The Political Whore blog has been having a lively discussion about the merits of Florida Hometown Democracy, a proposed constitutional amendment that would put changes in local growth plans to a direct vote with the public and strip that power from county commissions. Prompting the debate was our contributing blogger, activist Kelly Cornelius, who wrote about a Florida Chamber of Commerce-sponsored competing amendment that would make it very difficult to place land-use decisions on the ballot. Here is a distillation; You can find the full dialogue on thepoliticalwhore.com, search for "Florida Hometown Democracy."
Kelly Cornelius: Is there no end to the dirty tricks the growth machine in Florida is willing to go to in order to stop Florida Hometown Democracy? Nope. Hometown Democracy is a citizen petition amendment that should have been on the ballot in 2008 but due to nasty gutter politics from Palm Beach to Tallahassee it was never added. If passed the amendment would allow voters instead of politicians to vote on any land-use changes outside of what local government comprehensive plans currently provide.
Maybe they should have renamed Florida Hometown Democracy to "You Can Say No to Sprawl" because the Sprawlpushers Florida Chamber of Commerce has its own competing amendment to block Hometown Democracy, and of course they named it "The Smarter Growth Amendment."
It has provisions in the amendment making it almost impossible for some people to participate. It calls for 10 percent of the population to actually go to the Supervisor of Elections Office in person to sign a petition in order to be able to vote on a land-use change (can you just imagine this fiasco if Hillsborough Supervisor Buddy Johnson was still in office?) This discriminates against military personnel and disabled people. It could also discriminate against Supervisors of Elections with ……well…….questionable organizations or bad accounting skills!
Michael R. Caputo, a consultant working against Hometown Democracy's campaign: You really don't know what sprawl is, do you? Yet another knee-jerk activist with lots of vitriol and very little knowledge.
Sprawl means growing OUT; density means growing UP. With Hometown Democracy, thousand and thousands of acres of Florida land will be dotted with one home on five acres – the present category most prevalent in our Land Use Plans.
Florida Audubon Society opposes Hometown Democracy for that very reason – because it will cause widespread sprawl.
Funny article, though – if there were a word of truth to it. But cheeky ain't necessarily factual. Your article is a perfect example.
pegcox: Michael Caputo is at it again — lying about Florida Audubon, also known as Audubon of Florida. Having just spent 6 years on the Board of Directors, I can truthfully say that officially Florida Audubon is neutral. Michael Caputo should leave Florida Audubon out of his knee-jerk responses.
[PoHo's Fact Check: The Associated Press reported in 2007, "Florida Audubon, another leading environmental organization, is staying neutral because it has members on both sides, said Charles Lee, the group's advocacy director."]
FixHillsborough: First of all, if FHD were enacted, the voters would not be inundated with many, many change requests. That is spin. In Hillsborough there are two cycles per year. Each cycle has only a handful of comp-plan amendments that end up making it through the existing process and being decided upon. The volume is relatively small. They are sought, almost exclusively, by developers.
Reality Czech: Your assumption is that ALL comp plan amendments making it through the process are evil since it was the county commission that made them. Would you not agree that some amendments are good and need to happen? How would you go about educating the people on what were good amendments and what were bad?
Hometown Democracy is statewide. I understand your beef with the Hillsborough County Commission, but have any of you asked your friends in Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Orange, Duval, etc how they feel about this issue? There are some very progressive, liberal county commissions in this state who would face major difficulties as well. Are you willing to grind the process to a halt because of your own myopic beliefs?
This article appears in Feb 18-24, 2009.