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For Information on Florida's Ammendment 4 -  Beware the so-called "Hometown Democracy" Ammendment on the ballot this year. http://florida2010.org/ - We will provide more information on this as the election nears. If this passes it will be a disaster for our state.

Worse still, Amendment 4 would drive Florida's jobless rate even higher by burdening small businesses with new layers of cost, bureaucracy and uncertainty. According to a study conducted by The Washington Economics Group, Amendment 4 will cause Florida to lose more than 267,000 jobs and cost our state's economy more than $34 billion each year.

In these tough economic times, that's the last thing we need. And if we don't spread the word about Amendment 4, it may pass in November. You can take action on the campaign web site—it takes minutes to educate your friends, family and neighbors. But if we don't act, Florida may never recover. Go to www.Florida2010.org   today and please, Vote No on Amendment 4 in November!

Amendment 4: Don't follow in town's disastrous footsteps
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2010-06-18/news/os-ed-ward-friszolowski-061810-20100617_1_amendment-civics-lesson-special-interests

 

Growth proposal may choke state's economy
By HOWARD TIPTON, COMMUNITY VOICE
  July 18, 2010  News_journal

Amendment 4, which will be presented to Florida voters on the November ballot as "Hometown Democracy," is a thinly disguised effort to stifle all development now reviewed and approved by our elected and city officials. If approved, Amendment 4 would take away local representative government and say, to every citizen, "You decide each land-use comprehensive plan amendment."

It is another amendment along the lines of the "Save Our Homes" initiative that created extreme tax inequities between identical residential properties in the same neighborhoods -- which also removed local decisions from elected officials, and shifted the burden of residential property taxes to commercial and industrial properties. Also, like the Save Our Homes amendment, Hometown Democracy would distort our ability to attract economic growth to Florida.

How many of our voting citizens are well-informed enough to vote on comprehensive land-use amendments? Ask yourself if you are so informed. A typical comprehensive plan amendment can take between one and two years of staff work, public hearings, citizen input and council or commission consideration. In checking a few of the current comprehensive plan amendments proposed in our area, you will find 70-page, 101-page and even longer amendments on file. Are you ready to read that material to make an educated vote?

If Amendment 4 passes, citizen involvement is sadly moved to the end of the process -- at the ballot box -- rather than citizens being involved from beginning to end.

Consider the complexity of the issues and geographic nature of some of the amendments. Should voters decide on the redevelopment of abandoned structures or slum areas to create a shopping center? Should people living in the LPGA or Pelican Bay developments decide where to put a Wal-Mart on Daytona Beach's peninsula? Should at-large voters decide land-use changes that are necessary for storm drainage and utility improvements in Port Orange. Will the public do enough homework to determine density and appropriate categories of use for all Volusia County?

We elect local government leaders to represent us on these decisions. The founding fathers were concerned enough about the dangers of direct democracy to create legislative, representative bodies instead -- avoiding putting important issues on the ballot. Decisions, by the way, that will be influenced by high-priced ad campaigns and bumper stickers with slick slogans. The deliberative process is truly necessary, and should not be rushed with a single ballot question when land use is being determined.

We now have the right to voice our opinions to these elected officials in person, in public hearings, letters or e-mails. Have you attended public hearings or written to those officials in the past? There is no question that urban sprawl has happened in some cases because elected leaders made poor decisions. But electing good local leaders to represent us is more essential than amending the state constitution to give land-use decisions to voters who may be uninformed and uninterested. Amendment 4 will not undo any past land-use mistakes, and it will make many more problems than it promises to solve. It is not good public policy.

Tipton spent 16 years as city manager of Daytona Beach, and also served as Orlando's city manager. In 2006, he was awarded the International City Manager Association's Distinguished Service award for his history of public service.

Amendment 4's slick campaign will prove costly to Floridians
Frank Ortis is the mayor of Pembroke Pines. He is also president of the Florida State Council of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and a board member of the Florida AFL-CIO

(July 18, 2010) Would you vote to put your neighbor out of work? Would you vote to raise the jobless rate to 15 percent, or higher? Would you vote to make it tougher for small businesses to operate, grow and add jobs in Florida?

This November, Floridians will have the opportunity to vote "no" on Amendment 4 - a Trojan Horse measure that will leave tens of thousands of working-class men and women without a job.

The slick campaign behind Amendment 4 is funded by a handful of wealthy lawyers; their promises are as simple and seductive as they are deceptive and misleading: "Amendment 4 is really simple," they claim, "We just want to give the people a vote," they say.

