person. By comparing a population�s footprint with its biological capacity, Ecological Footprint analysis suggests whether or not that population is living within its ecological means. If a population�s footprint exceeds its biological capacity, that population is said to be engaging in unsustainable ecological overshoot.

Please visit the Redefining Progress website to learn more.

End of the Wild

The extinction crisis is over. We lost.

For the past several billion years evolution on Earth has been driven by small-scale incremental forces such as sexual selection, punctuated by cosmic-scale disruptions�plate tectonics, planetary geochemistry, global climate shifts, and even extraterrestrial asteroids. Sometime in the last century that changed. Today the guiding hand of evolution is unmistakably human, with earth-shattering consequences.

To read the full article, please click here.

Ecological Politics

UM's Larry Brand flouts the grant system, pays the price

On Saturday morning, December 1, 2001, Larry Brand parked his black Nissan pickup in the lot at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. Brand's a professor there, hired as a phytoplankton ecologist in 1981....

On that Saturday, Brand was carrying water samples he'd gathered in Big Cypress Swamp and the Everglades. He expected to filter the samples, then freeze them in one of the half-dozen fridges he had. Brand collects water samples all over the Glades and Florida Bay, and measures them for things like nitrogen and phosphorus, the microscopic particles that make up fertilizers. This seemingly innocuous work had become a nuisance for some of the most powerful businessmen and politicians in the state of Florida -- as we shall see. But Brand wasn't too worried back then. He was concentrating -- as he always does -- on the work, in an almost monkish way. He isn't so much a religious man as an altruist. He had a duty to look for the truth in these particles, which can cause as many problems as they solve. And as a scientist, he saw the data leading him toward that truth.

But on that Saturday morning, it was hardly about the data, and when he opened the door to his lab, reality hit him like a 50-foot tsunami. Everything was gone: $100,000 worth of equipment, test tubes, beakers -- all his papers.

Click here to read the full story.

Horseshoe crab survey in Florida

The Florida Marine Research Institute has recently started a new horseshoe crab survey. The goal of this survey is to locate and document horseshoe crab nesting beaches around the state of Florida. To document these important nesting beaches around the state, they are relying on volunteers to report any observations that they have of horseshoe crab nesting activity. The FMRI is asking anyone to report information on the date of their observations, location of their observations, whether or not horseshoe crabs were mating, and estimates of the number of horseshoe crabs seen. They have set up a toll-free phone line (1-866-252-9326), an email address (horseshoe@myfwc.com), and an online survey (http://www.floridamarine.org/horseshoe_crab) for volunteers to use to report their observations. This project provides an excellent opportunity for the public to get involved with a scientific/conservation-oriented study.

You can also read more about horseshoe crabs, the results of the survey to date, and view photos at: http://research.myfwc.com/features/category_sub.asp?id=5080.

Florida's "Impaired Waters Rule" and TMDL's

We have been participating with the Southeastern Regional Office of the Clean Water Network (CWN), in a challenge of Florida's "Impaired Waters Rule" (IWR). This rule was designed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) to comply with the requirements of the TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) provisions of the Clean Water Act.

The CWN felt there were numerous problems with the IWR and coordinated with more than 50 organizations around the state (including the FSSR) to challenge this rule. The FL Department of Administrative Hearing's Officer ruled in favor of the FDEP. The ruling is being appealed and the participating organziations have also filed suit against the EPA for what we believe is their non-discretionary duty to either approve of or deny what amounts to Florida changing its water quality standards unilaterally.

If you are a current member, you can read some of the documentation of these proceedings in the "Library" section of the "Members Only" page of our website.

If you would like to read more about TMDLs and the process Florida is currently following to implement them, click here for lots more information.

The state of Florida is also in the process of developing a system of water pollution trading credits. This is similar to the free-market based system the EPA has used for years in air pollution regulation. Below is an editorial about the efforts being pursued by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). In addition, click here to read more information about the proposed DEP pollutant trading policy.

Cleaning Up

One of the most interesting and important bits of government policy-making these days is going on in a group called the Pollutant Trading Policy Advisory Committee (PTPAC). PTPAC�s job is to help the state Department of Environmental Protection create a system for trading �pollution credits� as part of cleaning up polluted waterways in Florida.

The committee is at the leading edge of the trend in Florida toward incorporating more free-market principles in environmental regulation. The thinking is that government should focus more on telling polluters how much to clean up and less on specifying exactly how they have to do it. Credits are supposed to provide the financial incentives to do the right thing.

Click here to read the full article.

St. Sebastian River Preserve State Park - Volunteers

Informational Graphics

Sport Fish of the Sebastian Inlet - Life Cycle

This image was produced by the Sportfish Research Institute, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida. To download the full-size version of the image, click here (1.4 MB).

Everglades Restoration

The following graphics are from an article in the Washington Post, June 23, 2002 on the components, projects and technologies being proposed for the restoration of the Florida Everglades.

Everglades Restoration Plan
Everglades Water Flow
Environmental Toll of Diverted Flow
Restoring the Kissimmee River
An Everglades Alternative
Lake Belt
Untested Technologies
Crowding out Panthers

Drinking Water Supply

The following graphics are from the Orlando Sentinel.

Drinking water sources...critical issues today
How rain refuels our drinking supply
Water useage per day

Sebastian Area Land Use and Submerged Aquatic Vegetation

Sebastian area 1995 land use, 1996 sea grasses
Sebastian area 1996 Submerged Aquatic Vegetation

---

Growing Native

Growing Native is an email list devoted to the discussion of Florida native plants and their cultivation, propagation, and conservation. It is moderated by Rufino Osorio, author of "A Gardener's Guide to Florida's Native Plants." One may join the Growing Native email list by sending an email to growingnative-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Recycling CD's, Magnetic Tape and Cell Phones too!

Staples First Major Retailer to Accept E-waste

by Earth 911 Staff, May 21st, 2007

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. Staples, Inc., the world�s largest office products company, today announced that it now makes it easy to recycle used computers and other office technology at any Staples store nationwide, becoming the first national retailer to offer computer recycling in stores every day.

Staples makes it easy for customers to recycle e-waste by simply bringing their used computers, monitors, laptops, printers, faxes and all-in-ones to any U.S. Staples store, where the equipment will be recycled in accordance with environmental laws. All brands will be accepted, regardless of whether or not the equipment was purchased at Staples, for a fee of $10 per large item. Staples is working with Amandi Services, one of the country�s most experienced and innovative electronics recyclers, to handle recycling of the equipment, following standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

For more information, please click here or visit your local Staples store.

---

We recently came across the GreenDisk company that recycles all those CD's that you receive in the mail, soliciting you to sign up for AOL or other Internet service. Actually they recycle a lot more too! They recycle any CD - computer or music and the cases they come in, computer diskettes, and just about any kind of magnetic tape - cassette, answering machine, Dictaphone, VCR, reel-to-reel, etc. CD's are ground up and magnetic items are "degaussed" to remove all information.

