Under pressure from developers and politicians to “streamline” (i.e. deregulate) growth management in Hillsborough County, a whole slew of changes (mostly deletions) are being proposed to Hillsborough County's Comprehensive Plan.

You can see all the changes online.

Please check carefully the proposed deletions of the environmental protections in the Coastal Management Element (CPA 12-04) and the Conservation and Aquifer Element (CPA 12-05).

Also see the schedule of public hearings for your opportunity for public input.

Planning Commission Hearing:
    Mon. Dec. 12, 5:30, County Center, 18th floor, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd.

County Commission Hearing:
    Thurs., Feb. 2, 2012, County Center, 2nd floor, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd. (Tentative)

For more information, and info on how you can provide input as a citizen or an organization, contact your Planning Commission.

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Our Planning Commission reviews development proposals and makes recommendations to our county & city governments about what kind of development to allow where. They help plan how our transportation systems will fit into our communities and whether our natural resources will be protected, or not, as we grow. Several seats are about to open up on this important board.

Hillsborough County Commissioners have been known to fill these seats with their cronies within the development industry — especially if they think no one is watching. (The Planning Commission is currently overweighted with developers.) We need to urge them to appoint Planning Commissioners who will represent the best interests of our whole community — not just developers' interests — as we plan for future growth.

Please urge our County Commissioners to appoint Pamela Jo Hatley to the Planning Commission.

I know Pamela Jo very well. I have consulted her on several planning & zoning issues, and I've admired her in action as she skillfully represented citizen groups & homeowners associations at public hearings regarding planning & land use. I know her to be wise, fair, calm under pressure, skilled in conflict resolution, and eminently well-qualified to represent us on our Planning Commission (see letter below).

We can also count on her to protect the environment from needless bulldozing. She was instrumental in ensuring the protection & preservation of Cone Ranch when she served on the Cone Ranch Citizens' Advisory Panel.

Here's a sample letter to make it easy for you to help support Pamela Jo's application to serve US on our Planning Commission:

____________________________________________________

To Hillsborough County Commissioners:

Al Higginbotham <higginbothama@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Mark Sharpe <sharpem@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Ken Hagan <hagank@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Kevin Beckner <becknerk@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Sandy Murman <murmans@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Victor Crist <cristv@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Les Miller <millerlj@hillsboroughcounty.org>

Subject: Please appoint Pamela Jo Hatley to the Planning Commission

Dear Commissioners,

Please appoint Pamela Jo Hatley to the Planning Commission, as she is eminently well-qualified to represent all Hillsborough County citizens in matters involving planning and land use.

Pamela Jo Hatley is an attorney who practices environmental & land use law, and who is in the process of becoming certified in alternative dispute resolution. As a Ph.D. student at USF she studied urban planning theory & history, and she taught a growth management course in the urban & regional planning program. Her dissertation is focused on citizen participation in community-based planning in Hillsborough County. She is a member of both the American Planning Association and the Florida Planning & Zoning Association.

A strong advocate for citizens & communities, she is open-minded and fair to all sides. Her education & experience in land use law, together with her training in conflict resolution, would make her an invaluable asset to our Planning Commission. Her appointment would help provide balance and preserve public trust in this board.

Sincerely,
Your name & address

____________________________________________________

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Thanks to all who wrote letters opposing the rezoning of sensitive coastal wetlands on Tampa Bay next to E.G. Simmons Park, we've won an early victory!

Heading into a buzz-saw of public opposition, the rezoning request has been changed to a more restrictive category than the category originally applied for. The application has been changed to ASC-1(R) — the "R" means "restricted" — and county staff have added a zoning condition restricting the development to 10 houses. This is now looking a LOT better than the original application for an unrestricted ASC-1 category, which had a density of 1 house per 1 acre across all 170 acres — including the wetlands & mangroves!

Although we knew they couldn't build 170 houses on 1-acre lots on top of the mangroves standing knee-deep in the bay, our main concern was that they (or some future owner) could use those "entitlements" in a future rezoning to cluster 170 units into condos on the beach in this sensitive area. Although they can always come back and ask for more in another zoning, now that the new 10-unit cap has been added on, we have been assured by county planners that this zoning will not make it any easier for the property to become a Little-Harbor style wad of condos on the bay.

