By the USA Today Network – Florida Opinion Group
What’s the main difference between so many Florida lawmakers and the wondrous array of invertebrates you can find in our beautiful state parks?
The invertebrates are supposed to lack backbones.
Unfortunately, a lack of backbone frequently plagues members of the Florida Legislature, where proposals that serve the best interests of Floridians – or even reflect their stated will as voters – are altered because lawmakers won’t stand up to pressure from fellow colleagues and lobbyists who seek to weaken constructive legislation.
Parks preservation: A common-sense, reasonable bill
But that must not be the fate of Republican state Sen. Gayle Harrell’s Senate Bill 80.
Harrell’s bill aims to protect our state parks and avoid a recurrence of last year’s shocking scheme by various Tallahassee bureaucrats – egged on by developers who seemingly won’t rest until every sweet green acre of Florida has been asphalted – to target nine popular state parks as potential sites for pickleball courts, hotels, golf courses and other development.
Fortunately, an intense and justified outcry from citizens across Florida shamed development supporters enough to force the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to drop its ill-advised effort.
But greed never sleeps, and there’s nothing to prevent this cynical lot from quietly working behind the scenes to prod Florida lawmakers to alter or strip down Harrell’s bill – commonly known as the “State Park Preservation Act” – as it makes its way through the legislative process.
That can’t be allowed to happen – because Harrell’s common-sense, reasonable bill doesn’t deserve to be gutted.
Harrell, a Republican from Stuart, has carefully crafted her proposal to largely restrict development in state parks and, equally important, to increase transparency regarding any proposals to make changes at the sites.
“It truly defines why we have state parks to preserve and protect the natural habitat,” Harrell told TCPalm columnist Blake Fontenay regarding her bill.
“It also puts in statute … what you can’t do,” she added. “You can’t do pickleball courts (and) you can’t do things that are totally invasive into the park.”
So what really needs to be dramatically changed about a bill with such a straightforward and productive aim?
Nothing.
That’s why Harrell’s bill and companion House Bill 209, sponsored by Republican state Rep. John Snyder, deserve to be voted on in their current forms – and untainted by attempts to water down their language or effect.
Protect our state parks: We’ll be watching, lawmakers
And all Floridians should ensure that doesn’t happen by making clear we expect to them to stiffen their spines and resist any behind-the-scenes campaigning and lobbying to undermine the proposals to protect our state parks.
You can do it, lawmakers.
Actually, let’s be far more blunt about this:
You must do it, lawmakers.
It’s time to show the backbone necessary to protect the legacy and natural beauty of the Sunshine State.
This opinion piece was originally published by newspapers in the USA Today Network – Florida Opinion Group, which are media partners of The Invading Sea. Banner photo: Oleta River State Park, where pickleball courts and cabins had been proposed (iStock image).
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