The Friends is collecting these items for recycling and have also arranged for the Keep Indian River Beautiful Reuse Exchange and the Vero Beach Computer Group to accept them too. We encourage you to recycle these items. To do so, please bring them to any of the meetings of the Friends or the computer club, or they can be dropped off at the Reuse Exchange office at 1255 Main Street (behind the old City Hall) in Sebastian (phone 388-2002). For more information, send us an email, visit the Keep Indian River Beautiful website, or check out the GreenDisk website at: http://www.greendisk.com.

If you are interested in the whole issue of problems created by through-away electronics, and especially computers and components, you may be interested in a recent article in the "Audubon" magazine - "Garbage In, Garbage Out - We are drowning in digital detritus".

Additionally there are other opportunities for recycling many types of items right here in Indian River County through the Reuse Exchange. They are located in the old Growth Management/Building Department offices at the old City Hall in Sebastian. Please give them a call at 388-2002 for more information. They are open for drop-offs on Thursdays from 10am to 3pm.

You can also find out more about the Reuse Exchange center on the Keep Indian River Beautiful website.

It was projected that in 2004 there were 19 million people with unwanted cell phones. A growing environmental concern is how to keep those phones from reaching landfills.

The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is encouraging Floridians to recycle old or unwanted cell phones. Recycling electronics helps protect the environment from heavy metals, such as lead and cadmium, which can impact groundwater � the source of 90 percent of Florida�s drinking water.

There is a relatively new recycling program for cell phones in Indian River County. There are three locations where they can be dropped off. On the Mainland there is a recycling container at the "Guest Relations" at the Indian River Mall. On the barrier island, phones can be dropped off at Sandpiper Valet drycleaners on Cardinal Drive. And in Wabasso, the Environmental Learning Center is accepting phones too. You can find more information on the ELC website at: www.elcweb.org.

The ELC has also agreed to collect CDs for us too, so feel free to drop them off there and we will get them!

Florida Hometown Democracy Initiative

Indian River County now has a volunteer coordinator to assist the folks at the Florida Hometown Democracy Initiative gather signatures for their new drive to collect signatures for their modified petition. If you have been following this issue, you know that they gather the required number of signature for the reuqired review by the Florida Supreme Court. The Court denied the amendment for the wording in one sentence. They have since deleted that one sentence and now are required to begin the process over.

They can always use your contributions and especially your signature, if you are a registered voter in Florida. For more information, please see the FHD website at: www.floridahometowndemocracy.com or give the Wendy Young, the IR Coordinator a call at 772-234-4816. And please keep reading for lots more information on the FHD Initiative and growth management issues!

---

'Representatives' build a case for Hometown Democracy

By Kenric Ward
Press Journal, May 9, 2008

It could have been worse. The 2008 Legislature could have passed laws to:

• Erase urban service lines.
• Prohibit citizens from holding local referendums on land-use changes.
• Create a new �ag enclave� in Palm Beach County.
• Exempt developments of regional impact from urban-sprawl rules.

Because those bills failed, Floridians still have a fighting chance at responsible growth management. But the defensive victories were tempered by the defeat of the lone reform bill on the agenda: a �Citizen�s Planning Bill of Rights.�

The �Bill of Rights,� sponsored by the state Department of Community Affairs, would have restricted how often local governments can alter their comprehensive land-use plans (currently occurring some 18,000 times a year). Even that modest effort was too much for this Legislature.�

�There was a virtual feeding frenzy of bad proposals,� DCA Secretary Tom Pelham acknowledged this week. �The theme of this session was the very large number of very bad proposals that were killed. Because we spent a lot of energy fending them off, things just bogged down.�

When Pelham, a respected and well-connected public servant, cannot persuade lawmakers to pass even a milquetoast compromise, the outlook for meaningful curbs on runaway development is poor. And next year, he�ll have to make do with less. The Legislature slashed 17 positions at his agency � eight of them growth-management positions.

All of which makes the case for something that Pelham, self-styled �progressives� and politicians of every stripe still adamantly oppose � Florida Hometown Democracy.

Click here to read the full editorial.

---

Revoking democracy in the Sunshine State

By Kenric Ward
Press Journal, 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.

Click here to read the full editorial.

---

Proposal to limit growth scares some pols

Scott Maxwell, TAKING NAMES
Orlando Sentinel, 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.

Click here to read the full editorial.

---

Double-dealing

Kenric Ward, Editorial writer
Press Journal, 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.

Click here to read the full editorial.

---

Just who exactly are the special interests here?

Scott Maxwell | TAKING NAMES
Orlando Sentinel, September 23, 2007

If you read the letter that former House Speaker John Thrasher is sending to Floridians all over the state, you're bound to get mad.

Thrasher, after all, tells us that special interests are out to hijack our state. And, if you're like me, you'd rather not get hijacked.

But we may not have much of a choice. Thrasher says that, in their quest to ruin the state, the special interests are using devious tricks and enlisting the help of so-called "electors."

"Guess who the 'electors' will be," Thrasher's letter continues. "The 'special interests' and their slick lawyers will rig the system to put our future in the hands of their cronies."

Ooh, those rotten special interests. I can't stand 'em -- them or their slick lawyers.

But it sounds like the real culprits in this thing are these no-good "electors."

Click here to read the full commentary.

---

Hey, buddy, watch who you call an 'elector'

By HOWARD TROXLER
St. Petersburg Times, September 18, 2007

Did you ever hear of the famous speech given by a Florida politician where he used a lot of big words to fool the ignorant voters?

Part of the speech supposedly went:

Are you aware that (my opponent) is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York.

Actually, the "speech" was a hoax and a parody. But it became a legend.

I thought of this as I read this letter being sent to Florida voters who signed the petition for the Hometown Democracy amendment.

The letter boils down to four points:

(1) You're stupid for signing.

(2) You've been tricked by Bad Guys.

(3) You'll be punished for it.

(4) So sign this enclosed form to revoke your signature.

Hometown Democracy is a citizen campaign to change our state Constitution in the 2008 election.

The idea is for local voters, not elected officials, to make major growth decisions.

The letter in question tries to scare petition signers into changing their minds. It bears the letterhead and signature of John Thrasher, a former speaker of the state House.

Click here to read the full commentary.

---

Finally, something scares big business

By STEVE BOUSQUET, Tallahassee bureau chief
St. Petersburg Times, August 25, 2007

It's not easy to intimidate the business community in Florida, but big business seems truly terrified of the Florida Hometown Democracy ballot initiative that may be headed to voters in November 2008.

