Agreeing to Disagree on Amendment 4

I'll be the first to admit that my expectations when I first started blogging about St. Pete Beach's experience with its comprehensive plan changes were a bit naive. 

I expected that after I presented some clear, indisputable facts and setting the record straight on what really happened in St. Pete Beach,  we would quickly progress to an interesting discussion between supporters and opponents about the relative merits of Amendment 4.  Instead, I've received a surprising amount of negativity and denial about what actually happened in St. Pete Beach, which is surprising because the nature of the litigation is a matter of public record.  I must say that I'm disappointed that it appears that some of the most important conversations about the merits and weaknesses of Amendment 4 are likely never to happen, because in order for that to occur, there needs to be a basic agreement as to the simple facts.

Here is the tail end of a recent exchange in the comments section of my recent blogpost on September 4, 2010.   The comment is posted by an anonymous Amendment 4 supporter under the alias "Vote Yes on":

Supporters have responded to your specious claims saying that St Pete Beach is not and has not been an example of Amendment 4. It is not an example of Amendment 4. Your masters, the Florida Chamber, hired campaign consultants last year and the game plan they devised was to use that as part of the campaign message intended to distract and confuse voters. You have been trained and are following their game plan. They think that if you keep saying St Pete Beach is Amendment 4 people will eventually believe it. You've based your opposition on a false premise. Supporters are not going to waste time arguing over St Pete Beach because it is not valid. And we don't have to prove it to you. So you've got to come up with a better reason. And you can sit there and beat your chest saying that it really is an example but we disagree. To argue with you over why and how is not productive. It is not an example so there is no point in arguing over your failed premise. You wouldn't conceed anything. And they wouldn't let you conceed, either. And we know they've instructed you to keep trying to argue about St Pete because their hope is that it will keep that failed premise alive, but I trust that voters will see through all of the false claims. We can agree to disagree on the St Pete premise. And I know they won't let you give that one up. Because you've established a (virtual) political connection with St Pete Beach, they will have you continue with the blog every week and keep shouting and pounding your chest saying, "Everyone!!! Listen!!! I'm over here and it really is an example!!! It really is, I swear!!! And I really am a resident over here so I do have some credibility!!! Please believe me!!! I want them to argue with me!!! That will add some legitimacy to my claims!!!"

And meahwhile there's only a couple of us reading this silly blog. 

"Vote Yes on"

I've received similar comments from  Amendment 4 supporters in the past.  Here's my response to Mr. "Vote Yes" and the others who have made similar comments:

Dear "Vote Yes":

It's clear that we disagree and that we agree to disagree.

I think we can also agree that the readership of my "silly blog" is, well, modest.

You are mistaken in your belief that I am controlled by "masters", that I'm being "instructed" to say or do anything, and/or that anyone has the power to prevent me from "conceding" anything.   Nobody has "trained" me to say what I'm saying...that's a laughable concept since I reject campaign tactics, and I'm dealing in a level of factual detail far beyond what either the Hometown Democracy campaign or the No on 4 campaign have deigned to examine.

My blog content is my own, and if by some lucky chance you were to produce some factual information that disproves what I've presented, I am ready, willing and able to say in my blog "hey, I was wrong, I've changed my mind", and there's nothing and nobody who would stop me from doing so.  Unfortunately, no such information has been provided by anyone. 

Again, I'm not really arguing with you.  Our dialog hasn't really even progressed to the point where we could have a real argument.  Facts are facts.  Neither you, nor me, nor anyone can "concede" about whether the sky is blue, whether grass is green, or whether ballot language/challenge lawsuits occurred in St. Pete Beach as a result of putting comp plan amendments on the ballot.  Those are just the facts.


I think part of the problem is that folks tend to hear different things when they hear the same words being spoken.  For example, when I say "St. Pete Beach is an example of the flaws of Amendment 4", supporters  tend to interpret that statement to be an assertion that the language of SPB and Amendment 4 and/or the events of SPB are identical, and they respond by claiming that St. Pete Beach is different because, for example, the comp plan amendments in St. Pete Beach arose from a citizen petition, rather than from the city.

