The Political Whore

The Hillsborough EPC is considering abolishing or weakening its local protections for wetlands at a meeting today. I’m filing this update during the lunch break:

To use a wrestling term, one which EPC Chairman B. Brian Blair is wellll familiar with, this morning’s meeting on the future of Hillsborough’s wetlands was a “work.”

The wiki-definition of a work is “a staged event, from the carnival tradition of ‘working’ the crowd.” On Thursday morning, the “work” involved another fine tradition from the world of pro wrestling: the “Swerve,” a quickly changing plotline.

And so it was that the Hillsborough County Commission, which also acts as the board of directors of the local Environmental Protection Commission, shifted what was supposed to be a showdown between about 200 environmentalists and 100 Friends of Development/Agriculture into a wild storyline of hatred, sloth in government and — in the end — just the right compromise.

Background: A few months ago, four commissioners led by Blair voted to axe Hillsborough’s strict wetlands protections under the guise of duplication of effort and budget cutting. That vote, combined with the hamhanded nature in which Blair ran the meeting and shut down public comment, galvanized hundreds of civic leaders and environmentalists to try to save the wetlands division and its environmental protections. Today, county commissioners met for a final vote to either kill the wetlands rules entirely or adopt what has become known as the “hybrid plan” written by EPC director Richard Garrity.

One week ago, sources at the county center said, the deal was done to kill the wetlands division entirely. But after a week of steady pounding in the press — as well as concern by some Republicans for Blair’s political liabilities should the vote go through; he does face re-election in 2008, after all — somebody came up with the Swerve as an alternative plan.

So it was that even before the public had a chance to comment on the situation this morning, Commissioner Jim Norman started in with an impassioned defense of his wetlands-hating colleagues and a rebuke for the newspaper writers.

“I lived through the Roger Stewart years,” Norman said, referring to the legendary, cantankerous environmentalist who used to run the EPC until 2000. “I believe politics has gotten into EPC more than the substance coming out of it.” He criticized editorials that called himself, Blair, Kevin White and Ken Hagan “in the pockets of the developers,” pointing out that the countywide planning commission and EPC approve more than 90 percent of development projects that come in front of them, while the County Commission approves fewer, at 80 percent.

“Bad projects don’t get into the system,” he said, to more than a few chuckles in the audience. “Every project is being scrubbed before the County Commission sees it. We’re elected and we have to abide by laws. That’s why there’s a courthouse across the street that looks at land-use laws.”

“In the pockets of developers?” Norman asked with great indignation. “That’s hilarious to me.” Norman insisted that change at the EPC wetlands division was long overdue and, in fact, requested on at least 41 occasions by county commissioners over the past decade. “We could have done this a long time ago” and avoided polarizing the community.

Norman then turned to Blair and said, “The hits this man to the right has taken …” and revealed that Blair’s house had been vandalized and his family harassed over his stance on the issue. “It’s absolutely awful to me that we tore this community apart. It really does distress me.”

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. (I always wanted to write that line. It’s not true in this case, but it is a great line, huh?)

It was then Blair’s turn. With a poorly acted mixture of solemnity and deep hurt, he said, “Yes, I have taken a lot of bullets” over the wetlands issue. He then dramatically passed the chairman’s gavel to Commissioner Al Higginbotham so he could make a motion to accept Garrity’s hybrid plan.

Blair’s swerve threw a big wet blanket over the environmentalists lined up to speak against the total abolition of the wetlands protections. The storyline went from “big bad pro-development commissioners trying to kill wetlands” to “caring, compassionate environmental advocates who were merely trying to bring the various stakeholders in the wetlands issue together to craft a better system for everybody and got crucified for doing it.”

Right.

Shortly after he spoke, about a dozen people wearing red shirts signifying their opposition to the EPC’s wetlands division got up and left, along with developer Stephen Dibbs, who has spearheaded a drive to abolish the local wetlands rules.

Their work there was done.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the foregone conclusion is taking longer to play out. Commissioners will hear more citizens after their lunch break and then are expected to vote on accepting the hybrid plan, which lowers Hillsborough’s stringent environmental protections. It appears that the hybrid has the votes of the original four commissioners who wanted total abolition, as well as abolition opponents Mark Sharpe and Al Higginbotham.

Oh, and the fact that they were being “worked” was not lost on the audience. As one resident, Marcella O’Steen, put it: “The spinning I’ve heard from board is amazing.”

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