Posted on 10/19/2002 3:38:59 PM PDT by isasis
Sawgrass Rebellion: Property rights the focus of rally
Saturday, October 19, 2002
By ERIC STAATS, emstaats@naplesnews.com
After three weeks on the road, farmers and ranchers from as far away as Oregon and Ohio pulled into Collier County on Friday for a peaceful rally for private property rights.
Local property rights advocates met the cross-country caravan about 10 a.m. in the Publix parking lot at Immokalee Road and Collier Boulevard. From there, a 40-vehicle convoy headed to the rally — dubbed the Sawgrass Rebellion — in the front yard of a remote Golden Gate Estates home on 18th Avenue Southeast.
People came and went throughout most of the afternoon with the crowd topping out at about 200 people at any one time, authorities said. They sat in lawn chairs or stood in the shade as a parade of speechmakers and musicians stepped up to a microphone on a makeshift stage erected across the home's front porch. The rally was set to end at 10 p.m. with a candlelight vigil.
Property rights advocate Bill Lhota, center, and neighbor Donna Scarpa, right, both of Golden Gate Estates, discuss issues pertaining to their homes at the Sawgrass Rebellion rally on Friday at Lhota's home. Lhota welcomed friends, neighbors and members of the Klamath Bucket Brigade, a group from Klamath Falls, Ore., who drove across the country to support property rights. The event featured food, music and speeches. Gary Coronado/Staff
An American flag hung from the home's two-story columns above a banner that stated "Sawgrass Rebellion and Don't Flood My Land."
The rolling rally heads to Homestead today, completing a 5,000-mile trek that took the Klamath convoy through 11 states. Convoy leaders said they heard pleas for relief from federal environmental policy at almost every stop along the way.
"We can take that message to somebody, and it's a message from all across the United States," said Bill Ransom, 52, a logger and farmer from Klamath Falls, Ore., and chairman of the Klamath Bucket Brigade. "We're not going to give up our property rights without a fight."
The bucket brigade was born out of a crisis that resulted when federal agencies shut off irrigation to 220,000 acres of farms last summer to ensure enough water for endangered suckerfish and threatened salmon. A peaceful standoff with federal agents began July 4, 2001, at the headgates of an irrigation canal and ended Sept. 12 in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
The problem in South Florida, landowners say, is too much water. The Klamath Bucket Brigade made the trip after receiving a plea for help from the Dade County Farm Bureau. Plans for Everglades restoration would turn part of Miami-Dade County called the 8½ Square Mile Area into a place to store water.
Local property rights advocates, led by the Property Rights Action Committee, have made the Sawgrass Rebellion a touchstone for their own fights against a new plan for rural growth in Collier County, a proposed wetlands mitigation bank in Golden Gate Estates and a project that would restore natural water flows to stretches of the Estates south of Interstate 75.
Property Rights Action Committee President Bill Lhota said it was a "great sight" to see the caravan pull into town. He said the rally has opened people's eyes.
"I definitely think it's going to have an impact on the way people think about things, the way they vote and the way they relate to their elected officials," said Lhota, a construction consultant.
It was Lhota's home that served as a backdrop for Friday's rally — and he even picked up a fiddle and guitar to play some bluegrass music for the crowd with his son, Bill Jr.
The road in front of Lhota's house was lined with vehicles for a half-mile, including a rig that carried a 10-foot-tall silver bucket from Klamath Falls — a symbol of Western action against federal environmental policies.
Signs of support dotted DeSoto Boulevard, the route the convoy took to the rally site. "Sawgrass Rebellion Convoy We Love You," read one. "Welcome home," said another.
An informal survey of rally-goers found people there from Texas, New Mexico, Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama, Michigan and California. About half the crowd was from the local area.
Volunteers cooked hamburgers and hot dogs in the back yard amid tents set up for sympathetic organizations to raise money and distribute fliers.
The atmosphere was at times angry with speakers railing against "the government." Signs hanging from a wire said "Send all eco-thugs to their brother Castro" and "Together we will throw out the liars, vermin, druids, misfits, drones, United Nations and new robber barons. Don't tread on us."
Bill Ransom
Speakers included former two-term Naples city councilman and defeated County Commission candidate Fred Tarrant and Commission Chairman Jim Coletta.
Tarrant called it a "night of shame" when county commissioners in June voted unanimously for a Transfer of Development Rights program that is part of a new plan for rural growth in Collier County. The TDR program is designed to compensate property owners for lost development rights, but landowners fear it won't work.
"They were looking out for red-cockaded woodpeckers, when you know and I know, we're the endangered species," Tarrant said.
Coletta said before his remarks to the crowd that he disagrees with the way "property rights advocates spread their gospel" but that the County Commission agrees with the basic principle of protecting private property rights.
"We plan to uphold that," he said.
Coletta was the brunt of a national e-mail campaign started by Sawgrass Rebellion organizers who blamed Coletta for trying to run the rally out of the county. Coletta denies trying to do that.
He presented a Collier County flag to Klamath Bucket Brigade members to add to their collection of state flags presented to them in state capitals along the convoy route.
After today's rally in Homestead, the convoy plans to turn around and head back home after follow-up stops in Jackson, Miss., and Albuquerque, N.M., Ransom said.
They'll see the sun set in their windshields, instead of in their rearview mirrors, knowing their own beds are still days ahead of them.
Klamath farmer Bob King, 72, says he's losing money every day he's away from his ranch.
"To me it's worth it, for my kids and my grandkids," he said.
will some one notify our FRiends on the convoy.
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