Unfortunately, when I say "St. Pete Beach is an example of the flaws of Amendment 4", the Hometown Democracy folks don't seem to hear what I'm saying.  I agree that there are some distinctions between that is a distinction, but those distinctions are irrelevant.  My point is and has always been that when St. Pete Beach put its comp plan amendments on the ballot (which is precisely what Amendment 4 seeks to do), the city suffered negative effects, especially in the form of lawsuits which focused not on how the comp plan got to the ballot, but rather on how the city draft its ballot summaries once the comp plans got onto the ballot.  I just don't see how that can be a matter of dispute.

Of course, you say that Amendment 4 supporters have "responded" to my claims.  Well, yes, technically I've received a lot of "responses", but none of them have disproven any of the facts I've presented.  The "responses" I've received have been personal attacks, sarcastic comments about diminutive following of my blog, and blanket, unsubstantiated statements that I'm wrong.  That's ok if we are arguing about something ephemeral, like religion or philosophy, where there are no hard facts or objectively "right" answers, but it doesn't work in matters of FACTS. 

I don't need or want to "argue" with you to "add legitimacy" to my claims...the facts speak for themselves to any and all who care enough about this issue to take a good look.  What we can "argue" about, if we ever were to progress to that point, is what impact those facts can/should have on the question of whether Amendment 4 should or shouldn't be passed.  For example, I was really hoping to be able to have a rational, civilized conversation with a Jill Yelverton or a George Niemann, or even Leslie Blackner or Ross Burnaman (which would be ideal) where we could, as a starting point, recognize the fact that:

1. Overdevelopment is a serious problem in Florida
2. Many Floridians are deeply concerned, frustrated and angry about the problem of overdevelopment and the impact that overdevelopment has had on Florida and its economy
3. Putting comp plan amendments on the ballot is one possible approach that is designed to address the problem of overdevelopment, and 
4. Putting comp plans on the ballot does have negative side effects (i.e. exposing cities to liability under Florida election law for ballot language challenges and Growth Management Act challenges). 

Having laid down that groundwork, we could then have a great debate/discussion about the real issue, namely, whether the possible benefits of enacting Amendment 4 (i.e. slowing/stopping development approval) is worth the detrimental effects of putting comp plans on the ballot (i.e., the cost of litigation, impact on Florida's economic recovery, etc).  Now that would be an interesting debate that we could have and where we could "argue". 

Unfortunately, we haven't gotten that far because you seem to be denying that ballot language challenges (and the resulting cost/impact on Florida's cities) are a possible consequence of enacting Amendment 4, and that's just not true.

As I've said before, any Florida voter who truly understands the risks of Amendment 4 and decides to vote for it anyway, that's their choice, and that's the American way.  Folks may be so angry about overdevelopment that they decide they are willing to put up with the risk of lawsuits resulting from passing Amendment 4, and if that's how folks feel, then I respect that. 

And in all of this, I just don't see why it's necessary to be disrespectful.

Hometown Democracy Operatives Support Amendment 4 with False Claims on WMNF Radio

On September 2, 2010, Hometown Democracy founder  Leslie Blackner and communications director Wayne Garcia appeared on Rob Lorei's Radioactivity Live Call-In Show on Tampa's WMNF (88.5 FM) to discuss Amendment 4.

No opponents of Amendment 4 were included in the discussion, which is very unfortunate, because during the course of the interview a number of completely false claims were made by the Hometown Democracy folks, and nobody was there to set the record straight for the benefit of Mr. Lorei's listeners.

The most egregiously false claims were made by Mr. Garcia regarding the relevance of St. Pete Beach and the staggeringly costly morass of litigation that resulted from the city's attempt to implement Amendment 4-style land use regulations.