While there may be good reasons to oppose even 10 new houses on this delicate site, that much is moot given that the Comprehensive Plan years ago gave this parcel a green light for some residential development, and neither the Planning Commission nor the Environmental Protection Commission, nor any agencies have objected to the proposal.

I'll continue participating in the process, along with Sierra Club & U-CAN, because last-minute changes are fairly common at zoning hearings, and if nobody shows up, that condition for a 10-unit maximum could get scratched off.

If you have anything you'd like to tell the zoning hearing master and/or our commissioners, feel free to come join us. (If you do want to speak, download this packet, note these hearing dates, and be sure to jump through all the Party-of-Record hoops.)

But as long as that 10-unit condition stays on, thanks to all your letters, we really don't need to fill the room for the zoning hearing. We'll keep you posted if the zoning takes a turn for the worse and we need a crowd at the final hearing after all.

Please forward this message to anyone you forwarded the first alert to, in order to keep everyone updated.

Thanks, again, to all who care enough about our community and our environment to help!

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UPDATE: Now that Norman has been kicked off the ballot for deceiving the public about a half-million-dollar gift from an influence-seeking local businessman, the Times has rescinded their inane endorsement.

Thanks to Mitch Perry at Creative Loafing for calling out the St. Pete Times on their cynical endorsement of Jim Norman for Florida state Senate. Yes, that Jim Norman and that Jim Norman — the one the FBI is investigating.

As Mitch so aptly puts it:

Are you friggin’ kidding me?

The Times' ridiculous recommendation that we should all actually vote for this puppet to pavers & polluters reduces the credibility of all their endorsements & editorials while handing Norman several new quotes he can use to continue fooling voters. How can the Times not be ashamed when Norman inevitably uses his bulging campaign coffers* to boost his reputation with ads that will scream this crap at us:

ENDORSED BY THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES!
The St. Pete Times says "Norman is ... the only serious choice," and "Norman keeps in touch with voters and understands state and local government."

Oh, and we'll get to see that crap in Norman's next campaign, too (over a tiny 2010 dateline) all the way until the final weeks of that campaign when the Times finally comes out with a new endorsement for... God only knows who.

The Times' recommendation is especially stupid given that it doesn't matter at all who we vote for at this point — with no credible competition, Norman has this race in the bag unless & until he's convicted somehow for the corruption he has so obviously dealt in, consistently and constantly throughout his career. So there is no excuse for the Times not to recommend some sort of protest vote or no-vote, as Mitch suggests, rather than make a laughingstock out of themselves and us voters by recommending that we all hand Norman a ludicrously large percentage of the vote to brag about as though he had won a mandate from both the electorate and this newspaper.

Here's my recommendation: Don't vote for Norman. Don't vote at all in that race.

If just 10% of the voters who cast ballots in this election refuse to vote in that one race, it would be a notable statement of no-confidence in Norman, which would not go unnoticed by other state legislators, and might serve to hamper his power in Tallahassee. It would at least tell our politicians and our newspapers that we cannot be led blindly to vote for the worst sort of political hustler, no matter how much money and media is used against us.

*Sidenote: The money is still, disgustingly, pouring in to Norman's pig-trough, 500 smackers at a pop, from developers, phosphate, and other big-money special interests. See for yourself by searching the state's campaign finance database for "Norman." (Before you submit the search form, choose to sort them by date and be sure to delete the default limit of 500 records returned, so you can see them all.)

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UPDATE: We won! See my full report on Creative Loafing's news & politics blog.

The Hillsborough County Commission is trying to allow certain influential landowners to "opt-out" of Community Plans. This would set a dangerous precedent that could allow developers to "opt-out" of ALL Community Plans in the county, as well as all manner of Comprehensive Plan policies. The state Dept. of Community Affairs is objecting to this undermining of the planning process, the county Planning Commission objects, and we citizens should object as well.

You can help:

Contact your county commissioners and ask them to protect the integrity of ALL of our Community Plans by removing the "opt-out" loopholes from the 2 Community Plans they are currently considering for the Seffner-Mango & Brandon areas.

