PolkCountyDemocrat.com

 

WINTER PARK -- Proponents of unrestrained growth blame Hometown Democracy for a 2010 ballot amendment allowing citizens to decide on changes to city and county growth plans.

Wrong.

Blame the legion of elected officials throughout Florida who have incessantly caved in to pressure from developers to alter growth-management plans, regardless of citizen opposition and good common sense.

The result of acquiescent elected officials has been sprawl, overbuilt housing, destruction of sensitive lands, congestion and a negative impact on quality of life.

The premise of Hometown Democracy, or Amendment 4, is this: If elected officials are too weak to enforce growth-management plans, then let the voting citizens decide.

Ryan Houck of “Floridians for Smarter Growth,” a Trojan horse for special interest groups focused on development, suggests citizens are not intelligent enough to understand and vote on land use changes to their city or county’s growth management plan and that Hometown Democracy would put a burden on the electorate.

However, voters already vote on complex tax, charter and other issues. These weak and transparent arguments against Hometown Democracy are condescending to our voters and miss the point: it’s about giving the resident-voters the right to determine the future of their communities and the quality of life that they and their children will share.

For years, the state Legislature has had opportunities to address growth management in Florida. However, Gov. Charlie Crist’s recent signature to Senate Bill 360 further neuters growth management laws and weakens state oversight, adding fuel to the Hometown Democracy fire.

Sentiment is growing that elected officials are primarily interested in their political careers and bailing out special interests on the taxpayers’ dime.

The result? A bonfire of distrust and disillusionment in a process supposedly based upon citizen input and elected representation.

The process for managing growth in Florida is broken. The only alternative left for citizen involvement in community planning is Hometown Democracy, giving voters veto power over elected officials who just can’t say no to developers.

It’s time we learned our lesson that growth is not a sustainable industry. The sooner our elected officials begin to focus on real economic development rather than real-estate development, the sooner we can achieve our true potential.