PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION:

If you are a registered Florida voter, please sign and submit the Water and Land Conservation Amendment petition to change the State Constitution to provide that one third of the existing documentary stamp tax revenues collected by the State whenever real estate is sold be devoted to acquisition and management of land for environmental conservation. This is not a new tax, but a mandatory rededication of funds previously applied for that purpose that have been diverted by the Legislature for other uses. The amendment is estimated to provide $5 billion for that purpose over the next ten years. It has been endorsed by SAS, Florida Audubon, the League of Women Voters, and almost every significant environmental organization in the State. We have circulated these petitions during the last ten or more months, and we will have more at the October and November SAS meetings. The deadline is the end of November and about 70,000 more are needed. You can get more information from kent@floridalandlegacy.org or Laura at the same e-address or at 850-421-3955 or copy petitions directly from the website that you can ask friends, neighbors, and members of your organizations to sign.

FALL CONSERVATION UPDATE:

For those out of town or who have been here but neglecting environmental news, there were several noteworthy and mostly foreboding environmental developments over the summer in Florida and locally. Among them were:

ANTI-ENVIRONMENT BILL: Despite pleas from environmentalists led by ex-Governor and Senator Bob Graham, on May 30 Governor Scott signed a bill that will harm our natural environment by, among other provisions, 1) forbidding cities from asking an applicant for a development permit more than three times for additional information before approving it, 2) blocking the Florida Wildlife Federation from suing to overturn a decision by Scott and his Cabinet preventing water management districts from cutting back groundwater pumping by any entity that builds a desalination plant to increase its potential water supply, and 3) speeding up permitting for natural gas pipelines that originate in other states regardless of their environmental effects.

MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE LANDS TO BE SOLD: After we thought we had at least locally narrowed into insignificance a Scott-administration order to sell off as surplus many SWFTMD conservation lands, the ironically- named Florida Department of Environmental Protection, under instruction, has now issued a preliminary surplus lands list containing hundreds of parcels and hundreds of acres. Many of these were purchased under the Florida Forever environmental lands program and many include portions of state parks. None of the proposed sales are in Sarasota County so far, but several are in adjacent Manatee and Charlotte counties. The Legislature provided that up to $50 million from the sale of these lands can be used to purchase (other) environmentally sensitive lands, but since the lands to be sold were mostly purchased under the same criteria, the environmental benefit seems unlikely to be positive. The list is still subject to change after public input and the final decisions will be made by the governor and cabinet.

SARASOTA 2050 TO BE WEAKENED: Some of you will remember the battles by Sarasota Audubon and other environmentalists in the early 2000's to keep sprawl from consuming eastern Sarasota County that resulted in the County hiring highly regarded (and expensive) land planners who helped develop a compromise optional overlay plan to control development in that area until 2050. In return for greater density, developers would meet standards of compact central business areas, walkability, green buffers and construction, wildlife corridors, fiscal neutrality, etc. Sarasota 2050 was never intended to be a rapid development plan, and the real estate crash around 2006 resulted in the anticipated "villages" and "hamlets" being delayed. Now some developers want to reopen the entire compromise and weaken the environmental standards. Now less environmentally friendly than before, the Planning Board and then the County Commission seem likely to seriously weaken environmental and other standards unless there is significant public objection. We'll need you to write letters and help us at hearings.

PARTIAL ENVIRONMENTAL VICTORY IN MANATEE COUNTY: Speaking of significant public objection, an influential developer who had been a major contributor to the election campaigns of several Manatee County Commissioners requested amendments to that county's development ordnances and regulations to allow him to build a luxury tower hotel, carve out a boat basin, cut a channel through mangroves and sea grasses, and densely develop Long Bar Point on the northern shore of Sarasota Bay. Anticipating considerable public participation, the Manatee County Commission moved the public hearing on August 6 to the Palmetto Convention Center. Two of us were there from SAS at the request of Manatee environmentalists. An estimated (by the newspapers) thousand people were there, the largest crowd this observer has seen at an environmental hearing in the past twenty years. The presentation began at 1:30 pm and testimony lasted until almost 2 a.m. An overwhelming majority of speakers, seemingly over 90 %, opposed the project. Faced with this huge turnout in opposition, the County Commission rejected the most environmentally destructive parts of the petition, including the boat basin and the cut through the mangroves and sea grass. This hearing illustrated how we need to react in Sarasota County when similarly environmentally destructive projects are proposed.

Wade Matthews, Conservation Chair