Gov. Charlie Crist and U.S. Sugar Corp. President Robert Buker look on as Shannon Estenoz, SFWMD board member, signs the first agreement to acquire 180,000 acres from the sugar giant (Image: courtesy of SFWMD)Tea partiers and a Republican political action committee say they will descend on South Florida Water Management District headquarters today to protest the agency's purchase of U.S. Sugar property for Everglades restoration.
"We want to end the bailout," said Daniel Diaz, director of the Republican Majority Campaign PAC, based in Pompano Beach.
GOP and tea opposition to the U.S. Sugar-Everglades deal has galvanized since Gov. Charlie Crist -- the prime proponent of the land purchase -- bolted the Republican Party and took his U.S. Senate bid "independent."
Diaz said his group is part of a conservative coalition whose Web site -- EndCharliesBailout.com -- is helping to organize today's protest.
"On Thursday evening, the coalition successfully hosted a teleconference that included 54,000-plus calls made to citizens in Florida," Diaz related.
Some 200 protesters are expected to rally at the water district's West Palm Beach office at 11:30 a.m. A similar number could address the SFWMD board when it convenes a workshop at noon.
The district's plan to pay $536 million for 73,000 acres of U.S. Sugar property has fractured Floridians environmentally, economically and politically.
Unveiled with much fanfare by Crist in 2008, the project was subsequently downsized from the original $1.75 billion deal. The revised plan contains an option for 107,000 more acres.
The sale of the U.S. Sugar tracts purportedly will "save" the Everglades through the restoration of a southbound flow way. Critics, including Florida Crystals, a rival sugar concern with large land holdings of its own, have called the proposed purchase scientifically unproven. Others have deemed it a political payoff for one of Crist's biggest corporate supporters.
Everett Wilkinson. Credit: Colin HackleyOpponents have challenged the SFWMD's proposed method of financing, which involves a potential tax increase without a vote of the public. The funding vehicle -- bond-type instruments called certificates of participation -- is under review by the Florida Supreme Court.
Everett Wilkinson, state director of the South Florida Tea Party, said representatives from 15 tea groups and a dozen "patriot" organizations plan to be on hand Wednesday.
From his group's site -- sugarlanddeal.com -- Wilkinson said 4,000 e-mails have been sent to SFWMD board members and 1,800 petitions have been gathered during the past two weeks in opposition to the U.S. Sugar purchase.
The fight against the Big Sugar deal has, for the time being, unified feuding tea factions. The Orlando-based Florida Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party, which has been sued by Wilkinson's group over appropriation of the name, has also declared its opposition to the water district's scheme.
"This is a bad deal, but we're minimizing Charlie's impact. We're against all kinds of bailouts. This one happens to be local," said Wilkinson, who is based in Palm Beach Gardens.
Rosa Durando, a longtime Palm Beach County activist, is no fan of the tea party movement. "They're ignorant, self-serving bastards," she fumes. Still, Durando agrees that the land deal is badly overpriced.
"It's highway robbery," she said.
Durando, who says she favors sound restoration projects for the endangered River of Grass, complains that the U.S. Sugar acquistion was "mishandled from the beginning."
"If (the water district) had come out with dimensions and paths for a flow way, they would have gotten more public support and less cynicism," Durando said. "The (state and district) agencies have not acted properly and the (SFWMD) board is totally ignorant. They're political appointments."
The nine-member board, all appointed by Crist, has taken heat from fiscal conservatives and even some environmentalists who fear that politics has polluted the latest effort to restore the Everglades.
Board chairman Eric Buermann stands by the purchase.
“Benefits of this acquisition to the Everglades and Florida’s coastal estuaries are immense, providing us the opportunity to restore a unique and treasured ecosystem in ways not previously envisioned,” Buermann said in a statement.
“By approving this revised acquisition, the board has balanced its duty to both the environment and the taxpayers, embracing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity while protecting the agency’s mission responsibilities.”
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.