Posted on 07/17/2010 12:46:09 PM PDT by Qbert
More than 80 tea party supporters — some wearing T-shirts that said, "Don't Tread on Me" and "Sorry Charlie" — targeted the South Florida Water Management District board meeting, where officials discussed their property tax rate and how the governor's proposed land deal affects the agency's $1 billion budget.
The proposed land deal, two years in the making, calls for buying 73,000 acres from U.S. Sugar that could be used to build reservoirs and treatment areas to restore water flows to the Everglades.
The Water Management District leads Everglades restoration, and the deal, pushed by Crist, calls for the district to buy the land. The district plans to borrow the money needed and use its property tax revenue to pay off the long-term debt.
Tea party activists argued Wednesday that taxpayers can't afford a half-billion-dollar deal that they dubbed a "bailout" from Crist to U.S. Sugar.
"It's overpriced. … It's a payback," said Marianne Moran, one of the protest organizers. "We don't need it."
They criticized the district for sticking with a deal based on 2-year-old appraisals and without a finalized plan for how to use the land or how to pay for future construction.
"They damaged the land and then we are going to pay the highest value?" Everett Wilkinson, chairman of the South Florida tea party and one of the protest organizers, yelled at the district board members. "Heck, they should pay us money!"
(Excerpt) Read more at southflorida.sun-sentinel.com ...
That’s $6,850 per acre for undeveloped land. MMMM, sweet!
This is a good reason why the Republican party fears the tea partiers. They call for prudent behavior in government, which upsets cronyism and paybacks.
YHAOS,
I fly over this area all the time going to LaBelle, Everglades City, pahokee and it is pretty isolated.
I sometimes fear if I ever go down I’ll never be found.
Every year Big sugar lights their fields on fire to help ease their harvest.
Where the hell is the E.P.A. on this one???????
Most of this stuff you couldn’t pay anyone to live on.
Never happen, the EPA will protect the pythons.
Most of the fires are either agricultural fire or charcoal manufacturing operations. Most of Africa's parks have fallen to charcoal makers.
Thanks Tarpon,
I’ll reference this before I go a few places.
Man it looks like Africa and South America are burning up.
Gosh,
I’m blushing.
ALL? ;-)
About this scam. (^:}
They always look like that, Africa, Amazon, and other third world areas. Continuous use of fires for preparing the ground and manufacturing charcoal for heat and cooking.
No word on what happens to all this CO2 though.
Spread the word ...
I’ll use this and send it to some folks,
Thanks.
An absolutely amazing sight, when they are burning the cane fields. If one is driving near one of the burning cane fields, be very careful. Critters, running across highways, wherever, to escape the fire, have been known to meet their maker by running into a car....
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