Five years ago, when Floridians approved the class-size
amendment,
their vote was as much an expression of frustration and anger as it was
a desire for better schools.
Citizens for so long had felt misled, bamboozled and betrayed
by state
and local officials about their so-called "commitment to excellence" in
education that they simply didn't believe the rhetoric anymore.
So,
despite legitimate concerns about the financial impact of the amendment
and how it would tie the hands of policymakers, particularly in tight
economic times, voters approved it by a margin of 52 to 48 percent.
Floridians were in large part saying that they were fed up and
weren't going to take it anymore. By approving an amendment that much
of the political establishment opposed, voters felt empowered.
It was an important lesson for political strategists — but an
even more
important one for political leaders, particularly in light of another
proposed constitutional amendment whose most important ally is anger.
The biggest thing the misguided Florida Hometown Democracy
Amendment
has going for it is widespread disgust among citizens who've heard many
promises about smart growth management but seen evidence to the
contrary time and again. Here in our backyard, the citizen backlash
against the clear-cutting connected to Fallschase is just one example.
Urban sprawl threatens to transform 21st-century Florida into
a
concrete and asphalt jungle. Yet many officials have been notoriously
slow to understand and respond to the need for transformative policies
of sustainable growth that protect our environmental and economic
well-being today without jeopardizing Florida's future.
Tom Pelham, the widely respected secretary of Florida's
Department of
Community Affairs, is a notable exception. Mr. Pelham's expertise is in
planning and land-use law, and his skill as an attorney in that
specialty earned him a national reputation.
Political adviser isn't on his resume, but the DCA chief's
advice to politicians on Wednesday was bankable.
In essence, he told members of the Senate Community Affairs
Committee
that if elected officials throughout the state don't start doing what
they say about managing growth more smartly, angry voters will take
matters into their own hands again.
Amendment proponents are still trying to collect enough
signatures for
the proposal to go before Florida voters. It would require that when
city and county commissions approve changes to local comprehensive
plans, voters in those communities would have to agree as well. Sounds
reasonable on the surface, but the reality is it would create a legal
and political mess. Worse, it would make it more difficult for local
governments to promote development important to the community's welfare
— like affordable housing.
Developers and other business interests aren't the only
opponents of
the amendment. Mr. Pelham, whose appointment to the DCA job by Gov.
Charlie Crist earned wide praise among environmental groups, is against
it. So is 1000 Friends of Florida, a widely respected environmental
watchdog organization.
But even the amendment's strongest supporters would
acknowledge that if
elected officials at all levels had been doing a better job of
balancing environmental protection with economic development, there
would be no Hometown Democracy movement. Just as there would have been
no need for a class-size amendment if the promises about educational
excellence were more than just lip service.
Mr. Pelham's alternative, as reported by the Orlando Sentinel
on
Thursday, is a Citizens' Planning Bill of Rights that would require
supermajority votes before local governments could approve
comprehensive-plan revisions. He also would reduce the frequency of
growth-map changes.
More importantly, in our opinion, are changes suggested by Mr.
Pelham
that would cut down on state regulation of developments that provide
affordable housing, thus creating economic incentives for developers to
go that route. He also wants to see more efforts to rein in sprawl,
arguably the biggest enemy facing the environment, commuters and
Florida's agricultural interests.
Most Floridians understand that growth provides jobs and helps
pay for
services. But bad growth management costs taxpayers more in the long
run.
It's still too soon to know if or when the Hometown Democracy
proposal
will make the ballot. The question is whether it's too late for elected
officials throughout the state to do what they should have been doing
all along: making growth-related decisions that aren't
disproportionately weighted toward development at the expense of a
community's quality of life.
