Florida lawmakers save state parks from golf, then yank away funding for preserving land

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2 days ago

The boardwalk at Lake Jackson Mounds Archeological State Park has been closed for repairs for nearly two years, but the Legislature wants to cut spending on our popular state parks. (Photo via Florida State Parks)
Hey kids, here's a civics lesson for you. The Florida Senate and House of Representatives — or as they're sometimes called, 'Dumb and Dumber' — make a lot of headlines by passing dopey laws, but that's not their real job.
Deleting mentions of climate change from state statutes? Not their job. Changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico after 500 years to the cheesy Gulf of 'Murrica? Not their job. Supporting the wacko conspiracy theories about chemtrails? Not their job.
The one thing that IS their job, kids, is passing a budget for the state. Period.
They're supposed to complete this job by the end of their annual two-month legislative session. This year, they failed, which qualifies them for inclusion on the satirical 'You Had ONE Job' website. This is not considered a high honor.
They're still working on it, they say. They hope to hold a vote on June 16. They're racing the clock, because they have to finish by July 1. That's the start of the next fiscal year. If they're not done by then, state government may be forced to shut down.
Surprisingly, one of the budget items on which the two houses differ from the governor is parks.
'Florida's renowned state parks would suffer under state House and Senate proposals for the 2025-26 state budget, supporters of the public lands said this week,' Politico reported last week.
I say 'surprisingly,' because both the House and Senate just passed a bill to protect the parks from another dimwitted drive by Gov. Ron DeSantis to build golf courses there.
They passed this pro-park bill because they saw how immensely popular the parks are, and how immensely unpopular DeSantis' efforts to 'upgrade' the parks were.
Yet now they're also cutting the parks' throats. I know Oscar Wilde said consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative, but c'mon, folks. Do you really think our legislators have ever listened to Oscar Wilde about anything?
What's even kookier is that they also voted to repeal a law that created a big source of funding for buying and preserving even more environmentally sensitive land. It's a law they had passed unanimously and with great fanfare just a year before: the Seminole Gaming Compact.
The compact is still there, and the gambling is still going on. But now the money will go elsewhere.
Former state parks director Eric Draper told me he'd never seen anything like it. First Florida politicians brag about securing millions for a popular cause, 'and then one year later, they just reverse it. The whole thing is tossed out.'
I contacted the most environmentally minded legislator I know to see what she had to say about it. She was, in a word, upset (two words, one of them a verb starting with a P and the other one 'off,' would also be appropriate).
'I don't think they consider the things that are most valued by all Floridians,' said Rep. Lindsay Cross, an actual environmental scientist. 'Honestly, it's like nothing is sacred anymore.'
The Seminole Tribe has the most remarkable turnaround story in Florida history. Before you ask, yes, I'm counting the time the Florida Marlins won the World Series and then finished dead last the following season.
The Seminoles fought three wars against the federal government and never waved a white flag. They became the only tribe that never surrendered to the U.S.
But the members spent decades barely scraping by, living in chickee huts and eking out a living selling roadside souvenirs and putting on alligator wrestling shows for the tourists. According to a 1913 report to Congress, gambling was 'unknown among them.'
Not anymore.
The Seminoles were the first tribe in the nation to launch its own gambling operation in 1979, fighting off a legal challenge from the Broward County sheriff. Today, this tribe of about 4,300 controls six casinos in Florida and six more in other states, Canada, and the Dominican Republic, not to mention the Hard Rock hotel and restaurant chain with locations in 70 countries.
Thanks to a 2021 agreement with DeSantis and the Legislature, the Seminoles are now running the largest legal sports betting operation in the country.
Sure, calls to the gambling addiction helpline have doubled since their sports betting operation started. But hey, you can't make an omelet without impoverishing a bunch of blue-collar workers who don't have money to lose, can you?
But what would happen to the state's share of this gambling bonanza? Last year, at the urging of Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, the Legislature passed a bill decreeing that hundreds of millions of dollars from sports betting would be spent on land acquisition, preserving wildlife, and protecting waterways.
Gambling for greenspace! See how wholesome it is? Why, the amount was enough to make some environmental advocates start singing along with Marlon Brando, 'Luck be a lady tonight!'
The money was desperately needed, especially for the Florida Wildlife Corridor. 'To truly keep pace, Florida needs at least $500 million a year to permanently connect and protect the Florida Wildlife Corridor,' corridor foundation CEO Mallory Dimmitt told me.
The money wasn't just for the parks and the corridor, but for water quality improvements too, noted Ryan Smart, executive director of the Florida Springs Council.
Yet now the Legislature wants to repeal that supposedly worthwhile investment. What were they thinking?
Or maybe the better question is: Were they thinking?
Seeking clarity, I turned to the legislative leaders' aides. Turns out that was one commodity in short supply.