Attend the hearing on Oct. 14, 6:00 pm, 2nd floor County Center, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd., downtown Tampa (see flyer for details).

Commissioners Kevin Beckner & Rose Ferlita have stood firm against the opt-outs (thank them!), but Mark Sharpe, Ken Hagan, Al Higginbotham, Kevin White & Jim Norman have so far voted to allow developers to disregard our Community Plans, so we need to convince them to protect our plans.

More information:

• Flyer calling for citizen attendance at the Public Hearing for the first 2 Community Plans to include the "opt-out" provision, with more detail about the issue from the citizens' perspective.

• The State Dept. of Community Affairs (DCA) objections to the "opt-out" provisions

• St. Pete Times article, "Hillsborough shouldn't allow opt-outs from community plans, state says"

• Tampa Tribune article, "Allowing 'opt outs' hurts county planning, advisers warn"

• Tampa Tribune article, "Activists: Exempting some from growth guidelines is harmful"

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1000 Friends of Florida has withdrawn their opposition to Amendment 4. They now realize Florida's growth management system “needs major improvement,” and “Amendment 4 may be the catalyst that is needed to promote positive change.”

Amendment 4 opponents like to raise fears about job loss, but 1000 Friends dismisses that red herring, pointing to the state’s 300,000 to 400,000 vacant houses, along with the 600,000 MORE houses that have been approved just in the last two years (!!!) that can now be built at any time, and the 1 billion square feet of commercial space approved but not yet built.

“1000 Friends certainly understands the need to create construction and other jobs for Floridians,” says Board President Victoria Tschinkel. “But in light of such dramatic existing and proposed overdevelopment, this excess capacity will provide construction and related jobs for Floridians for years to come, whether or not the amendment passes.”

1000 Friends now feels that “the existing system is seriously flawed and change is needed, even if that change is less than perfect.”

Vote YES on Amendment 4 – Florida Hometown Democracy – to protect our communities, our environment and our economy.

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Good news! The developer has withdrawn their proposal to build what we've been calling Part 2 of the Wimauma Sprawl Project.

This was a prime example of urban sprawl: 1,500 houses in rural Wimauma (in orange on this map) on Bullfrog Creek wetlands adjacent to the Balm Scrub ELAPP nature preserve, outside the Urban Services Area, in an area where major roads are already failing, with no plans and no money to improve them. Since the County Commission approved the equally horrid Part 1 with 1,010 houses, (in red on this map) we were gearing up for a bigger battle. It may be that after many of you expressed your disappointment with those commissioners who voted FOR Part 1 (only Mark Sharpe and Kevin White voted to deny that part) the developer figured they'd better wait until after the election to try to get Part 2 approved.

Big thanks to all of you who were preparing to go to battle in the public hearings to protect our communities, our roads, our wildlife habitat and our wallets — you can stand down for now. And thanks to everyone who sent letters of opposition — you may well have helped warn them off.

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Manasota 88 has a long history of standing up to polluters and protecting Florida's environment. They've posted this billboard off of Interstate 75, at mile marker 182 northbound. They say:

There are two sides to every story. Thus far, the public has only been hearing the industry’s side concerning the safety of phosphate strip mining in Florida.

Get the facts at www.ourphosphaterisk.com

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Thanks to all who joined forces to support the South Coast Greenway, today the Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) voted unanimously to:

(1) fully fund all 6 segments of the South Coast Greenway, and

(2) raise the priority of this multi-use paved trail into the top 20% of all projects listed in the 2035 Transportation Plan

This is exactly what was requested by several organizations and many citizens across the county, so let's all thank our representatives for listening to us and responding to our requests.

You can thank the MPO board by e-mailing MPO administrator Linda Ferraro and asking her to forward your message to all the MPO board members: ferrarol@plancom.org (Also see this list of the full board, who all voted in support.)

Please send special thanks to these representatives who led the board to this action:

Mark Sharpe <sharpem@hillsboroughcounty.org> made today's motion, including not only the funding, but also the lift in priority. The funding is important, but raising the priority is critical to getting the Greenway built sooner rather than later. Sharpe recognized our disgraceful position as one of the deadliest spots in America for cyclists & pedestrians, and spoke movingly about having attended the funeral of a well-loved & respected retired Admiral who was killed while riding his bicycle just last week, concluding that we must invest in safe cycling & walking infrastructure.

