Posted on 10/19/2002 12:14:50 PM PDT by comwatch
Saturday, October 19, 2002
By ERIC STAATS, emstaats@naplesnews.com
After three weeks on the road, farmers and ranchers from as far away as Oregon and Ohio pulled into Collier County on Friday for a peaceful rally for private property rights.
Local property rights advocates met the cross-country caravan about 10 a.m. in the Public parking lot at Immokalee Road and Collier Boulevard. From there, a 40-vehicle convoy headed to the rally — dubbed the Sawgrass Rebellion — in the front yard of a remote Golden Gate Estates home on 18th Avenue Southeast.
People came and went throughout most of the afternoon with the crowd topping out at about 200 people at any one time, authorities said. They sat in lawn chairs or stood in the shade as a parade of speechmakers and musicians stepped up to a microphone on a makeshift stage erected across the home's front porch. The rally was set to end at 10 p.m. with a candlelight vigil.
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The rolling rally heads to Homestead today, completing a 5,000-mile trek that took the Klamath convoy through 11 states. Convoy leaders said they heard pleas for relief from federal environmental policy at almost every stop along the way.
"We can take that message to somebody, and it's a message from all across the United States," said Bill Ransom, 52, a logger and farmer from Klamath Falls, Ore., and chairman of the Klamath Bucket Brigade. "We're not going to give up our property rights without a fight."
The bucket brigade was born out of a crisis that resulted when federal agencies shut off irrigation to 220,000 acres of farms last summer to ensure enough water for endangered suckerfish and threatened salmon. A peaceful standoff with federal agents began July 4, 2001, at the headgates of an irrigation canal and ended Sept. 12 in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
The problem in South Florida, landowners say, is too much water. The Klamath Bucket Brigade made the trip after receiving a plea for help from the Dade County Farm Bureau. Plans for Everglades restoration would turn part of Miami-Dade County called the 8½ Square Mile Area into a place to store water.
Local property rights advocates, led by the Property Rights Action Committee, have made the Sawgrass Rebellion a touchstone for their own fights against a new plan for rural growth in Collier County, a proposed wetlands mitigation bank in Golden Gate Estates and a project that would restore natural water flows to stretches of the Estates south of Interstate 75.
Property Rights Action Committee President Bill Lhota said it was a "great sight" to see the caravan pull into town. He said the rally has opened people's eyes.
"I definitely think it's going to have an impact on the way people think about things, the way they vote and the way they relate to their elected officials," said Lhota, a construction consultant.
It was Lhota's home that served as a backdrop for Friday's rally — and he even picked up a fiddle and guitar to play some bluegrass music for the crowd with his son, Bill Jr.
The road in front of Lhota's house was lined with vehicles for a half-mile, including a rig that carried a 10-foot-tall silver bucket from Klamath Falls — a symbol of Western action against federal environmental policies.
Signs of support dotted DeSoto Boulevard, the route the convoy took to the rally site. "Sawgrass Rebellion Convoy We Love You," read one. "Welcome home," said another.
An informal survey of rally-goers found people there from Texas, New Mexico, Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama, Michigan and California. About half the crowd was from the local area.
Volunteers cooked hamburgers and hot dogs in the back yard amid tents set up for sympathetic organizations to raise money and distribute fliers.
The atmosphere was at times angry with speakers railing against "the government." Signs hanging from a wire said "Send all eco-thugs to their brother Castro" and "Together we will throw out the liars, vermin, druids, misfits, drones, United Nations and new robber barons. Don't tread on us."
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Tarrant called it a "night of shame" when county commissioners in June voted unanimously for a Transfer of Development Rights program that is part of a new plan for rural growth in Collier County. The TDR program is designed to compensate property owners for lost development rights, but landowners fear it won't work.
"They were looking out for red-cockaded woodpeckers, when you know and I know, we're the endangered species," Tarrant said.
Coletta said before his remarks to the crowd that he disagrees with the way "property rights advocates spread their gospel" but that the County Commission agrees with the basic principle of protecting private property rights.
"We plan to uphold that," he said.
Coletta was the brunt of a national e-mail campaign started by Sawgrass Rebellion organizers who blamed Coletta for trying to run the rally out of the county. Coletta denies trying to do that.
He presented a Collier County flag to Klamath Bucket Brigade members to add to their collection of state flags presented to them in state capitals along the convoy route.
After today's rally in Homestead, the convoy plans to turn around and head back home after follow-up stops in Jackson, Miss., and Albuquerque, N.M., Ransom said.
They'll see the sun set in their windshields, instead of in their rearview mirrors, knowing their own beds are still days ahead of them.
Klamath farmer Bob King, 72, says he's losing money every day he's away from his ranch.
"To me it's worth it, for my kids and my grandkids," he said.
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(Excerpt) Read more at naplesnews.com ...
I wish I could have been there! My husband was so pleased! I do wish more folks had shown up, myself included, but I just could not.....however it did succeed! It did wake up a lot of folks along the way!!!!!! Praise God! Your friend always, Sheila
I am so dang proud of all of them I am crying! I can do that I am a woman! hehehehehe
I am so proud of all of the intervenors that were able to show up and at a considerable cost to their own livelihoods! I carry such grief and remorse that I could not be one of such! I am having one heck of a time with coronary artery spasms, and as such could not attend! This serves as a great stess to my spirit and to what I hold so dear.....and that is the rights of this Great Nation for Freedom! Private Property is the fountain head of all of our freedoms!