When asked by Rob Lorei to address the claims of Amendment 4 opponents that the St. Pete Beach's failed "experiment" is proof that Amendment 4 would be bad for Florida, Mr. Garcia said the following:

"The fact of the matter is that Amendment 4 was not tried out in St. Pete Beach.  St. Pete Beach did enact a mechanism for its voters to be more involved in its growth process.  The big fight, all the litigation, all the things that people point to and say 'look at all the terrible things that have happened' didn't happen because of the land use votes out there.  They happened because of litigation over how it was attempted to be repealed.  So it wasn't a fight over the land itself as much as they then tried to repeal the voters being involved.  It was a fight over democracy."

Mr. Garcia went on to say:

"It really has not been tried out.  So there is no place in the State we can point to because this is a statewide problem." 

The problem:  Mr. Garcia is just plain wrong!!!  Mr. Garcia's statements are a complete misstatement of the actual facts of what happened in St. Pete Beach.  In 2006, the voters of St. Pete Beach amended their city charter to require voter approval of comprehensive plan amendments (a requirement similar in all material respects to what is required by Amendment 4).  When the city put comprehensive plan amendments on the ballot in 2008, those amendments were passed by an overwhelming majority vote, and lawsuits then were filed challenging the propriety of the ballot summaries used by the city when the comp plan changes were put on the ballot.

Contrary to Mr. Garcia's claims, the St. Pete Beach litigation did NOT arise because of attempts to repeal its Amendment 4-style voting requirements.  The St. Pete Beach litigation arose because the city put its comp plan amendments on the ballot (as all Florida cities will be forced to do if Amendment 4 passes).  If the Hometown Democracy folks don't want to believe me, they should believe Ken Weiss, Esq., the attorney for the guy suing St. Pete Beach.  In a May 18, 2010 settlement letter to the City, Attorney Weiss said:

"The central issue in this litigation has been the assertion by my clients that there must be full disclosure in the ballot summaries that the voters are approving the threefold increase in height and density...[I]t seems apparent to the objective observer (and probably the judge) that the only reason not to include specific language on height and density is because of the fear that the voters might not approve the plan.  The Commission is only being requested to provide ballot summaries which will tell the voters the truth."

Thus, straight from the "horse's mouth", it is clear that the Hometown Democracy folks are clearly wrong to deny that the St. Pete Beach lawsuits are similar to the lawsuits that could threaten all Florida cities if Amendment 4 passes.  As I explain in great detail in a prior post, if Amendment 4 forces cities to put their comprehensive plan amendments on the ballot, Florida election law requires those amendments (often hundreds of pages filled with complex land use details) to be condensed into a 75-word ballot summary...and Floridians will soon learn what we learned in St. Pete Beach:  that it's impossible to summarize a 200 page comp plan in 75 words in a way that can't be challenged by lawyers as being "deceptive", "misleading" or "incomplete."

Mr. Garcia was also wrong to claim that Amendment 4 hasn't been "tried out" in any other Florida city.  The charter amendment adopted by St. Pete Beach in 2006 and Amendment 4 share the same basic premises and mandates:  both require comprehensive plan changes to be approved by a vote of the people before they can be enacted by a city*.   The litigation in St. Pete Beach arose  from the city's attempt to in 2008 to comply with the requirement when it put its comprehensive plan changes on the ballot, not from any attempts to repeal those regulations.

In short:  St. Pete Beach tried Amendment 4--we tried it by actually putting our comprehensive comp plan amendments on the ballot in 2008.  The result:  Massive delays, costly litigation, and volatile polarization of the city's residents that has torn our small beach community to pieces.  That's the plain truth, and a similar fate awaits all Florida cities if Amendment 4 passes in November.

While Mr. Garcia referred in passing to St. Pete Beach's repeal of its Amendment 4-style regulations, the truth of the matter is that after suffering the disastrous consequences of trying to put comprehensive plan amendments on the ballot, the people of St. Pete Beach voted by an overwhelming majority vote to repeal most of its Amendment 4-style rules in favor of rules with drastically reduced scope.  Unfortunately, if  Amendment 4 passes, Floridians won't be able to repeal it once it's in place because cities lack the power to repeal constitutional amendments once they have been enacted.

