Miami Herald Logo

Fred Grimm: From Florida Forever to Florida hardly at all | Miami Herald

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Site Information
    • Contact Us
    • About Us
    • Herald Store
    • RSS Feeds
    • Special Sections
    • Advertise
    • Advertise with Us
    • Media Kit
    • Mobile
    • Mobile Apps & eReaders
    • Newsletters
    • Social
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Google+
    • Instagram
    • YouTube

    • Sections
    • News
    • South Florida
    • Miami-Dade
    • Broward
    • Florida Keys
    • Florida
    • Politics
    • Weird News
    • Weather
    • National & World
    • Colombia
    • National
    • World
    • Americas
    • Cuba
    • Guantánamo
    • Haiti
    • Venezuela
    • Local Issues
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health Care
    • In Depth
    • Issues & Ideas
    • Traffic
    • Sections
    • Sports
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Pro & College
    • Miami Dolphins
    • Miami Heat
    • Miami Marlins
    • Florida Panthers
    • College Sports
    • University of Miami
    • Florida International
    • University of Florida
    • Florida State University
    • More Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Auto Racing
    • Fighting
    • Golf
    • Horse Racing
    • Outdoors
    • Soccer
    • Tennis
    • Youth Sports
    • Other Sports
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • The Florida Influencer Series
    • Sections
    • Business
    • Business Monday
    • Banking
    • International Business
    • National Business
    • Personal Finance
    • Real Estate News
    • Small Business
    • Technology
    • Tourism & Cruises
    • Workplace
    • Business Plan Challenge
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Cindy Krischer Goodman
    • The Starting Gate
    • Work/Life Balancing Act
    • Movers
    • Sections
    • Living
    • Advice
    • Fashion
    • Food & Drink
    • Health & Fitness
    • Home & Garden
    • Pets
    • Recipes
    • Travel
    • Wine
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Dave Barry
    • Ana Veciana-Suarez
    • Flashback Miami
    • More Living
    • LGBTQ South Florida
    • Palette Magazine
    • Indulge Magazine
    • South Florida Album
    • Broward Album
    • Sections
    • Entertainment
    • Books
    • Comics
    • Games & Puzzles
    • Horoscopes
    • Movies
    • Music & Nightlife
    • People
    • Performing Arts
    • Restaurants
    • TV
    • Visual Arts
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Jose Lambiet
    • Lesley Abravanel
    • More Entertainment
    • Events Calendar
    • Miami.com
    • Contests & Promotions
    • Sections
    • All Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Op-Ed
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Jim Morin
    • Letters to the Editor
    • From Our Inbox
    • Speak Up
    • Submit a Letter
    • Meet the Editorial Board
    • Influencers Opinion
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Blog Directory
    • Columnist Directory
    • Andres Oppenheimer
    • Carl Hiaasen
    • Leonard Pitts Jr.
    • Fabiola Santiago
    • Obituaries
    • Obituaries in the News
    • Place an Obituary

    • Place an ad
    • All Classifieds
    • Announcements
    • Apartments
    • Auctions/Sales
    • Automotive
    • Commercial Real Estate
    • Employment
    • Garage Sales
    • Legals
    • Merchandise
    • Obituaries
    • Pets
    • Public Notices
    • Real Estate
    • Services
  • Public Notices
  • Cars
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Real Estate
  • Mobile & Apps

  • el Nuevo Herald
  • Miami.com
  • Indulge

Fred Grimm

Fred Grimm: From Florida Forever to Florida hardly at all

Fred Grimm

fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com

    ORDER REPRINT →

March 23, 2015 06:32 PM

Want to know the difference between the governor and Amendment One? Rick Scott received 1,365,515 fewer votes.

The Water and Land Conservation Initiative was the biggest vote getter on the November ballot, approved by 74.9 percent of the voters.

Most of the 4,230,858 who voted “yes” assumed — wrongly as it turned out — that they were voting to guarantee a funding stream for Florida Forever, the land acquisition program that allows the state to buy wildlife habitat and protect water resources.

Less than four months later, the state Senate responded to this outpouring of public sentiment with a bill that would cut the current Florida Forever budget by 84 percent.

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

You can understand how Floridians might be confused, given that the ballot summary for Amendment One promised 33 percent of the state’s real estate tax collections would be earmarked to “acquire, restore, improve and manage conservation lands including wetlands and forests; fish and wildlife habitat; lands protecting water resources and drinking water sources.”