Simply put, Hometown Democracy is a proposed constitutional amendment that would require a vote on any land-use changes that conflict with a local government's plan for growth. If a developer wanted to put a Wal-Mart Supercenter in a spot designated for agriculture, it would be the voters - not local officials - who would have to okay it.

"Ballot-box zoning," critics call it.

The co-founders of Hometown Democracy, lawyers Ross Burnaman and Lesley Blackner, see a state dominated by the development industry. They want a statewide referendum on growth.

Click here to read the full story.

---

Rampant growth needs citizen controls

Lesley Blackner, Guest Editorial
Bradenton Herald, August 20, 2007

According to your Aug. 12 editorial, "Chaos at the polls," Florida Hometown Democracy will mean the end of the world. Catastrophe will rain down simply by giving voters a veto over comprehensive land use plan changes that have been approved by a city of county commission. The editorial was chock full of hysterical verbiage like "anti-growth zealots," "bedsheet ballot," "serial job killer," and "vote on everything." Reading it, I couldn't help but think of Mark Twain's apt observation: "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."

Florida Hometown Democracy's principle nemesis, the Florida Chamber of Commerce, met with this paper's editorial board. It's too bad that the editorial board did not bother to call me, or anyone else at Florida Hometown Democracy, before it drank the chamber's Kool-Aid. Let me perform a little CPR and set the record straight.

Click here to read the full editorial.

---

Election 2008:Knock-down,drag-out fight?

By Russ Lemmon
Press Journal, Tuesday, August 7, 2007

As if the 2008 election season wasn't going to be contentious enough, along comes the growing likelihood of the Florida Hometown Democracy initiative making the statewide ballot.

The proposed amendment to the state constitution would require a referendum on any change to a local comprehensive land use plan.

"We are forcing a debate, a showdown about the merits of growth in Florida," says Palm Beach attorney Lesley Blackner.

Her focus for the next five months is getting enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. She says the petition drive is about two-thirds of the way there � with about 450,000 collected.

Then would come the tough part: a knock-down, drag-out fight against Floridians for Smarter Growth, which has indicated it will spend whatever it takes to defeat the initiative. (Groups typically associated with development, such as the Florida Home Builders Association and the Florida Chamber of Commerce, are the main supporters of Floridians for Smarter Growth.)

Click here to read the full commentary.

---

Florida ballot wars: The empire strikes back

By Kenric Ward
Press Journal, Sunday, July 29, 2007

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. So goes the strategy at Florida's growth coalition.

Well, sort of.

Hellbent on defeating Florida Hometown Democracy, the ballot initiative requiring referendums on any local comprehensive plan changes, the growth machine has cranked out a clever countermeasure.

"Floridians for Smarter Growth" is collecting signatures for a constitutional amendment that also would allow for citizen referendums.

Since imitation is a form of flattery, Florida Hometown Democracy might feel pretty good about this. After failing to knock out FHD at the Supreme Court, opponents apparently have decided to jump on the populist bandwagon.

But don't be fooled. The "smarter growth" gambit is designed to bury FHD.

Click here to read the full editorial.

---

Amendments pit builders against anti-growth activist

By DARA KAM
Palm Beach Post, July 27, 2007

TALLAHASSEE � Florida voters in 2008 may face two competing changes to the state constitution - one backed by a Palm Beach attorney, the other by businesses - dealing with how much influence residents will have over growth in their communities.

The first is backed by Lesley Blackner, who has worked for more than four years to put her Hometown Democracy constitutional amendment, an initiative that gives developers the shivers, on the November 2008 ballot.

The second is builders' and businesses' attempt to thwart it.

Blackner's petition would require voters to consider all changes to comprehensive land-use plans, the growth strategies that lay out what gets built where and encompass everything from convenience stores to strip malls to mega-dwelling developments. If voters did not approve them, they could not happen.

Her proposal, still hundreds of thousands of signatures away from the number required to make it onto the 2008 ballot, has ignited builders and the business community, which together are not only trying to kill the Hometown Democracy amendment but are contradicting a long-standing opposition to citizens' initiatives by launching one of their own.

Floridians for Smarter Growth Inc., a political committee backed almost exclusively by home builders, opened a campaign account in April and already has collected more than $800,000 to get its measure on the 2008 ballot.

Click here to read the full story.

---

Business Lobby Aims at Amendment

By Tom Palmer
The Lakeland Ledger, July 24, 2007

I know this may come as a shock to some of you, but one of Florida's largest business lobbies has hatched a plan to derail the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce is openly opposing the amendment and is speaking against it because it thinks it's a bad idea.

But the chamber has taken another step. It has launched a front group called Floridians for Smarter Growth, which has created a competing petition drive.

Click here to read the full story.

---

Businesses cringe at entrusting land to voters

A ballot initiative would involve the public in land-use changes.

By JENNIFER LIBERTO
St. Pete Times, July 17, 2007

TALLAHASSEE - It's not often that a ballot initiative gets compared to "Armageddon" or a "nuclear bomb."

But that's the kind of rhetoric that business groups are using to describe a little-known group called Hometown Democracy that wants to give voters direct control over new development.

You may not have heard of Hometown Democracy, but you will. Opponents are predicting it will be the costliest ballot initiative fight to date: maybe as much as $65-million.

The group officially has 262,000 of the 611,000 verified signatures needed by Feb. 1 to get its initiative on the November 2008 ballot, according to state records.

The way it works now is if a developer wants to build anything from a Wal-Mart Supercenter to a new high school in a spot that's designated for, say, agriculture, the developer goes to a county commission or a city council and asks to change the land-use designation. Then the state must sign off, too.

Under the Hometown Democracy ballot measure, any land-use changes that conflict with the local government's plan for growth, called a comprehensive plan, would have to be approved by a majority of its voters. In November, St. Pete Beach became the first Florida city to give voters control over changes to its comprehensive plan.

Click here to read the full story.

---

Future development belongs in our hands

By John Hedrick - MY VIEW
Tallahassee Democrat, July 17, 2007

Why is everyone so scared of the Florida Hometown Democracy Petition?

The Florida Chamber of Commerce has just put out a competing petition that sounds very nice but makes it impossible for citizens to control future growth. Why? The Chamber's main objective is to kill the Florida Hometown Democracy petition.

With Hometown Democracy, you and your family would control Florida's future growth. Here is how it would work:

Every community has a growth-management plan. The problem in the past has been that the developers give lots of money to the politicians, and then the politicians allow developers to go hog wild - allowing them to make constant changes to growth-management plan. Just look around. You can see what went wrong. The growth-management plans don't need to be changed - they are reviewed every five years.

