Senator Mike Bennett-R of Bradenton, the politician that brought us SB360 [the bill that reversed what little growth management Florida did have] wants to increase term limits for state and local politicians to 12years. Aghhhhh……Nooooooooooo! I don't think we can't afford more time with State Senator Mike Bennett (or local officials like County Commissioner Ken Hagan for that matter!) In addition to repealing what little growth management Florida had, Bennett also introduced this bill to ban impact fees for developers. Yep, another Republican peddling developer welfare. Somehow, at least in Florida, many seem to have forgotten that fiscal conservatism is supposed to be one of their good points. Many state and local "conservatives" happily give financial help to developers and send the rest of the taxpayers the bill. Can't sell your house? Don't like sitting in traffic on congested roads? You can thank Mr. Bennett for his efforts to make that worse here.
CL contributor George Niemann and I had the misfortune of seeing Mr. Bennett in action recently when he was a panelist at the Sarasota Tiger Bay discussion on Florida Hometown Democracy (FHD). FHD is amendment 4 on the 2010 ballot that if approved by voters will give all of us a say in how Florida grows instead leaving it up to our local puppets for developers.…. ooops, I mean elected officials. The panel was supposed to have two panelists in favor of FHD and two panelists against FHD and they also had one "neutral"guest. (uh-huh) Interesting to note that Mr. Neutral sounded very much like the Chamber mouthpiece who was against FHD. It was later revealed that Mr. Bennett (also a panelist against FHD) was the one who had suggested that Mr. Neutral attend that day (shouldn't Tiger Bay be more careful?) And another interesting note was that Mr. Neutral whose name is David Klement, had been recently appointed to the embattled PSC by the Peep's Guv. Not related to FHD just interesting. I noticed Mr. Bennett also used to sit on the nominating council for the PSC according to his webpage. I wonder if Bennett nominated any of these characters now under fire for being a little too cozy with those they are supposed to regulate? McMurian (who recently resigned) was appointed in 2006 by then Governor Jeb Bush and Mr. Bennett was on the nominating council in 2006 according to his webpage so he could have. Doing research for this post I stumbled upon this article about the dark scandalous past of the PSC that reads just like a mob movie so good luck with that position Mr. Klement! And now back to the discussion at hand.
Bennett sure wasn't shy at showing his contempt toward opposing panelists that day. In fact, he was downright rude. You would think a politician might at least fake some manners but I guess you have to give him credit for being real. I only hope he acts that way on his next campaign trail. Oh, and he tried to paint FHD as Socialism. (uh-huh). Ummm, Mr. Bennett, letting the people decide for themselves whether you or your developer friends should get to build a strip mall in a cow pasture is not Socialism. Asking them to pay for the impacts to the community that the strip mall would cause instead of making the developers building the strip mall do it……………like your bill SB360 does, seems way more like Socialism to me. Try to come up with something better at the next debate, huh?
There are arguments to be made for and against term limits but the thought of any more of Mike Bennett's anti-growth management bills make him the poster child to decrease term limits if anything. The fact that his new bill now includes local officials is also horrifying (although they seem to get around it by jumping seats from their districts to at large seats so what does it matter?) Still the best solution to bad politicians is an educated public. Please do your homework Bradenton and don't saddle the whole state with Mr. Bennett again! You too Hillsborough, please don't saddle us again with Commissioner Ken Half Truth Hagan, Kevin the Pimpin Commish White or term limited County Commissioner Jim The Athletic Supporter Norman. Norman now wants to be a State Senator (after what seems like an eternity of pushing sprawl down at County Center since he too jumped seats to avoid term limits). And before you make the argument that this bill would mean we get to keep our good officials longer, I already thought of that and in my opinion we don't have enough good ones to make it worth supporting.
This article appears in Nov 18-24, 2009.