Posted on 11/09/2002 5:42:57 PM PST by farmfriend
Property rights group seeks positives after election defeats
By ERIC STAATS, Saturday, November 9, 2002
Picking through the pieces of this week's election, Bill Lhota says he has found signs of life for property rights advocates.
Lhota, president of the Property Rights Action Committee, was among a slate of three losing candidates for the Collier Soil and Water Conservation District that ran on a platform of killing the agency's proposal for a mitigation bank in Golden Gate Estates.
And a greenspace tax that had attracted opposition from property rights advocates went on to victory, passing with almost 60 percent of the vote.
Lhota, a construction consultant, said Friday he had hoped for better but that precinct results from rural parts of the county prove that a property rights movement has taken root in Golden Gate Estates.
"I don't think that when you consider this was a countywide race that we did that badly," Lhota said.
Florida Wildlife Federation field representative Nancy Payton, who pushed for the greenspace tax, said she considered Tuesday's election to be a litmus test for PRAC — and it failed.
"Clearly the community doesn't like their message," Payton said.
The election was not a total loss for PRAC, an analysis of precinct results shows.
Not including absentee votes, Lhota won eight of the county's 90 precincts against East Naples resident John Cochrane, and PRAC Treasurer Lynda Hittinger came out on top in 28 precincts in her race against Marco Island resident Michael Urbanik.
TaxWatch of Collier County founder Ty Agoston lost every precinct to incumbent Michael Ramsey.
Seven of Lhota's winning precincts are east of Collier Boulevard in Golden Gate Estates. The eighth precinct contains Estates-zoned land off of Oakes Boulevard between Immokalee Road and Vanderbilt Beach Road.
Hittinger won the same precincts as Lhota plus more precincts in the Estates and around Immokalee and precincts along U.S. 41 East, in Golden Gate and in North Naples.
Both Lhota and Hittinger won the precinct that contains the area in the Estates north of Interstate 75 that is targeted for a Regional Offsite Mitigation Area by the Collier Soil and Water District.
The ROMA would be preserved with money that landowners in the Estates pay to meet their mitigation requirement for destroying wetlands. Opponents say the plan's cost estimates are out of whack and that the plan will flood 291 homes already built in the ROMA areas.
Lhota's home and acreage in the ROMA area was the site of the Sawgrass Rebellion last month. Hundreds of people attended the rally against government mistreatment of landowners affected by Everglades restoration.
That event and the anti-ROMA slate of candidates were a regular feature of local talk radio in the weeks running up to the election. The exposure was not enough but it served a purpose, Lhota said.
"Between the Sawgrass Rebellion and the election, we've got people thinking about this stuff," Lhota said. "That's good; at least it opens up some dialogue."
Lhota said PRAC would stay on top of the ROMA proposal, which is undergoing review by the state Department of Environmental Protection. A second draft is in the works.
"We'll try to convince (Soil and Water District) board members that their study is flawed," Lhota said.
The same voters who put Golden Gate Estates precincts in PRAC candidates' column also voted against the greenspace measure on Tuesday's ballot, precinct results show.
The measure authorizes county commissioners to issue up to $75 million in bonds to buy green space for preservation and public access. The bonds are payable from an annual quarter-mill property tax for 10 years. The tax amounts to $25 per $100,000 of taxable property value.
Not including absentee votes, nine of the county's 90 precincts voted against the measure — and every one of them is east of Collier Boulevard in the Estates out to Immokalee or southeast of State Road 92, including Port of the Islands and Everglades City.
When all the counting was done, though, the measure won with 46,192 votes, or 59.2 percent, in favor and 31,864 votes, or 40.8 percent, opposed.
An ordinance that would set out the rules for the how the money would be spent is working its way toward a Dec. 3 vote by county commissioners. A draft version of the law won easy approval from commissioners in October.
Commission Chairman Jim Coletta said he expects a "whole new level of interest" from the public now that the tax measure has passed muster with voters.
Coletta, whose district includes Golden Gate Estates, said he thinks the draft law is "pretty close to where we need to be" but that he is eager to hear from the public.
"This is a considerable sum of money and it's something that will affect the county for 10 years," Coletta said. "We want to be sure we do it right the first time. We want to make sure the public is heard on this."
Coletta raised the possibility of a special workshop session to take public input before a final vote.
PRAC president Lhota called Friday for his group to have a seat on the nine-member advisory board that will recommend land to be purchased with the greenspace money.
"I think that should be something we pursue," Lhota said.
To those who thought that.....Not Hardly! "We have only just begun to fight".
It makes the fight hard but the need is great.
Liberals believe that man does NOT have a right to live for his own sake, but must serve the wishes of society.
It makes the fight hard but the need is great.
The need is great and the fight is hard. Which is why we have to kick it up a notch.
PRAC is taking a short rest now that the rebellion and the elections are over. After the holidays we plan on few surprises.
Speaking from experience... Even if you trump them politically in the "court of public opinion," they will sue your political subdivision to a total standstill!!! Most times it's the only court that liberals/enviros/NIMBY's can win in. They've been packing the courts for years and those they haven't packed they avoid by switching jurisdictions at every opportunity.
Yes... you're in for a siege, alright!!!
Keep on coming. We can use a few good "activists" here in Sac.
Hornbrook Grange might have something to say about that.
That pretty well sums up my Property Law professor's basic premise, that Property Rights are not Natural rights, and can be limited and/or regulated by the government at will, with only a few Constitutional limitations (the Takings Clause inclusion of "just compensation", basically). I dared to comment that this seems rather antithetical to the notion of limited government and the Framers' ideals of the promotion of individual rights to unprecendented heights. I haven't been called on in class since then.
(Actually, I found this thread since I'm searching FR for some good Property Rights Movement news articles to post on the class discussion forum, since she brought up the topic today.)
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