The Political Whore

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

Looks like maybe Dr. Richard Garrity might be a PoHo fan because my post questioning his activities as Executive Director of the EPC Wednesday morning wasn’t up very long at all before I heard from several sources regarding emails he sent listing documents regarding his recent activities. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

After going through those documents I was still underwhelmed. Recall my concern with the EPC was regarding the move by state lawmakers to rob a fund that cleans up contaminated sites where petroleum taints our water source (for all you elected officials out there that is called the aquifer) and us rural folks get our water directly from it. Due to the drought, years of out of control growth (plus a limping desal plant and cracking reservoir) officials have recently approved an increase in groundwater pumping (or maybe we should call that groundwater-petroleum pumping now?) So it is not just the rural area whose water supply is threatened it is everyone’s clean water supply in jeopardy. Robbing that clean up fund could also mean the ax for 16 EPC employees. Seems to me that there should have been more than just a last minute letter written about this. In that blog I also questioned if our BOCC (which also sits as our EPC) had even been made aware of the importance of this issue. I did go through the other activities and to be honest they did not really make me feel much better but I will list them and let you be the judge. So in addition to that letter he sent on the 22nd which is printed in my previous post this is what I received:

1.  He sent a letter to the DEP (Dept of Environmental Protection) Nice, but I don’t think they make the final decisions……………. our puppets for developers state lawmakers do that. You can download it here in a .pdf. (sole_3_30_09_ltr1).

2. He did speak in a committee early on but after reading the transcripts it was more like a general commercial for the EPC without any real sense of urgency.

3. He takes credit for a recent letter coming from Broward County. He might have been instrumental in getting them to send a letter but what did he have our own EPC board do? What about our Hillsborough Delegation?

Getting in one general commercial for his agency and sending 2 letters just doesn’t seem like enough on something this important. To put it in perspective Dee Layne from C4RG asks us citizens to send in several emails a day sometimes during session to let our lawmakers know we are watching. This guy who gets paid to protect our environment sends 2 letters? In addition to his 7 headed boss, the BOCC, he sould have to be accountable to the citizens but even bigger than that…………Mother Nature. I hope he remembers that the next time developers are trying to destroy wetlands or state officials attempt rob funds that would increase water pollution.

Dr. Garrity, if you are reading this please consider it a plea to grow a pair. You are charged with one of the most important tasks in Hillsborough County and that is protecting what is left of our environment. I bet you do want what is best for the environment and I believe you know what is best for the environment but what I question is your ability to do what is best. If we had a board full of Jan Platts and Rose Ferlitas then I bet your job would be a lot easier (and there wouldn’t be a need for citizen activists and life would be a lot better all round) but sadly we don’t. We have Team Sprawl and they have thugs as donors (and they can make your life miserable I am sure) so it is gonna take some guts but WE NEED YOU TO DO THE RIGHT THING!

I watched you cave under the bullying of (now-former) Commissioner Brian Blair. Later I watched you accomodate the New Blair Higginbotham when he wanted more wetland give-aways for the Ag Community which sadly those of us on the battle field have come to find out are really the pre-development community. I have seen development requests for land in the middle of a river yet your agency has no objections. You have painted citizens who fight for our environment as extremists when it is really YOU that should be going to extremes to fight for the environment. Instead people like Dee Layne, Mariella Smith, and Bev Griffiths have had to become the real leaders and fierce protectors of what is left of environmentally sensitive lands. It is these everyday citizens that set the gold standard and are the true warriors when in my opinion it should be you setting the example. You let a fearless employee willing to do her job and fight for the environment go for speaking the truth about the wetlands corruption. You should have acknowledged it yourself and applauded her for having the guts to expose it. But, like the wetlands, you compromised her for a developer and his politicians.

It takes more than being a good scientist to protect our environment. Every time you cave to the political will of our cheap elected officials the environment is worse off (and you lose your credibility with us non-monied interests) otherwise known as concerned citizens, Nimbys, activists, die-hards………you know the ones fighting for the environment for the sake of……………….. the environment? Ever wonder why residents fought so hard to get Bob Hunter back? Because we can’t afford anymore neutered leaders when it comes to the environment or growth!