To fix the problem of developers gone wild, Hometown Democracy requires that future plan changes should be granted by the people, not the politicians. It is a simple concept and one that would put a stop to all these infernal, needless changes. It wouldn't cost you more money, because developers would know voters would not approve these constant changes. So, don't let the Chamber machine dupe you into believing that it will be expensive to hold elections. It will not. There won't be any. The developers will have to live with the plans.

Click here to read the full commentary.

---

Amendment's Proponents Rally Against 'Growth Junkies'

By LESLEY BLACKNER
Tampa Tribune, Aug 19, 2006

You think the traffic is bad now, and the schools are overwhelmed. What happens while the next 5, 20, 50 million people move to Florida?

Right now Florida's population is about 18 million and growing by 1,000 people every day with no end in sight. If you add up all the comprehensive plans in our state, you will find that they project housing for more than 100 million people.

The truth that politicians avoid is that Florida's population growth is never supposed to end. State and local governments are in the growth business. These growth junkies equate relentless, unending construction with civic progress. They like to call it "economic development" or "growing the tax base."

When a voter says, "But I like my community the way it is," he is shouted down: "Growth is going to happen whether you like it or not! This town needs this growth � if we don't grow, we'll die!"

When I hear this, I think of Miami-Dade County. For a hundred years Miami has grown without restraint, paving over the mangroves and the swamps. If simply adding more people and more construction is good government and good business, then why is Miami the poorest big city in the United States, a fiscal nightmare, and everything the rest of Florida doesn't want to be?

Click here to read the full editorial.

---

Legislature puts growth in your hands

Commentary by Lauren Ritchie
Orlando Sentinel, July 2, 2006

MEEKNESS, n. Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.
-- Ambrose Bierce

The Devil's Dictionary

Ready for a little revenge?

The 1984 Miss America who resigned her crown when Penthouse threatened to release revealing pictures of her said it best: "Success is the sweetest revenge."

Okay, rub your hands together in anticipation and let loose with an evil cackle.

The state that sold its soul to developers may be about to turn as unfriendly as downtown Baghdad during a Quran-burning party sponsored by the local infidels.

The Florida Supreme Court has said voters in 2008 can decide on a constitutional amendment that would change dramatically the way subdivisions get approved.

Click here to read the full commentary.

---

Hometown Democracy means war is brewing

By HOWARD TROXLER, Times Columnist
St. Petersburg Times, June 25, 2006

If you could line up all the Florida residents who ever fought a Wal-Mart or a new development on one side, and every city council or county commission member who ever approved one on the other side, you would have one heck of a war.

Well, that war looks like it's coming.

This past Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court approved a voter petition that goes by the nickname of "Hometown Democracy."

Hometown Democracy is the ultimate citizen revolt. It would take power away from Florida's city and county elected officials, and give that power directly to local voters.

Click here to read the full story.

---

Guest Editorial

FLORIDA VOICE

Take land use back to voters to decelerate growth machine

By LESLEY BLACKNER
Daytona News-Journal Online

I was in law school 20 years ago when the Growth Management Act was delivered to the people of Florida as a salvation to the problems of endless growth. I remember well the hype. The new state law would bring "rationality" and "planning" and "expertise" to the business of growth. It would divest ignorant, greedy local politicos of their ability to dump subdivisions onto fragile ecosystems without a second thought. It would ensure that growth didn't destroy Florida.

It's been a bad 20 years. Today there's a consensus that whatever "growth management" may or may not be, it is a failure. The act remains on the books, yet it has not protected Floridians from the constant erosion of our quality of life at the hands of the growth machine.

Why doesn't it work? Well, for starters, the Growth Management Act was never intended to stop growth; its goal is only to manage growth and ensure that the proper infrastructure is in place before the bulldozers scrape the land. The proof: If you add up all the comprehensive plans in our state, you will find that they project housing for more than 100 million people.

Second, what constitutes adequate infrastructure has been a matter of endless debate, and no action. The buzz word is "concurrency." For most developers, getting the road to the land will do the trick. Lack of schools, gridlock, over-stretched police and fire service, the end of open space -- all part and parcel of what most middle class Americans would deem infrastructure deficiencies -- have in no way stymied the growth machine.

Third, Floridians, seduced by the vision of "managed growth," turned their counties and towns over to the "experts": the lawyers, planners, biologists, engineers, bureaucrats and the whole panoply of "consultants." These "experts" are just the growth machine in a fancy suit. They have developed a mind-numbing, pseudoscientific techno-babble that the humble opposition can not hope to understand. Too often, the city and county commissioners don't understand it either. Over and over again, mere mortals are bulldozed by the "experts."

"Are you a traffic expert?" sneered a city attorney at homeowners who dared to oppose a five-fold increase in density for the last remaining bit of green space in their neighborhood on the ground that it would bring a deluge of traffic onto their quiet street. Citizens become demoralized when they speak with common sense and object to the deterioration of their community, yet local government treats them like problem children. It's just too hard to fight city hall under the current rules of the game.

Yes, the rules of the game. That's the key. The growth machine controls the game, it makes up the rules. But there is a different way to make land use decisions, a revolution waiting to happen. It's called voter accountability on land use. That's why I'm supporting the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment, a statewide petition to amend the Florida Constitution. Under the amendment, comprehensive plan amendments will be submitted to the voter. It's that simple. If you haven't signed the petition, download it at www.floridahometowndemocracy.com.

Like the Florida Constitution, county and city charters can be amended to bring a higher level of voter accountability on land use. The charter amendment of choice these days seems to be the height cap. Cities up and down the coast don't want to be Manhattanized. This is so important that citizens enshrine this restriction, to take it away from the easy reach of "experts" and the growth machine.

In response to the approval of twin 16-story condos in Edgewater, a group of fed-up voters formed Edgewater Citizen's Alliance for Responsible Development Inc., (ECARD) and are seeking signatures on a petition to amend the Edgewater Charter to cap new construction at a height of 35 feet. But, bravely, ECARD is going further. ECARD is invoking a forgotten provision in the Edgewater charter to overturn the ordinance approved by the Edgewater City Commission authorizing the 16-story condos. Read the petition at www.floridasos.com. The Edgewater charter allows dissatisfied voters the right to use the referendum process to overturn an ordinance they don't like. This is a powerful tool for accountability.

To take voter accountability a step further, ECARD is circulating a petition to require approval of 4 of 5 commissioners before a land use change is adopted. Why? Right now, only a simple majority is required. Land use changes should not be granted unless there is a strong consensus that the change will benefit the community. This accountability provision raises the threshold for obtaining a land use change. It should be enshrined in charters everywhere.

Going back to our First Amendment right to petition our government for redress of our grievances is the only way to end the tyranny of "government of the developer, by the developer and for the developer." Voter accountability on land use puts the voters back in charge of their communities. It is the future of conservation in Florida.

Blackner, an attorney in Palm Beach, is co-founder of Florida Hometown Democracy Inc. and the attorney for ECARD.

