Departments



Articles

Less

Editorial: Editorial: Cedar Key News Annual Meeting March 29
March 8th, 2008

Editorial: Let School Board Know What Should Be Taught
February 15th, 2008

Editorial: What Is a Fair Tax?
February 4th, 2008

Editorial: Inconsistent Appraisals Harm Taxpayers
December 17th, 2007

Editorial: Energy Crisis?
November 30th, 2007

Editorial: Florida Water War Heat Up
October 16th, 2007

Editorial: Nobel Prizes in Medicine
October 5th, 2007

Editorial: Editorial: Same Rules for Everyone
September 22nd, 2007

Editorial: Demand Action on Bridge Repair
August 8th, 2007

Editorial: Local Response Needed to Stem Clam Poaching
July 24th, 2007

Editorial: Money, Money, Money...Votes
July 9th, 2007

Editorial: We Celebrate Independence and Clams
June 26th, 2007

Editorial: Are You Ready for Hurricane Season?
June 12th, 2007

Editorial: The Sources of Progress in Medicine
May 30th, 2007

Editorial: A New Era of Politics and Religion
May 17th, 2007

More

Guest Editorial: A Native`s Case for Florida Hometown Democracy

Guest Editorial: A Native`s Case for Florida Hometown Democracy

Guest Op/Ed

Hometown Democracy serves a bonafide Florida need. To those who`ve been ignored - even disdained - by the very officials they elected to safeguard their life-quality, ecology, and wildlife, it shines like a lodestar in the night sky. What our founders might have coined "Providence" seems to have channeled it to the right time and place.


Amendment 4 is crucial now that what state growth oversight we had in the Department of Community Affairs is so iffy as to not be assured weathering the next legislator whim or developer lawsuit. There really is no recourse to citizens for local council rubberstamping save voter referendum. For too long the decks have been stacked against the survival of our slender peninsula.

We`ve been thrown a lifeline in Amendment 4, and if we don`t grab it, we`ll drown. Besides its obvious conservation value, Florida Hometown Democracy restores to residents the right to help shape their community`s future - a right long trampled by what Harry Truman called "the favored classes of the powerful few."

The goal of salvaging Florida`s native landscapes remains largely unmet. Our natural communities, among the oldest on earth, stand to be extirpated by hopscotch growth patterns. Fragile species, like the scrub jay and panther are unique to this state. With the loss of biological integrity flows the poetry - the very heart and song - from the "Land of Flowers."

Our ecology ties directly to life-quality; once Eden is gone, even if growth-drunk officials don`t notice (or care), we will. Annhilation can`t be undone.

A week in Washington D.C., reviewing the trials and sentiments of our nation`s founders, and rereading Thomas Jefferson`s letters, convinced me that America`s principles not only support, but mandate, that power revert to us in such pivotal matters as land use, when government fails to express our will. In Florida, the idea of "representation" has become a farce.

Hometown Democracy rises from those same sparks that fired Washington to defeat Cornwallis and Jefferson to pen the Declaration. These greats held a never-flinching trust that the people are their country`s (or state`s) own best watchmen. Preserving Florida and our way of life lies with us.


Amendment 4 would let voters veto projects that overstep their local growth blueprint, thus have a moderating effect. Building will occur because Comp Plans already allow for it, but at a less deadly pace.

Guarding quality of life is obligatory to government, meant to represent all citizens. In 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Taylor: "Your Enquiry into the Principles of Government...settles unanswerably the right of instructing representatives and their duty to obey." It`s wrong for those we elect to dis us - at our state`s peril.

What one owner does on 200 acres can impact whole ecosystems. Native habitats, biota and the rural character that residents bought into should shape local planning. But developers call the shots. Officials collude. Meanwhile, a land use change to densely develop is not a "property right."


While folks with a personal stake in the livability of their surrounds get quashed, faceless corporations, regardless of origin, residential status or hidden partner identities, force and profit richly from land use changes so abhorrent to voiceless locals. This is un-American.

Amendment 4 referenda would voice the people`s will -a founding precept grossly missing from the development process.



Rebecca Eagan

(Rebecca Eagan is an artist, naturalist and native Floridian.)

Click for printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend

 

 

© 2013
Cedar Key News

cedarkeynews@gmail.com