Plenty of room to grow

Daytona Beach News Journal

July 29, 2010

Plenty of room to grow

By RONALD RICHARDSON, Ormond Beach

In his July 18 column, Howard Tipton misstates the purpose of Amendment 4.

The amendment will not stifle all development. There is already enough land
approved for development in Florida to accommodate 80 to 100 million residents
-- about five times more people than we have living here now, and much more than
our natural resources can support.

Next the writer asks: "How many of our voting citizens are well-informed
enough to vote on comprehensive land-use amendments? Ask yourself if you are so
informed." We are not as stupid as some seem to think.

Finally, the writer suggests: "If Amendment 4 passes, citizen involvement is
sadly moved to the end of the process -- at the ballot box -- rather than
citizens being involved from beginning to end." The fact is citizens can be
involved all along the way, but the real change is that in the end, the
citizen's voice will be just as powerful as the developer's!

Amendment 4 opponents seem to believe that once someone is elected, he or she
should have unquestionable rights to do as they please. They seem to think that
a citizen's impact on the area that they live in should be restricted to a
general election vote.

I call your attention to a huge understatement: "There is no question that
urban sprawl has happened in some cases because elected leaders made poor
decisions." The Miami Corp's Farmton plan comes to my mind. Again, there's a
suggestion that we should elect good local leaders, but if you don't get good
ones, let them run rampant until the next election cycle.

One last quote: "Decisions, by the way, that will be influenced by
high-priced ad campaigns and bumper stickers with slick slogans." Is that much
different than officials who are being influenced by high-priced
lobbyists?