---

Guest Editorial

Lesley Blackner, an attorney in Palm Beach, is an organizer for the Florida Hometown Democracy campaign
Daytona Beach News Journal
Thursday March 30, 2006

You think the traffic is bad now, and the schools are overwhelmed? What happens while the next 5, 20, 50 million people move to Florida? Right now Florida�s population is about 18 million and growing by 1,000 people each and every day, with no end in sight. If you add up all the comprehensive plans in our state, you will find that they project housing for over 100 million people.

The truth, which politicians avoid like the plague, is that Florida�s population growth is never supposed to end. State and local governments are in the growth business. These growth junkies equate relentless, unending construction with civic progress. They like to call it �economic development� or �growing the tax base�. When a voter says �But I like my community the way it is!� he is shouted down by the growth junkies: �Growth is going to happen whether we like it or not! This town needs this growth�if we don�t grow we�ll die!�

When I hear this, I think of Miami-Dade County. For a hundred years Miami has grown and grown without restraint, paving over the mangroves and the swamps. If simply adding more people and more construction is good government and good business, then why is Miami the poorest big city in the United States, a fiscal nightmare, the poster child for everything the rest of the state doesn�t want to be?

What can you do, when you don�t want to see every road in your town six-laned and portables mushrooming around the schools? What can you do to defend yourself, your home and your community from the growth junkies� bill: endless construction, spoiled or destroyed natural resource systems and places, a degraded quality of life, overwhelmed municipal services and a higher cost of living?

Tragically, under Florida�s land use law, local government�s main job is supposed to be the protection of citizens� quality of life. The law is clear that when a city or county commission votes on a proposed land use change, the politicians are standing in the shoes of the electorate and should not approve the proposed change unless they determine that it will improve the community.

The problem is again that too many Florida elected officials are growth junkies. They equate relentless, unending construction with civic progress. They are more concerned with catering to the next 10,000 new residents than protecting and preserving their communities.

We, the Florida voters, must take back control over the destiny of our state. We must take these important decisions out of the hands of the growth junkies. We can do this by supporting the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment, a proposed constitutional amendment that will put the people back in charge of the places where they live by letting voters decide whether to change their community�s growth plan. This makes sense because voters care deeply about the place where they live. We should have the final say over proposed changes in our hometowns because, for better or worse, we get stuck with the consequences.

Last year, the Florida Supreme Court, in a required review, ruled 7-0 that our FHD amendment is fine, but then split 4-3 over one sentence in the ballot summary. As Yogi Berra says, �It ain�t over till it�s over. So we have started over, pulled out the offending sentence, and are very confident that this time that we will prevail.

We�ve collected 70,000 petitions so far, and need another 500,000 to qualify for the 2008 ballot. I urge you to learn more about our effort at www.floridahometowndemocracy.com . We need your help. If you are a registered Florida voter, download the petition, sign it and mail it in. Support this unique effort by collecting and submitting petitions to us, and sending your check to help fund the effort. Florida�s future thanks you.

---

State Approves New Florida Hometown Democracy Petition

June 23, 2005

On Tuesday June 21, 2005 the Florida Division of Elections approved the NEW Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment Petition form.

�This amendment will give Florida voters the power to control local growth management.� says its co-author, Lesley Blackner. The Florida Hometown Democracy amendment will change the Florida Constitution to require that changes to local government comprehensive plans (and adoption of new plans) be subject to a referendum vote of local voters as the final step in the local approval process. Currently, such votes are only made by county and city commissioners.

The original Florida Hometown Democracy Petition was first proposed two years ago, and over 50,000 verified petitions were accepted by the state. However, on March 17, 2005, a sharply-divided Florida Supreme Court narrowly ruled (4-3) that the first sentence in the required �ballot summary� was an �editorial comment�, (although it was a direct quote from the Florida Constitution!), and struck the proposal. Notably, all of the Justices found that, other than the first sentence of the ballot summary, the rest of the original Petition met all legal requirements.

The NEW Petition is identical to the original Petition except that it strikes the first sentence of the ballot summary that was disapproved by the four Justices.

The Division of Elections� approval means that supporters of the Florida Hometown Democracy amendment must now begin anew the process of collecting signed petitions.

61,113 verified NEW Petitions must be filed with the Secretary of State to initiate the required Supreme Court review of the new Petition. Given the Supreme Court�s prior opinion and our deletion of the first sentence in the ballot summary, it is highly probable that the Court will approve the measure for the 2006 ballot.

Registered Florida voters who are interested in signing the Florida Hometown Democracy Petition should:

1. Log on to: http://www.FloridaHometownDemocracy.com (We've made changes to our website, please hit your "Refresh" button to update your server!)
2. Download the NEW Petition (bears the date June 21,2005 on bottom)
3. Complete and sign the NEW Petition
4. Mail the signed Petition to Florida Hometown Democracy, Inc., PO Box 636, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32170-0636.

�Florida Hometown Democracy will put Floridians back in charge of the places where they live� said Lesley Blackner, who is leading the effort to empower Floridians. She noted: �We are a grassroots movement, and our efforts depend upon the support, elbow grease and contributions of like-minded citizens who value Florida�s natural resources, scenic beauty and long-term quality of life.�

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
LESLEY BLACKNER 386-424-0860

---

For more information on growth management and voter initiative issues, you may be interested in the following resources. Click on the images to link to more information. To read recent news articles on the Florida Hometown Democracy Initiative, please scroll down for stories and excerpts with links to the full articles.

"Planning for Tomorrow - A Citizens' Guide to Smarter Growth in Florida" is a publication produced by 1000 Friends of Florida. It "describe's this state's nationally recognized approach to smart planning for the future, and outlines how we as citizens can help."

"Please note that Florida's growth management process is constantly evolving. This report describes the process as of January 1999." 1000 Friends of Florida has several other recent publications on growth management issues too, so please visit their website.

"Better Not Bigger: How to Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your Community", by Eben Fodor.

"If you have had enough of endless growth, and want to do something about it, then Better NOT Bigger: How to Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your Community is the resource you've been searching for. Exploding the myth that growth is good for us, this book clearly and convincingly shows how urban growth can, in fact, leave our communities permanently scarred, and saddled with very high costs. Lively, accessible, and packed with insights, ideas, tools, and resources, Better NOT Bigger is for both the professional planner and the ordinary citizen."

"Democracy Derailed: Initiative Campaigns and the Power of Money", by David Broder

"... how initiatives are remaking our democracy, creating a hazardous new arena of politics."

"Where once most state laws were passed by legislatures, now voters in half the states and hundreds of cities decide directly on such explosive issues as drugs, affirmative action, casino gambling, assisted suicide, and human rights. Ostensibly driven by public opinion, the initiative process is far too often manipulated by moneyed interests, often funded by out-of-state millionaires pursuing their own agendas."

