By Lynn Hatter
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-917509.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – The Florida Chamber of Commerce and the group Hometown Democracy have been feuding over Amendment 4, a proposal that would require votes on city and county land-use plans. It has taken seven years for the measure to get on the ballot, and now both groups are waging war via ethics complaints. Lynn Hatter takes a look at what the dust-up is all about.
In 2004, the city of St. Pete Beach tried something new in response to a sudden boom in development. Residents changed the city's charter so they would have the final say on what could and couldn't go up.
"This was back at the onset of the whole, I would call it condominium conversion. We saw our neighboring communities losing a lot of their hotels and, of course, hotels are a big part of our economy in St Pete Beach. So the city began some discussions about ways to incentivize hotel redevelopment, which this was really a reaction to that reaction by the city."
City Manager Mike Bonfield says soon after adopting what's widely known as Hometown Democracy, giving residents the opportunity to vote on long-term growth plans, the problems began.
"For the first year, we had to update our capital improvements element. We didn't have any projects in the capital improvements element that met a threshold to be listed. So we had to basically make an amendment that was five years of all zeroes and had to send it to the residents to vote on because it was technically an amendment to our comp plan."
In 2008, residents repealed their Hometown Democracy proposal and the city has been embroiled in legal challenges ever since. In fact, St. Pete Beach is heading to court later this month, and it will hit the million-dollar mark this year in litigation costs. Last week, the city commission passed a resolution against Amendment 4, also referred to Hometown Democracy. These are exactly the kinds of problems the Florida Chamber's Adam Babington points to when explaining the organization's opposition to the proposal.
"They actually voted to step back from it and say we don't want to vote on everything like Amendment 4 requires; we only want to vote on certain things.' That's the fundamental problem with this amendment, is that it doesn't pick and choose about what voters would end up having a say on."
But in an old fishing community on the banks of the Withlacoochee River, there's another example of Hometown Democracy at work. In 2005, residents of Yankeetown, Florida saw their town being targeted for development. To preserve their city, they passed Hometown Democracy, and Councilman Larry Feldhusen says it's been great.
"We needed to wake up and make sure that in the future, if someone wanted to develop the town, that we didn't want to leave it in the hands of a few local officials to make that decision, because quite frankly, we elect people. We don't always pay close attention to what the future may bring. We try to keep good people in office, of course, but you never know."
Yankeetown is the case study for supporters of Hometown Democracy. Every community in Florida has a comprehensive land-use plan for development which designates which areas are for agricultural, residential, or industrial development. In order to change comp plans, the city and county commissions have to vote. Hometown Democracy's Lesley Blackner says Amendment 4 only adds one more step, requiring voters to approve whatever is passed by the local government.
"What we see is most of these plan changes are driven be real estate speculators. They don't want to play by the rules; they don't want to live with the plan; they don't care what happens. They want what they want, and all they need is three votes out of five on the commission to get it."
Proponents of Amendment Four say the state has been ruined by too much growth too fast, and they point to the housing bubble of 2008. But the proposal has a powerful opponent in the Florida Chamber of Commerce. In the last month, the chamber has lodged two ethics complaints against Hometown Democracy, saying the group failed to report the professions of people who donated over a hundred dollars to the campaign. Adam Babington, Director of Governmental Relations, filed the complaint.
"Every other campaign, every candidate in the state of Florida, has certain things that they have to disclose in their quarterly reports, and Florida Hometown Democracy has apparently determined that it doesn't apply to them."
But Hometown's Blackner says the chamber is playing politics.
"They're desperate. They'll do anything and say anything, and now they're trying smear tactics because if you can't beat the message, you destroy the messenger."
In November, voters will decide whether Hometown Democracy should go statewide.