Views from the Blind
by
Chuck Echenique
Owner - Rebel Yelp Outfitters & Calls
Pro Staff - Final Approach
Staff Writer - Woods 'N' Water Magazine
Pro Staff - Duck Junkies
Co-host Backwater Outdoors
Co-host Kids Hooked on the Outdoors TV
www.rebelyelpoutfitters.com
What You Should Know About Amendment 1, Florida's Water & Land Legacy Act
As you are probably aware from all the posters, billboards and commercials bombarding us daily, there is an election looming in the near future. And while most of us are consumed with who we will choose for governor (The Liar, The Criminal or the Computer Geek), few know or understand one of the most important issues on the ballot for November.Amendment 1, known as the Water and Land Legacy Amendment, seems harmless enough in its name. Reading the summary of the amendment as printed on the sample ballots and in press releases similarly looks generally innocuous.
Here's the summary of the amendment as it appears on their website:
Funds the Land Acquisition Trust Fund to acquire, restore, improve, and manage conservation lands
including wetlands and forests; fish and wildlife habitat; lands protecting water resources and drinking water sources, including the Everglades, and the water quality of rivers, lakes, and streams; beaches and shores; outdoor recreational lands; working farms and ranches; and historic or geologic sites, by dedicating 33 percent of net revenues from the existing excise tax on documents for 20 years.
After all, who would dare oppose clean water, restoring the Everglades and conserving sensitive
environmental areas unless they were some heartless glutton, right?
Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. After all, most folks have no idea where this is coming from or
what it means. Perhaps it would be best if you knew the history behind this amendment and what it in fact seeks to amend.
In 2000, the Florida Legislature passed a bill called the Florida Preservation 2000 Act (now called
Florida Forever.) What this law did was to establish a program by which the Florida Department of
Environmental Protection could implement and oversee conservation land purchases to protect and
restore environmentally sensitive lands and wetlands. Funding was made possible by using the monies collected from documentary stamps (doc stamps). Doc stamps are a tax of $0.70 per $100.00 on the sale of real properties like homes and land, and $0.35 for every $100.00 on documents that are
executed in the state like deeds, liens, titles, etc.)
Documentary Stamp funds are stored in the state's General Revenue Fund. From that fund, a host of
different public projects and expenditures are funded. Not only is Florida Forever funded, but so are the Coastal Lands Acquisition and Debt Service, the Water Management Lands Trust Fund, Conservation and Recreation Lands (CARL) Trust Fund, State Game Trust Fund, Invasive Plant Control Trust Fund, State Lake Restoration Trust Fund, Water Quality Assurance Trust Fund, State Transportation Trust Fund, various community affairs grants, two state housing trust funds and two local government housing trust funds, not to mention some other public benefits programs. Florida Forever funding accounted for almost 35% of the total doc stamp revenues collected and spent annually.
By statute, the Florida Forever Act, took a maximum of $300 million of the doc stamp revenues
annually from year 2000 through year 2008. In 2008, Florida Forever was reauthorized by the state's
legislature to continue funding up to $300 million per year for an additional 10 years.
From 2008 through 2014, Florida Forever Funding continued but not at the maximum of $300 million per year. Due to the difficult economic down turn we felt all over the country as a result of the bursting housing bubble and the high rates of unemployment, the Florida Legislature voted to reduce the budget of Florida Forever and appropriated only enough funding to pay the debt service on existing purchases and projects. At the same time, the Governor asked all state agencies who purchased lands with Florida Forever Funds to inventory their lands and look for any parcels that could be surplussed for sale. By law, any lands surplussed that were originally purchased with Florida Forever funds would have the revenues from those surplus sales returned back to the program. In other words, if they sold a piece of land purchased with Florida Forever funds, the money from the sale of that land would have to go back into the program.
With the exception of fiscal year 2005-2006 when doc stamp revenues hit an all time high of $4.4
billion, our state has seen a steady doc stamp revenues annually from $1.1 billion in 2006 to about $1.8
billion in 2014. From 2000 to 2010, Florida Forever dedicated $300 million of the total documentary
stamp funds annually. That's a total of $2.89 billion dollars in 10 years and it helped purchase, protect and maintain more than 2.5 million acres in our state.
Now that you know where we came from, let's look at what this new amendment seeks to accomplish.
First of all, the Water and Land Legacy Act seeks to remove the maximum funding of $300 million per year and replace it with a MINIMUM 33% of the documentary stamp revenues annually.
Secondly, those funds allocated for the Water and Land Legacy CAN NOT BE COMINGLED. That
means that once it's allocated for the program (33% of the doc stamp revenues by law) they can not
take any portion of those funds and put them back into other programs, no matter how essential they
are to maintaining the public welfare.