Rose Ferlita <ferlitar@hillsboroughcounty.org> seconded Sharpe's motion and gave a strong report of the MPO Policy Committee's favorable recommendation on this issue. Ferlita chaired the Policy Committee and lent considerable support to this Greenway which connects Ruskin through Apollo Beach and Gibsonton to Tampa in her district.

Mary Mulhern <mary@marymulhern.com> & Linda Saul-Sena <saulsena@aol.com> were staunch advocates leading both the Policy Committee and the Livable Roadways Committee to recommend full funding for the Greenway. These recommendations carry great weight with the MPO board. Both Mulhern & Saul-Sena did their homework on this issue and worked hard to steer these committees our way.

These citizens helped a lot:

Don Schings, chair of the South Shore Round Table, was a very compelling advocate at the MPO Policy Committee meeting and at today's Public Hearing. Lyn Safien & Vera Chapman brought this issue to the attention of the South Shore Democratic Club, and Lyn was a terrific speaker at the hearing. Alan Snel raised awareness through SWFBUD's "Bicycle Stories" blog and wrote a letter from that group. Bruce Marsh & Dr. Hal Ott talked up the Greenway to MPO Board member Kevin Beckner last Friday when he held office hours in Ruskin.

Thanks to everyone who stood up & spoke up for the Greenway at today's hearing: Don Schings, Lyn Safien, Marcella O'Steen, Mike Fite, Gail Parsons, Pam Clouston, George Niemann, Chip Thomas, Peggy Hannon (& me). Thanks to Mike Peterson (SSRT), Sandy Council (RCDF), Fred Jacobsen (SHED Council) & Allen Witt (HCC) who each wrote letters for their respective organizations; and to Tampa Bay Sierra Club for posting the item in their newsletter and on their web site.

The support of all these groups made for a very impressive & effective broad-based coalition:

• South Shore Round Table (an alliance of all the chambers & civic organizations of Riverview, Gibsonton, Balm, Wimauma, Sun City Center, Apollo Beach & Ruskin)
• Ruskin Community Development Foundation
• South Hillsborough Economic Development Council
• SWFBUD (South West Florida Bicycle United Dealers)
• Tampa Bay Sierra Club
• Hillsborough Community College South Shore Campus administration
• South Shore Democratic Club

Finally, thanks to everyone who sent an e-mail to the board members supporting this Greenway. It's a great accomplishment to move government to make a change to a $12-billion 25-year Plan like this, and we couldn't have done it without every bit of the help given by everyone.

Two months ago, funding for the South Coast Greenway had been dropped entirely from the 25-year Transportation Plan, and the on-road Bikeways along Shell Point Road & 19th Ave., connecting the Greenway to south county communities, had also slipped off the list of funded projects. Thanks to the efforts of many citizens and groups, those Bikeways were restored as funded projects, and placed very high on the priority list (#46 out of 505), and the South Coast Greenway is now fully funded, and prioritized within the top 20% of all projects!

__________________

Also see WMNF Evening News report with audio & video.

For background, see this previous article on efforts to save the Greenway; and this one on past efforts to fund the connecting on-road Bikeways.

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Our county's 25-year Transportation Plan is being amended at a public hearing August 3. This is our only chance to get the South Coast Greenway built in our lifetime. Only 2 of the 6 segments are funded so far. We need the whole trail listed among the funded projects in the 2035 Plan.

The 2035 Long Range Transportation Plan spells out which transportation projects will and won't get built in the next 25 years, within a $12-billion budget drawn from various federal, state & local sources, as well as contracts with developers, and funds from the proposed penny transit tax.

When the 2035 Plan was adopted on December 9, 2009, it included $9 million for this Greenway. (At that hearing we were asking for connecting bikeways on Shell Point & 19th to be funded as well. Those bikeways are now being added - Yay! - but much of the Greenway trail is being dropped in the proposed amendments.) The $9 million originally in the 2035 Plan for the South Coast Greenway was supposed to come from the new transit tax (the penny sales tax on the ballot this November), but they have since determined that the transit tax cannot be used to fund paved trails like this, and they dropped all funding from this project except for previously committed funding of 2 segments from other sources (the 1/2-cent CIT tax plus the Waterset developer's commitment).

