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From: "Bril, Marjorie" <Marjorie.Bril@scripps.com>
To: "'sopfam@bellsouth.net'" <sopfam@bellsouth.net>
Subject: Sugar industry mustn't be allowed
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 11:16:21 -0400
Return-Receipt-To: "Bril, Marjorie" <Marjorie.Bril@scripps.com>
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The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News (Stuart, FL)

April 26, 2003, Saturday

SECTION: Martin County; Pg. A9

LENGTH: 937 words

HEADLINE: SUGAR INDUSTRY MUSTN'T BE ALLOWED TO IMPEDE OUR LAGOON RESTORATION
PLAN; IN YOUR CORNER

BODY:
Martin County Taxpayers Association 

Davis Rohl, president 

The MCTPA seldom ventures into national tax policy. Our ability to influence
national policy is generally limited and our plate tends to be full with
local issues. However, we have learned of a situation that is national in
its implications, and has great impact on local taxpayers as well. 

Many readers are familiar with the Indian River Lagoon Restoration Plan, one
of the first components of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan
(CERP). Local counties and cities are already implementing stormwater
improvement projects at local taxpayer expense, designed to be complementary
in effect to the larger IRL Plan, to restore the St. Lucie River and Indian
River lagoon. 

Citizens of Martin County voted an additional one penny sales tax for three
years in order to raise funds to purchase land needed to implement the IRL
Plan, even before the plan was final. The IRL Plan, after years of work and
numerous public hearings, was completed and sent to Washington for final
approval nine months ago. Supporters anticipated Congress would authorize it
in late 2002. 

We have now learned the IRL Plan is delayed and sent back to the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers and South Florida Water Management District for major
revisions. We believe that this unanticipated delay threatens the IRL Plan,
and perhaps the larger Comprehensive Everglades Plan as well. 

On Nov. 8, 2002, former Army Corps employee Edward Dickey, with assistance
from former SFWMD employee Tom MacVicker, hand-delivered a letter highly
critical of the IRL Plan to the secretary of the Army. It appears this
letter initially resulted in significant delays and has now created an
uncertain future for the IRL Plan. Mr. Dickey and Mr. MacVicker are both
employed by firms that lobby for the sugar industry. 

We do not know why the sugar industry paid its lobbyists to attack the IRL
Plan, a plan with such complete support that the final public hearing was
considered by all present to be unique among major public projects. Nor do
we know why they waited until congressional authorization was imminent as
the plan evolved over many years of effort, and numerous opportunities for
public comment and criticism were available. 

We do know that as taxpayers, we paid millions of dollars to produce the
plan now being attacked. We paid another $50 million from our Martin County
pockets to buy land needed to implement the plan. We pay taxes every year to
operate SFWMD and USACE. It should be impossible for a few well-connected
lobbyists to derail the IRL Plan this late in a process that is supposed to
be open and public. 

The cruelest irony is that we taxpayers are also paying the sugar lobbyists
to do their work, through subsidies to the sugar industry that combine to
make them one of the most powerful political forces in America. Maybe
powerful enough to kill the IRL Plan, and CERP, too. 

We hope our readers will read about it, talk about it and write about it.
Together, maybe we can obtain better treatment for taxpayers from our state
and federal representatives. And save the St. Lucie River, Lake Okeechobee,
and the Everglades. 

The following is a communication we received that we felt was worth passing
on: 

"Some time ago you published an article questioning the need for all the
police cruisers in Martin County. As a retired police lieutenant from a
police department in a more populated area, I was offended by the fact that
every deputy has his own police cruiser. The unnecessary cost to the
taxpayers is in the millions. 

There is no reason that the fleet can't be reduced by 75 percent. The
vehicle should go around the clock on all three shifts and no deputy should
take his vehicle home so it can 'comfort the neighbors.' 

My experience is that the vehicles last almost as long when utilized this
way. The cost of each vehicle plus radio, computer, shotguns, emergency
equipment, tires, fuel, insurance, etc., would also be cut by approximately
75 percent. 

What exactly came of your position that you alluded to in your March 2002
article? If we had tried to pull this one over on our taxpayers, there would
have been a taxpayers' march on headquarters. I just do not understand how
this abuse has persisted this long without a local revolt. Please advise." 

In a telephone conversation with a local plumbing contractor regarding an
editorial concerning building costs: "I have been a subcontractor named upon
several contracts successfully bid for Martin County jobs. However, once the
general contractor won the job, he shopped the market for less expensive,
and I believe inferior, 'subs,' and finding same, awarded them the work
while he pocketed the difference. I'd like to see the county check that subs
named on a contract are those actually used. This additional control should
help to end this misappropriation of taxpayer dollars." 

A county staffer responded on the same subject: "I'd like to see more
emphasis on reliability, quality, and track record placed on the selection
of contractors to do county projects. Perhaps there should be a factor of 5
percent or so awarded in favor of doing business with contractors who have a
good past record of performance." 

These articles, which are prepared by Taxpayers Association members working
together, appear on this page on alternate Saturdays. Your comments, ideas
or questions are welcome. Call or fax 288-0474 or write to P.O. Box 741,
Stuart 34995. E-mail admin@mctaxpayers.org or visit the Web site
mctaxpayers.org.