We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to office.
—Aesop, c. 550 B.C.
Higher taxes and utility rates.
Lower property values.
Commercial and high density intrusion into your rural areas and existing neighborhoods.
Tens of Millions in CRA tax set asides that turn into campaign contributor giveaways.
Haven't you had enough yet?
We have too! VolusiaHometownDemocracy.com will show you how to take the first step to reclaim your local government.
We are members of authentic neighborhood groups and activist organizations from throughout Volusia County. We are not astro turf or country club putting green grass like some out there. The fact is that real grass roots organizations that put the power back into the people's hands like CANDO, STAND, and ECARD represent the real local Tea Party mentality. The development speculators, who are the biggest Republican contributors, have hijacked the Tea Party name and image but they can not buy the truth. Amendment 4, aka Florida Hometown Democracy, will put the most important oversight of all (land use changes) into voters hands and insure its safeguard from legislators by placing this protection in our Florida Constitution.
Every day more people are discovering that only Amendment 4 will allow them to reign in out of control politicians where they get their start and where they hurt you most - LOCALLY.
VolusiaHometownDemocracy.com is committed to protecting the property value, clean water, and quality of life for every citizen of Volusia County. Our members are fighting back at the local level through the court system and at the state level by promoting passage of Amendment 4 - The Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment.
Why should you help? What power would Amendment 4 give the local voters? Here are some of the most recent "sell outs" from the last few years that would have had to be voted on if Amendment 4 was in place. Judge for yourself.
Daytona Beach - Changed urban school land for a WalMart Supercenter. This school land was not only a neighborhood buffer from a commercial corridor but also served as a drainage basin for the neighborhood. Now they look forward to regular flooding and diesel fumes along with 24 hr noise and crime. Who were the politicians representing then?
Daytona Beach - Tried TWO times to get a community Vision Plan passed that included maps. If they had ever accomplished adopting a Vision Plan it would have been the end of our beachside and historic neighborhoods on both sides of the river. Why? Because a Vision Plan, including urban service boundary maps, and approved by the state Department of Community Affairs would have removed state oversight of locally approved comp plan changes. This is the holy grail for local politicians who do the development speculators bidding. What was on those proposed maps you might wonder? Only the wholesale replacement of single family neighborhoods with 20 story condos and commercial development. Long term residents? They were just the 600+ people who incoveniently showed up at city meetings and got in the way. The city staff still lies in wait to try this debacle for a third time before Amendment 4 is passed. Keep watching this one.
New Smyrna Beach - Changed land use to build a high rise hotel in the middle of their Quaint Canal St beachside tourist district. Politicians forgot that the roads are narrow, the neighborhood historic and the very reason the area is a success is because of its' small town charm. Worst part of it all is that the politicians used their CRA to enable this. Taking cues from Daytona Beach, the CRA tool allowed them to use city authority to buy land and easily change the land use against the residents best interest and for the gain of another speculator.
Port Orange - Used the threat if eminent domain to erase their historic river front neighborhood in exchange for a mirage called "Riverwalk". Everyone pretended to forget that Daytona Beach's Beact St is much better positioned to have a successfull 'Riverwalk" but can't get their version off the ground because it is tainted by city tax dollar misuse, city land buying, and land use changes that make it too dense for the area. No one is buying into it because no one wants to live in a place like that. Now the area sits unbuilt and blighted. Bad move but at least the right people got the land they wanted and rezoned to make their real estate fortune if they could have only flipped it. If Port Orange keeps acting like Daytona Beach it will look like it in no time.
Port Orange - Again (and again) comes back to the well in a vain attempt to catch the residents sleeping. If they ever do the quaint little trailer park on the Dunlawton causeway will be changed to have high rise hotels and new marinas. Who cares about the bird sanctuary now known as sea bird island immediately abbuting? Bird's and trailer park people don't contribute to campaigns so no one in city hall really cares. Soon they could roll out the CRA to help bank roll it too.
Edgewater - Restoration was your present from the commission. Not only will it double your population but it will double the tax rate too! Why? Because existing residents will pony up for services that must be in place befor groundbreaking can begin. They also get the added benefit of the hollowing out of the commercial district since all new commercial development will be "encouraged" in the New Edgewater. All those residents who moved to Edgewater for the small town charm and slow pace of life. Tough luck.
Volusia County - Farmton. We dedicated two pages to this debacle. One with community opinion pieces printed in The West Volusia Beacon and another that is a collection of informative emails from Voluisa Soil and Water District Representative Michelle Moen. Farmton will not only dilute all our property values in unincorporated Vousia by 10% but it will also rob us of our water recharge area and remaining Aquifer water availablilty. Did you really think Bruno and company really cared about your family, your water, or your property value once they got your vote?
VolusiaHometownDemocracy.com members have tried to work within the existing rules and processes. It does not work for the little guy.