Two segments are not enough — we need all 6 segments funded in this 25-year plan, or we won't see it completed in our lifetime. There is plenty of money in this $12-billion Plan for this Greenway — there is a $16-million SURPLUS in federal funds, and we only need $4 million to cover the 4 segments that are not already funded by the CIT tax and the developer commitment.

Please speak up for the South Coast Greenway. The MPO board must get this message from MANY of us, in order to move them.

• Attend the public hearing August 3, 9:00 a.m.
    at County Center, 2nd floor (601 E. Kennedy Blvd.)
    Please come — it won't take long!

• Write your MPO Board Members (see sample letter below).

•  E-mail these MPO Board members directly:

Joe Affronti <jaffronti@templeterrace.com>, Rose Ferlita <ferlitar@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Kevin Beckner <becknerk@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Ken Hagan <hagank@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Mark Sharpe <sharpem@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Joseph Caetano <Joseph.Caetano@tampagov.net>, Rick Lott <rlott@plantcitygov.com>, Joe Waggoner <joe@tampa-xway.com>, John Wheat <jwheat@TampaAirport.com>, Councilman Thomas Scott <thomas.scott@tampagov.net>

•  Also copy Ray Chiaramonte, MPO’s Executive Director <rayc@plancom.org>

•  Also copy MPO staff member Beth Alden <aldenb@plancom.org> and ask her to distribute it to all MPO board members before the hearing.

Update: July 26 was the cutoff date for staff to forward your e-mail, so just send it directly to all the MPO Board members listed above. Also, I've corrected Joe Affronti's e-mail above as of 7/27.

Questions? e-mail me.
____________________________
Sample Letter:

To: “MPO Board Members via Beth Alden” <aldenb@plancom.org>

Subject: Please fund the South Coast Greenway in MPO 2035 Plan!

Staff: Please distribute this letter to all board members of the MPO for their consideration prior to the Public Hearing on August 3.

Dear MPO Board members,

As you amend the MPO 2035 Long Range Transportation Plan (at the Public Hearing on August 3) please make 2 changes:

(1) include all 6 segments of the South Coast Greenway multi-use paved trail in the "Cost Affordable" (funded) projects, and

(2) raise the priority of this paved trail into the top 20% of projects so construction can begin soon.

Let's be fair: The 2035 Plan funds several other paved trails, but none in South County. Many miles of paved trails have already been built in this county, but none in South County.

This paved trail has been planned since 1995 (Greenways Master Plan, South Shore Areawide Systems Plan, and the Community Plans of Ruskin, Apollo Beach & Gibsonton). It connects several schools and the South Shore campus of HCC (see map: http://www.box.net/shared/aitgag7ll7). These schools need safe bicycling routes for their students. Together with its network of connecting on-road bikeways, the paved trail connects businesses & town centers and links several ecotourist destinations (ELAPP nature preserves, parks, rivers, public beaches) making it valuable to visitors as well as residents.

Our roads are among the deadliest in the nation for bicyclists & pedestrians. Safe biking & walking paths are imperative. With oil getting more costly and dangerous to obtain, our multi-modal transportation plan must include non-motorized alternatives, which run on infrastructure that is much cheaper to build & maintain than rail & roads.

There IS money available in the $12-Billion Plan for this Greenway trail — especially since the trail's cost has gone down. When the Plan was adopted last December, it allocated $9 million for segments 1 – 4 of this trail. The proposed amendments only fund segments 1 & 2, even though new estimates (in Appendix E) now show the cost for all 6 segments is less than $8 million. Last December the Plan allowed $9 million for this trail, so surely there is still $8 million within the same $12-billion Plan — enough to build the whole South Coast Greenway Trail.

Within the $12-billion Plan, several projects are shifting from one funding source to another, but the total available funds remains the same. While this Greenway is moving OFF the transit tax funding source, other projects are moving ONTO the transit tax — freeing up the funds they were previously allocated, such as federal funds that can be used for this trail.

