OP ED: Amendment 4 is the Floridians’ Declaration of Independence

Greg Gimbert, Daytona Beach

12-31-2009

Florida voters should be on the lookout for the politicians and speculators who are ramping up their Founding Fathers spin against the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment.  This crucial Amendment will be on next November’s ballot as Amendment 4 (A4).  

Nothing else will make our representative government more “representative” than local voters checking politician’s most important work, Comprehensive Land Use Plan changes. A4’s link to our founding principles is found in our Declaration of Independence.  

Compare the historical and modern betrayals.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. 

Rights evaporate when politicians make land-use changes that ruin your neighborhood.  Taxation without representation exists in changes to rural areas where you will pay for wasteful new infrastructure.

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Politicians haven’t feared losing power because they hide simple changes in techno babble so as not to anger too many people at once.

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” 

What better way to protect our environment and property values than for local voters to cast the deciding vote?

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” 

A4 can’t stop political corruption, but it will make it less profitable in city hall.

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations (zoning changes, loss of neighborhood schools and libraries, out of control taxes), pursuing invariably the same Object (Comp Plan Changes) evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security”

Enter Amendment 4.

“Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity, which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain (local power brokers and politicians) is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.  To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”

Candid facts about my hometown show we have less than 40,000 residences built but allow over 300,000. This is ridiculous when we are already pumping over 80 percent of our water allowance.  Is it corruption or incompetence that leads politicians to keep changing our Comp Plan to make this problem worse instead of lowering our disastrous build out?

To make an informed vote next November you must find out the facts about your local Comp Plan and how much water you have left too.  Don’t be surprised when the politicos refuse to disclose in fear of local revolution.  Will the media throughout Florida continue to ignore local facts until desalination raises our water bills five times?  By then it will be too late.  

Amendment 4 is simply the Florida resident’s modern Declaration of Independence.  Don’t get tricked into letting it fail.

Greg Gimbert is a Daytona Beach resident and member of the steering committee, The Campaign for Amendment 4.