But Tallahassee regards voter-approved constitutional amendments in Florida as no more than irksome expressions of an ignorant public, best ignored or circumvented.

In 1996, Florida citizens enacted a constitutional amendment designed to force Big Sugar to pay the cost of cleaning up the awful mess it made in the Everglades. Except Big Sugar's buddies in Tallahassee never got around to passing the enabling legislation.

Since voters approved an amendment in 2002 to limit the number of kids crammed into a classroom, lawmakers have been whittling away. A bill floating around this session would redefine “class size” as a school-wide average for children in a classroom.

Voters passed the Fair Districts amendments in 2010, aimed at curtailing gerrymandering. Well, it’s 2015 and state lawmakers still haven’t come up with a court-approved redistricting map.

But the bill that passed out of the Senate General Government Appropriations Subcommittee last week was stunning in its rebuke of voter intent. This year’s budget was chintzy enough, with just $17 million earmarked for Florida Forever, a program once allocated $300 million a year to buy preservation land. The Senate bill would cut that next year to $2 million.

Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, who chairs that key subcommittee, told reporters last week that Florida has all the public land it needs. “There are a lot of things mentioned in that constitutional amendment other than land acquisition,” he said.

“It says the word ‘land’ 18 times,” protested Pegeen Hanrahan, the former Gainesville mayor and deputy campaign chairman for Amendment One. She spoke last week at panel discussion on the amendment sponsored by the Bob Graham Center for Public Policy and the Gainesville Sun.

Former Gov. and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham said, “The whole purpose of this effort was to reverse the drastic cuts in the Florida Forever program … now instead of going above the bare bones initiative of the recent past, they’ve cut it further. To recommend $2 million is an insult.”

But in Florida, voters are getting accustomed to such insults.

  Comments  

Videos

One dead and a dozen injured after clash with Venezuelan security forces

Patriots owner Robert Kraft charged with soliciting prostitution

View More Video

Trending Stories

Federal prosecutors broke law in Jeffrey Epstein case, judge rules

February 21, 2019 02:51 PM

Americans arrested in Haiti with arsenal of guns won’t face U.S. charges

February 21, 2019 04:06 PM

Patriots owner Robert Kraft is among the hundreds charged in Florida sex traffic sting

February 22, 2019 12:23 PM

These players Miami Dolphins are discussing in team’s plans. These they probably aren’t

February 21, 2019 03:08 PM

Florida man forced 5-year-old to perform sex acts on him, deputies say

February 21, 2019 08:16 PM

Read Next

A career chasing disasters, scandals, murders and opening day of turkey season, 1969

Fred Grimm

A career chasing disasters, scandals, murders and opening day of turkey season, 1969

By Fred Grimm

    ORDER REPRINT →

August 25, 2017 08:00 AM

Mostly, I chased calamities. Sometimes (like one frightening night during the 1980 Miami riots) calamities chased me.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE FRED GRIMM

Florida’s lunkhead ‘white supremacists’ ain’t all that supreme

Fred Grimm

Florida’s lunkhead ‘white supremacists’ ain’t all that supreme

August 17, 2017 08:02 PM
New studies and new catastrophes give climate change deniers a lot to deny

Fred Grimm

New studies and new catastrophes give climate change deniers a lot to deny

August 10, 2017 07:01 PM
Floridians oblivious to an epidemic of accidental child shootings

Fred Grimm

Floridians oblivious to an epidemic of accidental child shootings

August 03, 2017 07:14 PM
Doped up greyhounds add to the disgrace dogging parimutuels in Florida

Fred Grimm

Doped up greyhounds add to the disgrace dogging parimutuels in Florida

July 21, 2017 07:00 AM
Oblivious to the irony, Marlins (apologies to the actual fish) sue fans

Fred Grimm

Oblivious to the irony, Marlins (apologies to the actual fish) sue fans

July 13, 2017 06:59 PM
New education law allows anti-science mob to go after evolution and climate change

Fred Grimm

New education law allows anti-science mob to go after evolution and climate change

July 06, 2017 07:30 PM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Miami Herald App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Public Insight Network
  • Reader Panel
Advertising
  • Place a Classified
  • Media Kit
  • Commercial Printing
  • Public Notices
Copyright
Commenting Policy
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story