The Plan now has a $16-million SURPLUS in federal funds, and we only need $4 million of that to complete this trail. (Segments 1 & 2 are already funded with $2 million in county CIT funds and $2 million in developer funds. Segments 3 through 6 are listed as unfunded needs, with a total cost of $4 million.)

Please take an inclusive county-wide view, take note of the broad public support for this trail, and give the long-awaited South Coast Greenway a high priority and full funding within the MPO 2035 Plan.

Sincerely,
Your name & address

____________________________
*References:

Map of South Coast Greenway & connecting Bikeways

Detailed map of Phases 1 - 4

Map of all Greenways and bikeways, built and planned
   
MPO's draft amendments to the 2035 Long Range Transportation Plan

2035 Long Range Transportation Plan, adopted December 9, 2009

Newspaper article about this issue
____________________________

Please forward this message to anyone who wants a Greenway trail in south county!

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Tampa Bay Sierra Club won our case in federal court vs. Cypress Creek Town Center today! The judge declared the permit from the Army Corps of Engineers invalid, and scolded them thusly:

F. CONCLUSION
The Corps has failed to fulfill its statutory duties under NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] and the CWA [Clean water Act]. Unfortunately, this is a familiar course of action for the Corps when processing permit applications. As another member of this Court has stated, the Corps “resorted to arbitrary and capricious meaning – manipulating models and changing definitions where necessary – to make this project seem compliant with [CWA] and [NEPA] when it is not.”

Tampa Bay Sierra Club has been battling this developer over this project for several years. The developers of the huge mall project at I-75 and State Road 56 were slapped with a $300,000 fine for polluting Cypress Creek, and stalled with lawsuits again & again. Sierra Club never tried to deny the mall completely. We only requested that they design it in such a way as to protect our wetlands, wildlife & water resources. They could have built this project years ago, and saved themselves a ton of money & time in court, had they only worked with us, instead of against us, and implemented some of our simple suggestions like adding some retention ponds to filter runoff and reducing the footprint of their parking by building a multi-story garage instead of insisting on filling critical wetlands just to build vast parking lots.

Here's the Court Order.

Here's the Court's Memorandum Opinion.

For more info contact these Tampa Bay Sierra Club leaders who have been tireless in their efforts to protect our wetlands & wildlife in this long fight:

• Bev Griffiths, Chair of Tampa Bay Sierra Club
• Denise Layne, Issue Chair, Cypress Creek Town Center Development

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We won! We protected the Little Manatee River and her wildlife from a developer who wanted to bulldoze hundreds of native trees just to build 8 houses on a skinny mangrove-lined spit in the middle of the river at Mill Bayou, and let the new McMansion-owners cut through the shoreline mangrove habitat to build docks and launch jet skis.

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The Wimauma Sprawl Project, part 1, was approved by the county commission today in a 5-2 vote. Sprawlmeisters Al Higginbotham, Jim Norman, & Ken Hagan were joined in the approval by Kevin Beckner and Rose Ferlita, who were led down the garden path by our county planners at the Planning Commission. County planners assured commissioners that it's fine to build THOUSANDS of new houses, surrounded by several giant vacant ghost-towns of failed subdivisions, where the roads are already failed, in an environmentally sensitive site outside the Urban Service Area boundary north of Wimauma, contrary to the Wimauma Community Plan.

That's what they call “planning” at our Planning Commission.

Please let these 5 commissioners know we're disappointed in their vote for sprawl that will impact wetlands & wildlife habitat and overload south county roads while costing us all in infrastructure:

• Al Higginbotham <higginbothama@hillsboroughcounty.org>,
• Jim Norman <normanj@hillsboroughcounty.org>,
• Ken Hagan <hagank@hillsboroughcounty.org>,
• Kevin Beckner <becknerk@hillsboroughcounty.org>,
• Rose Ferlita <ferlitar@hillsboroughcounty.org>

Please thank commissioners Mark Sharpe & Kevin White for voting against this horrible sprawl. Commissioner Sharpe is leading the way toward Smart Growth, and both men listened to and responded to citizen concerns today.

