Bradenton Herald
Posted on Sun, Sep. 06, 2009

 

An Aug. 23 guest column presented Florida Hometown Democracy (Amendment 4) as a subversive threat to our economy and way of life. The fact is the only way of life being threatened by it is the developers’ current ability to control how our county grows.
Mac Carraway, president of the local Chamber of Commerce and SMR Farms, says that we should be trusted to elect people to represent our wishes. However, we “the people” cannot match the developers’ buying power of election campaigns. Pumping thousands of dollars into their treasuries, the candidates they support have a tremendous advantage in getting their message out.
Developers boost that assistance by using their own PACs to run smear campaigns against incumbents who have displeased them. So sure, every four years we get to throw their folks out of office. But then we simply get their next crop of cronies who will do their bidding.
Look at what happened in the last election. The campaign account of every one elected, except Joe McClash, was larded with developer-related funding. Carraway himself donated $250 to Bustle’s campaign. It’s no accident that since that election, McClash has been on the losing side of many votes that favor developers over neighborhoods and environmental concerns.
Examples in Manatee: The Tara Bridge vote was heavily opposed by citizens. One letter-writer said about Tara, “After listening to the comments, five of the commissioners, by their actions, proceeded to tell the public that they were ignoring the comments of the taxpayer voters and voting as they personally saw fit.”
In another giveaway to developers, Manatee County’s commission voted (McClash dissenting) to suspend most of the badly-needed impact fees. That means that either infrastructure improvement projects necessitated by new development will have to be put on hold, or all the taxpayers of the county will have to foot the bill.

Arthur and Florence McGuire