"In this highly controversial book, David Broder, the 'dean of American political journalism' (Brill's Content), explains how a movement that started with Proposition 13 in California is now a multimillion-dollar business in which lawyers, campaign consultants, signature gatherers, and advertising agencies sell their expertise to interest groups with private agendas."

"With a new afterword updating the results of the most recent elections and discussing the potential for future initiatives, Broder takes the reader into the heart of these battles as he talks with the field operatives, lobbyists, PR spinners, labor leaders, and business executives, all of whom can manipulate the political process."

---

Guest Column written for FMO Magazine:
(Federation of Manufactured Home Owners of Florida, Inc., July 2005 - ed.)

It�s Time for Florida Hometown Democracy!

Your home is your castle. But it may not be for long. In many parts of Florida, manufactured home communities are being destroyed by powerful development interests and replaced with expensive housing. What is lost is more than just the affordable roof over your head�it�s your way of life. But there�s something you can do right now to protect manufactured home communities throughout Florida�you can volunteer to help get the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment on the ballot in November, 2006.

The destruction of a manufactured home community can be triggered when a park owner seeks to change the park�s land use designation in the local government comprehensive (land use) plan. Sometimes, park owners can realize windfall profits by selling the park to a developer for commercial development or expensive homes. The existing residents are evicted, the park is destroyed and replaced with expensive housing. This unfortunate reality often requires a comprehensive plan amendment. Comprehensive plans are supposed to protect with (sic) the health, safety and quality of life of all Floridians. That includes manufactured home residents, many of whom earn modest wages or are seniors living on fixed retirement incomes. Comprehensive plans are supposed to protect affordable housing.

When comprehensive plans were mandated by the 1985 Growth Management Act, it was not supposed to be easy to change a comprehensive plan. So why are manufactured home communities being bulldozed and replaced with expensive housing?

The sad truth is that too many of Florida�s city and county commissioners are biased against manufactured housing, and will vote to change a comprehensive plan to get rid of it. These commissioners call the destruction �redevelopment.� The other sad reality is that too many local governments haven�t even bothered to designate manufactured home communities as Affordable Housing in their comprehensive plans. Many city and county comprehensive plans lack meaningful Affordable Housing provisions. Unfortunately, protecting Affordable Housing is not important to many local governments.

When a park owner seeks to change a comprehensive plan to allow construction of an expensive, new development, the law presumes that the change should not be granted unless it benefits the public. The law is clear that nobody is legally entitled to a comprehensive plan change. But you wouldn�t know that when you attend a city or county commission public hearing on a proposed plan change to abolish a manufactured home community in the name of �redevelopment.� You hear homeowners like yourself begging their elected officials not to approve the proposed change because they love their homes, their way of life. Moreover, given the reality of real estate prices in their communities, where are they going to go? Too often their pleas fall on deaf ears�almost invariably the commissioners vote to approve the change. The sad truth is that too many of Florida�s elected officials only care about keeping rich developer interests happy.

To make matters worse, increases in development density and intensity approved by comprehensive plan amendments require additional roads, landfills, wastewater plants, and other expensive infrastructure that increase tax burdens for existing residents. This increased rate of growth does not pay for itself � so in addition to displacement from your chosen manufactured home community, and a degraded quality of life, you can often expect increased taxes from amendments to local comprehensive plans.

You need to know that both the United States Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court have ruled that proposed land use changes can be made directly by the voters. Both courts have held that the power to approve or reject land use changes has always been the people�s power and they can take that power back if they want to. This makes sense because people care about the place where they live. For most of us our home is our biggest financial investment. We move to a place because we like it. We should have the final say over proposed comprehensive plan changes in our communities because, for better or worse, we will be stuck with those changes for many years to come.

The best way to protect thousands of manufactured home communities in Florida is to ensure that they are properly recognized in comprehensive plans as Affordable Housing and then give the power over proposed plan changes to the people who live there. That�s the goal of Florida Hometown Democracy, a non-partisan, non-profit group just organized (sic) to amend the Florida Constitution. The Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment seeks to put the people back in charge of the places where they live.

Once your manufactured home community is designated as Affordable Housing and the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment is enshrined in the Florida Constitution, manufactured home owners across the state will be able to breathe a little easier, confident in the knowledge that their destiny is no longer in the hands of city and county commissions that want to get rid of manufactured home communities.

But the great promise of the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment can�t become a reality without your help. Florida Hometown Democracy is a grassroots effort depending on thousands of volunteers like yourself to take up this cause and make it your own. FMO members contributed 22,000 signatures during the last legislative session to a petition drive to push the state to ensure a guaranteed funding source to assist homeowners who are forcibly relocated due to developer-driven comprehensive plan changes. The Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment is even more vital to FMO members, because it will actually work to save manufactured home communities.

To get the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment on the November 2006 ballot, we must collect approximately 600,000 petitions from registered Florida voters as soon as possible. If you are a registered Florida voter, we urge you to tear out the petition included on page�, sign it, mail it in and help us collect more signed petitions. But you don�t have to be a registered Florida voter to collect signatures: each and every one of you can volunteer, regardless of how old you are or where you are from. Everybody needs to help. If manufactured housing has a prayer of surviving in many parts of the state, the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment must be enshrined in the Florida Constitution. You can learn all about our effort and download the petition at www.floridahometowndemocracy.com. If you don�t have access to the internet, call or fax us at (386)424-0860. Or write to us for petitions at: P.O. Box 636, New Smyrna Beach, Florida 32170. Make your own copies or contact us to send you all the petitions you need.

Please join with us today! Time is of the essence. The future of your community many well depend on it.

Lesley Blackner, an attorney, is an organizer of Florida Hometown Democracy.

---

Muzzling the voters

Lawmakers have voted for measures designed to sharply restrict the power of Floridians to make themselves heard through the initiative process.

A Times Editorial
Published April 28, 2005, St. Pete Times

"The public be damned!," as railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt infamously remarked, was the order of the day on Tuesday in the Florida Legislature. Vanderbilt would have been overjoyed by how Florida's big business lobbies were calling the tune.

The House passed three constitutional amendments and an outrageous bill collectively intended to stifle the public's right of initiative. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved its version of the bill (CS for SB 1996, HB 1471) despite ample misgivings over its constitutionality.

"...'This bill two weeks ago was a piece of garbage,' said Sen. Walter 'Skip' Campbell, D-Fort Lauderdale. 'Now, it just stinks.' "

He was wrong. It's still a piece of garbage.

Click here to read the full editorial.

---

Time for Change?

