The Political Whore

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

Construction might be down but Commissioner Kevin White (D-Shovel-Ready) just keeps digging. He is currently in the middle of a trial for a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former aide. This article not only describes White’s history but indicates that taxpayers are on the hook for $100,000 of his in legal fees so far, and the article says that was approved by our current commissioners this past June……..WTF? His trial began Aug. 17 and the jury was picked Monday.

After this year’s budget brawl is over you will probably pay more for parks, dog tags, and other services and now you can add this costly lawsuit to the tab. That’s because the county has been named a defendant in the lawsuit, as well, so it is spending tax dollars for legal defense of its own interests, outside of White’s personal legal tab. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, I know, it is a wonky issue. SB 360. Most Floridians don’t give a crap about growth management. Just get the economy going and cut my taxes to near nothing while boosting public services, parks and investments in infrastructure, they figure.

Right.

But Charlie Crist’s cowardly signing Monday of the bill that the St. Petersburg Times says sets back Florida’s growth management by 20 years. He didn’t have a public signing, opting instead for a 5 p.m. news release from his flacks. How shameful not only to do the wrong thing but to hide like a guilty 5-year-old while doing it.

How do you sign a “growth management” bill that even the wildly pro-growth Hillsborough County Commission opposes???

Signing SB 360 leaves Crist’s legacy as a popular governor who didn’t fight the tough fights and who made his decisions on a matrix of how many influential Floridians and/or voters would love him for it. On that scale, SB 360 had lots of upside (campaign contributions for his Senate campaign in 2010) and no downside (the handful of environmentalists and planners who give a crap about such things doesn’t amount to enough to elect the local dog catcher).

And this man wants to be our next U.S. senator? What a chickenshit.

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Here is a video that was the winner of The Congress for New Urbanism CNU 17 video contest, a film that looks at the connection between suburban sprawl and environmental degradation. From independent filmmaker John Paget.

h/t to Kelly Cornelius, PoHo contributor.

Watch the full video after the jump.

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Not to surprising but the tone was amazing. Today in the Florida House of Representatives, Republicans led a hog-slaughtering of Florida’s growth management laws and opened vast areas of rural property to sprawl by approving its version of the controversial SB 360.

The bill was so bad that the Republican governor’s top growth management official, Tom Pelham, said yesterday that it would “seriously undermine Florida’s growth management laws.”

And that pissed off Republican leaders:

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Speculative real estate buying is what got Florida in this current economic mess. We’ve got an unsold inventory of an estimated 300,000 homes. So what is some lawmakers’ answer to this economic crisis? More unfettered, unfocused and unrealistic growth.

Craig Pittman at the St. Petersburg Times reports this morning on a new bill unveiled yesterday that would abolish the state’s growth-guiding agency, the Department of Community Affairs. Its responsibilities would be shifted to the unelected Secretary of State’s Office (which was once held by Katherine Harris).

Under Crist’s pick as secretary, Tom Pelham, the agency has blocked such controversial projects as the mammoth Wiregrass development off Bruce B. Downs Boulevard in Pasco County and a Taylor County development proposed by St. Petersburg surgeon J. Crayton Pruitt.

Pelham’s agency blocked the Wiregrass development – which promised 12,000 homes or apartments, three elementary schools and enough stores to fill two major shopping malls – because Pasco officials failed to nail down road improvements to accommodate all that growth.

And in Taylor County, Pruitt had proposed destroying 58 acres of wetlands adjacent to a state aquatic preserve in order to build 624 condominium units, an 874-unit hotel, 280,000 square feet of commercial space and a golf course. Pelham contended those plans went far beyond the state’s plans for how the coast should be developed and failed to protect the fragile environment.

Read the full story here.