THE REPUBLICANS TOOK BACK THE SENATE.
Posted on 10/05/2002 6:15:02 AM PDT by TonyWojo
Collier County property rights advocates knew they had to do something.
A convoy dubbed the Sawgrass Rebellion had set out for Naples, all the way from Oregon and Ohio, in a show of unity against Everglades restoration and a new Collier County growth plan. Plans to cap the road show with a big, celebrity-studded rally had fizzled.
Into the breach stepped the Property Rights Action Committee. The group announced Friday that it plans to throw a block party Oct. 18 in Golden Gate Estates to welcome like-minded farmers and ranchers from the West and Midwest. The committee applied for a special permit Thursday. The public is invited.
This summer's plans for the big rally — spearheaded by land acquisition company CEO Don Lester with support from New Mexico-based Paragon Foundation — put a wedge between property rights advocates and Collier County commissioners, but both sides claim they have patched things up.
Property Rights Action Committee President Bill Lhota said that after teetering on the brink of failure, the county's fledgling property rights movement is now in the driver seat and on track.
"We'll have better sailing from here on," Lhota said Friday. "I think the fact that this came to a head, we've found more support than we have adversity."
Things we're not looking good Tuesday, when PRAC representatives and Paragon spokesman J. Zane Walley stood in the gymnasium at the Golden Gate Community Center to announce they had scrapped their plans for a two-day rally Oct. 17-18.
Organizers had trumpeted the event as drawing upward of 10,000 people and featuring appearances by singer Willie Nelson and actor Charlton Heston. A Homestead rally Oct. 19 was still on, they said Tuesday. The next day, Homestead organizers backed out of those plans too.
"This thing's got more dips and bumps than a dern mountain road," Walley said Thursday.
That morning Walley and Collier County Commission Chairman Jim Coletta went head-to-head on talk radio and, as a result, ended up meeting face-to-face that afternoon with local property rights advocates in Coletta's office.
Walley this summer had sent out a call to arms to supporters across the nation via the Internet, asking them to flood Coletta's e-mail box with messages of protest. Walley claimed Coletta was working to block the rally. Coletta demanded an apology.
By the end of the day, and with Coletta's blessing, PRAC had applied for a permit for a block party to take place Oct. 18 on 18th Avenue Southeast off DeSoto Boulevard. Lhota has paid the permit fee and plans to pick up the permit next week after he meets the permit's insurance requirement. The county already has issued the group a garage sale permit to sell Sawgrass Rebellion T-shirts at the block party, Lhota said.
The day will feature bluegrass music, food and speeches, Lhota said. He said he expects a couple hundred people to attend. Coletta even promised to lend a hand with event supplies.
"I did offer them my barbecue grill and a tent if they need it," he said.
Homestead activists are trying to resurrect plans for an Oct. 19 rally, but they could not be reached for comment about their progress.
Coletta and Lhota attributed the Collier County turnaround to the absence of Don Lester, who has played a key role in launching a legal challenge to the county's new growth plan. The plan was filed by The 15,000 Coalition, where Lester is a director, and by Century Development of Collier County, where Lester is president.
Lester was not at the Tuesday announcement in the community center gym nor at the meeting with Coletta.
"We've been de-Lester-cized," Lhota said.
Lester and PRAC have the same goal of protecting property rights — just different motivations, said PRAC spokesman Mark Gerstel.
Lester has plans to build a new town in part of the county called North Belle Meade on the edge of Golden Gate Estates neighborhoods where PRAC supporters want only to avoid being flooded off their homesteads.
They are worried about the impact north of Interstate 75 of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' plans to restore natural water flows to the Picayune Strand State Forest south of the interstate. The project is part of the larger Everglades restoration.
In the same area north of the interstate, PRAC is leading opposition to Collier Soil and Water Conservation District plans to create a mitigation bank where Estates lot owners could buy land from willing sellers and preserve it to make up for wetland impacts elsewhere in the Estates.
PRAC also is opposed to the new county growth plan, which relies on a Transfer of Development Rights program they say won't work and doesn't protect their property rights.
What really got the Sawgrass Rebellion started, though, was a letter from the Dade County Farm Bureau.
The group is at odds with federal officials over a plan to use their land on the eastern edge of Everglades National Park to deliver more water to the park. They also say federal efforts to manipulate water levels for an endangered sparrow are drowning their farms.
Farm bureau leaders asked for help from Bill Ransom, a veteran of a standoff last year in Klamath Falls, Ore., between farmers and federal agents over whether water should be used to irrigate fields or protect endangered fish species. Ransom said yes.
About a dozen people left Klamath Falls last weekend on an 11-state, 22-day caravan to raise awareness for property rights across the nation. They're now in Utah. A similar-sized group from Ohio is in West Virginia.
Lhota said PRAC has put its own representative, Everglades Institute Director Jan Michael Jacobson, on an airplane to meet up with the convoy in Denver.
On Thursday, Ransom spoke on a cellular phone in Nevada as he waited to get the oil changed in his rig.
He said the caravan is committed to coming to Florida whether there are two people or 2,000 people in Naples to greet it at the end of the road.
"We're moving on," Ransom said.
THE REPUBLICANS TOOK BACK THE SENATE.
anybody have a clue where in utah these folks are?
This website has the route and schedule. October 5= Grand Junction
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