• Mark Sharpe <sharpem@hillsboroughcounty.org>,
• Kevin White <whitek@hillsboroughcounty.org>

See background info in the previous action alert. This is the red parcel on this map. The orange parcel is Part 2, coming up next. To oppose that, send a letter like this sample letter, and come to the preliminary hearing, June 14, 6pm, at county center, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd.

Thanks to all who came to the hearing today, and to all who are sending letters, backing us up!

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New Hearing Date for Wimauma Sprawl, Part 2:

The preliminary zoning hearing for the Wimauma Sprawl Project, Part 2, has been postponed to:

Monday, June 14, 6:00 p.m.
County Center, 2nd floor, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd.

See orange parcel on map, plus more info.

CORRECTION: Wimauma Opposition Letter:

I had the wrong case number on the sample letter for the Wimauma Sprawl Project, Part 2. (Sorry!) Any letters sent with the wrong case number will not get filed in the proper case file. Please send the corrected letter, with the correct case number: RZ 10-0231.

Mill Bayou:

Still on for preliminary hearing date:

Monday, May 17, 6:00 p.m.
County Center, 2nd floor, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd.

All letters of opposition must be in the case file by Thursday, May 13, or hand-delivered at the hearing. See sample letter.

This is the beautiful, skinny spit sticking out into the Little Manatee River where a developer wants to build more houses in the coastal high hazard flood zone. See map, photos, & more info.

Wimauma Sprawl, Part 1, approved:

The Wimauma Sprawl Project, part 1, was approved by the county commission today in a 5-2 vote. See next post for details.

Thanks to all who came to the hearing today, and to all who are sending letters, backing us up!

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We need to fight once more, to protect the Little Manatee River and her wildlife. You can help by joining us at these hearings:

1. Creek Preserve - southern half, 1,010 houses (RZ 10-0147) 

A. Preliminary Zoning Hearing was already held March 15. The hearing master recommended approval.

B. FINAL County Commission Hearing
      Tuesday, May 11, 9:00 a.m.
      County Center, 2nd floor, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd.
Please come to this hearing on May 11!  If we lose this first half, it will be hard to save the second half!
 

Update: The county commission approved this on May 11. It's what they do. Details here.

2. Spenser Farms - northern half, 1,500 houses (RZ 10-0231)

A. Preliminary Zoning Master Hearing - same night as the Mill Bayou rezoning
      Monday, June 14, 6:00 p.m.
      County Center, 2nd floor, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd.

B. FINAL County Commission hearing 
      Tuesday, August 10, 9:00 a.m.
      County Center, 2nd floor, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd. 

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Last year's horrible Senate Bill 360 eliminated state regulations providing for "transportation concurrency" -- requirements that developers ensure, and pay for, adequate road capacity to serve their development. This year, a new bill, SB 1742, would make that even worse by prohibiting county & city governments from imposing transportation concurrency regulations at the local level. This would shift even more of the cost of development over to the taxpayers, so developers can pocket more profits, and continue over-developing an already glutted housing market.

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Florida legislators killed a bill that would have protected a 380,000-acre seagrass bed — the second-largest in the nation — off the coast of Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties.

Why? So they would be free to destroy it with offshore oil drilling.

Rep. Paige Kreegel, R-Punta Gorda, who argued that establishing the preserve would interfere with offshore drilling, led the committee that killed the bill. Kreegel is a political ally of the Legislature's leading drilling advocate, incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park.

In the St. Petersburg Times, Dan DeWitt writes,

It's hard to imagine that any responsible citizen could object to adding this expanse of sea grass to a long list of aquatic preserves in the state. But powerful state lawmakers could, and did.

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It's not surprising that TBARTA passed a resolution opposing Hometown Democracy — but it may be illegal. Our government should not spend its time and our money telling us how to vote — and Florida has a law that says so.

As Howard Troxler writes,

“What, in fact, is more dangerous in a democracy than the government telling citizens how to vote? That happens in other countries.”

Legal or not, it sure seems wrong to me, and if we let this pass, more government agencies will be spending their time and our money telling us how to vote. Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council is all set to do the same thing next month.

Read my full article about this on Creative Loafing's blog, The Daily Loaf.