There is no excuse for Hometown Democracy's misrepresentations of the facts.   Hometown Democracy co-founders Leslie Blackner and Ross Burnaman are both lawyers, and Ross Burnaman has personally been involved in St. Pete Beach's litigation as one of the lawyers suing the city.

In other words, they should know better than to say false things about St. Pete Beach...and Floridians deserve to have straight and true information when they go to the polls in November.

*Amendment 4's requirements are even broader than what we adopted in St. Pete Beach (St Pete Beach only requires a vote on comp plan changes affecting more than 5 parcels of land, while Amendment 4 requires a vote on all comp plan changes, even those affecting only one parcel).

Amendment 4's Hidden Danger #1: It's Impossible to Create a "Lawyer-Proof" Ballot Summary that Describes a Comprehensive Plan in 75 Words or Less.

Florida Amendment 4 (also known as "Hometown Democracy") seeks to give Floridians a final referendum vote on all comprehensive plan changes.  It may seem like a good idea to folks who are frustrated with sprawl and overdevelopment, but voting for it is like bringing a piece of furniture into your home that looks nice but is infested with bedbugs...it's full of hidden dangers that can make your home and town unliveable and are very difficult to exterminate once in place.


Amendment 4's biggest (and most hidden) flaw is that by requiring all comprehensive plan changes to go on the ballot, Florida election law requires that those comp plan changes (which often involve hundreds of pages of complex land use language) must be summarized in a ballot summary that is 75 words or less, which exposes cities to massive litigation costs due to ballot language challenges.
 
Why is trying to create a 75 word ballot summary of a comprehensive plan change such a problem?  What's the big deal? 

The problem is that it is impossible to adequately summarize hundreds of pages of land use changes into a 75 word ballot summary, and if Florida's cities are forced to undertake this impossible task, they will be vulnerable to costly lawsuits challenging those summaries as deceptive and incomplete...which is precisely what happened in St. Pete Beach.

In 2008, St. Pete Beach put proposed comprehensive plan changes on the ballot.  We did this because in 2006, we made changes to our city charter which (like Amendment 4) required that future changes to our comprehensive plan must be approved by a vote of the citizens.  So when we put our comprehensive plan changes on the ballot in 2008, Florida election law forced the city to summarize the 150 pages of changes into a 75 word ballot summary. 

Here's what the comprehensive plan change looked like....150 pages worth.

On Election Day, 2008, our comp plan was approved by the voters of St. Pete Beach by an overwhelming majority vote.  Happy Day, right?  Wrong!  After the comp plan was approved by the voters, St. Pete Beach was promptly sued by a resident who alleged that the city's 75 word ballot summaries were "rife with deceptive and misleading statements" and that they omitted "material facts."  Ironically, the plaintiff alleges that the city's 75 words were deficient, but in his complaint he cannot even describe what is missing from the city's ballot summaries in less than 75 words!

The litigation that started in 2008 is still ongoing, and in 2010 alone St. Pete Beach has incurred over $200,000 in legal fees defending the vote of the people.  By comparison, St. Pete Beach spent only $33,000 on litigation in 2001.  Similar problems threaten all Florida cities if Amendment 4 passes, since all Florida cities will also be forced to undertake the impossible task of crafting 75 word ballot summaries of comprehensive plan changes that involve hundreds of pages of complex land use changes.

The problem with summarizing comprehensive plans in 75 words under Amendment 4 is that you just can't fit everything that everyone cares about into those 75 words.  No matter how hard you try, there will always be someone who can file a lawsuit alleging that what is most important to THEM was left out, and that the ballot language was "misleading" or "deceptive" or "incomplete."  And like a swarm of bedbugs, land use lawyers thrive by feeding on these legal vulnerabilities...with all Floridians suffering for it.

