Florida Governor Ron DeSantis got a taste of bipartisanship in recent weeks in the form of fierce backlash against his administration's proposal to build golf courses, pickleball courts and lodging facilities in beloved Florida parks.
Environmentally-loving liberals and MAGA Republicans can agree that the mission of state parks is to be refuges to enjoy and learn about Florida's natural habitats, waterways, and forests, not to be profit-driven or recreational spaces that prevent people from peacefully enjoying nature.
The public can also sense when there seems to be an effort to keep them in the dark.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection originally announced a proposal to add amenities to nine parks just a week before a public hearing on the matter was scheduled. Nine separate meetings across the state were all scheduled for the same date and time, taking away the ability for environmental groups to organize to make their opinions known. Faced with a public outcry, the EPA postponed the meeting, but opposition did not subside, and protests were held on Tuesday.
Governor DeSantis agreed on Wednesday, announcing his administration was canceling the Great Outdoors Initiative, according to the Herald. “If people don't want improvements, we're not going to make them,” he said.
They are hardly an improvement.
The changes at two South Florida parks would be minor compared to those proposed statewide: Oleta River State Park in Miami-Dade County would get a disc golf course, up to four pickleball courts and 10 new cabins, and Dr. Von D. Mizell Eula Johnson State Park in Broward County would get four pickleball courts. Pickleball, played with a racket, is one of the fastest-growing sports in the U.S. It would also be different and noisier than the recreational activities typically offered in state parks, such as camping, kayaking, horseback riding, swimming and biking.
Three golf courses were planned for Jonathan Dickinson State Park, north of Jupiter. On Sunday, the unnamed group behind the proposal (whose lobbyists, oddly enough, included a former interim DEP chief in Florida) announced it was withdrawing the proposal. According to the Palm Beach Post, Rep. Brian Mast, a Republican representing the area, said no local officials know where the idea for golf courses came from.
The state also proposed building 350-unit lodges at Anastasia State Park in St. Johns County and Topsail State Park in Santa Rosa County, but faced opposition from residents and officials in Republican-leaning areas of the state.
Maybe a couple of pickleball courts in a multi-acre park wouldn't be too much of a problem, and as the DEP says, it would “improve public access,” but state parks exist to protect our last natural wonders, and pickleball and disc golf are better suited to city and county parks, which are often used for recreational and sporting activities.
That's why environmentalists are as opposed to the smaller project planned for Oleta State Park as they are to the larger golf courses such as Jonathan Dickinson.
“None of the proposals are in line with taxpayer understanding of what a state park is,” Chris Costello, senior organizing manager for the Sierra Club, told the Herald's editorial board on Monday.
Environmental groups worry that a golf course and 350-room lodge could be a harbinger of a so-called “slippery slope” that could turn the state's treasured parks into money-making businesses for well-connected contractors with little interest in conservation. There's precedent for this in Florida: In June, the Florida Cabinet, of which DeSantis is a member, approved without debate the transfer of 324 acres of state forest that's part of a wildlife corridor to a golf course company in Hernando County. In return, the state got 861 acres of forest that's isolated from other protected areas and isn't part of the wildlife corridor, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
Battles over conservation in Florida are nothing new: In 2011, lawmakers tried to allow at least five golf courses in parks across the state, but widespread opposition killed the bill.
Florida has once again learned that only with public involvement can Florida's environmental reserves and parks fend off any attempts to stray from their mission.
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