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Tallahassee Democrat Editorial, December 16, 2007

Pelham's Warning

Five years ago, when Floridians approved the class-size amendment, their vote was as much an expression of frustration and anger as it was a desire for better schools.

Citizens for so long had felt misled, bamboozled and betrayed by state and local officials about their so-called "commitment to excellence" in education that they simply didn't believe the rhetoric anymore.

So, despite legitimate concerns about the financial impact of the amendment and how it would tie the hands of policymakers, particularly in tight economic times, voters approved it by a margin of 52 to 48 percent.
Floridians were in large part saying that they were fed up and weren't going to take it anymore. By approving an amendment that much of the political establishment opposed, voters felt empowered.

It was an important lesson for political strategists — but an even more important one for political leaders, particularly in light of another proposed constitutional amendment whose most important ally is anger.
The biggest thing the misguided Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment has going for it is widespread disgust among citizens who've heard many promises about smart growth management but seen evidence to the contrary time and again. Here in our backyard, the citizen backlash against the clear-cutting connected to Fallschase is just one example.

Urban sprawl threatens to transform 21st-century Florida into a concrete and asphalt jungle. Yet many officials have been notoriously slow to understand and respond to the need for transformative policies of sustainable growth that protect our environmental and economic well-being today without jeopardizing Florida's future.
Tom Pelham, the widely respected secretary of Florida's Department of Community Affairs, is a notable exception. Mr. Pelham's expertise is in planning and land-use law, and his skill as an attorney in that specialty earned him a national reputation.

Political adviser isn't on his resume, but the DCA chief's advice to politicians on Wednesday was bankable.
In essence, he told members of the Senate Community Affairs Committee that if elected officials throughout the state don't start doing what they say about managing growth more smartly, angry voters will take matters into their own hands again.

Amendment proponents are still trying to collect enough signatures for the proposal to go before Florida voters. It would require that when city and county commissions approve changes to local comprehensive plans, voters in those communities would have to agree as well. Sounds reasonable on the surface, but the reality is it would create a legal and political mess. Worse, it would make it more difficult for local governments to promote development important to the community's welfare — like affordable housing.

Developers and other business interests aren't the only opponents of the amendment. Mr. Pelham, whose appointment to the DCA job by Gov. Charlie Crist earned wide praise among environmental groups, is against it. So is 1000 Friends of Florida, a widely respected environmental watchdog organization.

But even the amendment's strongest supporters would acknowledge that if elected officials at all levels had been doing a better job of balancing environmental protection with economic development, there would be no Hometown Democracy movement. Just as there would have been no need for a class-size amendment if the promises about educational excellence were more than just lip service.

Mr. Pelham's alternative, as reported by the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday, is a Citizens' Planning Bill of Rights that would require supermajority votes before local governments could approve comprehensive-plan revisions. He also would reduce the frequency of growth-map changes.

More importantly, in our opinion, are changes suggested by Mr. Pelham that would cut down on state regulation of developments that provide affordable housing, thus creating economic incentives for developers to go that route. He also wants to see more efforts to rein in sprawl, arguably the biggest enemy facing the environment, commuters and Florida's agricultural interests.

Most Floridians understand that growth provides jobs and helps pay for services. But bad growth management costs taxpayers more in the long run.

It's still too soon to know if or when the Hometown Democracy proposal will make the ballot. The question is whether it's too late for elected officials throughout the state to do what they should have been doing all along: making growth-related decisions that aren't disproportionately weighted toward development at the expense of a community's quality of life.