So why will fixing the problems caused by Amendment 4 be as difficult as exterminating a house full of bedbugs?  The reason is simple:  Amendment 4 is a statewide constitutional amendment.  Once Floridians figure out how overbroad and damaging Amendment 4 really is, local cities won't have the legal authority to alter or modify the scope of Amendment 4's rules to suit the needs and desires of the local population. 

By comparison, once St. Pete Beach's voters realized the mistake they'd made by adopting their Amendment 4-style rules, we repealed their broad scope in favor of a much more restricted set of rules...but we were able to fix our mistake because we had the power to undo the changes we'd made to our local city charter.  But since Amendment 4 is a constitutional amendment, no Florida city will have the power to undo its requirements once it's been approved, even if a majority of the city's voters want to alter or repeal it. 

So, just like a bedbug infestation, once Amendment 4 is approved, Floridians will stuck dealing with the vexing problems that come with it for a very, very long time.

Vice Mayor Jim Parent Triumphs Over Ruttencutter Attacks in Amendment 4 / St. Pete Beach Exchange

St. Pete Beach Vice Mayor Jim Parent's outspoken opposition to Amendment 4 recently drew hostile fire from not one, but two of the city's former vice mayors:  Harry Metz and Ed Ruttencutter.  While Metz and Ruttencutter both dispute that St. Pete Beach proves Amendment 4's flaws, Ruttencutter's venomous, demeaning, insult-laden criticism of Parent clearly resonated with Amendment 4 supporters (so much so that the Hometown Democracy campaign posted it on one of their blogs).

Most folks who are "Ruttencuttered" respond in kind, and, as a result, demean themselves as they drag themselves down to that sordid level.  To his credit, VM Parent retained both his dignity and his focus, and demonstrated the soundness of his reasoning and the quality of his character by posting the following response:

{Blogmeister Note:  Bolding and italics are added by the Blogmeister for emphasis and did not occur in the original} 

Dear Mr. Ed:

I was finally able to breach my civility filter and distill the points I think you were trying to make.

I am an advocate of discussion grounded in a solid basis of facts, well-reasoned, and that point me toward a sound conclusion.  That is what I (and I believe, other prudent citizens) need to experience to be persuaded by what is being calmly and civilly discussed.

The main reason why I think the approach you used to distinguish St. Pete Beach from Amendment 4 is not persuasive is because of the focus on form rather than substance.  As an engineer I put a high value on substance.

For example, you are absolutely correct that the 2009 vote on our Comprehensive Plan was based on the initiative provisions of Section 7.02, Article VII of the City Charter;  I don't think I've ever said or implied otherwise.

It is completely irrelevant to the Amendment 4 debate that the 2008 St. Pete Beach ballot issue arose under Section 7.02 rather than Section 3.15.  The crux is not how an issue got on the ballot; it is what happened after our voters made their choice; i.e., the ballot language lawsuit attacking our City and how that relates to Amendment 4.

The true parallel between the 2008 St. Pete Beach election (that led to a lawsuit) and Amendment 4 is that, in both scenarios, Florida election law requires that the ordinances amending the Comp Plans be summarized in 75 words or less.

 Let me say that again (no weather forecast, no farm report).....

The true parallel between the 2008 St. Pete Beach election (that led to a lawsuit) and Amendment 4 is that, in both scenarios, Florida election law requires that the ordinances amending the Comp Plans be summarized in 75 words or less.

The lawsuit we have directly in front of us is attributable to at least one voter, who seems to believe that his opinion as to what is most important, to him personally, should be THE ballot language.  What about what is most important to me?  Or to you?  Or my neighbor?  Or people in Pass-a-Grille?  Or Joe SixPack?  Or Susan ChampagneMagnum?  The ballot is a 75 word SUMMARY of a 200 pape Plan not the ENTIRE Plan.

There was quite a bit of supplementary information available; from different "sides", supporting different opinions, and from the City, in the form of the actual Comprehensive Plan.  If Amendment 4 were actually to pass, informed voters will, of course, need to read and understand the 200 page comp plan document and how it is impacted by amendments.

