FL Department of Community Affairs Demise

In Not Reauthorizing DCA, Legislature Widens Debate on Amendment 4

Published Tuesday, May 11, 2010 2:15 am

by Dennis Maley

BRADENTON -- In the final days of its recent legislative session, the Florida House of Representativesdeclined to hear a routine bill to reauthorize the Department of Community Affairs. The DCA is Florida's land planning and community development agency. It ensures that new growth complies with the state's vital growth management laws and oversees requests to make changes to local comprehensive plans.

Failing to reauthorize the department is seen by many as an attack intended to reduce its influence and has given proponents of Amendment 4 fresh ammunition for this fall's vote. The Hometown Democracy Amendment seeks to add a vital step to the current process of changing comprehensive land plans. If passed, the local commission would still study, hold hearings and vote on proposed changes, but citizen's would be able to approve or veto such changes by way of referendum at the next regularly scheduled election.

Florida Hometown Democracy is a political action committee focused on promoting the amendment. Its founder, Lesley Blackner, feels the slight to the DCA makes their argument that much stronger.

"The Legislature makes the case for why we need to pass Amendment 4 on Election Day this fall,” said Blackner. “Politicians rubber stamped so many developments for Big Business that they crashed our economy with over-building. Now they want to eliminate the state agency that oversees growth.”

Blackner stresses the idea that no special elections would be required and that it would only apply to changes to the overall master plan and not routine zoning issues already authorized by the plan in place.

“We voters need a seat at the table so we can have some oversight on this “pay-to-play” politics – especially if the legislature plans to do away with the state’s land planning agency. What we’re saying with Amendment 4 is – since we, the existing residents, pay our tax dollars to extend fire, police, roads, water, sewer, and school services to these new, sprawling developments; we should get to weigh in. We should get a vote before we’re forced to pay.”

Florida legislature lets DCA die

Read it and weep. What now? The developers got what they wanted:
the DCA gone and the PSC emasculated. Buy stock in concrete
and asphalt companies because they will be paving over the Everglades
and the Big Cypress. No way to stop them. Even with Amendment 4 it
will be difficult and cumbersome to control growth. Maybe its time for me
to move back to Missouri.

A nation, a state, a county without regulation

To whom it probably does not concern: A nation, a state, a county without regulation. Does anyone not see a pattern here?. Our nation is in an economic crisis because of deregulation. Our state just killed the Florida Department of Community Affairs (DCA) the only effective state agency regulating growth. And our county leaders do everything in their power to remove regulations from government and business. Human beings without limitations and structure wind up in mental hospitals or in jail; nations wind up covered in oil or broke, some speaking Greek. States and counties wind up looking like Broward orCollier Counties marching over the Everglades and Big Cypress as though they never existed when the function of the DCA is removed. And not a word in the Miami Herald about that; wonder why. When we allow lobbyists to populate our halls and offices of government, putting them closer to the people who make and administer our laws and rules than the people who live under them, what else can we expect? Due to apathy and disinterest or through misguided active support of such policies, we are too late to realize that no one is really flying the plane. We have lost control of our children through deregulation of them, abandoning them to raise each other instead of providing the traditional values and principles of our culture for them. They wind up in Congress shouting out to our president as the speaks. We can blame the Republicans whose platform and mission are deregulation and zero taxes, but they could not have achieved this dysfunctional level alone. Every elected official and every citizen who acquiesced along the road to our present state of affairs is culpable. What happened to campaign finance reform?; too painful a pill to swallow? If you don't take your medicine, you'll stay sick We didn't, and we are. Maybe I should write these words on a tenement wall so others can look back like we can to Simon and Garfunkle and Dylan's words warning us that we would be where we are now, without the morals or values to recognize when our major financial institutions have perpetrated an unregulated multi-trillion dollar derivative market swindle for their own benefit. And the 9/11 hi-jackers were able to pull off their disgusting attack because they knew no one was watching the store; it was full of a swiss cheese of regulation and administration. No one was watching the store. That is how those who would see us fail will succeed; they will facilitate our lack of control, whether inside or outside of our great but stumbling nation. Time for a reality check my friends. The piper will be paid.

Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan

Mazel Tov. She'll be fine, but it is a lot of work and a demanding schedule. Maybe some light reading might be in order. Like the South Beach diet or the Weight Watchers handbook. I don't think we pay by the pound, or the number of chins. If we are looking for forty years out of her, slim and trim will stand a better chance. And give us a better work day. Maybe she can trade zaftig for svelte. And a little walk each day would be nice. All the best to her.