To remind you the EPC stands for Environmental PROTECTION Commission, seems self explanatory enough. Bad commissioners come and go (OK, sometimes they stay for too long) but eventually they go. We need you to stand firm against political will aimed at weakening or gutting the regulations set up to protect our environment and educate your board rather than carrying out their political agendas. If you do this you will find that citizens will stand behind you, beside you (and in the beginning until you are used to the front lines………..even in front of you.) If you continue to compromise our environment then you might just find that dealing with the NIMBYS and die-hards can be as difficult as the bad Commissioners. You might even get written about in a blog.

As I was working on this post late Wednesday I received a copy of an Urgent letter Dr. Garrity sent at 3:20pm Wednesday afternoon to the BOCC and several of Hillsborough’s lobbyists regarding the underground tank clean up fund. With session almost over……… no time like the present. Let’s just hope it isn’t too late. Here it the full text of that letter. It looks like it might have been Mr. Spitzer’s email that prompted such urgent action out of Garrity which is also attached.

Commissioners:

You may recall that on April 22  I sent a letter to Senate President Jeff Atwater and others urging that the Petroleum Cleanup Program be funded adequately (see attached letter). The fund was budgeted at $35 million in the House and $135,000 million in the Senate (the original budget last year was $200+ million). This money is collected from gasoline taxes for the purpose of cleaning up leaking gasoline contamination. My letter described the importance of this program. I just found out that today the Senate dropped their funding level for the petroleum clean-up program to $34.5 million dollars. This will likely gut the program ending or substantially diminishing an important environmental protection for drinking water sources to say nothing of affecting 10-16 EPC positions and many additional positions  around the state in the public and private sector working under this funding source.

However, they did not re-allocate the funds somewhere else. They put the money in the working capital fund. This means we can try and put on a full court press to get the money back in the budget.

Attached is an URGENT ALERT from FLERA (Florida Local Environmental Resource Agencies) Executive Director Kurt Spitzer with more details. I will be sending letters to all Senate budget Conferees but immediate contact from all parties is essential.

Regards,

Rick Garrity

FLERA Membership –

The Appropriations Conference Committees finally began to meet last night.  In this afternoon’s meeting, the Senate Natural Resources Appropriations Committee conferees presented their first offer to the House conferees.  Among other things, they offered $34,500,000 for the Inland Protection Trust Fund, which funds the cleanup of leaking underground petroleum tanks.

This is around a $200+ reduction in funding from last year’s budget and effectively guts the program.  Until today, the Senate position was $135M and the House was $35M.  We had assumed funding would be somewhere in between or closer to the Senate position.

A copy of the members of the conference committee is attached.  You should CONTACT THE MEMBERS OF THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE and YOUR DELEGATION TODAY, concerning the reductions in this program’s funding.  Your should also CONTACT THE SENATE PRESIDENT, Jeff Atwater at atwater.jeff.web@flsenate.gov or 850/487-5100 and CONTACT THE CHAIR OF THE FULL APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE, J.D. Alexander at alexander.jd.web@flsenate.gov or phone 850-487-5044.

Cuts this severe will effectively shut the program down, leaving leaking underground tanks unattended and costing many private sector jobs at a time when we should be looking at ways to stimulate the economy.  Citing specific information on the cuts’ impacts on clean-up efforts in your county will be helpful.  Letting the media know of potential impacts is also helpful.

Please provide me with any copies of correspondence you have with legislators and let me know of their responses.

Kurt Spitzer

719 East Park Avenue

Tallahassee, FL 32301

850/561-0904

850/222-4124 FAX

850/228-6212 cell/SMS

Update: I did hear from Commissioner Sharpe late Thursday and he informed me that he had just written a letter (here in .pdf 043009atwaterinlandprotectiontrustfund.doc)strongly supporting full funding for the clean up fund and it had been emailed to Tallahassee. It seemed from his email that he had only just been updated on the issue.  He also responded to my SB 360 concerns saying he has spoken to our delegation about his strong opposition to the bill and he will be contacting the Governor’s office himself. Thank You Commissioner Sharpe!

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