Florida's Growth Management Act might be rewritten for the first time in two decades.

by David R. Corder, Associate Editor
Gulf Coast Business Review, Tampa Bay Edition
January 21-27, 2005

Sen. Mike Bennet will oversee growth management reform as chair of the Legislature�s Community Affairs Committee. He says local governments should have more flexibility in how taxes are spent on infrastructure.

Sen. Mike Bennett, a Republican from Bradenton, made a tough choice nearly four years ago. As a state representative, he opposed Gov. Jeb Bush�s bid to rewrite the state�s growth management laws. Construction and development interests joined with Bennett and other legislators to defeat the bill.

�The governor and I had some serious disagreements over it because there was nothing in there to fund (infrastructure costs),� says Bennett, a real estate developer.

The choice carried consequences. Bush, a former Miami developer, championed growth management reform as a priority long before taking office. Bennett�s opposition upset the governor.

�He had gotten so mad he even sent back my campaign contribution check,� Bennett recalls.

Time apparently has healed the fissure between the two. It may be that Bush doesn�t have much recourse if he wants the reform effort to succeed before his second term expires in two years.

This year, Bennett serves as chairman of the Senate Community Affairs Committee, which oversees growth manage-mint legislation. He and the governor appear committed to what could become the first major rewrite of the state�s Growth Management Act since it was enacted 20 years ago.

�We�re on the same wave length,� Bennett says. �We�re committed to working together. We�re committed to working with the House, and we�re going to bring something to the people that makes sense.�

Confluence of interests

Many in legislative leadership this year have an intimate understanding of how the Growth Management Act affects the state. Builders and related businesses have long complained that the regulatory process is cumbersome, time-consuming and costly. Projects are often delayed years while regulatory approval is sought.

Among those who�ve faced the bureau-cratic hurdles are Senate President Tom Lee, R-Tampa, vice president of Sabal Homes of Florida Inc., a family-owned home building company.

�I have also expressed frustration about a growth management system that lacks sustainability because it ignores the current disconnects between land use decisions and the essential infrastructure that is fundamental to our quality of life,� Lee told Senate members in November. �Let�s face it; growth management is far more a financing problem than a planning problem.�

Lee did not return telephone calls to GCBR.

Then there�s House Speaker Allan Banes, R-Panama City, who owns a concrete contracting company. Rep. Mike Davis, R-Naples, for years owned a sign-making company in Naples and was an active member of the Collier Building Industry Association. As vice chair of the House Growth Management Committee, Davis is expected to sponsor a Bush-backed growth management bill.

Bennett owned and operated Aladdin Ward Electric Air Inc. for years until he sold his interest in the Sarasota electrical contracting company. He plans to sponsor a companion bill in the Senate.

�I�m cautiously optimistic,� Bennett says about the reform�s chances this year. �I�m optimistic in that you�ve got a Senate that�s desperately trying to get along with the House. Everybody is trying to work together. If the leadership of the House and Senate want to make this happen, it will happen.�

This confluence of like interests can only benefit the reform movement, says Steve Seibert, a former Pinellas County commissioner who served as Bush�s first secretary of the Department of Community Affairs (DCA). In that position, he actively spearheaded the growth management reform movement. �

�Yes, the conversation has been happening for several years so it may be time to see a change,� says Seibert, who now practices land use and environmental law in Tallahassee. �There are a lot of people who don�t think the current law is performing as well as we hoped it would.�

�The governor has made it a priority,� he adds. �It�s always been a priority. He�s accomplished change in pieces but now is interested in tackling this really hard issue.�

New revenue sources

Months of speculation about a reform bill materialized in written form over the past several weeks as staff at DCA circulated a 172-page draft of a bill that proposes a massive overhaul of the Growth Management Act. This is the bill that Bennett and Davis would sponsor.

The draft incorporates much of what the DCA published in white papers, titled �Growth Management Initiatives,� on its Web site (www.dca.state.fl.us).

Many of the changes DCA Secretary Thaddeus Cohen and staff have proposed in the 172-page document also incorporates what Seibert and his staff proposed several years ago. Those changes include recommendations proposed by the governor�s Growth Management Study Commission, a panel once led by former Orange County commissioner and now U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Orlando.

�There is very little new under the sun,� Seibert acknowledges. �Many of these concepts have been discussed by my predecessors as well.�

The draft bill targets one of Bennett�s primary concerns. It would mandate fiscal accountability for infrastructure development costs and require local government to pledge revenue sources to build infrastructure. Those sources could include property taxes and impact fees.

�We must give the counties more flexibility,� he says. �They�ve got some tools, but we�ve not given them flexibility in the past. Give them flexibility with local option fuel taxes for more roads. Give them flexibility over the millage. Allow citizens to vote in their taxing methods.

�If local government wanted to increase document stamps on real estate transfers, why not use that to build infrastructure,� he adds. �I would be in favor of them doing that if they cap impact fees. That way you could generate a new revenue stream. You cannot bond impact fees. But with doc stamps you could bond it, and they could go out and build the roads they need.�

Fiscal accountability appeals to many homebuilders, says Douglas Buck, the Tallahassee-based governmental affairs director for the Florida Home Builders Association.

�It�s important to figure out which of those fees are broad enough so they�re at a low enough level that they don�t distort the real estate market,� he says. �It should be value-based so it does not fall disproportionably.�

In his view, Buck thinks gasoline taxes fit the definition.

�It�s probably the best source for connecting that jump between how much you use the road and how much you have to pay,� he says. �If you drive more you pay more. Whatever fund you come up with I�ll pay it. If it�s gas tax, the new (resident) will also pay it. If it a real estate transaction fee, the new (resident) also will pay it.�

�No one wants to pay any more taxes than they have to, but we�ve so restricted local government on a couple of those issues that we�re strangling them,� Buck adds.

Searching for visions

The draft DCA bill proposes a decentralization of the agency�s growth management responsibilities. To do that, the draft recommends the agency focus solely on a priority list of issues of statewide concern.

It recommends that DCA retain authority to encourage orderly statewide land use patterns as a means to discourage urban sprawl. The state agency would be responsible for oversight of a statewide inter-modal strategic plan that supports the unimpeded flow of commerce from air-and seaports to the interstate highway system.

The draft also charges the state agency with oversight on growth management issues that affect natural resources, particularly water. The agency also would retain oversight on issues involving natural disasters and disaster mitigation.

One proposed mandate would require Florida counties and cities to develop a growth-management visioning plan. For instance, Bennett�s committee recently heard a presentation on visioning given by Daniel DeLisi, director of planning for Bonita Bay Group Inc.

Over the years, DeLisi says, the Bonita Springs-based residential developer has forged alliances through open meetings with property owners, civic associations and local governments to build its planned communities. In doing so, Bonita Bay Group has encouraged these stakeholders to focus on long-term impacts.