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Pat Bean is off her chain again. This time she's shilling for developers who want to change our Comprehensive Plan to build a huge commercial project in the rural area. I was with several U-CAN & Sierra Club members participating in a Planning Commission hearing Monday night, when the developers' attorney, Rhea Law, flaunted a letter from Ms. Bean, touting her support of their project. We were appalled at this unprecedented breach of process:

[Bob] Hunter has been executive director of the planning commission for 23 years. In that time, he said, no county administrator has advocated for or against a matter set to be considered by the planning board. “This validates the need and the importance of an independent role for the planning commission,” Hunter said. “It is separate from the county administrator who works for county officials.”

It is Bean who recommends the annual budget for Hunter's department, so her letter, addressed to Hunter, carries a financial weight that should not be brought to bear on land use decisions by our Planning Commission. County Commissioner, Rose Ferlita seems to agree with me that Bean is out of bounds:

“Acting in her capacity as an administrator, it could go toward the perception that she was supporting or lobbying for that project,” said County Commissioner Rose Ferlita. “I want our administrator to be an administrator.”

Mariella Smith, a member of the grassroots group, United Citizens Action Network, said Bean's letter could be construed as the county commission exerting pressure on the planning board. “She is an agent for the county commission and she appears to be speaking with their authority,” Smith said.

I wrote the letter below to Bean's bosses, our county commissioners, about her latest stunt:

To: Ken Hagan, Jim Norman, Mark Sharpe, Rose Ferlita, Al Higginbotham, Kevin White, Kevin Beckner

Subject: Pat Bean's breach of land use procedure

Dear County Commissioners,

Please see Pat Bean's letter (attached) supporting Comp Plan amendments 10-04 & 10-05. This letter was posted online for review by Planning Commissioners, prior to last night's Planning Commission hearing. It was also waved about and presented with great flourish at the hearing by the applicant's attorney, Rhea Law, as proof of this county's support of her client's application to change our Comprehensive Plan.

It is highly inappropriate for the County Administrator, who reports directly to the County Commission, to influence the Planning Commission to support a privately initiated Comp Plan amendment. In this case, your administrator is expressing your support for expanding the Urban Service Area boundary to benefit a large, private business enterprise, before you have held the requisite public hearing.

The Administrator's job is to implement policy as directed by the BOCC. In this case, the BOCC has not yet taken a position, which they can only do at a public hearing, which has not yet been held. Therefore, the Administrator ought not to be expressing your position, since you don't have a position yet, as a board.

The BOCC's position is supposed to be settled at a public hearing, AFTER the independent Planning Commission has reached their position — independently from you. Indeed, the BOCC is supposed to consider the Planning Commission's position, not influence it, either directly or through your administrator. For the BOCC or their agent, the County Administrator, to try to influence the Planning Commission's position, prior to the BOCC hearing, is an outrageous subversion of the process — a subversion which undermines the vital independence of the Planning Commission.

While county staff in various departments do provide comment for review by Planning Commissioners and your board, it is a breach of procedure for your administrator to override those professional staff comments, from her position above them, reporting directly to you. It is no less wrong than if any of you wrote directly to the Planning Commission urging them to support a Comp Plan amendment.

Is Pat Bean speaking for any specific commissioners in this letter? Have any of you directed her to support this application? Is Pat Bean now the go-to gal for developers — or you — to push Comp Plan changes through the Planning Commission? Comp Plan amendments are not routinely reviewed by Pat Bean, so how, exactly, did Rhea Law gain the county's administrative support for her client's project?

Please let me know whether Pat Bean's conduct was legal or not. Even if it is technically legal, it is certainly improper. What will you do about this?

Sincerely,
Mariella Smith

This is not the first time Bean has exceeded her authority. She raised her own pay in a move that has been challenged legally and ethically. (The Tribune ripped on her "Bean-headed pay raises," the Times called for her head, Creative Loafing contributor George Niemann filed ethics complaints against her, and Kelly Cornelius chewed her up and spit her out.) Bean campaigned against letting citizens vote to continue ELAPP (it passed with 80% of the vote). She has campaigned (on your dime) against other citizen initiatives, and she misled state legislators about the county's position on pending state legislation.

You may want to write your county commissioners, too, and ask them to rein Bean in.

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