What? I am a huge land owner? No!!!!!!!! I only own less than an acre of land, but the National Park Service and the WV Department of Highways is trying to take my land and what I have lived for all of my life, because " I pollute a view shed"!!! So help me God!
I am poor! I have no income other than my husbands salary, and it is a living from paycheck to paycheck....and that is once a week, and is so poor based on the national average!
I am a Registered Nurse, but find myself no longer able to work due to stress...yes, because I have been in this fight for over 3 years, and it has worn me down! I am only 42, and have recently gotten out of the hospital with specified heart attacks and told to avoid all stress!!! Well that is so much easier said than done! I suffer from Coronary Artery Spasms, and unfortunately, I am one of 4 out of 100,000! And nobody knows what causes these attacks for sure! I have one reason! Stress, and the stress of losing one's home and way of life will do this to anyone, especially for this prolonged period of time!
Therefore, we must all stand together and stop the madness that seems to be prevailing all across this great Nation!
I support your efforts and I praise you for what you did by posting this message to those that care! You go! Sincerely,
Sheila Davis
Sisters of the River (Hinton, WV)!
I own less than an acre of land, but it is mine, and my father died to provide it to me and my children to assure we had a home! That no one could take it from us! How little did he understand and unfortunatley trust the government he so supported! He was a democrat form Hell and rasied me to be the same....yet He raised me to fight for my country, my home and our liberties! He is rolling over in his grave at what these "Democrats" are doing to our Constitution!
It is simple, my daddy was a poor working man working for big companies, and finally for the "state"....he believed in unions.....I ended up hating them!!!! I as a Registered Nurse and was not allowed to do my simple job of taking care of people! Oh no, I had to take care of paper work, and had a bunch of lazy "people" that did not enjoy their work, but used the UNION against me....in other words, against the people they were working for....the lives they were supposed to be saving!
This issue drives me nuts alone! That is WHY there is a critical crisis with Nurses! They can't do their jobs because of politics and lazy people entering the profession just for the money and not for the people! They spend their time fighting "for their rights"! It is a disgrace on those that love and really care for others! I had to quit, because I could no longer see the profession I had spent over 20 years in go to such absolute hell!
Nurses make decent money....and they are more than worthy of that, IF they are doing their jobs!!!!!!!!! Not, if they are spending their 8 or 12 hour shifts "lobbying"!!!!!!!!!!!! They are not taking care of the patients they have been assigned to take care of!
Forgive me this outrage! Yet this is who I am along with being a private property owner who has worked all my life to have what I have, (and that is not much but mine and my girls) and no one has the right to take it simply because "I pollute the view-shed"!
We must stop this madness! It is occurring in every state a little at a time so as not to bring too much attention! I so humbly again thank you for this post and the opportunity to help others understand that if we don't grab back our rights and responsiblities, then we are going to lose our country!
I remain respectfully yours,
Sheila
Finally got some much needed rest last night, beautiful morning here the sub-tropics.
Mission accomplished! Sawgrass Rebellion One succeeded beyond our wildest dreams, despite every attempt by the evil doers to thwart us. Everyone from Paragon and the other groups that attended said they've never seen such a media convergence at any previous protest. ALL of the TV news outlets had their satellite towers up. The largest radio talk show in SW Florida broadcasted the entire show live, their competitor had a tent there as well. All of the local papers were scribbling away madly. In addition we had press from across the nation in attendance. I nearly had to beat the reporters off of me just so I could take care of business. Fox News national gave us a nice 2-minute piece.
We got the message out to millions .... that's a beautiful thing. We also raised a ton of money, networked and met some very heavy hitters and VIPs that will be instrumental in this crucial fight for the future of America.
I'll be quite busy tying up loose ends. When I get some time I'll post an after action report (it was a major FReep festival as well) with pics etc.
Thank you doesn't cut it. Understatements are not appropriate so I won't even go there. I'm not going to attempt to list those of you that should be very proud of yourselves, because if I left one single person off the understated "thank you list", I would consider myself beyond rude. Besides I would be typing all day.
There is one thank you I think we all need to send out. That's a big thank you to God. Let's thank Him for guiding us through all of the hardship and incredible opposition and somehow helping us make this a great success. He took care of us and foiled our detractors, just as we asked.
Remember:
THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
Just a friendly reminder...to those in government.
Who view all the rest as their pawns.
redrock
Stop the attacks on our Freedoms by the wacko, extreme left-wing, lunatic fringe, dirt worshipping Green Jihadist, enviro-nazis terrorist's and their toadies in the media !!
Stop Rural Cleansing !!
Fighting Irresponsible Radical Environmentalism !!
FIRE !!
Let's Roll !!
The RATS Are In Disarray...Eradicate The Rodents !!
Fire Democrats, Hire Republicans !!
GWB Is The Man !!
Snuff Saddam, NOW !!
Death To all Tyrant's !!
The Second Amendment...
America's Original Homeland Security !!
Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!
Molon Labe !!
Bump!
YEAH, BABY!!!! You bet he was there! We knew it in Jarbidge and we had GrandmaC (who I call the Chaplain)making sure we knew it in case anyone had a doubt!
I'm so proud of all of you.
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