�The way the state�s growth management is set up everything is based on accommodating population,� he says. �If the population projections in your county show that people will move there then you have to plan for it. If the population shows that people won�t move there then you�re not allowed to plan for it.

�It�s a bizarre system,� DeLisi adds. �In essence we�ve delegated our planning to a department at the University of Florida (the Bureau of Economic and Business Research), which doesn�t have any planning background.�

That�s why Bonita Bay Group supports local visioning as the way to accommodate growth and the community concern over quality of life issues, DeLisi says. For example, he cites the consensus the developer forged in Lee County during the developer�s work in the Estero community.

�We mandate through the county�s comprehensive plan that developers must meet with citizens when they rezone,� he says. �When they go for a development order, or submit engineering plans, they must present it to a citizens advisory committee.�

DeLisi acknowledges the development community didn�t readily buy into that mandate.

�When that was first adopted, there was a lot of angst,� he says. �What people will realize, however, it�s much better to work with a community that has been so involved in the process that they know the issues and they feel ownership over implementing a specific vision. So when the developer comes in they have certainty. They know if they implement the vision, they�ll get the support of the community.�

Troublesome issues

One issue likely to cause some concern among environmentalists and some growth management proponents is a proposal to relax concurrency requirements in the Growth Management Act. When adopted in 1985, proponents touted con-currency as the act�s teeth � the enforcement provision. It means growth must have the infrastructure to support it.

The draft bill would eliminate concurrency mandates in most instances, except for schools and transportation infrastructure. The state no longer, for instance, would mandate concurrent development of water-and-sewer infrastructure, for instance, or parks. Such infrastructure development would become the sole responsibility of local governments.

Such delegation of responsibilities bothers some growth management advocates.

Palm Beach attorney Lesley Blackner, a founder of the Hometown Democracy constitutional initiative, says such delegation invites corruption among elected officials beholden to the construction and development industries. The Hometown Democracy initiative, if eventually qualified for a popular vote, would require residents to vote on every comprehensive plan amendment, an idea that chills most property owners and developers.

�The only way to change the system is to change who makes the final decision,� she says. �That should be the electorate, because they�re the ones getting stuck with the consequences.�

Blackner is not the only one with concerns about the draft bill. Homebuilders and developers in the Tampa Bay area and Sarasota-Manatee markets reject the bill�s proposal to delegate certain growth management oversight responsibility to the state�s 11 regional planning councils from the DCA.

�There may be a need, perhaps, for more local coordination on issues that affect more than one local governmental jurisdiction,� says Joseph Narkiewicz, executive vice president of the Tampa Bay Builders Association. �But to resurrect regional planning and give it authority over local plans and other authorities may not be the way to do it. I�m leery of the language in the (draft) bill.�

Instead, Narkiewicz suggests the Legislature strike the DCA recommendations for regional planning council oversight and instead focus on infrastructure funding issues.

�It�s a matter of taking a sane approach to growth management and properly funding growth management,� he says. �The Growth Management Act as it�s written seems to be workable. The Legislature just failed to provide the funding to implement it.�

Although he has not yet read the draft bill, Rex Jensen, president of Bradenton�s Schroeder-Manatee Ranch Inc, has concerns about what he has heard. The proposals present serious issues for Jensen�s company, which owns nearly 28,000 acres in mostly eastern Manatee and Sarasota counties. He dislikes any plan to revitalize the regional planning councils.

�It�s a total mistake,� he says. �It should be local decisions. If they�re going to delegate why don�t they delegate locally? This smells like to me they�re setting that situation up again. I don�t see any reason why they should do that.�

Jensen has a simple suggestion: Get the state out of the business of managing growth.

�What the state ought to be doing is planning for growth instead of managing it,� he says. �When you try to manage growth you�re managing something that pretty much already has happened.

�What the state has failed to do is look ahead to the amount of growth coming and then planning, funding and building the bloody infrastructure necessary to support it,� he adds. �They�ve always looked out the rear view mirror instead of the windshield and constructed new processes instead of dealing with the problems right in front of their faces.�

However, Jensen likes any idea that forces state, regional and local governments to create a vision for growth.

�There are a lot of self-interest groups tugging and pulling at the process in different directions,� he says. �In all fairness to the governor, it must be like herding cats.�

To solve the problem, Jensen recommends simplification.

�I think what the governor should do is identify the fundamental land use issues we would like to cure and articulate a vision,� he says. �He should focus on the top two or three things we should accomplish. I haven�t seen that coming from him. I haven�t seen a clear and articulate proposal written. At least it hasn�t been communicated down to the guy in the streets like me.�

That�s the kind of debate that has Bennett wondering whether the Legislature can complete an overhaul of the Growth Management Act in the upcoming legislative session.

�For starting purposes, I will file the identical bill (to the one Davis is expected to file),� Bennett says. �That�s when the modifications start. We�ll start that as a basis and travel around the state getting recommendations from a lot of different people.

�If we get it out this year that is great,� he adds. �But I would rather delay it a year and get a good bill instead of rushing through something just to get a growth management bill.�

---

Deltona shows why voters must have say

Mike Lafferty, Sentinel Columnist
Orlando Sentinel, April 9, 2004

Time again to take the bad with the good.

Positive news: The Florida Hometown Democracy movement got a boost Monday when the Deltona City Commission made itself a poster child for the cause.

Ignoring public sentiment and its own planning and zoning board, which voted to reject the proposal, commissioners rubber-stamped a request to change the city's land-use plan to allow 227 town houses on the lakefront Thornby property.

This provides Hometown Democracy's backers with a fine example of why certain local officials cannot be entrusted with Florida's future.

If the state constitutional amendment proposed by Hometown Democracy had been in effect, the City Commission's approval would have been contingent on a referendum.

Leaving final approval of land-use changes in the hands of voters is the backbone of Florida Hometown Democracy's proposal.

When it comes time to develop campaign material for the amendment, the Thornby property should get prominent billing, alongside a rogue's gallery of Deltona city commissioners' mug shots.

Negative news: Say goodbye to a historic, lovely little tract of about 40 acres fronting Lake Monroe and one of the county's most scenic byways.

Say hello to town houses, traffic, parking lots, retention ponds and more kids wedged into already jammed schools.

This is the way in Deltona, where the City Commission is a doormat for development.

That is why landowners are falling all over one another to annex their property into the city.

The owner of the Thornby property could not get what he wanted from the county in 1999, so he annexed into Deltona, which happily accommodated his wishes.

As usual, opponents were branded as outsiders and interlopers, though commissioners seemed unfazed by the landowner's New Jersey address.

As usual, the staff wrote memos that read like manifestos.

As usual, there were rhetorical diversions, including bogus suggestions that denying the request was tantamount to a denial of property rights.

And Deltona officials wonder why Volusia County wants to set growth boundaries for cities.

The answer to that question was made clear Monday night.