The debate over Amendment 4 seems to intensify daily. With an unprecedented coalition of business, environmental, labor and civic groups working to defeat it, the proponents of Amendment 4 are turning to fanciful rhetoric and imaginative half-truths to distract voters from the facts.
Let's get this debate back on track by focusing on those facts before voters make the final decision this November.
Amendment 4 is a proposed change to our state's Constitution that would require taxpayers to fund elections for every revision to local government comprehensive plans. That means every revision. Not just major issues. Not just important projects.
The Florida Supreme Court has already brought clarity to this point, having interpreted Amendment 4 broadly in a 2005 decision. Citing statute, the court indicated that everything from drainage and solid waste to traffic circulation and intergovernmental coordination items would appear on the ballot.
What exactly would that mean for voters? Chaos at the polls.
Under Amendment 4, Floridians would be expected to vote on hundreds, even thousands, of comprehensive plan amendments each year. According to Florida's Department of Community Affairs Sunset Review, there were nearly 6,500 changes to local government comprehensive plans in fiscal year 2006-07.
This year, Monroe County started its Evaluation and Appraisal Report process. It's a statute-mandated review and update of the comprehensive plan that functions as a report card of the existing comprehensive plan and "identifies major issues regarding the community's achievement of its goals." As part of the process, dozens to hundreds of technical changes are made to the comprehensive plan. Under Amendment 4, every minor change would trigger a taxpayer-funded referendum.
Amendment 4 is so extreme that it does not even provide exceptions for schools, hospitals or police stations. The result: Thousands of minor, technical plan amendments would litter ballots while vital community needs could be neglected for years, or ignored altogether.
How would this work? It wouldn't. Amendment 4 is poorly written, badly designed and full of unintended consequences. How do we know this? Amendment 4 has already been tried and failed.
The small town of St. Pete Beach implemented a local version of Amendment 4 in 2006. The measure has decimated their economy and created chaos at the polls. Ward Friszolowski, the former mayor of St. Pete Beach, said that city's experiment in Amendment 4 has turned St. Pete Beach into a battleground for special interests. The Amendment 4 restrictions proved disastrous, adding additional layers of bureaucratic red tape to an already complicated planning process, and slowing the local economy to a virtual standstill.
In an attempt to revitalize their economy, St. Pete Beach voters approved four pro-economy changes to their comprehensive plan in 2008. Ironically, the special-interest lawyers behind Amendment 4 (the same people who claimed they simply wanted to give people a say on growth) immediately sued to negate the will of the people.
The subsequent years have been disastrous for St. Pete Beach. According to PolitiFact, "the entire process has been sidetracked and stymied by lawsuits and politics, petition drives and egos." So far, St. Pete Beach taxpayers have been forced to fund six separate lawsuits associated with comprehensive plan changes. PolitiFact has also reported that as of March 2010, the costs of these lawsuits for the city have totaled $734,000. Given the relatively small size of the town, such a figure is astounding.
In order to compensate for these fees and in expectation of additional lawsuits, the city has been forced to cut services and raise its property tax rate.
Unfortunately, the events that have unfolded in St. Pete Beach would occur statewide under Amendment 4, with copy-and-paste lawsuits spreading to every Florida town. Even Leslie Blackner, the writer of Amendment 4, has admitted that she "fully expects" a proliferation of special-interest lawsuits under Amendment 4.
We also know Amendment 4 will lead to higher taxes, fewer jobs and an even weaker economy. A study conducted by the Washington Economics Group shows Amendment 4 would put more than a quarter of a million Floridians out of work while shrinking our state's economic output by more than $34 billion a year.
As Florida attempts to recover from this devastating recession, the last thing we need is Amendment 4, a proposal that would empower special-interest lawyers to raid taxpayers' pockets in order to finance special-interest lawsuits.
Clarence Anthony is chairman of Citizens for Lower Taxes and a Stronger Economy, a former mayor of South Bay and a past National League of Cities president.