What matters is the fact that our 2008 election proves that when cities are compelled to put their Comp Plans on the ballot (whether it's because of Hometown Democracy or any other charter provision), Florida election law requires comp plan changes be summarized in 75 words or less which obviously exposes cities to massive litigation costs arising from ballot language challenges.

Your condemnation of the 75-word ballot summaries used by the city in 2008 is also flawed because it fails to address the practical limitations of complying with the ballot summary requirement.

For example, you criticized the city's failure to create a ballot summary that explained that the ordinance would:

 "triple maximum allowed building height, almost triple the number of hotel rooms allowed, allow condos along most of the length of the east side of Gulf Blvd., and require that all new buildings be built almost up against the sidewalk, put condos all over areas of the city where they were previously not allowed, including most of Corey Avenue, the Upham beach neighborhoods and up Blind Pass Road."

Content aside, the problem with your criticism, or course is that you've just used 69 of the 75 allowed words to describe what matters to YOU, without leaving any room for describing any of the other plan elements or any of the other non-plan descriptive verbage necessary to have a valid ballot summary, and that might be important to ME.

While you may feel that green standards, energy efficiency and other such items are "BS", simply inserting what YOU think is important and leaving out what OTHERS feel is important leaves the City open to lawsuits from the OTHERS.

Personally, I think the recent oil well blowout disaster makes energy efficiency leading to oil independence and a focus on living GREEN not just "feel good stuff" as you put it, but rather a critical pat of living to day and in the future.  The same way I feel toward beach access improvements which were not in the ballot summary.  I was bummed.

Of course, I'm not saying that what you value (building height, etc) is more or less important than what others, or I, may value (green standards, etc.).  What I'm saying is that it is impossible to squeeze EVERYTHING into 75 words, so someone is always going to feel that something important was left out, which in turn leaves the city open to costly lawsuits.  This is why Amendment 4, putting Comp Plans on the ballot, is a bad idea.

 I could explain other logical reasons about why Amendment 4 is a bad idea, but this email is already too long, so I'll save those ideas for a later time.

Let me add, your statement that I "put myself" on the commission is simply untrue.

While you may have some idea of how to "put yourself" on the commission, I became a candidate for District 2 commission fully expecting to run a spirited campaign against the incumbent commissioner who,by the way, appointed me to the Historic Preservation Board and who I contacted prior to qualifying myself to run, as a matter of "honor thy sponsors."

Unfortunately, no one else qualified by the deadline, leaving the District 2 seat unopposed.  I became the District 2 Commissioner of St. Pete Beach, not because I "put myself on the commission", but rather because neither the incumbent nor anyone else was willing, or able, to step forward and run.

In my opinion, the failure of others to commit to a term of public service is not a valid basis to criticize my willingness to devote the time and energy to serve my community as a city commissioner.  A job that I enjoy very much.

By the way, to answer your question referring to "whatever hell-hole" I came out of......Ohio, but I've never thought of it that way.  "Beautiful Ohio, where the golden grain Dwarf the lovely flowers in the summer rain."  -- "Beautiful Ohio" - Ohio's state song.

 Jim Parent, Vice Mayor, St. Pete Beach

Kudos to Vice Mayor Parent for refusing to take Ruttencutter's bait, and for presenting such a clear explanation of why Ruttencutter's argument is wrong:  The critical importance of St. Pete Beach to the Amendment 4 debate lies not in how the City's comp plan got on the ballot, but rather in the chaos and costly devastation that occurred after the comp plan was put on the ballot!

Vice Mayor Parent's response was posted on August 14, 2010.  As of today, August 22, Ruttencutter has failed to respond or to present any facts or arguments to refute Parent's rebuttal.

It therefore is clear that the Battle of the St. Pete Beach Vice Mayors is now over, and current Vice Mayor Jim Parent is the winner!  Floridians should heed Parent's words before voting on Amendment 4 in November!


Read More about Amendment 4 and why Putting Comp Plans on the Ballot is a Really Bad Idea!