'This was a position the House had in their budget that the Senate has agreed to in the budget conference process,' Katie Betta, spokeswoman for Senate President Ben Albritton, told me. She suggested I contact the House with my questions.
So I tried several times to contact Betta's counterpart in the House, Speaker Daniel Perez spokeswoman Amelia Angleton, but got no response. Perhaps it was 'Talk Like a Mime Week' in Tallahassee.
It's hard to say why they're doing this, just judging by the paperwork that's been made public so far. Florida has a rich tradition of open government, but when it comes to the current budget process our legislators have been imitating Peter Falk in 'The In-Laws' and going serpentine.
'There is very little transparency here,' said Clay Henderson, a longtime environmental attorney and activist who literally wrote the book on land preservation in Florida ('Forces of Nature,' I give it five stars). 'I've never seen a budget conference like this and guess no one has.'
The Seminole gambling money was 'a solid commitment of funds,' he said. The repeal language 'appears to wipe this out and basically says the Legislature will appropriate these funds as they see fit.'
He called the whole Seminole snatch-back 'deeply disturbing.'
Even beyond the loss of the Seminole gambling money, legislators have made it clear that they want to cut the taxpayer resources going to Florida's popular parks.
Both the House and the Senate are proposing to spend a mere $15 million on park facilities improvements, compared with $37 million requested by DeSantis (for once, playing the good guy in a park scenario).
The House also does not want to put any money toward the Florida Forever land-buying program, even though nearly 75% of all Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment to fund such programs.
But wait, it gets worse.
House negotiators want to eliminate 25 positions in the Florida Park Service that are currently vacant. Draper told me that move made no sense, given that the state recently approved turning a parcel of Panhandle land into a new park in Walton County, No. 176 for the state. Staffing that new one would require hiring people to fill those empty slots, he said.
'You can't run a new park without any park rangers,' he said. 'People love the parks, and they really love the park rangers. But the parks are desperately understaffed.'
A wise man (okay, it was me, so it was more like a wise guy) once said, 'Florida's state parks are one of the glories of this place we call home.' Our award-winning parks cover 800,000 acres where you can hike, fish, swim, bike, canoe, kayak, camp, and watch wildlife. At Florida Caverns State Park in Marianna, you can even spelunk, should you so desire.
There are places of awe-inspiring beauty, like Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park, home to one of the largest and deepest freshwater springs in the world. There are also places that preserve some slice of pre- Disney Florida kitsch, such as Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, where you can watch a mermaid show that dates to when it was a roadside attraction.
No matter where they are, people flock to them, seeking a respite from the overcrowded sprawl that's spoiling the rest of Florida. The parks admitted some 30 million people last year, generating $3.6 billion (that's billion with a B) in direct economic benefits to the surrounding local communities.
Given their economic and environmental value, can you believe that our duly elected dummkopfs want to shortchange the parks? It's like owning a souped-up Lamborghini and equipping it with the cheapest tires possible.
Here's a partial list of what's broken, taken from the Politico story I mentioned earlier: 'At Torreya State Park along the Apalachicola River, the campground has been closed since last August for repairs. The campground at Suwannee River State Park remains closed until August, as is an overlook along the river… And the boardwalk at the Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park near Tallahassee has been closed for repairs for nearly two years.'
Two years! That's an inexcusable length of time for a public boardwalk to be inaccessible. If one of the Disney theme park rides were shut down for two years, people would demand the park's managers be fired. In this case, the managers are those folks in Tallahassee who control the purse strings.
Given how passionate parks supporters have been in protesting DeSantis' golf course plans last year, Henderson said, 'There's no excuse for cutting Florida Parks Service funding.'
It's possible that our tightwad legislators don't care about the parks because they've never been to one. If you happen to know any of these lawmakers, invite them out to join you for a trip to a spring, river, hiking trail, or fishing hole so they can see how magical these places can be. And they're a lot cheaper than the theme parks, too.
In the past, when I heard about some problem with Florida's state parks, I would sincerely wish that the legislators at fault would be forced to go to one park in particular: Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park. Then, at least in my imagination, they'd be forced to stand in the 'splatter zone' for the park's biggest celebrity, Lu the Hippo, until they saw the error of their ways.
Alas, Lu — made an honorary citizen of Florida by then-Gov. Lawton Chiles — has died at age 65 and gone to that great splatter zone in the sky.
Lacking Lu's persuasive power to convince these lawmakers that they shouldn't take the parks for granted, perhaps we must turn to more conventional means of turning this boneheaded budget move around.
DeSantis, lame duck though he is, still holds veto power over the budget. If Albritton and Perez fail to restore the parks money the way they should, I would encourage all of you to send the governor a strongly worded message encouraging him to employ his veto pen on that part of the budget.
Feel free to point out to him that, under the state Constitution, that's his job.
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