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

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.)