Kirk Fordham's column in the Tallahassee Democrat on Friday, "Restoration is about more than just the Everglades," is a superb example of how environmentalists in this country overreach, blow it, and end up preaching to the choir.
They don't know the word compromise.
In his column, the Everglades Foundation CEO gives almost grudging thanks to Gov. Rick Scott for proposing $40 million for Everglades restoration. And he hopes Senate President Mike Haridopolos and House Speaker Dean Cannon will go along -- restore this "modest level" of funding.
Frankly, if I were Fordham and the Everglades gets this $40 million, I would send up fireworks, stage a ticker-tape parade, and pass out trophies to the governor and every member of the Legislature.
But, no. Fordham has to gild the lily. He gripes that "even at that ($40 million) level, Everglades restoration funding will be well below the $100 million annual investment made during the Jeb Bush years."
Fordham recognized that legislators must juggle competing priorities. But he couldn't resist making a comparison to the bullish, roaring '90s and the freewheeling aftermath, when tobacco settlement money and a pile of federal dollars rolled into the state like a rogue wave.
That's the kind of thinking that turns off sensible Floridians -- the folks who still smart from the effects of this bad economy. It threatens their future and twists their own American Dream. Does Fordham really think they want to hear him whine?
As monumentally important as the Everglades is to South Florida, dozens and dozens of projects at the Capitol are dying under the knife. I wish Fordham would ask some of the people involved in these if the Everglades should get another $60 million:
- The patients and staff of the soon-to-be-closed A.G. Holley state tuberculosis hospital in Palm Beach County.
- Adult Medicaid beneficiaries, some with vastly debilitating diseases, will be limited to six emergency room visits a year.
- Florida's schools, community colleges and state universities, which anticipate zero construction dollars, will be forced to stop or put off for years many dozens of new projects, including repairs to roofs and air-conditioners.
- The students who likely will pay more tuition next year; the Medicaid patients at this moment living in fear that their exorbitantly priced, life-saving medication won't be there on July 1.
The worst is the post-session analysis of the doomed projects and programs, and Floridians old and young who will be affected by so many painful cuts. It will be like walking into a battlefield, among the carnage, after the guns have fallen silent.
Another $60 million for Everglades restoration in 2012? A sour-tasting whine. And not a very smart way for Fordham to win support for the cause of Everglades restoration.
Could he have forgotten?
Largely at the urging of the Everglades Foundation, on Aug. 12, 2010, the South Florida Water Management District Board bought 26,800 acres of virtually useless U.S. Sugar Corp. land for $197 million. The money just about bankrupted the water management district.
Fordham should thank his lucky stars that in a year of continued budget deprivation the governor -- and probably the Legislature, too -- want to make a $40 million investment in Everglades restoration.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
