Amendment 4, which will appear on the 2010 General Election ballot, proposes to amend Florida’s constitution to require a voter referendum on every city and county comprehensive plan amendment. The St. Petersburg area has tried this and found it to be a miserable failure.
Despite the time and expense of numerous elections, lawsuits have resulted costing the cities and delaying desirable growth. Businesses impacted by this law are unable to grow, or expand and are now avoiding the area by relocating elsewhere.
Ask yourself, why would a law that has been such a miserable failure be proposed as a constitutional amendment for the rest of Florida? The answer is simple. Special interests are those that would benefit and want this measure. Most cities throughout Florida already require some kind of citizen participation process in their land development codes.
We don’t need a constitutional amendment that will prolong the recession by making it impossible for new businesses to come to Florida and bring jobs with them. That is just what happened in the St. Petersburg area and it will happen to the rest of the state if this amendment passes.
Amendment 4 will delay all changes to a city’s comprehensive plan regardless of the reason or urgency, cost cities untold expense to hold referenda for comprehensive plan changes, result in numerous lawsuits filed by special interests that do not agree with the results of the referenda, keep new businesses from relocating to or within the Sunshine State.
The amendment would result in even more lost revenue from property values, thereby increasing the cost of government to the average taxpayer and result in even more lost jobs in a state with already massive unemployment. Vote no on Amendment 4.
Ann Thomas
Port St. Lucie
