Florida has no state income tax so it relies on tourists and 1,000 new-comers moving into the sunshine state every day to pay sales tax to create revenue. So we have encouraged growth as it has kept us prosperous while we lost 20 acres of Florida to development every hour. Somehow we had the foresight to create Florida Forever, a state program that bought environmentally sensitive lands with state funds. Facing a huge budget deficit, state lawmakers are considering abandoning the program. At a time when low real estate values would mean a tremendous opportunity to maximize the value of state land purchases, our lawmakers are about to axe the program. And locally our County mayor is considering reducing impact fees on developers to spur growth. I wondered if the recession might be positive in terms of slowing rapid development that is destroying it's natural beauty. I think the answer is clearly no, when push comes to shove, our environmental concerns gets thrown under the bus driven by developers. I urge you to contact your state legislator today, as the critical vote is tomorrow.
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