Through outreach and advocacy, we tried everything within the rules to save our quality of life. We regularly contacted local representatives and state legislators, attended hearings, and informed others about candidates that pretended to support our collective best interests only to have the candidates flip on us as soon as they were in office. It is no longer a secret that citizen activism lets the politicians know how we feel, but they routinely ignore us once in office. Only when we change the rules will politicians take the wishes of those they represent more seriously.
The only way for this to happen is to pass Amendment 4, a.k.a. Florida Hometown Democracy. Amendment 4 would mandate that all changes to a city or county comprehensive land use plan would have to go before the voters after they had been approved by the politicians. Comp Plan changes are the precursor to zoning changes. Every time politicians change our comp plans they dilute our homes values, increase out tax burden, and move us closer to running out of cheap Aquifer water.
From the Amendment 4 web site:
We know that people care about the place where they live and trust the people to make decisions that will protect their community's future. The Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment seeks to take this faith in the people and make the current land use system more accountable by giving the power over certain land use changes (comprehensive plan amendments) to the voters.
Property owners in Florida have the right to use their property in accord with the comprehensive plan designation. For example, if a property is designated agricultural, the property owner has the right to use it for any and all agricultural purposes. Agricultural land owners do not have the right to use their land for high-density residential and commercial purposes.
Citizens in a community have rights, too. We have the right to demand that our "quality of life" not be harmed by endless construction.
Comprehensive plan amendments, which typically allow for more density or intensity of development on a particular parcel of land, are political decisions. These changes should not be granted unless our elected commissioners make a determination that the community's well-being will not be harmed. Our elected officials take an oath to protect the public interest. But too many county and city commissioners just cannot say no to comprehensive plan amendments that are destructive to a community's well being.
The Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment will mandate referenda for comprehensive plan amendments approved by city and county commissions. Because these plan changes are just about the most important decisions that local governments make, the voters should have the final word about decisions that can make or break their community's future.
Find out more at www.FloridaHometownDemocracy.com
Our local Volusia problems are numerous but all tie back into the selling out of our natural resources and quality of life in exchange for pay back to campaign contributors. It is time to take a stand by putting the final approval over such changes directly in the voters hands.
The straws that broke our camel's back are the two gigantic developments local politicians approved in our drainage basin and Aquifer recharge area.
The first, Restoration, is an annexation that doubles the size of Edgewater with 10,000 more homes on what looks like swamp land. The second, Farmton GreenKey, creates another 29,000 homes still farther out in the swamp. The County Council gave it their rubber stamp, but state regulators want solutions to Volusia’s dwindling drinking water supply first.
Water problem, what water problem? So now our politicians want to rape the river too. Large sheets of toxic algae swarm in the St Johns River but politicians want to pump it anyway so their campaign contributors can clear the state water review. This pumping will only increase the river’s pollution concentration killing more estuaries, plants, and fish. Once it flows to the ocean it creates low oxygen dead zones, red tide, and beach closures. Our politicians pretend not to know about any of this or shuffle off responsibility to the river management board of appointed yes men. Did you know the latest appointee to this board is the sister of the largest developer in Volusia?
Some say Farmton will never be built and all this is just to artificially run up the property value before another triple price conservation purchase. When you voted for Volusia Forever did you know this is how you tax dollars could be used? The appearance of such laundering of tax dollars into profit and more campaign contributions is not new here. What is new is the sheer size of this debacle; no one has ever tried to create another Deltona in one shot before. But what if they DO build? Our current life of water restrictions changes to one where we all have another zero added to our water bill to pay for their alternative water processing. Property taxes are nothing compared to that!
The information in the News Journal’s “Got Water?” series is something you can’t unlearn. Yet it is ignored by the attorney for the Miami Land Company who likes to go around saying that no real environmentalist would say no their proposal. In this proposal they “promise” not to develop all the land if we just allow them to have commercial development where none is allowed and seven times more homes than they can already build. Well most residents are not hyper environmentalist, but they arehaving to become economic survivalist at the ballot box since our politicians can’t say no to an obvious fleecing of our future. Volusia property owners can’t escape supply and demand so when these plans become construction reality it’s bye-bye real estate recovery and hello to more tax subsidies for urban redevelopment.
Aren’t you ready to make a change yet? Over 600,000 of your fellow Floridians have secured your right to have local voter approval of land use changes starting next year through Amendment 4. Considering our water shortage and the resulting effects on property values, shouldn’t any further changes have to stand up to a vote of the people? Sustainability can be more than just another developer buzzword but it only happens if you act now! Do your part to get Amendment 4 passed.
Our volunteer base is growing but we need you too. Sign up for our newsletter, donate to the Amendment 4 organization (www.FloridaHometownDemocracy.com), and volunteer locally.
