County move reeks of intolerance of dissent
It's not like we
needed more evidence that the current County Commission majority is
apparently intent on consolidating power and eliminating those who might
dare to dissent from having any voice in county affairs.
But we got it anyway.
The latest outrageous move is Commissioner Dixie Spehar's announcement
that she intends to remove her appointee to the county's Land Authority
advisory board, Debra Harrison, and replace her with John Dolan-Heitlinger.
Making this move even
more outrageous is the state law requiring this seat is to be held by a
"representative of a not-for-profit organization or association
dedicated to the acquisition of land for preservation and conservation
purposes." Harrison, who heads World Wildlife Fund's South Florida
program, is certainly that. So was her predecessor, retired National
Audubon Society research director Sandy Sprunt.
Dolan-Heitlinger is
president of the Keys Federal Credit Union and a retired Coast Guard
officer. He is also, according to the back-up information on the County
Commission agenda, a member of The Nature Conservancy and Ducks
Unlimited, both upstanding environmental groups. But belonging to an
organization hardly qualifies you as a representative of that group.
Spehar has also pointed to Dolan-Heitlinger's experience in helping
manage the clean-up after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. That was a noble
cause, but it doesn't have a lot to do with protecting subtropical
habitat and the endangered species that live there.
Spehar herself says
that Harrison has done a fine job on the advisory board, and that she's
only removing
Harrison because
she thinks Dolan-Heitlinger can do better. There are big issues coming
up this year, she says, though she's not specific.
The Land Authority
advisory committee is just that, an advisory committee, that helps the
county agency decide which properties to buy for habitat protection,
affordable housing and recreation. The agency is funded from one half of
1 percent tax collected on all tourist lodging in
Monroe
County.
Harrison, who has
decades of experience on land-use issues in the Keys, is eminently
qualified for this role. And it's not like the board is making any
independent decisions; the actual call on buying land is made by the
Land Authority — made up of the county commissioners.
This move has curious
timing. Harrison has been outspoken in her criticism of the county's
efforts to manage growth, and this has earned her enemies among those
who want to see fewer restrictions on development in the Keys. County
Commissioner Murray Nelson recently called her an "environmental pirate"
and (falsely) accused her employer of being one of the groups that
brought the FEMA lawsuit that has caused so much grief in the Keys
recently. He also named her as the culprit who provided maps to the
court that he says are flawed.
Harrison may have
agreed with the National Wildlife Federation's 15-year-old case, which
argues that the federal government must act consistently in protecting
habitat (under the Endangered Species Act) and subsidizing flood
insurance (under the Federal Emergency Management Agency).
But WWF, the
organization known by its familiar panda logo, was not a plaintiff, and
Harrison did not provide any maps. Nelson, speaking on U.S. 1 Radio last
week, said he was confused and that he had mixed up World Wildlife Fund
and "World Wildlife Federation." Nelson is still confused. It's actually
the National Wildlife Federation.
So Harrison finds
herself, not for the first time, in the middle of a nasty debate over
environmental protection in the Florida Keys ... and just now Spehar
happens to decide it's a good time to yank her off the Land Authority
advisory board? Spehar says this move is not related to Nelson's recent
criticism of Harrison, and that Harrison "has the right to say what she
feels." We agree. We wonder, then, what's the rush to get her off the
advisory board where she has served well?
This move also comes
right after the same commission majority — Spehar, Nelson and Mayor
Sonny McCoy — rejected Commissioner George Neugent's more
environmentally minded nominees to the county Planning Commission and
installed its own choice instead. Clearly they are unwilling to tolerate
a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives having any voice in county
government. That's a real shame, because every time we stifle open
conversation, we increase the polarization of our politics.
— The Citizen |