But that is not what Amendment 4 is designed to do - and that is not what it did in one small Pinellas county town.

In 2006, the tiny Gulf Coast town of St. Pete Beach adopted a local version of Amendment 4. The measure quickly decimated the local economy, prevented the restoration of vital community landmarks in the town's historic district, and promoted endless litigation at taxpayer expense. In fact, Ward Friszolowski, the former mayor of St. Pete Beach wrote that his town's "experiment in Amendment 4 has turned St. Pete Beach into a battleground for special interests." Friszolowski went on to say that Amendment 4 "did not empower voters, it empowered Political Action Committees."

By 2008, the voters of St. Pete Beach had become frustrated with the stagnation created by their local version of Amendment 4. They decided to update their growth plan to permit the restoration of several properties in their historic downtown district. The people of St. Pete Beach exercised their "vote on growth" at the ballot box, decisively approving a series of comprehensive plan amendments designed to revive their flagging economy.

But that wasn't the end of the story.

Within 24 hours of that vote, the people of St. Pete Beach found themselves in court, defending the results of their election. Astonishingly, these lawsuits were orchestrated by some of the same lawyers who wrote Amendment 4, and who had once said that their measure just "gives the people a say on growth." The same special interest lawyers have now filed a half-a-dozen lawsuits in St. Pete Beach, aimed at overturning the expressed will of the people.

St. Pete Beach is proof positive that Amendment 4 is not designed to empower voters; it is designed to hand power over to special interest lawyers, and hand taxpayers the bill. In St. Pete Beach - a town of roughly 10,000 people - that bill has now risen to nearly $750,000.

Perversely, the voters of St. Pete Beach are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend their vote against the very people who promised it to them in the first place; meanwhile, projects that would have created jobs and supported the local economy remain stalled, despite having been approved by the voters two years ago.

It is not hard to see why Amendment 4 is often called a "stimulus package" for special interest lawyers. In fact, Amendment 4 would force taxpayers to fund elections for even minor and technical revisions to local government comprehensive plans, meaning that thousands of pages of technical planning data would be condensed into 75-word summaries before being dumped onto Florida ballots.

The inevitable result: Special interest groups on the losing end of a land planning referendum will have new standing, and greater motivation, to file lawsuits to overturn any election they lose. Essentially, Amendment 4 paves the way for special interests that lose at the ballot box to take their case to court, at taxpayer expense.

If passed, Amendment 4 would make the example of St. Pete Beach seem mild by comparison. Floridians would be expected to vote on hundreds, even thousands, of comprehensive plan amendments each year. According to a Department of Community Affairs report, there were nearly 6,500 changes to local government comprehensive plans in fiscal year 2006-2007. Amendment 4 does not contain any limiting language and there are no exceptions for state-mandated amendments. The result: Thousands of minor, technical plan amendments would appear on the ballot individually. Here in Broward County, the numbers range from about a dozen to over 700 amendments in a single year.

Under Amendment 4, the residents who are most impacted by land use issues are also the least empowered. Amendment 4 means that residents living an hour from your neighborhood will be voting on whether or not to put landfills, jails and sewage plants in your backyard. Ultimately, your voice - and the voice of your neighbors - will be drowned out in the noise of high-priced, countywide media campaigns.

Amendment 4 will also create an explosion of political campaigning - nonstop mail pieces, phone calls and TV ads - all aimed at securing your vote on hundreds of minor, technical planning issues. This means more money in politics, less accountability for elected officials, and longer lines at the polls. That's the last thing Florida needs right now.

Last year, the Sun Sentinel wisely wrote that "Floridians would make a big mistake to support this misguided amendment." And they are right.

To date, more than 280 small business, labor, civic, planning, and environmental groups oppose Amendment 4. The coalition to defeat Amendment 4 is virtually unprecedented in its diversity and scope because the threat of this proposal transcends traditional political boundaries. And while many of these groups recognize that the current system has its flaws, they resoundingly agree that the proposed solution is far worse than the problem.

Amendment 4 was written by lawyers, for lawyers. It is not designed to empower voters; it is not designed to improve growth management in Florida. Amendment 4 is designed to pave the way for endless litigation at taxpayer expense. You don't have to take my word for it - just heed the warning from our fellow Floridians in St. Pete Beach, and vote "no" on Amendment 4 in November.

Frank Ortis is the mayor of Pembroke Pines. He is also president of the Florida State Council of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and a board member of the Florida AFL-CIO