Dockery: Water district can’t afford to buy U.S. Sugar land
by Michael C. Bender | March 8th, 2010
Dockery
So, while this project is being sold as Everglades restoration, it would delay actual restoration efforts by using needed money for land acquisition, while U.S. Sugar would retain the more significant tracts in the natural flow-way. Making matters worse, the deal would give U.S. Sugar an exclusive right to lease back the acreage at below-market rates for 20 years.
I’m asking board Chairman Eric Buermann to be forthcoming about the consequences, including tax increases that will be needed and opportunities that will be lost. Continuing to pursue this purchase is not just fiscally irresponsible; it is nothing short of reckless.
The New York Times profiled the deal on Sunday, concluding that the immediate beneficiaries are U.S. Sugar and U.S. Sen. George LeMieux‘s former law firm, Gunster Yoakley.
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March 8th, 2010 at 11:24 am
Just more of CharLIE and Lay Moo’s crooked under the table deals like the one with the Seminole gambling. Why does the people of Florida have to waste these million (the ones spent on lawyer fees too Lay Moo’s firm) on these corrupt shenanigans. If the working public of Florida starve to death for lack of jobs and unemployment is shut off and Obama passes healthcare which kills off elders (thats the majority of people living in Florida) what the hell difference does it make if we all die and leave an abundance of sparkling clean water? Its all about the money! Follow the money and you will find the corruption at the end of the rainbow where the pot of gold use too be! If people of power refuse to do this soon there will be no Florida as we know it.
March 8th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
[...] U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio said a New York Times story has raised “troubling new questions” about the U.S. Sugar purchase negotiated by his [...]
March 8th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Our government can’t afford to fix…what they essentially broke by failing to regulate development and protecting our natural resources….and we FLORIDIANS CAN NOT AFFORD to have this deal fall through. The everglades are dying folks. The water quality in Florida Bay continues to deteriorate with each passing day. Florida has few natural resources…and what resources we DO have….we’ve abused and destroyed. Enough is enough.
March 8th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
This needs to be done and done now, in its entirety, however it should be a Federal Project with Federal funds as it will restore and preserve the Everglades and Everglades National Park which are federal lands. Florida CANT afford it but the feds can. Take one day a week off in the Middle East and it would fully funded in one year!
March 9th, 2010 at 5:49 am
It appears to me that Dockery has more pocketbook sense than MCCollum and Crist!
March 9th, 2010 at 10:02 am
“Say NO Dockery” offers no public benefit but only wants to kill needed public projects. Her kind will not build Florida’s future but will tear it down and sink us into the dark ages. Thanks for NOTHING Dockery. We know she is an opportunist to KILL things (Sunrail and now Everglades Restoration) but can she actually lead – what does she support anyway – NOTHING?