THAT, my friends, is fiscally irresponsible.
Remember all those other programs I listed earlier like community affairs grants, housing funds and
transportation funds? Well those essential programs would take a back seat to this new law. The
supporters of the bill will tell you there is no increased in taxes to you, but you and I both know that
when funding for road widening or public housing falls short, it's going to have to come from
somewhere. And if there is no money in the general fund that they can shift back into these services,
there's bound to be a new tax somewhere to pay for it. Of course, the alternative is to defund some
other service that doesn't have a law protecting it's funding. Likely candidates are the usual cast of
programs like education and law enforcement.
But there's another problem with this amendment, and it's a big problem that no one is talking about –
especially not the supporters of this bill. Originally, Florida Forever stated in F.S 259.105 (6)(a), “All
lands acquired pursuant to this section shall be managed for multiple-use purposes, where compatible with the resource values of and management objectives for such lands. As used in this section,
“multiple-use” includes, but is not limited to, outdoor recreational activities.” But there is no such
language in this amendment. In fact, this amendment does not even specify that the monies be used for land purchase or management. They include such uses as, “outdoor recreation lands, including
recreational trails, parks, and urban open space; rural landscapes; working farms and ranches;
historic or geologic sites; together with management, restoration of natural systems, and the
enhancement of public access or recreational enjoyment of conservation lands.”
Now I don't know about you, but I read that to mean some patch of grass in the middle of a city could be purchased with our tax dollars because some group decided it was historically or environmentally
important. What's worse, it would allow the building of things like boardwalks, paved trails and
parking lots on our wild lands. And I'll lay you a dollar to a doughnut that supporters of this
amendment (like the Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, Audubon Society and Defenders of Wildlife)
would love nothing more than to build classrooms on these lands and have our money pay for them
where they can be free to teach our kids about the evils of hunting. It's already happened on the Circle B Bar Ranch in Polk County where waterfowl hunting was taken from us and a classroom manned by Sierra Club and Audubon volunteers pushes thousands of kids through every year, teaching them about preservation with a strong anti-hunting presence. At the very least, the language is too vague and leaves way too much up for liberal interpretation; and purposefully so.
In my opinion, this is a stepping stone to more restriction and more loss of available recreational lands for us to hunt on. We're already seeing less and less quality public hunting opportunities as we're fighting for quota permits every year. With the vagueness of this amendment, it provides the latitude necessary to remove hunting and consumptive recreation from our public lands. Of course if you ask any of the proponents of this bill, they will deny it. But there is a history the drafters of this amendment won't discuss with the public.
For the record, you should know that the drafters of this amendment were members of the Florida
Wildlife Federation, The Nature Conservancy, Defenders of Wildlife, Audubon, Sierra Club and
several other organizations that have fought very hard to keep hunters and hunting out of many of the newly acquired public lands in Florida.
Florida Forever has worked and is still in place. It's been extended through 2020 by the Florida
Legislature. When this amendment first reared it's ugly head, it was brought to the hunting community's leaders and asked that we support the amendment. I and others immediately noticed the vague wording and significant increases in spending at a time when Floridians are struggling financially. We suggested a more responsible approach to have a graduated increase in minimum funding over the next 10 years so that as tax revenues increased, so too would Florida Forever funding but not to the detriment of other programs or services that might be considered essential. An up to 25% increase in funding every year not to exceed more than 30% and no less than 10% of the annual doc stamp sales would fund Florida Forever adequately and keep it moving forward.
But that wasn't enough for them. It made to much sense and was too much of a compromise. They
wanted more and they weren't willing to compromise. In fact, when we asked to sit down and work out a better plan, we were told that the amendment had already been submitted and that they were moving forward with or without the support of the hunting community. The framers of this amendment had once again lied to us and were simply positioning themselves to either get our help or make us look like the bad guys once again.What this really boils down to is that these ultra-green groups want more money to spend on projects as they see fit. But it's not about conservation. It's about preservation. It's about locking up as much land as possible as quickly as possible and making it all bicycle, equestrian and kayak friendly. They're not interested in anything less than the complete removal of consumptive recreational use because to them we're nothing more than rapists of the land. They view hunters as the enemy. We are drunken buffoons with a lust for blood out to annihilate every animal from the face of the earth, pollute the land and water, and leave destruction in our wake. It's up to you to make sure that we don't give them the means to end legal hunting on the lands our money is buying.
I urge all of you to spread the word about this amendment and let your non-hunting friends and family know just how dangerous this bill is to our hunting heritage.
