floridians for smarter growth smear campaign

The Florida Chamber’s big lie about Hometown Democracy is on the move, mutating and spinning so fast it’s hard to keep up with it. A new version of the big lie just got thrown onto this Commentary page, Bob Trudell’s April 9 column, “Disenfranchising military voters: Hometown Democracy in St. Pete Beach.” The title screamed: Hometown Democracy is disenfranchising military voters. As a military retiree and 10th-generation Floridian, I found it rather offensive.

Straight story: Hometown Democracy is the statewide petition drive to amend the Florida Constitution to give citizens an automatic veto on growth-plan changes that local commissions have approved.

Mr. Trudell dumped a garbage can’s worth of disinformation and misinformation into his column. I’m going to try to clean up the mess.

Mr. Trudell claims Hometown Democracy will hurt military voters. This is simply not true. But the fact is there is a proposed amendment out there that really does discriminate in a very concrete way against military voters. It’s the look-alike petition sponsored by the Chamber-backed group, Floridians for Smarter Growth, intended to derail Hometown Democracy. The funny thing is, Mr. Trudell’s column never mentions the “Smart Growth” petition. Operating like other identity thieves, the “Smart Growth” minions always remain covert.

The “Smart Growth” petition allows voters to vote only on an approved growth plan change if 10 percent of the voters physically go to the Supervisor of Elections Office in their county and sign a petition. The reality is that active duty military deployed in places like Iraq and Afghanistan won’t be able to get to the only place where they can sign the petition.

Mr. Trudell states: “Most military voters do not care about signing petitions for land-use changes.” Is he kidding? I know that most men and women in uniform do care to have a say about such potentially drastic changes to their communities; it’s one of the reasons they serve. This is especially true for citizen-soldiers serving in the reserves and National Guard who have been called to active duty.

Mr. Trudell also makes a big deal about St. Pete Beach, where the citizens amended their charter to allow voting on some comprehensive plan changes. It is true that there’s ongoing litigation over whether the ballot language is misleading. Mr. Trudell says Hometown Democracy filed the suit. That is simply false.

Another purely speculative statement made in his column is that, “Litigation will inevitably delay the printing and mailing of absentee ballots.” Well, that’s a real stretch, but I guess anything, including the tooth fairy, is possible.

Mr. Trudell goes on to blame Florida Hometown Democracy for St. Pete Beach’s bad economy. Come on, “spin” can go only so far. By now, most adults understand that Florida’s entire economy has been wrecked by overdevelopment, and it can’t be fixed by more of the same that got us into this mess.

The Chamber lackeys will say and do just about anything to defeat Hometown Democracy. They figure that if their lie gets told enough times people will be absolutely confused and begin to think it’s the truth. Just like the Swift-boating campaign of 2004, watch for a tidal wave of misinformation about Hometown Democracy that is just starting and will bombard us as we approach the 2010 election. Most Americans now recognize and despise such nasty and certainly unethical tactics. But now you’ve been warned what to watch for.

Carlson, a Florida native and resident of New Smyrna Beach, spent 26 years in the U.S. Army, retiring as a sergeant-major.